Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening announced that he would again seek the presidency in 2024.
“I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” he said. The former president spent much of his speech lamenting the state of the nation under his successor, President Joe Biden.
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Star News Network Chief Meteorologist Daphne DeLoren shares her Middle Tennessee Fresh Forecast for Tuesday night and Wednesday, November 15 and November 16.
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A staffer for Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake told The Arizona Sun Times that the candidate is preparing a lawsuit challenging the election results. Lake said during a Monday evening interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters that she has concerns about certifying the election. “I can’t imagine our version of Joe Biden, Katie Hobbs, would win,” Lake said. “She didn’t campaign, she hid in her basement. She is a twice-convicted racist. I can’t believe the people of Arizona would vote for her and that she would win. But if that what’s happens at the end of the day, how do you certify an election that is this botched? And she’s the one that would certify her own election where it was botched. Where the machines didn’t work in more than a third of the polling centers.”
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A church organization Monday held a ribbon cutting ceremony on new affordable housing units in Memphis.
The Church of God in Christ (COGIC), a Pentecostal church with more than six million members, said its new affordable housing units, 20 apartments called 280 Vance, will help lower income Memphians live downtown.
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The Monday night election results reporting by Maricopa County showed a strong 56.8 percent to 43.2 percent advantage to Republican gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake, but it was not enough to pull her ahead of Democrat Katie Hobbs in the overall, statewide vote count.
Although there is still an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 outstanding ballots to Maricopa County, election watchers at Associated Press, CNN, and Decision Desk HQ called the hotly contested gubernatorial race for Democrat Katie Hobbs.
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Tennessee has joined 39 other attorneys general in reaching a $391.5 million multi-state settlement with Google over the company’s location tracking practices relating to Google Account settings. Tennessee was one of the states that led the settlement negotiations, according to a press release by the state attorney general’s office.
“Companies should not collect one bit of data from consumers unless they provide complete transparency about what data is collected and how it will be used,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in a statement.
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The Mt. Juliet Police Department (MJPD) are warning the city’s residents of fake social media posts that could sow division within the community.
“These posts are false and similar posts are occurring nationwide, targeting different city names, using multiple fake accounts. However, when posted to Facebook groups, many local residents share the fake post because they believe it to be true,” said the police department.
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Puberty blockers are widely touted by doctors and transgender activists as a safe and fully reversible way to pause puberty for children with gender identity issues, but a growing body of evidence is challenging those claims, according to The New York Times.
The drug prevents the surge in bone density that would normally occur during puberty, and patients can see lifelong bone issues that are never resolved, according to the Monday NYT article. Medical professionals are also challenging claims that the drug is reversible, arguing instead that blocking puberty permanently cements a child’s transgender identity and puts them on a path to lifelong biomedical intervention.
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President Joe Biden raised eyebrows Monday telling reporters that he expects no progress on the abortion issue in the second half of his term.
“I don’t think they can expect much of anything other than we’re going to maintain our positions,” Biden said when asked by a reporter what Congress would do on abortion following the midterms. “I’m not going to get into more questions. I shouldn’t even answer your question.”
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Federal Communications Commission member Brendan Carr said that TikTok is “China’s digital fentanyl” and that the social media platform is “a very sophisticated surveillance app.”
“At the end of the day, TikTok is China’s digital fentanyl,” Carr, a Republican and one of five FCC commissioners, said Friday on Fox News.
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Americans are still recovering from COVID lockdowns – by far one of the worst examples of chaos created by government intrusion. Career bureaucrats wreaked havoc on the economy and education system from their offices in Washington, D.C. Americans were left to fend for themselves while their businesses and savings accounts were depleted. Despite all these measures taken to safeguard the healthcare system, hospitals across the country were still overrun during the height of the pandemic.
The deregulation that occurred at the federal and state level to spur the economy and ensure the healthcare system was able to quickly respond to the ever-changing environment showed the power of regulatory reform without forcing taxpayers to foot the bill. Tennessee’s deregulation of some of the provisions of Certificate of Need (CON) during the pandemic was a shining example.
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A group of leading conservative research and political activist organizations have called on the House and Senate Republican Conferences to delay leadership elections, challenging the leaderships of Rep. McCarthy and Sen. Mitch McConnell.
The two-paragraph letter has called for the elections to be delayed until after Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoff election, between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker, on December 6. Former Rep. David McIntosh of Indiana, who heads the Club for Growth and was a signatory to the letter, has said that the elections must be delayed “until we know the outcome of all the elections—specifically the Georgia runoff and the remaining 23 House races,” per a statement on the group’s website.
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A Tennessee National Guard unit has returned from a nearly year-long deployment to Africa, according to the Tennessee Department of Military (TDM).
The soldiers are from Tennessee National Guard’s 268th Military Police Company, based in Millington.
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Maricopa County Attorney (MCA) Rachel Mitchell declared her victory Monday morning in the race to retain her title in the 2022 General Election.
“As a lifelong Arizonan who has dedicated my career to the safety of our neighborhoods and families, I am deeply honored this community has overwhelmingly shown its support and trust in my leadership of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office,” Mitchell tweeted. “I will continue working with law enforcement and community leaders to hold criminals accountable, increase the use of treatment to rehabilitate where appropriate, deliver justice for victims, and put the safety of Maricopa County residents first.”
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After taking a break over the summer and part of the fall for the general election, lawmakers are returning to the Ohio Statehouse to consider many different bills before the two-year session of this general assembly ends in December.
The committees and floor votes which occur after an election, known as a lame duck session, work to conclude urgent or unfinished bills that lawmakers have introduced. Once the session ends, lawmakers will either overlook or reject the bills and legislators, returning incumbents, and newly-elected officials will have to reintroduce the pieces of legislation and restart the committee process.
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The Virginia Land Conservation Foundation (VCLF) is awarding a record $14.9 million in grants to help protect 13,955 acres in 40 projects across Virginia, according to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR).
“The board of the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation is excited to make the most of this record funding and focus on significant land conservation efforts that will protect our natural resources,” acting secretary of Natural and Historic Resources Travis Voyles said. “Through these new local parks and recreation areas, Virginians will have more opportunities for outdoor recreation such as public access to waterways, fishing – and even elk viewing or hunting.”
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Four Texas cities and six villages in Nebraska voted on Election Day on ballot measures that would outlaw abortion within their jurisdictions.
Of the 10 ballot measures, only one was rejected by voters, reported Mark Lee Dickson, founder of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiative, at Live Action News.
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While speaking on former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon’s War Room, Catherine Engelbrecht and Greg Phillips of True the Vote said they plan on fighting the results of the Arizona 2022 General Election.
“Now is the time to fight. It’s not wait until the end of 2023 into the primaries of 2024. Now is the time. We stand here today, and we fight. We cannot give this away,” said Phillips.
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Activists in the state have been working to enact local cannabis reform over recent election cycles. While decriminalization did not qualify for every municipal ballot that advocates targeted for 2022, six Ohio cities voted on policy changes.
Five of the six Ohio cities approved local marijuana decriminalization ballot initiatives during the midterm election.
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Churchill Downs Incorporated (CDI), the owner of the Kentucky Derby, acquired the Colonial Downs horse racing venue and Rosie’s Gaming Emporiums as part of a $2.75 billion purchase of most of Peninsula Pacific Entertainment LLC (P2E).
With most of Virginia’s casinos not yet open, the P2E properties are one of the top options for gambling in Virginia. There are six Rosie’s locations in Virginia, with about 2,700 historical horse racing machines (HRM) that provide a slots-like game. As part of the purchase finalized at the beginning of November, CDI acquired rights to open two more HRM facilities: one in Dumfries, and one in Emporia, both scheduled to open in 2023. Virginia law potentially allows for three additional HRM locations.
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The Ohio Board of Education’s executive committee voted in favor Monday to move forward with a resolution that could reject proposed changes to broaden the definition of sex-based harassment and discrimination to include gender identity and sexual orientation for LGBTQ students.
The committee voted 5-2 to move ahead with the amendment. With the executive committee’s vote, the entire Ohio Board of Education will debate and potentially voted on the resolution on Tuesday.
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An English teacher and writing center director at the elite Greens Farms Academy in Westport, Connecticut, who revealed to a Project Veritas (PV) undercover reporter details about his sexual fantasies of high school girls, has reportedly been placed on leave.
Born and raised in Iran, Iman Rasti has served as director of the school’s writing center, a middle school English teacher, and a seventh grade dean at the private school in Fairfield County, where tuition for the high school grades is $51,460 per year.
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The U.S. Department of Labor accused an industrial cleaning company of employing minors for work at three slaughterhouses across the Midwest, including two in Minnesota.
A lawsuit filed in federal court last week claims Packers Sanitation Services Inc. (PSSI) employed at least 31 children between the ages of 13 and 17 to fulfill sanitation contracts at JBS USA plants in Grand Island, Nebraska, and Worthington, Minnesota, and a Turkey Valley Farms facility in Marshall, Minnesota.
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Death-penalty abolitionists in Ohio this week are organizing a campaign to persuade lawmakers to end capital punishment in their State.
The nonprofit No Death Penalty Ohio is hosting letter-writing parties in various cities throughout the week in support of a state House bill and an identical state Senate bill to ban executions. While Republicans often support capital punishment and control both legislative chambers, the bills have some GOP support. State Senator Stephen Huffman (R-Dayton) is cosponsoring the Senate measure alongside Senator Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood) while Representative Jean Schmidt (R-Loveland) is spearheading the House legislation with Representative Adam Miller (D-Columbus).
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Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could reverse the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision, in which SCOTUS asserted that the use of an applicant’s race as a factor in an admissions policy of a public educational institution does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The current case specifically cites the use of race in the admissions process at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The plaintiffs, Students for Fair Admissions, maintain that Harvard violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, “which bars entities that receive federal funding from discriminating based on race, because Asian American applicants are less likely to be admitted than similarly qualified white, Black, or Hispanic applicants.”
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The University of Michigan recently hired five faculty members under its Anti-Racism Faculty Hiring Initiative who have “expertise in inequality and structural racism,” campus officials announced.
The faculty will deepen the university’s expertise “on issues of race and racial justice and tangibly impact education and society,” according to an Oct. 28 statement by the university.
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Democrats seized a political trifecta in Lansing for the first time in 40 years, and now two legislators are suggesting changing the state’s education policies.
State Sen. Dayne Polehanki, D-Livonia, tweeted possible policy priorities, including repealing right-to-work, providing “adequate funding” for schools, and repealing the retirement tax.
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Google agreed to a $391.5 million settlement with 40 states after an investigation found that the tech giant participated in questionable location-tracking practices, state attorneys general announced Monday.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong called it a “historic win for consumers.”
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A battery producer plans to spend more than $2.5 billion on a manufacturing facility in Coweta County.
FREYR Battery plans to create 723 new jobs over seven years as a part of its investment.
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Arizona’s charter schools, if separated from their public school counterparts, have eight graders that perform at higher levels than nearly any other state.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, better known as the Nation’s Report Card, found that Arizona district and charter students scored at approximately the national average in fourth and eighth-grade math and reading NAEP testing.
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A Pennsylvania college has postponed a senior project painting event for students “tired of white cis men” following complaints, the college told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
An event a part of a senior project at Gettysburg College was set to be held for students to paint and write about their tiredness “of white cis men” on November 12, Gettysburg College told the DCNF. The event was postponed following a series of “bias incident reports” made by students who saw flyers promoting the event.
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A case winding its way through the court system appears to have gained strong support from at least one judge on a three-judge panel.
When the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, heard oral arguments Oct. 25 in a case challenging Virginia Tech’s speech policies, Reagan-appointed U.S. Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III heavily criticized the university’s procedures and found the complaint raised several “First Amendment red flags,” Courthouse News Service reported.
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The Miami Marlins on Monday promoted Caroline O’Connor to president of business operations – making history as the first Major League Baseball team to have a female president and general manager.
O’Conner joins Kim Ng, who the Marlins hired two years ago as its general manager, according to ESPN.
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After a disappointing outcome for the U.S. Congressional midterm elections – Democrats will retain the U.S. Senate without any net loss of seats, and Republicans poised to retake the U.S. House by a slim majority – political attention is already shifting to the race for 2024 and the White House against President Joe Biden, and to whether former President Donald Trump might run again for the nation’s highest office.
Midterms usually favor the opposition party, with a 90 percent likelihood of picking up seats in the U.S. House from 1906 to 2018, which did happen. The question now is how many seats and if it was definitively enough to win the race. As of this writing, Republicans have 212 seats to Democrats’ 205 seats in races that have been called, and Republicans have leads in nine races not yet called, just barely enough to get a majority.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a Civil Investigative Demand to the Center for Tech and Civil Life (CTCL) as part of an investigation his office launched to determine whether it “solicited donations under the pretext of protecting voters from Covid-19 while instead using the funds to support partisan electioneering efforts or election oversight roles normally left to state and local officials.”
CTCL, a self-described non-partisan nonprofit organization, according to the bios posted on its own website and other records, “is led by individuals with distinctly partisan backgrounds,” the AG’s office says. CTCL’s founder and executive director, for example, Tiana Epps-Johnson, was among a group of inaugural Obama Foundation Fellows who previously was the Election Administration director for a progressive grassroots organization, the New Organizing Institute. She also worked on the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.
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The Supreme Court on Monday denied Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward’s request to keep her cellphone records from the Democrat-led House Jan. 6 panel.
The court vacated the temporary order that Justice Elana Kagan put in place, pausing the phone records from being shared while the court weighed Ward’s request.
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New York City is expected to spend nearly $600 million to support illegal migrants over the course of one year, according to a report released Sunday by the city’s Independent Budget Office (IBO).
The city is expected to spend close to $580 million on shelter accommodations, public school, health care, legal assistance and other forms of aid, according to the IBO report. Approximately 23,000 illegal migrants have arrived in the Big Apple since April.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus resigned Saturday night under pressure from President Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, vacating a crucial post just two months before a new Congress is seated.
The White House announced the departure just days after Magnus was ordered to resign or be fired. He initially resisted but bent on Saturday.
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