A deal estimated to cost taxpayers at least $120 million to revamp Nashville’s Fairgrounds Speedway will have to wait for a new Nashville mayor.
The proposal was officially withdrawn from the council’s Tuesday night meeting and will not have enough time to pass before current Mayor John Cooper’s term ends. It would have needed to have three readings before being approved as Nashville’s Thursday mayoral election and a potential runoff that follows.
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A new EdTrends poll of voters in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada, shows that Democrats have given up what was once a double-digit lead on “trust in education” and are now lagging behind Republicans by three percentage points.
The poll revealing the historic shift was released Friday by Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), an organization that lobbies for Democrat candidates and heads campaigns to achieve “educational equity for students of color and students from low-income backgrounds.”
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On Tuesday, an electric vehicle (EV) company with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced that it had purchased 270 acres of land in the state of Michigan to build a factory for battery components.
According to the Daily Caller, the planned factory near Big Rapids, Michigan will be located roughly 100 miles away from an American military facility, and within 60 miles of military armories. The factory will be built and operated by Gotion, an EV company that could receive hundreds of millions of dollars in both state and federal grants, as well as tax incentives, to complete the project.
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Mark Houck, the father of seven arrested and charged by President Joe Biden’s administration for his pro-life advocacy, is now running for Congress.
“I am running for Congress to further protect my family, those in the 1st district & the Republic,” Houck says on his campaign website. “I will focus on restoring traditional values & principles that are central to the American identity, such as faith, family, & freedom of speech, religion, & the right to bear arms.”
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The family of Lashawn Thompson reached a $4 million settlement with Fulton County in the death of Thompson, who was found dead in a cell on the county jail’s psychiatric floor covered in bed bugs and insects last year.
Fulton County commissioners voted six to zero to approve the family’s settlement, 11 Alive reported. The outlet noted that the settlement comes two months after the family released the results of a private autopsy of Thompson, which showed that he died from “severe neglect.”
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Two sets of laws now operate in an increasingly unrecognizable America.
Consider the matter of unlawfully removing and storing classified papers.
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Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and law enforcement officials are sounding the alarm over opioid deaths occurring in the Florida panhandle.
According to newly published data, the panhandle has the highest per capita opioid death rate in the state.
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Progressives in Wisconsin moved quickly to ask the state’s new Supreme Court for new electoral maps.
A coalition of groups and voters led by the firm Law Forward filed a petition Wednesday with the state Supreme Court that challenges Wisconsin’s current political maps.
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An organization of faithful Catholics has drawn the nation’s top Catholic speakers to its Ohio prayer rally Sunday to “save children from abortion up to birth and genital mutilation without parental consent,” as allowed by the proposed ballot amendment to the state constitution known as Issue 1.
Catholics for Catholics, a group that helped organize the Los Angeles Dodgers prayer rally to protest the club’s decision to honor the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an anti-Catholic group of queer and transgender “nuns,” has now orchestrated the “Rosary Rally” that seeks to defeat “the diabolical effort to codify abortion-on-demand and genital mutilation in the Ohio State constitution.”
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The school district is composed of 70 percent minority students. Stanton has served as WESD superintendent for eight years, with 27 years in education. He is past president of the Arizona School Administrators, and serves on the ABEC Board of Directors and the WESTMARC Education and Workforce Development Committee. He and his wife prepare food boxes for those in need on the weekends.
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A Catholic church in Duluth and a school in Minneapolis were vandalized in separate incidents in late July.
St. Charles Borromeo School told families this week that two individuals broke into the school on the evening of Saturday, July 22, creating “an extensive mess that required 700+ hours of clean-up work and is still ongoing.” The school said its clean-up efforts “after this disaster cost thousands of dollars.”
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The City of Phoenix and Phoenix Police Department released crime statistics for the first six months of 2023, revealing that overall crime is down 2 percent, even as auto thefts, rape, and police shootings rise in the city.
Numbers released by the city show violent crime is down 2 percent in Arizona’s capital, and property crimes are down 19 percent, when the first six months of 2023 are compared with the same period in 2022. Still, the city reported an increase in rapes, increase in auto thefts, and officer-involved shootings.
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Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Annette Ziegler criticized the newly sworn-in liberal majority Wednesday after they fired the court’s longtime director, according to a statement.
Justice Janet Protasiewicz was sworn in Tuesday to replace retiring conservative Justice Pat Roggensack and create a liberal majority on the court for the first time in 15 years, and immediately fired Director of the State Courts Randy Koschnick, who ran for a seat on the court in 2009 with the support of many conservatives. Ziegler released a scathing statement Wednesday, condemning her “colleagues’ reckless conduct” and “unauthorized action.”
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Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced Wednesday that the state is awarding over $35 million in retention incentives to thousands of Ohio first responders in recognition of their dedication to public safety and ongoing commitment to public service.
Over 10,000 law enforcement officers, firefighters, and EMS personnel from 309 agencies will receive the retention incentives totaling over $35 million as part of the Ohio First Responder Recruitment, Retention, and Resilience Program, which DeWine created last year to address first responder burnout caused by under-staffing and overall job stress.
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Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) is increasing his legal efforts to protect women and girls from being required to compete in sports against biological males at public schools, colleges, and universities in Arizona.
This follows after Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma (R-Peoria) filed a motion intervening in a lawsuit in May that threatened to repeal the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which tries to level the playing field for women and girls in athletics, was passed into law last year.
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Top semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm announced a new round of layoffs on Wednesday, even after the industry received huge subsidies from the Biden administration, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Qualcomm, a major American producer of semiconductors, announced a new round of layoffs after seeing a 25% decline in its mobile-phone chip business compared to the previous year, according to the WSJ. The semiconductor industry has received huge subsidies from the Biden administration through the CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into law in August 2022 and included $52 billion in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturers.
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Amid growing criticism of its environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment practices, BlackRock has announced that it will offer retail investors in its largest exchange-traded fund (ETF) the opportunity to participate in its “Voting Choice” program. Open to institutional clients since January 2022, this program allows investors to choose from a limited set of options to guide BlackRock in voting their shares. While perhaps an effective PR tool, Voting Choice is little more than a ruse that neither empowers investors nor diminishes BlackRock’s power to impose its ESG goals on American businesses.
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If the current trajectory continues, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations agents are on track this fiscal year to arrest the greatest number of illegal foreign nationals with criminal convictions in recorded history.
By contrast, Border Patrol apprehensions of gang members and weapons seizures are down significantly, and a former border chief tells The Center Square those numbers are down because far fewer agents are in the field – between ports of entries – to make such seizures and apprehensions.
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Democrat Justin Jones (D-Nashville) won the Tennessee House of Representatives District 52 special election on Thursday, defeating his Republican opponent Laura Nelson.
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Councilman Freddie O’Connell finished in first place in the Nashville mayoral general election on Thursday, and Republican Alice Rolli finished in second place, qualifying both candidates for the two spots in the September 14 runoff election. According to the Nashville Davidson County Charter, a runoff election betweeen the top two finishers in a general election for mayor qualify for a runoff election if no candidate exceeds 50 percent in the general electio, With all early votes counted and 99 percent of precincts reporting as of 9:35 pm, O’ Connell topped the 12 candidate field with 27.1 percent of the vote. The Tennessean called the race for him as one of two runoff qualifiers at 9:00 pm. Republican Alice Rolli finished in second place with 20.2 percent, locking up the second and final spot in the runoff. The Tennessean called the second place finish for Rolli at 9:30 pm. Matt Wilshire finished in third place with 16.9 percent The rest of the field had the following results: Jeff Yarboro 12.1 percent Heidi Campbell 8.2 percent Sharon Hurt 6.0 percent Vivian Wilhoite 4.7 percent Jim Gingrich 1.7 percent Natisha Brooks 1.4 percent – – – Michael Patrick Leahy is the CEO and…
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Text messages provided to the FBI show that a Chinese energy conglomerate that struck a controversial deal in 2017 with Hunter Biden began its pursuit of a relationship with the future first family back in late 2015 when Joe Biden was still vice president, hoping to seize on the name of one of America’s most famous political dynasties to provide cover for its ambitious plan to buy up energy assets inside the United States.
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Former President Donald Trump on Thursday pleaded “not guilty” to all criminal charges stemming from special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment related to the 2020 presidential election and Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
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Digital marketing expert and creator of the conservative TennVoterGuide.com Craig Huey joins host Michael Patrick Leahy in-studio on Monday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report to outline who – among the 12 candidates – has a real chance to win the Nashville mayoral election; who is running the smartest campaign; and who is behind the well-financed efforts to push Nashville – and Tennessee – to the far Left.
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The Daily Mail Hunter Biden‘s ex-business partner Devon Archer told Congress that Joe Biden‘s ‘intimidating’ influence directly led to his son receiving huge sums of foreign money – and a $142,300 Porsche. According to the full transcript of his testimony obtained by DailyMail.com on Thursday, Archer said that the Biden ‘brand’ acted as protection for Ukrainian oil company Burisma because ‘people would be intimidated to mess with them.’ Hunter’s presence on Burisma’s board and access to his father – then vice president – led to the company’s ‘longevity’ because they had the ‘capabilities to navigate D.C.,’ Archer said according to the transcript. READ THE FULL STORY
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Breitbart Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is backing former President Donald Trump on legal matters ahead of Thursday’s arraignment in Washington, DC, asserting that the “symbolic moment of today is something far deeper than just this case” and demanding the government tell the American people the truth about the “flurry of prosecutions.” Trump is expected to appear before Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya on Thursday for charges related to the January 6 riot at the Capitol, according to reports. Standing outside of the courthouse in D.C., Ramaswamy demanded the government tell the American people the truth about the “flurry of prosecutions” against his competitor. READ THE FULL STORY
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In new memos recently released by Facebook, the social media giant was pressured by the Biden White House into altering its algorithms so that mainstream news sources would be elevated over conservative sites.
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Special Counsel Jack Smith’s most recent indictment of former President Donald Trump repeatedly referenced former Vice President Mike Pence objecting to Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and insisting that the vice president had no authority to halt the electoral certification process.
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Throughout the United States, it takes three times as many hours of training to become a nail technician, a barber, or a plumber as it does to become a police officer.
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Politico Govs. Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom have tentatively agreed to debate — one hosted by Fox News. The Florida Republican and California Democrat have repeatedly sparred over policies in their respective states, each representing one side of the ideological spectrum though occupying different political perches. DeSantis, a Republican, is trailing former President Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination while Newsom, a Democrat, has brushed aside questions about his own presidential ambitions to become a super surrogate of sorts for President Joe Biden. A showdown between the two seemed unlikely as DeSantis ramped up his presidential campaign. But Newsom still has spent months trying to entice his counterpart into joining him on a stage. READ THE FULL STORY
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New York Post Vice President Joe Biden told his son Hunter’s former business associate Devon Archer in early 2011 that he was “happy” the two were partners — in a postscript to a note thanking Archer for attending a lunch with visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao. “I apologize for not getting a chance to talk to you at the luncheon yesterday. I was having trouble getting away from hosting President Hu,” Biden told Archer in the letter dated Jan. 20, 2011. “I hope I get a chance to see you again soon with Hunter. I hope you enjoyed lunch. Thanks for coming,” the missive concluded. READ THE FULL STORY Read more; watch Archer produce the letter on “Tucker on Twitter”
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Gov. Bill Lee (R) is once again touting the benefits of becoming a law enforcement officer in Tennessee, as he attempts to recruit out-of-staters to join the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
“Law enforcement officers from across the country recognize that there’s no better place to work, live and raise a family than Tennessee,” Lee said in statement. “Over the past two years, we’ve recruited a record number of troopers to Tennessee’s ranks, and we continue to welcome men and women nationwide to join the Tennessee Highway Patrol.”
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Donors made contributions to a dark money group associated with a super political action committee (PAC) supporting President Joe Biden’s reelection bid, according to The New York Times.
Future Forward PAC told the NYT in mid July it raised $50 million in 2023, but its recent Federal Election Commission filing indicates it only raised $67,000 during the first half of the year, and ended the filing period with less than $118,000 cash on hand. Donors likely contributed to the nonprofit tied with the super PAC, Future Forward USA Action, to avoid having to disclose their identities, according to the NYT.
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A U.S. District Court judge allowed a Utah law requiring age verification for porn websites to remain in effect, dismissing a lawsuit that argued the legislation infringed on the First Amendment and individual privacy, according to a press release.
The Free Speech Coalition (FSC) filed a lawsuit on May 3 after a law went into effect in the state of Utah that required porn websites to use age verification screening or face potential civil suits from Utah citizens. Judge Ted Stewart dismissed the lawsuit Tuesday, allowing the law to remain in place, but FSC announced that they plan to appeal the decision, according to a press release.
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The founder of a nonprofit that advocates for freedom of speech on the internet is sounding the alarm on government weaponization of “middleware” companies, which he said are essentially shell organizations for government censorship.
“The reason that they call it competitive middleware is because they’re trying to create a competitive industry around middleware compliance to avoid any antitrust situations that could arise,” Mike Benz, the executive director of Foundation for Freedom Online (FFO), told The Tennessee Star Tuesday.
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A Tennessee law that prohibits teacher association dues from being automatically deducted from paychecks may go into effect after a three-judge panel declined to issue a temporary halt to it as requested by the Tennessee Education Association (TEA).
The Chancery Court for the State of Tennessee Twentieth Judicial District, Davidson County, denied last week the teachers’ union’s motion, ending a previous temporary halt to the practice of payroll deduction for dues for professional employee organizations.
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GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy held a press conference at the Davidson County Courthouse on Wednesday to call for releasing the Covenant School shooter’s manifesto.
“I’m here as a father and as an American. We can’t fix the past, but we can prevent tragedies in the future, and the only way to do it is to learn from those mistakes of the past,” Ramaswamy said. “When an airplane crashes, we recover the black box for a reason – we never want to make that same mistake twice. We have a tradition in this country as law enforcement to do the same thing when there’s a mass shooting…We have to learn from tragedy to prevent it in the future.”
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The Republicans hoping to replace Gov. Chris Sununu in the corner office next year have all embraced universal school choice, a deep contrast with their Democratic rivals.
On WFEA Morning Update with Drew Cline Monday, former U.S. Sen. and Republican gubernatorial candidate Kelly Ayotte said that, as governor, she would support universal school choice in New Hampshire, building upon the New Hampshire GOP’s successes with the popular Education Freedom Account (EFA) program.
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Washington state’s attorney general is among 20 attorneys general to have filed legal arguments in a federal lawsuit challenging Idaho’s law that makes it illegal to either obtain abortion pills for a minor or to help them leave the state for an abortion without their parents’ knowledge and consent.
In a Tuesday news release, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the collective states’ amicus brief is in support of a lawsuit filed last month in U.S. District Court against Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador. The plaintiffs allege that Labrador’s interpretation of the law threatens to punish medical providers and residents outside Idaho’s borders for giving information and assistance to minors about legal abortion access in their states.
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The University of Virginia (UVA) announced a new essay question for the 2023 to 2024 admissions cycle that circumvents the Supreme Court’s ruling that universities can no longer consider race in college admissions.
Applicants are now required, in 300 words, to answer: “What about your background, perspective, or experience will serve as a source of strength for you and those around you at UVA?”
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a bill funding 45 outdoor recreation projects with $23.3 million in Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund grants.
“From camping and kayaking to swimming and snowmobiling, Pure Michigan offers us world-class recreation right in our backyard,” Whitmer said in a statement. “Since 1976, the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund has helped us protect our precious natural places and invested in accessible outdoor public recreation.”
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A jury announced Wednesday that they believed Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people in a targeted attack against Pittsburgh Jews in 2018, should receive the death penalty, according to multiple reports.
A jury determined in July that Bowers was eligible for capital punishment despite his defense team arguing that he suffered from mental disorders that prevented him from understanding the weight of his actions. The jury deliberated for over ten hours during the course of two days before issuing its verdict that Bowers should be put to death for deliberately going after Jewish worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue, according to various reports.
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The board appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida to govern Walt Disney World Resort in Florida will abolish all in-house diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, according to an announcement on Tuesday.
The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, formerly known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District, was reconstituted by the Florida state legislature in February, which replaced the district’s existing board with DeSantis’ appointees. The board will abolish “all DEI programs” and DEI-based contractor requirements, according to a press release on its website.
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Democrat Janet Protasiewicz was sworn into the Wisconsin Supreme Court, flipping the body to liberal control after having a conservative majority for the past 15 years.
Protasiewicz, a former Milwaukee County judge who won her election in April, was sworn in Tuesday to a 10-year term in the Wisconsin Capitol Rotunda.
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Former President Donald Trump, who is running for president again in 2024 for the Republican nomination, has once again been indicted on Aug. 1 by Special Counsel Jack Smith, this time for challenging the results of the 2020 election, alleging Trump “spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.”
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State Representative Alexander Kolodin (R-Scottsdale) promised the Arizona House would examine Attorney General Kris Mayes’ decision to join a coalition of attorneys general seeking to restore the government’s ability to communicate censorship requests to social media websites.
“Labeling speech dangerous and calling for it to be suppressed is the first act of tyrants,” Kolodin wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in response to Mayes’ decision to join the coalition. He added that the Arizona House “will be taking a very close look” at the move.
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Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens plans to use $4 million to develop “quick-delivery housing” for homeless people in the city.
Dickens issued an executive order directing the city’s chief financial officer to fund a new “Rapid Housing” initiative. The city plans to repurpose shipping containers that Georgia Emergency Management Agency used as temporary hospitals amid the COVID-19 pandemic and are now being decommissioned.
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Amid declining academic test scores, Hopkins High School will be one of the first schools in Minnesota to offer the George Floyd-inspired Advanced Placement African American Studies (APAAS) course this fall.
Less than 50 percent of Hopkins High School students are proficient in reading, math or science. It will be one of just a few schools in the state to offer the class this fall along with high schools in St. Paul and Edina, the Star Tribune reported.
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A group of pro-life advocates has filed a lawsuit requesting that the Ohio Supreme Court block a proposal that aims to enshrine abortion into the state constitution.
The Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom, a coalition of radical pro-abortion activists that includes Planned Parenthood, Pro-Choice Ohio, the Abortion Fund of Ohio, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio, along with the Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights has proposed “The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety” which would add a Section 22 to Article 1 of the state constitution.
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Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds is using money from the American Rescue Plan Act to send law enforcement to the Texas border as part of Operation Lone Star.
The governor said Wednesday she is authorizing 109 National Guard soldiers to the Texas border to help with the border security mission.
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Arizona renters have a slightly lower monthly payment on the horizon thanks to an agreement in Phoenix.
Gov. Katie Hobbs signed a rental sales tax ban bill into law on Tuesday, a key legislative goal of the Republicans at the Capitol.
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