Murfreesboro Central Magnet School Senior Matthew Feragola Wins 2022 National Constitution Bee

Murfreesboro Central Magnet School student Matthew Feragola won the 2022 National Constitution Bee held in Brentwood, Tennessee on Saturday October 22.

Feragola, a senior, earned a $10,000 scholarship from the Star News Education Foundation, a non-profit organization established by the management team of Star News Digital Media, Inc., which owns and operates The Tennessee Star.

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Catholic Group Slams Dems’ Disgraceful’ Positions on Parental Rights in Massive Ad Buy

CatholicVote, a political advocacy group, is spending $2 million to highlight the positions of Catholic Democrats in key Congressional races with ads targeting regular church attendees, the group announced in a press release.

The “Can You Trust Them?” campaign addresses the views of Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Democratic Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Democratic Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan on parental rights, abortion and gender issues and will reach a projected one million regular mass attendees, according to CatholicVote. A series of video ads highlight Kelly, Cortez Masto ad Ryan’s support for child gender transitions and underage abortions without parental consent.

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New Program Allows UT Knoxville Students to Work as City of Knoxville Fellows

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy and the City of Knoxville announced a partnership launching a fellows program for Baker Center students.

The program would allow the students to “work directly in a variety of departments or agencies with the City of Knoxville,” according to a Friday press release by the City.

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School District Pulls Nearly 100 Books from Library Shelves Following Parent Complaints

A South Carolina school district has removed 97 books from its libraries following complaints of “adult content,” according to WSAV News.

A parent of the Beaufort County School District complained about books in the school libraries featuring sexual explicit content such as “Tricks” and “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” causing the books to be removed, according to WSAV News. The books have been pulled from the district and are currently under review by a material reconsideration committee.

“Tricks” by Ellen Hopkins is about several teen prostitutes and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson is a graphic memoir about the experiences of a queer black boy, according to each book review.

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Study: Transgender ‘Top Surgery’ up Almost 400 Percent Among Children

A new peer-reviewed study has revealed the true extent of efforts to promote life-altering “gender transition” surgeries to children, with a staggering increase in “top surgeries” altering children’s chest areas over the last several years.

The Daily Caller reports that the study, conducted by Dr. Galen Perdikis, Dr. Salam Al Kasis, and Rishub Karan Das, determined that between the years 2016 and 2019, “the annual number of gender-affirming chest surgeries increased by 389 percent.” The study was published by the pediatric network of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on October 17th.

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$300 Million in Capital Improvements to Titans Stadium Identified in 2017 Report Averaged $12 Million per Year for 20 Years

The near $300 million in capital improvements recommended in a 2017 report by Venue Solutions Group (VSG) would have resulted in an average of $12 million in expenditures per year for the following 20 years.

The 159-page Facility Condition Assessment was prepared on behalf of Metro Nashville Government (Metro) and the Metro Sports Authority (Authority) to benchmark the condition of the Tennessee Titans stadium.

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Flint Buick City Site Redeveloper Seeks $15 Million from Taxpayers

Taxpayers might foot $15 million for a private-public deal to redevelop the former Buick City brownfield site in Flint. The partnership hopes to create 3,000 jobs.

Real estate investment company Ashley Capital is contracted to purchase the 350-acre former Buick City site from Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response Trust and plans to develop an industrial park.

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Commentary: Google’s Influence on Elections

There are people who talk nonstop with their dogs and cats. When I get bored, I interrogate machines. My favorite is Google Trends because it shows a lot of things that Democrats would rather you didn’t know. For example, it demonstrates that the main concern of the American people has to do with their sports team and not with sex-change operations and things like that. This leaves Democrats deeply disappointed. A contemporary Democrat is someone who firmly believes that people get out of bed, kneel in front of a picture of the ozone layer, and beat their chests while apologizing to Pachamama for climate change.

With one eye on the elections, I asked Google a few questions, paying special attention to the search trends of American users, and the answers are interesting, to say the least. In the months leading up to the 2020 election, and using George Floyd’s death as an excuse, Democratic discourse focused on stopping the racism that Republicans supposedly encouraged, pretending that this was the country’s biggest problem. But the evolution of Google queries on “racism” reveals a fun fact: no one cared about racism in the least until the Democratic Party decided to bring it into the campaign to capitalize on Floyd’s death. And the funniest thing: that concern disappeared completely the same day Joe Biden became president of the United States, which places his government’s actions in the realm of the paranormal. To put it another way: the old zombie works miracles! As I am suffering a terrible flu (this article might turn out to be posthumous), this miracle has me now seriously thinking of catching a plane, turning up at the White House, and trying to touch the hem of Joe Biden’s robe in a desperate attempt to be healed.

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Gloucester County Installs License Plate Cameras on School Buses to Detect Drivers Illegally Passing Stopped Buses

Gloucester County Public Schools has partnered with the county Sheriff’s Office to install license plate cameras on school buses to detect drivers who illegally pass stopped school buses.

“At Gloucester County Public Schools, the safety of our children is a top priority. Earlier this month, the National Association of State Director of Pupil Transportation (NASDPTS) announced the rate of school bus illegal passing is at an ‘epidemic level,’ with motorists illegally passing stopped school buses an estimated 41.8 million times a year. Over time, this safety initiative seeks to curb dangerous driving behavior around school buses,” the district said in a October 19 letter to parents.

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Election Integrity Storm Brewing in Pennsylvania: Over 250K Ballots Sent to Voters with Unverified I.D.

More than 250,000 ballots have been mailed to Pennsylvania voters without their identities being verified, according to state data collected by election integrity group Verity Vote.

On Tuesday, 15 Pennsylvania state legislators sent a letter to acting Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Leigh Chapman regarding unverified ballots sent to voters. As of Thursday, state data show that more than 250,000 ballots have been mailed to voters without verifying their identification.

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Gov. DeSantis: Nation’s Report Card Scores Show Keeping Schools Open the Right Decision

The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) rankings indicate that Florida students are “well ahead of their peers, especially with younger and educationally at-risk students who were harmed the most from distance-learning in other states,” the governor said.

“We insisted on keeping schools open and guaranteed in-person learning in 2020 because we knew there would be widespread harm to our students if students were locked out,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said. The results, he said, “once again prove that we made the right decision.”

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Youngkin Touts Transportation Infrastructure Funding, Says He’ll Defend Right to Work

At the Virginia Governor’s Transportation Conference, Governor Glenn Youngkin touted a mix of federal and state investment in Virginia’s transportation infrastructure in ports, roads, rail, and air infrastructure, and said he’d defend Virginia’s right-to-work laws.

“This year we will have a record level of support for our Commonwealth and the Commonwealth Transportation Fund. That $9 billion includes $3.5 billion in surface transportation capital construction projects. $3.3 billion in keeping and maintaining our highways and our bridges and our tunnels at best-in-class standards. $1.1 billion in keeping rail and transit moving forward. $1 billion in allocation of funds for the regional transportation needs,” he said Thursday.

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Kari Lake Thanks Liz Cheney for Being Her ‘Biggest Fundraiser Yet’

Following the release of a $500,000 TV ad Friday from Liz Cheney’s Political Action Committee (PAC) urging Arizona voters to stay away from Republican nominees Kari Lake and Mark Finchem, Lake said her campaign received a huge boost in donations. Lake thanked Cheney for contributing to the campaign.

“Thank you [Cheney] for your generous in-kind contribution to my campaign. Your recent television ad urging Arizonans not to vote for me is doing just the opposite,” Lake said in a letter to Cheney. “Our campaign donations are skyrocketing and our website nearly crashed from traffic as people rushed to learn more about my plan to put Arizona first and join our historic political movement.”

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China Poses ‘Most Comprehensive and Serious Challenge’ to America, New Defense Strategy Says

The Pentagon identifies China as the No. 1 threat to U.S. national security in the latest version of the National Defense Strategy, released just days after the leader of the communist regime secured a third five-year term.

“The key theme … is the need to sustain and strengthen U.S. deterrence with the People’s Republic of China as our pacing challenge,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday during a press conference on the new document.

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European Union Announces Ban on Gas Cars in the Middle of Energy Crisis

The European Union (EU) announced Thursday that it will be outlawing the sale of gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles by 2035 even though EU countries are already struggling to fight soaring electricity costs.

EU member states and the European Commission agreed to force all new cars and vans registered in the EU to be electric by 2035, according to an EU press release. Europe is currently embroiled in an energy crisis and is preparing for blackouts as electricity prices remain more than seven times higher than they were in 2020, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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