Crom Carmichael – the original all star panelist – shared his insights on two recent Supreme Court decisions about the separation of powers and free speech during Friday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report’s with Michael Patrick Leahy.
Read the full story
Former law enforcement officials are warning of potential terrorist attacks and a repeat of 9/11 following a Homeland Security Department watchdog report that exposed government bungling that allowed an illegal immigrant on the terrorist watchlist to be released into the U.S. and roam free for two weeks before he was apprehended.
According to a report released by the DHS’s Office of Inspector General, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released an illegal immigrant on the terrorist watchlist last year, and due to a lack of coordination, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took more than two weeks to arrest the individual.
Read the full story
Mark Morgan, a former FBI agent and acting commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection Agency, told Just the News that it should take the U.S. Secret Service about 30 minutes to figure out how cocaine came into the White House and who brought it there.
“I was there countless times, I put my cell phone in that exact box that they’re talking about. I know it well. Oftentimes, there is a marine that’s standing there. This literally should take them about 30 minutes to solve,” Morgan said on Wednesday.
Read the full story
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is doubling down on its insistence that an “ongoing” criminal investigation prevents the agency from releasing Covenant Presbyterian School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale’s manifesto, according to a response filed this week in federal court.
Star News Digital Media Inc., parent company of The Star News Network and The Tennessee Star, filed a federal lawsuit in May demanding the FBI turn over Hale’s manifesto and related writings.
Read the full story
Last week, the Tennessee Department of Education released a report based on its recently concluded teacher retention listening tour. The report lists the top findings as, better professional development, better pay/benefits, a desire for more collaboration, and more leadership support.
In compiling their report, the TDOE had over a thousand Tennessee teachers express interest in providing input and feedback. The department used a random sampling method to talk with 100 of those teachers, placing them in 10 separate cohorts. The TDOE secured representation from each region, grade level, district and school type, and years of service.
Read the full story
The percentage of Americans who have confidence in the U.S. government has plummeted in recent years, a new poll shows.
Gallup released the poll that found that only 31% of surveyed Americans say they have confidence in the U.S. government. That is down from 46% who said the same in 2020.
Read the full story
Researchers around the world continue documenting potentially severe side effects from COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in certain demographics, but the Food and Drug Administration refuses to label them or even tell recipients the shots can’t stop transmission of an increasingly immune-evasive virus.
Autopsies and reviews of medical records revealed a much higher incidence of Pfizer and Moderna vaccine-associated heart deaths than officially categorized in South Korean, Japanese and Qatari government registries, particularly in younger people at lower risk from COVID. That echoes a German autopsy study of healthy people who died within 20 days of jabs.
Read the full story
Google quietly updated its privacy policy over the long July 4 holiday weekend to expand what it can do with user data, namely improve its artificial-intelligence abilities, according to tech blog Gizmodo.
The new policy replaced the word “language” with “AI” in a section referring to the “publicly available information” that Google uses to train its “models” for the benefit of users, Gizmodo says, citing the publicly recorded change log.
Read the full story
A new survey suggests the price residents pay to live in Pennsylvania tempts younger generations to move.
Results from the Commonwealth Foundation poll conducted last month show more than half of respondents between the ages of 18 and 44 have considered moving to another state – or know someone who wants to do the same.
Read the full story
The smallest baby ever born at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut, was celebrated by staff across the hospital as she was discharged last week following four months in the neonatal intensive care unit.
“Born at just 22 weeks, Baby Zahraliz Francis Angueira, the smallest baby ever born at Saint Francis Hospital, graduated from our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) after four months and headed home today!” the hospital posted to Instagram. “Our colleagues from across the hospital gathered to provide well wishes to the family and celebrate their story of hope.”
Read the full story
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed the state’s $86 billion biennial operating budget containing tax cuts for individuals and businesses, higher income limits for school vouchers, and a new requirement for parental approval of social media accounts for children under 16.
DeWine vetoed a total of 44 budgetary measures, including a two-week sales tax holiday, legislation that would have prohibited the regulation of tobacco and nicotine products, and legislation that would have prohibited higher education institutions from forcing students to have specific immunizations.
Read the full story
In signing Wisconsin’s new two-year spending plan Wednesday, Democrat Governor Tony Evers liberally applied his veto pen to the Republican-crafted biennial budget, gutting a $3.5 billion tax cut proposal that had reduced the state’s tax brackets and delivered relief for all taxpayers.
Republicans blasted the governor for his 51 partial vetoes, including a particularly sneaky one that changed the meaning of funding for schools to a four-century commitment.
Read the full story
U.S. military spouses, one of the highest unemployed demographics, could receive new support to start and operate small businesses under legislation pending in the Senate.
U.S. Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., recently introduced the Military Spouse Entrepreneurship Act of 2023 to develop a training program at the Small Business Administration to help military spouses launch small businesses.
Read the full story
Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley returns to the Granite State on Thursday for another packed schedule of campaigning, this time a three-day swing through New Hampshire’s North Country.
Haley will host three town halls, a meet-and-greet and be a special guest at a summer house party.
Read the full story
For years, labor unions have been exempt from the consequences of destroying private property. Would you like a higher wage or salary? Sounds good! So, how would you go about persuading your employer to give you a raise? Why not vandalize some of your employer’s property with your labor union, or at least threaten to do so unless the boss gives you the raise you want?
Let’s say you want to get hired for a certain job, but you are worried that another applicant might get the job you want. Should you slash the tires on the other person’s car and threaten to pound him with a baseball bat if he doesn’t disappear?
Read the full story
Dewan Williams, 47, of Detroit, turned himself into the custody of the Michigan Department of Corrections last week to begin serving up to a 20-year sentence for scamming taxpayers out of $11 million via a benefits phone scheme.
Williams was sentenced in February in the 3rd Circuit Court on one count of conducting a criminal enterprise, a 20-year felony, and one count of identity theft, a 5-year felony, for using personal information stolen from thousands of identity theft victims to defraud the State and financially benefit himself.
Read the full story
The head of the Georgia Composite Medical Board says the agency has its “foot back on the gas” and is progressing on a series of recommendations in a follow-up state audit.
A recent finding from the Georgia Department of Audits & Accounts found that while the agency has addressed some shortcomings uncovered in a November 2020 audit, it has not progressed on others, including performing mandatory background checks for general physician licensure applicants.
Read the full story
The Fulton County GOP is suing the county Board of Commissioners for rejecting its nominee to an elections board, alleging he was not appointed for having previously raised concerns about voter rolls.
Fulton’s Republican Party says county law requires the seven-member board to appoint party nominees to Fulton’s Board of Registration and Elections if they meet all the qualifications. And not appointing such a nominee the board is violating the law, according to the lawsuit.
Read the full story
by Bethany Blankley The Florida State Guard welcomed its first graduating class of more than 100 soldiers who recently completed their training program and requirements. They are the first class of members of the Florida State Guard since 1947. Gov. Ron DeSantis first proposed reestablishing the State Guard in December 2021. Within months, he reestablished it to lessen the burden of an understaffed and over-stretched Florida National Guard and to hire servicemen and women being forced out of the U.S. military over the federal vaccine mandate, he said. By June of last year, over 1,200 people applied to join the new state guard – three times the amount of open positions. One of its newest recruits was a former New York resident who said he moved to the lower-taxed and less regulated “free state of Florida.” “I am proud to welcome the first class of Florida State Guard members since 1947,” DeSantis said in a statement. “Even though the federal government has underfunded our National Guard, we are ensuring that we have the manpower needed to respond during emergencies. I’m proud of these men and women who answered the call to take on this important mission. When the need is greatest in their…
Read the full story
The Ohio House of Representatives passed a Republican-backed piece of legislation last week that tries to make hospital prices more transparent and affordable.
The Ohio House progressed House Bill (HB) 49 by a 90-5 vote advancing the legislation to the Ohio Senate for its review.
Read the full story
Chairman Quang Nguyen (R-Prescott) and Vice-Chair Selina Bliss (R-Prescott) of the Arizona House of Representatives Judiciary Committee have sent a letter to the Phoenix City Council asking its members to rescind a recently-approved ordinance that allows for the transfer of approximately 500-600 unclaimed firearms to the National Police of Ukraine.
Read the full story
Arizona Republican lawmakers are fighting back against the “disastrous impacts” the proposed changes to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules will have on Arizonans.
Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Mesa) and House Speaker Ben Toma (R-Peoria) sent two letters to the U.S. EPA in opposition to the EPA’s proposed regulations which would mandate a transition to electric cars and trucks from model year 2027 through model year 2032.
Read the full story
An illegal immigrant is due to appear in an Ohio court Wednesday for his trial after he allegedly raped a minor who was nine years old at the time.
In July 2022, Gerson Fuentes, who the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency announced in 2022 was in the country illegally, was charged with two counts of felony rape after he was accused of sexually assaulting a nine-year-old in Ohio twice between January and May 12, according to The Columbus Dispatch. The minor obtained an abortion in Indiana at the age of 10, leading police to arrest Fuentes, who is set to stand trial this week for the charges in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, in Ohio.
Read the full story
A woman from Atlanta has been sentenced to 16 years in federal prison for stealing more than $9.4 million from Amazon while employed as a manager for the company.
Read the full story
A large majority of Republican Party officials in a Maricopa County-area legislative district voted to declare the month of July “Pride in America Month.” The June 29th move comes at the close of a contentious “Pride Month” recognizing the LGBTQ+ community.
In all, two-thirds of the precinct committeemen (PCs) in Arizona’s Republican Legislative District 3 (LD3) voted to pass the resolution.
Read the full story
Gov. John Bel Edwards (D-LA) has vetoed the Stop Harming Our Kids Act, legislation that would have protected children and teens from transgender hormone drugs and surgeries, claiming “there was never any evidence or testimony” that gender transition surgeries on minors have been occurring in Louisiana.
In a six-page letter, dated June 29, to Louisiana House Speaker Clay Schexnayder (R-Ascension), Edwards wrote HB 648 is “punitive,“ discriminatory,” “part of a targeted assault on children,” and “denies healthcare to a very small, unique, and vulnerable group of children.”
Read the full story
Straight from the “No matter how cynical I get, I just can’t keep up” file, it was recently announced that American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten has been appointed to the Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council. According to the Homeland Security website, the HSAPC will “provide strategic and actionable recommendations to the Secretary on campus safety and security, improved coordination, research priorities, hiring, and more.”
Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) vented his frustration with the appointment, tweeting that Weingarten “is the last person who should be advising anyone on school safety.”
Read the full story