The city of Rocky Top is receiving a $2.3 million loan for water infrastructure from the state of Tennessee.
The loan is part of the State Revolving Fund Loan Program to help communities, utility districts and water and wastewater authorities obtain low interest loans for community infrastructure needs.
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Customs and Border Protection (CBP) authorities flagged 74,904 illegal migrants nationwide for potentially posing risks to national security between October 2022 and August, according to CBP data obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Certain illegal migrants are deemed to be “special interest aliens” because they may have travel patterns that “possibly have a nexus to terrorism” or may come from countries with such ties, according to a 2019 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) fact sheet. Border Patrol agents encountered 25,627 “special interest” illegal migrants in fiscal year 2022, compared to 3,675 encounters in fiscal year 2021, according to internal agency data previously obtained by the DCNF; however, this data doesn’t account for all CBP encounters of special interest aliens.
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A poll released Thursday indicates the Senate GOP campaign arm’s pick to unseat Montana’s incumbent Democratic senator in 2024 is not faring well in a potential primary.
Former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, who was recruited by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), is losing by double digits to Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale, who’s considering a bid, according to a J.L. Partners survey. Sheehy garnered only 21% support compared to Rosendale’s 52%, with 28% of GOP primary voters remaining undecided as to which Republican should take on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.
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Transgender advocates repeatedly claim that minors only take “puberty-blocking” drugs or cross-sex hormones, but never undergo surgeries in an attempt to force their male or female bodies to resemble the opposite sex, yet a new study estimates that more than 3,000 minors underwent transgender surgeries in a five-year period, and more than 400 of them had their genitals removed.
The Journal of the American Medical Association published a study Wednesday estimating that 48,019 Americans underwent “gender-affirming surgeries” from 2016 to 2020, and 3,678 of them underwent surgery between ages 12 and 18.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has joined a bipartisan coalition of 33 attorneys general in sending a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the rise of flavored, disposable e-cigarettes use among the nation’s youth.
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Columbus officials won’t back away from their fight to enact more restrictive gun laws than the state allows.
City Attorney Zach Klein filed a motion to dismiss the state’s challenge of ordinances dealing with gun storage, high-capacity magazines and illegal guns, all more restrictive than state law.
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Scottsdale, Arizona, officials have enlisted one of the state’s most powerful advocacy organizations in proposing numerous changes to crack down on short term rental properties.
Scottsdale, which is popular for tourism, is pushing for three changes at the state level backed by the League of Arizona Cities and Towns 2024 Legislative Agenda. The organization, headed by Yuma Mayor Douglas Nicholls, represents the state’s municipalities in lobbying for changes at the state level.
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The national unemployment rate reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics jumped from 3.5 percent to 3.8 percent in August as an additional 514,000 Americans said they could not find work in the Bureau’s household survey. Now 6.3 million Americans are said to be unemployed, the highest in more than a year.
But it did not come with a commensurate drop in the number of Americans saying they were working, which also increased by 222,000 to 161.48 million.
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The City of Champlin is considering seceding from Hennepin County and joining Anoka County.
The Champlin City Council discussed the idea during a worksession Monday at Mayor Ryan Sabas’ request.
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Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will be all over New Hampshire this Labor Day weekend — at a fair in Contoocook, a house party in Dublin, town halls in Conway and Laconia, and a parade and a picnic in the mix.
In all, the Ohio businessman will press the flesh and ascend the stump at 11 events over four days.
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The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wayne County violated the rights of Detroiters by not offering prompt court hearings within two weeks of their vehicles being seized.
The Center Square reported the lawsuit in 2020 when The Institute for Justice filed a class action suit challenging the program on behalf of Detroiters whose vehicles were seized without receiving a hearing.
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There are new calls to overhaul Wisconsin’s economic development arm after another audit found more problems.
The Legislative Audit Bureau report into the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. found WEDC missed its promised-jobs-mark, spent thousands of dollars on ineligible grants and failed to recoup money that should have been paid back.
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Another inmate was recently found dead in their cell in the Fulton County Jail, according to a press release by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO).
On Wednesday, the FCSO announced that inmate Samuel Lawrence, age 34, was found unresponsive in his unit cell on August 26 at approximately 4:20 p.m. as detention officers were conducting dinner rounds.
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Despite the controversiality of the curriculum, business schools are still following the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiative.
The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance defines ESG as an effort that “grew out of investment philosophies clustered around sustainability and, thereafter, socially responsible investing,” though “there is no single list of ESG goals or examples, and ESG concepts often overlap.”
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Despite being hit by Category 3 Hurricane Idalia, gas prices in Florida have decreased by five cents going into the Labor Day weekend.
The average gas price in Florida was $3.69 per gallon of regular according to the American Automobile Association, down from $3.75 last week but four cents more than last month. The national average is $3.83.
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The State Board of Education completed its review of state standards of learning for math and has approved new 2023 standards to go into effect during the 2024-25 school year.
In 2000, the General Assembly voted to make it a law that the board must review the state’s standards of learning for core subjects every seven years. The last review was in 2016.
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The Alaska State Board of Education voted on Thursday to support a regulation banning boys from competing on girls’ high school athletic teams, according to The Associated Press.
The board delayed its initial vote on the issue in July after hearing hours of testimony and receiving 1,400 pages of written comments, according to the AP. The board voted 7-1 to support the measure in a special session, and the proposal now heads to Republican Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor for approval.
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High School Assistant Coach Joe Kennedy said he’s nervous about returning to the football field Friday after winning a years-long battle in the Supreme Court in 2022 allowing him to pray on the field, according to an interview with the Associated Press.
Bremerton High School, located in Washington state, is having its opening game of the season and it will be the first time Kennedy has coached since 2015 after he was suspended by Bremerton School District (BSD) for refusing to stop praying on the field, according to the AP. Kennedy expressed that he was nervous about people’s expectations and the reaction to him praying after the game.
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Kids, go to school! It’s time to go back. Some will have already started. A ritual that we adults attend every year with a mixture of nostalgia and indifference: nostalgia because we remember the beautiful — or ugly — child we were, and indifference because at least this time the math teacher will not ask us to explain the lesson. However, both feelings can coexist naturally with something deeper and more important: We need the teachers, and we need the teachers to do their best work possible.
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The U.S. Department of Labor issued notice Wednesday of a proposal to increase the threshold for required overtime payments to salaried workers whose weekly or annual wages are considered low income.
If enacted, the proposed rule would guarantee overtime pay for most salaried employees earning less than $1,059 per week, or about $55,000 per year. It also calls for an “escalator” that automatically updates the salary threshold every three years to reflect current earnings data. The Labor Department estimates the rule could apply to about 3.6 million workers nationwide.
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The number of people who identify as “nonbinary” in the energy workforce has skyrocketed by more than 88% since last year, according to data from the Department of Energy.
The agency’s annual employment report (USEER), showed that last year, there were 22,723 individuals in the energy workforce who don’t identify as male or female (nonbinary). As of June 2023, that number had increased to 42,810—an 88.4% surge.
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