The Department of Justice on Wednesday indicted two Russian nationals for spending about $10 million on a “scheme” to advance “Russian government messaging” to U.S. audiences.
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Legal filings obtained by The Tennessee Star on Wednesday confirm Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) is not a “target” of the Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation, which prompted the FBI to seize his cell phone after serving a search warrant at his home just one day after he won the Republican Party’s nomination for reelection.
In an emergency motion seeking the return of his phone, attorneys representing Ogles revealed that federal prosecutors previously acknowledged Ogles is a “subject” of the investigation but not a “target” and said the DOJ’s receipt of his property violates the Speech and Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
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CBS News The Biden administration is debating changes that would make it harder to lift the sweeping asylum restrictions it enacted in June, drafting plans to alter the criteria that would be used to deactivate the strict border measure, two Department of Homeland Security officials told CBS News. The proposed changes concern a proclamation issued in early June by President Biden that has effectively shut down access to the American asylum system for migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. Officials have credited the crackdown, the most restrictive asylum policy by a Democratic president, for a four-year-low in unauthorized border crossings. Mr. Biden’s partial asylum ban included a deactivation trigger, in which the policy would be discontinued if the seven-day average of daily illegal border crossings fell below 1,500. Under the proposed changes, the asylum restrictions would only be deactivated if the seven-day average of unlawful border crossings stay below 1,500 for 28 days, the DHS officials said, requesting anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. READ THE FULL STORY
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The Associated Press The White House is signaling an openness to blocking the acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, as a government review of the proposed takeover by the Japanese company is on the cusp of ending. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that President Joe Biden plans to stop the deal from going forward. A White House official, insisting on anonymity to discuss the matter, did not deny the report and said Biden still needs to receive the official recommendation from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. That review could end as soon as this month. Biden had already voiced his objections to the merger, backing his supporters in the United Steelworkers union who oppose the deal. The objection carries weight as U.S. Steel is headquartered in the swing state of Pennsylvania and is a symbol of Pittsburgh’s industrial might in an election year where Republicans and Democrats alike are promising more domestic manufacturing jobs. READ THE FULL STORY
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Breitbart In a significant victory for Elon Musk’s social media platform X, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has partially blocked a California law that mandates social media companies to disclose their policies for addressing disinformation, harassment, hate speech, and extremism. Reuters reports that the decision, which overturns a lower court judge’s ruling that had declined to pause the enforcement of the new California law, marks a crucial development in the ongoing debate over the extent of states’ authority to regulate social media companies. The law in question requires large social media platforms to publicly report their content moderation practices and provide data on the number of objectionable posts and how they were handled. Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter last year and recently rebranded it as X, had filed a lawsuit to prevent the law from taking effect, arguing that it infringed upon the First Amendment’s speech protections. The case is one among several legal challenges that have emerged as states attempt to exert greater control over social media giants. READ THE FULL STORY
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Catholic News Agency The historic Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer, in the Pas-de-Calais department of northern France, was ravaged by arson on the night of Sept. 2. The suspect, a multi-recidivist who has attempted to set fire to numerous places of worship in the past, was apprehended a few hours after the blaze was brought under control. According to local authorities, the fire started at around 4 a.m. It then spread to the side and central aisles, then to the roof and bell tower, which rapidly collapsed. The fire was contained by 7:15 a.m. thanks to the efforts of 120 firefighters. READ THE FULL STORY
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A whistleblower told Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri in a letter released on Tuesday that the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents assigned to former President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, were “egregiously under-prepared.”
The whistleblower told Hawley that the HSI agents were taken off child exploitation cases and reassigned in partnership with U.S. Secret Service (USSS) to work security at the rally, according to the letter. Ahead of the event, the HSI agents received just a two-hour “webinar” that lacked substance and was “riddled with technical mishaps,” with the whistleblower claiming that the training is unchanged even after the assassination attempt.
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Law enforcement reportedly arrested the person responsible for committing a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, which is part of Barrow County and about an hour away from downtown Atlanta.
Early police reports do not contain an estimate for the number of casualties from the shooting, nor do they reveal the identity of the shooter, but instead advise to avoid the area during the emergency response.
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Four people were killed and nine were injured in a school shooting Wednesday in Georgia, according to authorities.
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A federal judge ruled Tuesday that former President Donald Trump cannot transfer his New York criminal case to federal court.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled against Trump’s argument of presidential immunity and ruled that the court did not have grounds to determine alleged bias. Trump was convicted in May of 34 accounts on falsifying business records, and Hellerstein ruled that “hush money” payments fall outside the scope of “executive authority.”
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Absentee voting for the presidential election will begin this week, two months before Election Day, as early in-person voting starts nationwide later this month amid lawsuits over election administration and election integrity concerns.
The presidential election begins this week as absentee ballots are mailed to voters in one state, with others to follow in the coming weeks. However, election integrity concerns from the last presidential election remain as various courts determine how mail-in ballots and voter rolls are to be handled with only two months before the next president will be elected.
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Amy Slaton-Halterman, who stars in TLC’s hit reality show “1000-Lb. Sisters,” was arrested in Crockett County on Monday on multiple drug possession and child endangerment charges.
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A recent study shows that roughly one-third of American K-12 students in the 2023-2024 academic school year are behind their grade level in a variety of subjects.
As Axios reports, the data was compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) through their “School Pulse Panel,” a survey of almost 4,000 grade schools that are considered nationally representative. The data from June of 2024, taken from the responses of 1,651 schools, shows that there has been virtually no change from the 2021-2022 school year, when 33% of students were learning at a level that was below their actual grade.
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Migrants reportedly make up roughly 75% of arrests in Midtown Manhattan and a large bulk of other New York City (NYC) neighborhoods, according to the New York Post.
Illegal migrants and other foreign nationals living in shelters are flooding New York City’s criminal justice system, according to law enforcement sources that spoke anonymously with the Post. These migrants are being arrested for robbery, assault, domestic violence and other crimes across NYC.
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A poll released Tuesday found an overwhelming majority of Arizona voters back the effort that would allow state law enforcement to arrest and deport illegal immigrants, which will appear on the November ballot as a referendum titled Proposition 314.
The survey, conducted by Noble Predictive Insights, found that 63 percent of Arizona voters support the referendum while just 16 percent said they were opposed. An additional 16 percent of respondents said they would not vote on the referendum, while 6 percent said they were unsure.
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A Tuesday report revealed an influential conservative political fund has spent $2.3 million to flip Virginia’s 7th Congressional District in November. Republicans are trying to help Derrick Anderson secure a victory against Eugene Vindman, who featured prominently in the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump.
Anderson will benefit from $2.3 million in spending from the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), which exists to elect Republicans to the U.S. House, according to a Tuesday report by Punchbowl News.
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The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission (ACCEC) is refusing to allow Arizona Green Party (AZGP) candidate Eduardo Quintana to participate in the U.S. Senate debate scheduled for October 9 with Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Ruben Gallego, even though Libertarian Party candidate Marc Victor was allowed to participate in the 2022 U.S. Senate debate with Republican Blake Masters and Democrat Mark Kelly. Since Libertarians tend to take away more support from Republicans than Democrats, and Green Party candidates take away support mainly from Democrats, the ACCEC is coming under fire for skewing the debate to favor Gallego.
Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk pointed out the discrepancy in a thread on X. He cited a statement from Arizona Media Association, the broadcast partner for Arizona Clean Elections debates, which said that “candidates must receive at least 1% of the total ballots cast in all the primaries for their race to be included.”
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The Dave McCormick campaign for U.S. Senate released a video on Monday featuring the endorsement of Blair County Sheriff Jim Ott, who revealed his son died following a fentanyl overdose and condemned Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) and other Democrats for their inaction at the southern border.
In the video, Ott gave details about the loss of his son, Josh, who he said died following a battle with addiction that culminated in a fatal fentanyl overdose.
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The recent arrest of Telegram CEO, Pavel Durov, has been in the news. Anti-Russian westerners cheered these events on, even though Durov had fled Russia years ago in order to pursue his techno-libertarian dreams in peace. Adding to the intrigue, the arrest may have included an element of treachery, as some reports say he was invited to visit France by French President Emmanuel Macron, only to be arrested on the tarmac. Mon Dieu!
The ostensible basis for Durov’s arrest is criminal responsibility for various unsavory things that have happened on his Telegram platform. This kind of vicarious liability for hosting websites, particularly those involving user communications and forums, is not entirely new, but it is controversial and always applied very selectively.
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Former Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., will not vote for former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming election.
Toomey confirmed his plans in an interview with CNBC News in which he said he pointed to Trump’s 2020 election challenges as his main reason for not backing the Republican.
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A conservative grassroots organization has sent letters to election officials in every “major jurisdiction” asking what measures are being taken to ensure the security of Arizona’s ballot boxes and calling for the right to monitor those boxes during the general presidential election.
According to reporting by the Arizona Republic, one of these letters was received by Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes on Aug. 15, just days after a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled that Fontes had overstepped when crafting the Elections Procedure Manual.
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Vice President Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) has seen her support go down after the Democratic National Convention (DNC), a rare occurrence in modern American politics where the party’s convention did not provide the nominee with a polling bump.
As reported by Breitbart, the poll from Redfield & Wilton Strategies, taken on August 29th and featuring a sample size of 2,500 likely voters, shows just 44% in favor of Kamala and 42% in support of former President Donald Trump. Another 8% of respondents remain undecided, while 4% would vote for one of the remaining third-party candidates.
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A month after Matthew Garrett secured a $2.4 million settlement from the Kern Community College District over termination proceedings for the “dishonesty” of disagreeing with colleagues on diversity issues and “unprofessional conduct” of questioning the data used to create a “racial climate task force,” the former Bakersfield College tenured history professor isn’t done yet.
He has started a campaign to pressure the KCCD Board of Trustees to rescind a contract extension and pay boost for the human resources official who oversaw his proceedings, citing newly obtained sworn testimony of the colleague who he says sicced students on Garrett with racially charged complaints that were “ultimately found to be baseless” – and used class time to do it.
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Tennessee’s Higher Education Commission received a $35 million grant aimed at promoting college readiness in underserved and at-risk communities.
It will mean that 9,000 students will receive support throughout the seven years of the grant, starting with 1,600 seventh-graders from the class of 2030 who will receive support through their first year of college.
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Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger was right to vote against the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – which ironically enough has caused record and historic inflation. According to the Heritage Foundation year-over-year inflation reached a 40-year high at 9%. This hurts everyone, but especially seniors living on fixed incomes.
All Americans are feeling the pinch of the IRA with real spending power declining at rapid rates. According to the U.S. Inflation Calculator $1,000 in 2020 now takes $1,215.33 in 2024 dollars to have the same amount of purchasing power – this is a 21.5% cumulative rate of inflation since President Biden won election. No wonder the American people are suffering over the past four years.
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Michigan’s U.S. Senate candidates are running on their records regarding labor and economic policy, but they are opposed on the role of electric vehicles.
Democrat Rep. Elissa Slotkin’s approach to labor policy focuses primarily on supporting domestic manufacturing. Her campaign page says she is focused on “creating jobs with dignity, bringing our supply chains back to America, and protecting the rights of workers.”
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The Georgia Public Service Commission could decide a high-profile case this week that pits long-time property owners against a railroad looking to seize land for a new rail spur.
The Sandersville Railroad, a Class III short-line railroad, petitioned the PSC to condemn land for a 4.5-mile-long spur. Regardless of how the PSC rules, its decision will likely be appealed to Fulton County Superior Court and beyond, possibly even to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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The baby bust is here.
The reality is clear: Americans are having fewer kids. In 2023, America had 2 percent fewer births than in 2022, hitting a record low, according to newly released finalized data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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A federal court struck down part of an Ohio bill that passed during a special session called to pass legislation to ensure President Joe Biden would have been on the November ballot.
While Democrats never nominated Biden, a ban on foreign campaign money contributed to ballot initiatives in the state was signed into law.
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Is it possible that a two-time elected Democratic governor of Minnesota is a drag on his presidential running mate in his own state?
That’s one takeaway from a poll conducted late last month on the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in Minnesota, which shows Trump cutting Harris’ lead in half since she tapped Tim Walz to join her ticket as her vice presidential nominee.
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