The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that a COVID-19 era immigration order remain in place.
Title 42 is an order allowing border authorities to swiftly deport migrants if they hail from a country known to host a communicable disease such as COVID-19. Border officials have deported an estimated 2.5 million migrants under the order since its implementation. Many detractors of the Biden administration’s approach fear that its end could prompt an even greater surge.
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Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) across the nation will receive a large portion of funds from the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package on its way to President Joe Biden’s desk for signature.
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Multiple universities across the country have rescinded honorary degrees, which are given to recognize the achievements of individuals who were not students at the university, from prominent members of the Trump administration.
Last month, Syracuse University put wheels in motion to rescind an honorary degree from former New York City mayor and lawyer to former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Business Insider reported. The university has not revoked an honorary degree in its 152-year history.
Giuliani argued that there was widespread election fraud during the 2020 election. He faced a criminal probe in Georgia regarding the presidential election results and appeared before a grand jury in August.
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Americans are rating their mental health at an all-time low, including nearly one-in-five young adults who describe their mental health as “poor,” according to a new poll released Wednesday.
Overall, three-fourths of Americans say their mental health is “good” or “excellent,” which is the lowest number on record for Gallup. The polling outlet has conducted an annual mental health survey since 2001. In 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, 85% of Americans described their mental health as good or excellent.
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A phone call from a local Tennessee jail costs an average of $2.97 per minute for a 15-minue call, 1.8 times more expensive than state prisons, according to a new report from the Prison Policy Initiative.
The report looked at costs of calls across the United States and the causes of the different rates. Tennessee’s rate was within 5 cents per minute of most of its neighboring states outside of Arkansas ($3.15) and Virginia ($2.65).
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Tax forms have revealed that, over the course of 2021, numerous nonprofit groups backed by far-left billionaire George Soros donated tens of millions of dollars to groups and initiatives that actively campaigned against the police.
Fox News reports that nonprofit groups that are members of Soros’ Open Society Foundations network collectively gave at least $55 million to such anti-police movements. This included groups utilized by progressives to actively dismantle law enforcement, as well as databases that track donations to police departments and police unions.
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The City of Murfreesboro recently announced that it has finalized closing with Sunset on the Stones River LLC on property along Medical Center Parkway for development of the multi-million-dollar Sunset on the Stones River amphitheater campus.
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While the Biden administration has officially reversed the military COVID-19 vaccination mandate, servicemembers who escaped discharge for refusing the vaccine still risk retaliation and could be booted anyway, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Ongoing class action lawsuits thwarted the military’s efforts to discharge thousands of troops who objected to the mandate before the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law Friday, overturned it. However, servicemembers may risk reprisal even after the deadline passes for the Department of Defense (DOD) to implement the repeal, staining the records of thousands of servicemembers for the remainder of their careers, experts explained to the DCNF.
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Amazon Smile continues to deny admission to Christian organizations that support traditional marriage and religious freedom, opting instead to place them on a proverbial naughty list by recommendation of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Amazon Smile allows customers who sign up to have 0.5% of their purchases donated to their favorite charity. Organizations on SPLC’s “designated hate groups” list, however, are barred from registering, according to Amazon’s website.
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During the legislature’s overnight culminating session, Ohio lawmakers approved over 30 pieces of legislation that now head to Governor Mike DeWine’s desk for approval. If DeWine does nothing the legislation will take effect without his signature. However, he has ten days, with the exception of Sundays, following the acquisition of the bills to approve or veto the legislation if he so chooses.
On December 22nd, DeWine’s office received a raft of 24 bills. The deadline for DeWine to take action on those bills to either sign or veto is January 3rd.
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Border Patrol agents in the Miami Sector have reported a 500% increase in apprehensions in fiscal year 2022.
From September 1, 2021, to October 31, 2022, agents apprehended 2,350 foreign nationals attempting to illegally enter Florida by sea. The majority were Cubans.
They also interdicted 131 maritime smuggling events, a 330% increase from fiscal 2921, Chief Patrol Agent Walter Slosar said.
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Last week on 99.7 WTN, Tennessee House Representative Scott Cepicky R – Culleoka outlined to host Matt Murphy, legislation he intended to file to change the eligibility age for students entering first grade. Under Cepicky’s proposal, students would not be able to enter first grade until age 7, unless they could pass a local assessment showing that they could do grade-level work. The bill would allow younger students to take a “redshirt” year to adequately prepare for the increased academic demands of first grade.
Cepicky’s legislation is derived from a legislative brief on Kindergarten Readiness and Academic Performance, written by the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury’s Office of Research and Education Accountability (OREA). This brief shows that Tennessee students who were older at kindergarten enrollment performed better on 3rd-grade literacy tests than their peers. Forty-two percent of students aged 6 to 6.49 (older students) were on or above grade level in 3rd-grade literacy, compared to 33 percent of younger students aged 4.5 to 4.99 years old. The trend of older students outperforming their younger peers was also reflected on 6th-grade literacy tests.
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The Georgia Public Service Commission signed off on a deal the Tuesday before Christmas to allow Georgia Power to increase its rates over the next three years.
With the approval, Georgia Power plans to increase rates for its 2.7 million customers by roughly $1.8 billion over three years. The increase is down from an initial request of about $2.9 billion.
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Government employees in four states are violating federal laws and assisting the Left by providing voter information, a conservative legal group argues in suing those states.
The Thomas More Society alleges in its lawsuits against Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin that the Electronic Registration Information Center, also known as ERIC, shares voter information with at least one left-leaning nonprofit.
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A Milwaukee-based think tank is weighing in on the Wisconsin state government’s social media policy, urging Governor Tony Evers (D) to ban the video-sharing application’s use by state agencies.
In a report called “The Mysterious TikTok-ing Noise,” the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) notes that numerous other governors earlier this month signed orders instructing all departments under their control to delete the program from their devices. The piece also observed the unanimous vote taken last week by the U.S. Senate to adopt the same policy for all federal computer hardware.
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Appeals to federal lawmakers to pass cannabis banking reforms fell on deaf ears, leaving a business sector more exposed to risks of theft and violence than it needs to be, advocates say.
Those advocates of reform include a number of Pennsylvania Republican officials.
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The FBI on Wednesday finally broke its silence and responded to the revelations on Twitter of close ties between the bureau and the social media giant – ties that included efforts to suppress information and censor political speech.
“The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries,” the bureau said in a statement. “As evidenced in the correspondence, the FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers. The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public. It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.”
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Minnesota and Wisconsin placed in the top 10 of a recent nationwide prosperity index while Iowa and Michigan trailed behind, at 12th and 29th, respectively.
Wisconsin placed third and Minnesota placed eighth in the American Dream Prosperity Index that the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream produced with Legatum Institute. The index measures prosperity through three domains: Inclusive Societies, Open Economies and Empowered People. The domains contain 11 pillars of prosperity that are built on 49 actionable policy areas and more than 200 indicators.
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Democrats are moving to implement new voting laws at the state level following their midterm wins, according to The New York Times.
Democratic governors and state legislators have expressed plans to push automatic voter registration, voter pre-registration for minors, an expansion of early and absentee voting and criminalization of election misinformation, according to the NYT. The party retained most of its governors in the 2024 election and maintained its hold over several key state legislatures, creating a clear path to instating many of its favored voting policies.
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A Republican-supported bill that would provide more transparency for local property tax exemptions passed in the Ohio Senate.
House Bill (HB) 66 sponsored by state Representative James Hoops (R-Napoleon) would require the Ohio Tax Commissioner’s biennial tax expenditure report to include information on local property tax exemptions and to require the Tax Expenditure Review Committee to periodically review local property tax exemptions.
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Following the dismissal of Kari Lake’s election challenge, Maricopa County, the Secretary of State’s Office (SOSO), and Democrat Governor-Elect Katie Hobbs all filed Motions for Sanctions and Applications for Attorney’s Fees Monday morning. Lake’s team responded, stating that sanctioning them in this trial would further erode trust in election systems.
“Trust in the election process is not furthered by punishing those who bring legitimate claims as Plaintiff did here. In fact, sanctioning Plaintiff would have the opposite effect,” according to a response from one of Lake’s attorneys, Bryan Blehm.
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) announced that over 2 million in grant funding would be going to service organizations in rural counties to combat the effects of the opioid crisis.
“Our office has been leading and is continuing to hold accountable manufacturers, marketers, and distributors who have contributed to the opioid crisis,” said Brnovich. “We are now investing settlement funds to reduce the financial impact to Arizona taxpayers and assist people recovering from addiction and resuming their lives as healthy and productive members of society.”
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The late, great Rush Limbaugh frequently opined on his radio show that progressivism’s appeal stems from the fact that its followers are required to do nothing but “care.” Simply vent empathy or outrage—especially on social media—on behalf of an approved left-wing cause, and your otherwise dreary life can seem meaningful in the belief you are both morally superior to your ideological opponents and also saving the world. It’s a seductive pitch that has been all too successful.
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Walmart has launched a drone delivery service for customers in Florida, Texas and Arizona as the grocery chain expands its delivery operations.
Customers in the Dallas, Phoenix, Tampa and Orlando areas are able to have same-day delivery via drone, Walmart announced earlier this month.
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Minnesota’s population grew less than a single percentage point from July 2021 to July 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau reported this month.
Minnesota’s population grew 0.1% in 2022, .03% in 2021 and .06% in 2020. The North Star State is the 22nd most populous state. The estimate for July 2022 was 5,717,184, up from an estimate of 5,711,471 the previous year. The 2020 U.S. Census indicated Minnesota’s population was 5,706,504.
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Virginia’s minimum wage is set to increase from $11 to $12 per hour Jan. 1, a rise that comes after an attempt by Republican lawmakers to halt the minimum wage increase failed earlier this year.
The increase comes as a result of 2020 law that outlined incremental wage increases starting in 2021. The law specified that employers must pay $12 an hour starting Jan. 1 and paves the way for $15 an hour in future years, but that’s dependent on future action by the General Assembly.
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Ohio colleges and universities could soon be required to develop a policy that would provide religious accommodations for students following the General Assembly’s passage of bipartisan legislation.
The Testing Your Faith Act, which now heads to Gov. Mike DeWine, also prohibits institutions of higher learning from imposing academic penalties on students due to an absence under the policy.
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Facebook parent Meta signed on to a $725 million settlement to potentially close out a class-action lawsuit over the sharing of user data with third parties, such as the Trump-aligned campaign consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, according to a Thursday court filing.
The case centers around allegations that the company shared users’ data with third parties without their consent, something the plaintiffs’ lawyers say has been significantly cut back since litigation began, according to the filing. The scandal first broke in 2018, after it was revealed that Facebook had shared roughly 87 million users’ data with Cambridge Analytica via a personality quiz, according to The Verge.
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Just over 47% of Americans earning more than $100,000 were living paycheck to paycheck as of November, spiking 4% from October, according to a survey by financial services firm LendingClub.
Overall, nearly 63% of Americans lived paycheck to paycheck in November, jumping from just over 60% in October, approaching the yearly high of nearly 64.5% set in March, according to LendingClub. Nearly 66% of those who earned between $50,000 and $100,000 were living paycheck-to-paycheck last month, compared to 76% of those who earned less than $50,000.
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An internal investigation from TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has confirmed that its employees used the social media app to track the physical locations of several journalists.
The investigation revealed that several employees had worked to uncover the source of internal leaks and in so doing had used the app to obtain the IP addresses and user data of journalists to determine their physical proximity to any ByteDance employees, according to Forbes.
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Elon Musk recently asked the internet what they thought of the culture war. One shrewd person suggested that the right needs to focus on funding artists, rather than just politicians.
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Twitter altered the COVID conversation by censoring information that was true but not in line with U.S. government policy, discrediting public health experts who disagreed and suppressing contrarian users, the latest installment of the “Twitter Files” showed Monday.
“[B]oth the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressed Twitter executives to moderate the platform’s pandemic content according to their wishes,” reporter David Zweig said in the 10th Twitter Files release.
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