The OB/GYN tapped by Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) to champion her bill that would allow abortions up until birth has been found to have authorized the 24-week abortion of a woman who later died in Albuquerque from complications due to the procedure.
Dr. Shannon Carr was named in the wrongful death lawsuit filed against her employer, Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO), the Maine Wire reported Friday.
Read the full story
Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs released his proposal for a record-high budget to the Knox County Commission Monday. Though the budget reached a record $1 billion, an increase of $90 million over last year’s plan, the mayor did not propose any tax increases. The proposal represents a 9.46 percent increase in spending.
Read the full story
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Wednesday directly challenged President Joe Biden’s claims about his family’s overseas business deals, providing fresh evidence his son Hunter got money directly from China, was involved in a business deal with a Romanian figure accused of corruption and helped arrange for one of his foreign business associates to meet with his father’s vice presidential office.
Read the full story
Americans lack faith in their country’s main economic authorities, according to a Gallup poll published Tuesday.
The poll asked participants to state their confidence level that officials will “do or recommend the right thing for the economy.” It found that 34% to 38% of American adults have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in President Joe Biden, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and congressional leaders.
Read the full story
The Pentagon announced plans Tuesday to buy $1.2 billion in weapons as part of an ongoing program to build up Ukraine’s military over the long term while it continues to provide for immediate battlefield needs.
The weapons, drawn from an authority called the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) allows the Department of Defense (DOD) to buy weapons and military equipment directly from defense companies and partners rather than drawing from existing U.S. stocks, according to a press release. Tuesday’s package includes air defense systems, ammunition and “support to enable Ukraine to better maintain its on-hand systems and equipment.”
Read the full story
A new mechatronics lab at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) opened to prepare its College of Engineering and computer science students for post-graduation careers.
UTC describes mechatronics as the “combination of mechanical engineering with electronics, electrical circuits, control mechanisms and software engineering.”
Read the full story
As the COVID-19 public health emergency is set to expire on Thursday — and, along with it, emergency authority under Title 42 to speedily expel asylum-seekers as potential public health risks — the U.S. is preparing for an influx of illegal immigrants to cross the southern border.
Title 42 is a public health authority that was invoked in March 2020 under the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic to bar entry to asylum-seekers in an effort to prevent the spread of the communicable disease.
Read the full story
Catholic League President Bill Donohue observed Monday that The Washington Post neglected to mention in its news story about its own poll on transgenderism that trans individuals reported a more significant percentage of mental health concerns than all adults surveyed.
Bill Donohue noted that The Post’s “2517-word story, published May 5, covers just about every aspect of the 26-page survey except for the issue of mental health.”
Read the full story
The National Institutes of Health have renewed a grant to EcoHealth Alliance, an organization that funded experiments in Wuhan at a facility identified as the possible origin point of the COVID-19 pandemic.
EcoHealth announced the renewal on Monday, noting that the grant had been suspended in April of 2020 “due to concerns about continuing collaborative laboratory research with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” EcoHealth’s experiments involved on-site work at the WIV and involved the study of coronaviruses.
Read the full story
Tennessee U.S. Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07) testified before the House Rules Committee on Tuesday to support the Secure The Border Act of 2023.
Read the full story
Former President Donald Trump’s political rivals weighed in Tuesday on a Manhattan jury’s finding that Trump is liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll in a civil lawsuit brought decades after the alleged abuse took place.
Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who declared his campaign for president in February, agreed with critics of the lawsuit who believe it’s another politically charged attempt to diminish the GOP presidential frontrunner ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Read the full story
Ten candidates for Metro Nashville Mayor answered questions by fellow Nashvillians Tuesday night at a televised forum hosted by WKRN.
Natisha Brooks, Heidi Campbell, Jim Gingrich, Sharon Hurt, Stephanie Johnson, Freddie O’Connell, Alice Rolli, Vivian Wilhoite, Matt Wiltshire, and Jeff Yarbro fielded questions during the two-hour event from citizen representatives, selected by the station, from the north, south, east west, and downtown Nashville.
Read the full story
Governor Bill Lee signed a slew of legislation into law last week, including SB0269/HB0317, which makes June 19, or “Juneteenth,” a statewide paid holiday.
The law was sponsored by State Representative William Lamberth (R-Portland) and State Senator Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) and passed through the General Assembly in mid-April.
Read the full story
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law on Tuesday that bans automatic payroll deductions for teachers union dues.
Under the “Employee Organizations Representing Public Employees” law, public-employee unions are no longer allowed to automatically deduct dues from paychecks and must annually notify members of union costs. The bill, signed into law by DeSantis Tuesday, passed the state Senate in March, 23-17, and the state House in a 72-44 vote.
Read the full story
U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) blasted the Biden administration for its ongoing failure in addressing the southwest border crisis, which is about to get a whole lot worse when Title 42 ends later this week.
The Iowa Republican said it’s time to move on her Build It Act, legislation allowing states to finish the border wall by using previously purchased materials.
Read the full story
The City of Bisbee released a statement Monday outlining what it is currently doing to prepare for the expiration of Title 42 on Thursday, which is expected to cause a mass influx of immigrants seeking to enter the country across the southern border.
“The Mayor [Ken Budge] and City Staff met with Cochise County Emergency Management staff and the leadership of the [Customs and Border Patrol] CBP Brian Terry Station today,” the city shared. “We were briefed on the resources that are expected to be available to handle immigrants moving forward from local, state and federal agencies. The emphasis is on moving these now-legal immigrants from the border to their final locations or sheltering them in places that can handle a large flow of immigrants.”
Read the full story
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, in an exclusive interview with The Center Square, had strong words for the Biden administration’s handling of the crisis at the southern border and the lifting of Title 42.
Youngkin signed an executive order Tuesday while delivering remarks at Stafford High School in Stafford County, marking National Fentanyl Awareness Day. During his speech, the governor blamed the Biden administration for failing to take action against the flow of the deadly drug across the border.
Read the full story
Former Republican attorney general candidate Jim Schultz said he has reached “successful outcomes” in two complaints made against him in the final days of the 2022 midterms.
In late October, the Minnesota DFL accused Schultz of illegally coordinating with an independent expenditure group, Minnesota for Freedom, by purchasing ads using the same agent.
Read the full story
What will President Biden do if his son is indicted by the federal prosecutor in Delaware? That’s one of three questions looming over U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ fateful choice. The second is whether the indictment will go after a larger, coordinated family scheme of influence peddling or confine itself to smaller, tightly-confined issues like lying to get a gun permit and not registering as a foreign lobbyist. The third is whether Attorney General Merrick Garland will approve Weiss’ proposed charges. Significant political calculations follow from those decisions.
Read the full story
A Democratic-backed group that opposes the Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment released an advertisement praising House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) for the lack of a House floor vote on the resolution.
The group One Person One Vote praises Stephens in its advertisement for the lack of a House floor vote on the resolution and the August special election for voters to decide on it.
Read the full story
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp regularly blames Washington policies for causing inflation and hurting Georgians, but he doesn’t hesitate to announce grants — such as those for rural broadband projects — that rely on federal tax dollars.
“While failed policies coming out of Washington, D.C. are pushing us closer to a recession and forcing hardworking Georgians to endure sky-high inflation, we on the state level are doing what we can to return money back where it belongs – in taxpayers’ hands,” Kemp said in a statement earlier this month in announcing officials had issued the first round of “surplus tax refund checks” to Georgia taxpayers.
Read the full story
Some Michigan lawmakers want to end life sentences without parole for those under the age of 19.
Michigan has more juveniles sentenced to life parole than any other state, said Rep. Amos O’Neal, D-Holt, said in the Criminal Justice Committee on Tuesday morning. Holt said that 26 states ban life-without-parole for juveniles. The recidivism rate for kids leaving the system is less than 1%, O’Neal said.
Read the full story
Connecticut’s film tax credit, which has doled out more than $1.5 billion to Hollywood movie studios since 2007, lost millions last year, according to a new report.
The report by the state Department of Economic and Community Development shows that Connecticut’s Film and Digital Media Production Tax Credit broke even last year, while the fiscal impact of the tax breaks amounted to a net loss of $11.5 million.
Read the full story
U.S. Senator JD Vance’s (R-OH) bipartisan rail safety legislation gained significant momentum with an endorsement from former President Donald Trump.
The Railway Safety Act sponsored by Vance and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), would require that trains carrying hazardous materials be scanned by wayside defect detectors, or “hotbox detectors,” every 10 miles to prevent future derailments caused by faulty wheel bearings. It stipulates that railroad companies must provide advance notification to state emergency response commissions when transporting hazardous materials. It requires railroads to operate with at least two-person crews. It also increases the maximum fine for rail safety violations.
Read the full story
In a bipartisan 8-3 vote on Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s Senate Finance Committee passed legislation to speed the state’s reduction of its corporate net income tax (CNIT).
Last year, as part of the Keystone State’s budget, lawmakers initiated a reduction of the CNIT from 9.99 percent to 4.99 percent over the next decade. Before the change, Pennsylvania had the second-highest state corporate tax in the U.S. behind New Jersey’s 11.5-percent rate.
Read the full story
Eighteen state attorney generals have signed onto a brief filed by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost trying to overturn a lower court’s preliminary injunction on the state’s Heartbeat Act which blocks the majority of abortions once a fetal heartbeat is found.
Yost filed the 20-page brief on Monday at the Ohio Supreme Court saying that the high court should dismiss the preliminary injunction on enforcing the state’s Heartbeat Act because the plaintiffs are clinics and not patients.
Read the full story
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell (R) released a statement Monday pleading that parents remain vigilant for fentanyl use.
“I’ve spoken one-on-one with parents who have lost their kids to this poison. It is gut-wrenching to hear them talk about having a conversation with a child one evening, only to find that child gone the next morning,” said Mitchell. “We will keep prosecuting these cases and continue to get this information in front of parents and the public.”
Read the full story
NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Three more stars last week were added to The Music City Walk of Fame.
May 4th marked the 25th ceremony where Star 98 was awarded to Joe and Linda Chambers, Star 99 was awarded to Eric Church, and Star 100 was given to Butch Spyridon.
Read the full story
The media is hyping up complaints by election officials that they are receiving threats for refusing to address complaints about voter disenfranchisement. Arizona Public Media reported in March that controversial former Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra received a death threat several weeks before the 2022 election, but an investigation by the Arizona Daily Independent found that Arizona Media incorrectly assumed it was Marra.
The news went national, as Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD-08) used Marra as a source for discussing those types of threats. Arizona Media quoted Marra telling him, “I believe that we should have some defined laws, we should have some penalties, we should have some things with teeth. It concerns me that the longer that we go on, the angrier people are getting, and at some point, there’s a tipping point.”
Read the full story
Three Republican Pennsylvania lawmakers are preparing to introduce a resolution calling on Congress to pass a new rail-safety statute in light of February’s train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
State Representative Jim Marshall (R-Beaver Falls) told The Pennsylvania Daily Star he is co-sponsoring the resolution to encourage an “all-in approach” to reduce the likelihood of freight-train accidents. State Representatives Natalie Mihalek (R-Pittsburgh) and Ryan Warner (R-Connellsville) spearhead the measure.
Read the full story
Allergan Aesthetics, a pharmaceutical company that produces Botox injections and breast implants, funded doctors who promote cosmetic procedures as particularly beneficial and even medically necessary for transgender people.
Allergan has been quietly funding research that promotes neurotoxin injections and injectable facial fillers, which the company produces under the labels Botox and Juvederm, for transgender people. The company has also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting and public speaking fees to doctors who are involved in this research, or who offer transgender cosmetic procedures that may involve Allergan products, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.
Read the full story
Indiana scored the latest school choice victory with nearly all, save for 3.5 percent of families with school-age children, qualifying for the state’s new voucher program, The Wall Street Journal editorial board noted last week.
“The hits keep coming on school choice in Republican-run states,” The Journal editors observed, detailing:
The new law raises the income cap to 400% of the free- and reduced-price lunch income level, which is now about $220,000 for a family of four. The bill also removes the other criteria for eligibility so that any family under the income limit can apply. Tens of thousands of additional students could qualify, and a legislative analysis projects that some 95,000 students might use the program in 2025, up from about 53,000 in 2023.
Read the full story
In 2002, David Frum, chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush, coined the phrase “axis of evil” to describe the despotic regimes of North Korea, Iran, and Iraq during the nascent stages of the global war on terror.
Today, Frum is warning the country about a different axis of evil that he believes similarly threatens the security of America and perhaps even the world: Donald Trump, the Oath Keepers, and the Proud Boys.
Read the full story
Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Aaron Gulbransen in studio for another edition of Aaron’s Analysis.
Read the full story
Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed State Representative Scott Cepicky to the newsmaker line to discuss Governor Bill Lee’s gun-grabbing special session and school choice legislation.
Read the full story
Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed conservative journalist Mark Hemingway to the newsmaker line to discuss the Biden crime family and the corruption at the FBI and DOJ.
Read the full story
A jury held former President Donald Trump liable for battery and defamation after hearing arguments in a civil trial brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, who said Trump raped her in a department store during the 1990s. Trump’s conduct was specifically determined to have been sexual abuse. The jury awarded roughly $2 million in damages to Carroll for the battery count, according to CNN. Carroll will also receive $3 million for the defamation count.
Read the full story
A new Morning Consult poll shows former President Donald Trump with his largest lead yet over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, just as political outsider Vivek Ramaswamy’s political prospects rising.
The poll of nearly 3,600 potential Republican primary voters, conducted May 5-7, finds Trump with 60 percent support, followed distantly by DeSantis, with 19 percent.
Read the full story
Police in Murfreesboro say they will not charge a homeowner shot and killed an intruder after that intruder, along with a second suspect broke into the home, used a taser on the homeowner’s dog and held a gun to one of the homeowner’s children.
“MPD Criminal Investigations Division detectives are investigating a home invasion where the homeowner shoots two intruders, killing one and injuring the other on Friday night. 52-year-old Kevin Ford was pronounced dead at the scene,” according to the police department’s Twitter account.
Read the full story
Democrats are trying to paint Republicans as enemies of Medicaid, but Florida GOP Rep. Daniel Webster is gaining support for a bill that would provide a tax deduction to healthcare providers in exchange for pro bono health services for people who rely on Medicaid or CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Webster’s Helping Everyone Access Long Term Healthcare Act, or HEALTH Act, would amend the IRS code to allow medical professionals to take a tax deduction for the value of service performed, which he says will reduce the amount of paperwork associated with the low-income healthcare systems.
Read the full story
A South Carolina parent challenged the school board of Richland School District Two in Columbia where Blythewood High School (BHS) hosted the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) “No Place for Hate” program that invites children to “explore identity,” and “apply this understanding to recognize the relationship between identity, bias and power.”
ADL’s No Place for Hate program also seeks to “build the capacity to recognize and confront bias within oneself, others and institutions. Examine the relationship between individual biases and systemic oppression, including the impact of intersecting oppressions.”
Read the full story
Campus Reform surveyed the entire US and found instances of K-12 public school districts carrying children’s books with messaging about “gender identity,” some including sexually explicit material.
Read the full story
As juvenile crime has skyrocketed across the nation following the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, state lawmakers are looking to pass laws to curb rising youth violence and lawlessness.
Juvenile homicides nationwide increased by 44% from 2019 to 2020 and increased by 83% from 2013 to 2020, according to data from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, as school closures and police reforms have contributed to rising youth crime. Lawmakers in Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida and New Jersey have introduced bills to implement measures such as penalty enhancements for juvenile gang members, as well as mandatory holding periods for juveniles charged with violent crimes, to address the rising violence.
Read the full story
A video depicting a female student pepper-spraying a male teacher at Antioch High School (AHS) went viral over the weekend. The minute-and-a-half video, surfacing on Friday, shows the confrontation between the two after the educator confiscated a cell phone from the student for using it during an exam in the classroom. The student was asked repeatedly to put the phone away, The New York Post reported.
Read the full story
A trio of Tennesseans who applied to work at the Tennessee Aquarium were turned down because they were white, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.
Timothy Shawn Gunn and Marni Renee Pearce, both of Hamilton County along with Zachary Chance Taylor of Catoosa County, are suing the aquarium for discrimination.
Read the full story
House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert has requested the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) to look into the rising cost of public higher education in Virginia – particularly the increase of administrative staff positions tied to diversity, equity and inclusion.
In a letter addressed to Hal Greer, executive director of the commission, Gilbert cites a November 2014 report from the commission entitled, “Addressing the Cost of Public Higher Education in Virginia.” In it, the commission adopted 16 recommendations. The speaker says it is “unclear which, if any,” of the recommendations were adopted from the 168-page report.
Read the full story
Leading corporate woke warriors Nike and Adidas, which have made virtue signaling an art form, are now facing more questions about benefitting on the backs of forced laborers in China.
Lawmakers on the House’s Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party want answers.
Read the full story
The Ohio Republican State Central Committee has unanimously voted to support a resolution and implore lawmakers to pass the Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment which aims to alter the process of how initiative petitions can propose constitutional amendments and to allow for a special August election to vote on the amendment.
The Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment, Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 2 would mandate a 60 percent approval percentage for any future constitutional amendments, call for signatures from all 88 counties, and do away with the opportunity to “cure” petitions by collecting additional signatures if necessary.
Read the full story
A group of Republican lawmakers, including Representatives Gail Griffin (R-Hereford), Lupe Diaz (R-Benson), and Senator Sine Kerr (R-Buckeye), sent Governor Katie Hobbs (D) a letter Friday, demanding that she stick up for Arizona’s water future and defend access to the Colorado River.
“Under the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation’s (“BOR”) Action Alternative 1 for allocating cuts on the Colorado River, which allocates cuts based strictly on the seniority of rights, Arizona’s citizens that rely on the Central Arizona Project will see dramatic reductions, potentially cutting them off from the Colorado River completely,” the legislators wrote. “With our state’s population and economic prosperity on the line, protecting our state’s share of the Colorado River from the looming risk of complete disconnection is paramount.”
Read the full story
The decade-long French Revolution that broke out in 1789 soon devolved into far more than removing the monarchy, as it became antithetical to the earlier American precedent. American notions of liberty and freedom were seen as far too narrow, given the state, if only all-powerful and all-wise, could mandate “equality” and force “fraternity” among its subjects.
Each cycle of French revolutionary fervor soon became more radicalized and cannibalistic — until it reached its logical ends of violent absurdity.
Read the full story