The State Department on Tuesday warned Americans against traveling to Venezuela, stating there was a “significant risk of wrongful detention” by the country’s government.
The department raised the travel advisory for the South American country to level four, the highest level, which instructs all Americans not to travel to the country.
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Republican Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville announced he is running for governor of Alabama in 2026, leaving yet another open Senate seat to be filled in next year’s midterms.
The senator launched his campaign website Tuesday afternoon, Politico first reported, but the news has been expected since the Alabama Republican reportedly told donors his gubernatorial plans during Easter recess.
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reportedly started arresting illegal immigrants who appear for their court dates in Tennessee, according to a Memphis lawyer who claimed on Monday that federal authorities made eight arrests at the Memphis Immigration Court.
Memphis immigration attorney Andrew Rankin told Fox 13 on Monday that ICE agents were at the downtown Memphis courthouse last week, where they spent hours arresting individuals who arrived for a court date.
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Metro Nashville Councilman David Benton attended the “Stop the Invasion” press conference held by U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) on Monday. He called for state and federal audits of the Tennessee nonprofits which have received millions in federal taxpayer dollars, awarded through the city, before donating to the controversial “Belonging Fund” announced by Mayor Freddie O’Connell as a method to support immigrants following a federal enforcement operation that netted nearly 200 arrests.
On Tuesday, Benton told The Tennessee Star he is concerned the recent actions by O’Connell place Metro Nashville in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1324, and specifically that O’Connell’s decision to tie Metro Nashville to the “Belonging Fund” could leave Metro open to losing state and federal funding, as does his recent executive order mandating Metro employees report contacts with federal immigration officials to him and the Office of New Americans.
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A Maryland congressman failed in an attempt to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia over the Memorial Day weekend, making him the latest in a string of Democratic lawmakers to fly to El Salvador to advocate for the alleged MS-13 gang member deported from the U.S.
Maryland Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey posted a video Monday on social media, revealing that he was denied entry into the prison facility holding Abrego Garcia. The Maryland lawmaker — joined by the alleged gang member’s lawyer and a representative of a Maryland-based workers’ union — had hoped to speak to Abrego Garcia and repeated calls for him to be returned to the U.S.
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U.S. consumer confidence bounced back in May ending five straight months of decline and beating economists’ expectations.
The Consumer Confidence Index increased by 12.3 points in May to 98.0 — up from 85.7 in April — according to a report released Tuesday by The Conference Board. This notably marked the first increase in consumer confidence in five months.
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As Americans began to prepare for Memorial Day weekend, the Supreme Court quietly handed President Donald Trump a significant victory in the fight to rein in the rogue D.C. bureaucracy.
In a short, two-page order, the court stayed a district court order that directed Trump to reinstate two federal officials whom he had fired.
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Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, criticized the Tennessee Highway Patrol for what appeared to be a “massive” security failure during Monday’s “Stop the Invasion: Defend Tennessee” event held by U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05).
On Monday, Ogles and various Tennessee lawmakers spoke in support of the efforts by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to remove illegal immigrants from the Volunteer State during an event held at the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removed the COVID-19 vaccine from the recommended immunization schedule for “healthy children and healthy pregnant women,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday morning.
In a video on his X profile with National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary, Kennedy faulted the Biden administration for urging healthy kids to get “yet another COVID shot despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children.”
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Private universities with large endowments are fretting over a provision in the House-passed “big, beautiful” bill that would significantly raise the tax rate on their annual investment income.
House Republicans’ proposal would raise the tax rate on certain universities’ endowment profits from 1.4% to 21%, a move that could add hundreds of millions of dollars to their annual tax liability. Universities whose massive endowments provide billions of dollars of wealth at their disposal are warning that failure to strike the proposal from President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending package would deal a “devastating” blow to their operating budgets.
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The Trump administration is moving to cut all remaining federal contracts with Harvard University.
The General Services Administration (GSA) sent a letter to federal agencies Tuesday advising them to end any contracts with the Ivy League school. This is the latest move by the administration to punish the school for repeatedly allowing antisemitism to persist on campus and allegedly continuing to use race-based policies.
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Axios The Trump administration is halting student visa interviews and considering a social media vetting requirement as its immigration crackdown extends to people who want to study in the U.S. The move would be a major escalation for the White House, which has already started monitoring immigrants’ social media for antisemitism and has detained students for pro-Palestine campus activism. “We will continue to use every tool we can to assess who it is that’s coming here, whether they are students or otherwise,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said at a briefing on Tuesday. READ THE FULL STORY
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Breitbart Singer Usher and former President Barack Obama were both named in testimony during the sex trafficking trial of rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs on Monday. The court heard testimony from Diddy’s ex-assistants, ex-associates, and his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, as the tril rolls into its third week, Fox News reported. Several other A-List names also came up as those called to testify spoke about the parade of top celebrities and music industry persons who attended Diddy’s events and parties or who otherwise had some connection to the matter. Along with Usher and Obama, names including Biggie Smalls and Jennifer Lopez were also mentioned. READ THE FULL STORY
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The Associated Press National Public Radio and three of its local stations sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday, arguing that his executive order cutting funding to the 246-station network violates their free speech and relies on an authority that he does not have. Earlier this month, Trump instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and federal agencies to cease funding for NPR and PBS, either directly or indirectly. The president and his supporters argue their news reporting promotes liberal bias and shouldn’t be supported by taxpayers. Retaliation is Trump’s plain purpose, the lawsuit argues. It was filed in federal court in Washington by NPR and three Colorado entities — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KUTE, Inc., chosen to show the system’s diversity in urban and rural areas. READ THE FULL STORY
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Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill last week aimed at improving the nutritional value of school lunches in Tennessee.
House Bill (HB) 134 bans the use of the petroleum-based chemical Red 40 in school food or beverage items. This new law gives Tennessee schools until August 1, 2027, to comply with the removal requirement.
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Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon is set to present her proposal that would raise the city’s sales tax by a half-cent to fund “affordable housing,” sidewalks, parks, and other projects to the City Council this week.
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Texans will decide in November whether to add an amendment to their state constitution banning noncitizens from voting.
If approved, the amendment would be added to the constitution’s language prohibiting voting by anyone under the age of 18, for anyone deemed mentally incompetent by a court, and convicted felons, according to Ballotpedia.
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The U.S. Department of Education has opened a civil rights investigation into Fairfax County Public Schools following a referral from Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, alleging the district’s 2020 admissions changes at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology may have violated federal anti-discrimination laws.
The announcement came from the department’s Office for Civil Rights and was echoed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin during a Fox News interview, where he said Fairfax County “engineered an illegal admissions system” and “purposefully discriminated against Asian American students.”
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The Trump administration’s DOJ ended an investigation into the Phoenix Police Department (PPD) launched by a weaponized DOJ under Joe Biden, and reversed the findings of alleged constitutional violations. The press release issued last week announced that the DOJ was also closing investigations into seven other police departments, including the Minneapolis Police Department. The Trump administration similarly dismantled investigations into police departments during Donald Trump’s first term that were launched under the Obama administration.
Several key leaders asked the new Trump administration after taking office to rescind the report, including Representative Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ-08) and State Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Mesa).
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The threat to the United States from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is multifaceted, long-term, and aggressive. Whether it’s from military modernization to economic coercion, cyber warfare to space competition, the PRC’s national security challenge is global, and it targets U.S. interests, values, security, and standing in the world.
While much of the focus of U.S. policymakers has been on the military threat from China, the communist country has also implemented a multi-pronged approach to weaken the United States economically, politically, culturally, and diplomatically. It is enlisting a whole-of-government strategy blending civil and military approaches with tactics short of war to expand its influence and improve its geopolitical position.
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