Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said the case surrounding Dr. Ian Andre Roberts, the now-arrested superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, exposes serious failures in public-sector hiring practices.
Read the full story
The unsolved case of two pipe bombs planted at the major political parties’ headquarters in Washington D.C. before the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot is facing new mystery after FBI Director Kash Patel transmitted to Congress the lab analysis and interviews with a key witness who is challenging the official timeline of events.
The documents obtained by Just the News show that both bombs — one planted at the Democratic National Committee and the other at the Republican National Committee — were filled with chemical building blocks of black powder, each was equipped with a 60-minute kitchen timer, and each had destructive potential.
Read the full story
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told hundreds of U.S. military officials at an in-person meeting Tuesday that the era of politically correct” leadership is over and that those who don’t agree with his approach should resign.
“The era of politically correct, overly sensitive don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings leadership ends right now at every level,” Hegseth said at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia.
Read the full story
Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) told The Tennessee Star on Friday that it received a complaint about one its officers displaying a tattoo depicting Vladimir Lenin, the communist dictator who centralized power and suppressed political opposition after forming the Soviet Union upon conclusion of the Russian Civil War.
The Star inquired about the officer after a reader submitted a photograph that appeared to show the Lenin tattoo being displayed by an officer identified by his name plate as C. Cantrell. The officer’s uniform appears to indicate he is a member of the MNPD Traffic Section.
Read the full story
The illegal immigrant with a criminal record caught running Iowa’s largest school district championed and helped pass a policy that makes it easier for criminals to be hired in the district.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Friday arrested Ian Roberts, a Guyanese national who is in the country illegally but was nevertheless serving as the Superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS). When he was hired, Roberts already had a criminal history relating to the illegal possession of a firearm and which the district knew about at the time, according to the Des Moines Register.
Read the full story
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday warned that the government would implement mass layoffs in the event of a shutdown, warning that Democrats demanding changes to a continuing resolution would be responsible.
The fiscal year is set to end on Tuesday. While the House approved a bill to keep the government afloat, it did not survive Senate scrutiny. Trump has already implemented both mass firings and myriad buyouts to reduce the size of the federal government, but a shutdown could see the federal workforce shrink further.
Read the full story
Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams has officially ended his reelection bid — but analysts are split on what this means for the socialist frontrunner in the Big Apple’s mayoral race.
Adams announced the end of his longshot reelection campaign in a video posted to X on Sunday afternoon. In the announcement, the mayor also warned viewers to “beware of those who claim the answer is to destroy the very system we built together over generations,” seemingly in reference to Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, an avowed socialist.
Read the full story
CNN YouTube agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump after he was suspended by social media platforms following the January 6, 2021, insurrection. This makes Alphabet-owned YouTube the last of the three Big Tech social media companies sued by Trump — which included Meta and then Twitter, now called X — to settle over his removal from their platforms. YouTube will pay $22 million to settle the claims made by Trump to the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall, which is “dedicated to restoring, preserving, and elevating the National Mall, to support the construction of the White House State Ballroom,” according to a court document. READ THE FULL STORY
Read the full story
Maryland Freedom Caucus Chairman and State Delegate Matt Morgan (R-St. Mary’s County) confirmed on Monday that the individual named Ian Andre Roberts who appears in Maryland’s voter database, and is actively registered as Democrat, is the illegal immigrant from Guyana who was working the Des Moines Public Schools superintendent until his arrest last week by federal immigration authorities.
The Maryland State Board of Elections voter lookup portal shows that Roberts most recently registered as a Democrat on February 1, 2017, using the address of an upscale apartment building in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Read the full story
Axios Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he supported President Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza during a press conference at the White House on Monday, with both leaders saying it was now up to Hamas to agree. The plan the White House released on Monday includes a step-by-step process for ending the war and governing Gaza into the future — initially with Trump chairing a “peace board” for the enclave. “If Hamas rejects the deal, Bibi you will have our full backing to do what you have to do,” Trump said, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname. READ THE FULL STORY
Read the full story
Washington Examiner The Trump administration filed a pair of petitions to the Supreme Court asking the justices to hear appeals on its birthright citizenship order, which could add to the growing list of questions related to President Donald Trump‘s actions that the high court will consider in its term. The two petitions appeared on the Supreme Court’s public docket on Monday after being filed late Friday, and they urged the justices to take appeals in both cases, which were brought by Democrat-led states and a group of people who could be affected by Trump’s order. The question presented to the high court in both petitions centers on the president’s January executive order claiming that birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment does not include children born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country illegally or on a temporary basis, such as on a visa. The order, which would not be retroactive, states that if one of the parents is a permanent resident or U.S. citizen at the time of the child’s birth, then the child would get citizenship at birth. The Supreme Court has been asked to determine if the executive order is lawful under the 14th Amendment. READ THE…
Read the full story
The Hill The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Monday it is looking to exclude Harvard University from federal funding because of alleged inaction on campus antisemitism. HHS said it is referring Harvard for suspension and debarment proceedings. If the university is found guilty, it could mean the elimination of federal funding and new federal contracts for the nation’s oldest and richest institution. READ THE FULL STORY
Read the full story
Sunday reporting from the New York Times failed to accurately state the facts behind the federal charges accusing Kilmar Abrego Garcia of working in a human smuggling ring for nearly a decade, as the newspaper incorrectly stated the year Abrego Garcia was stopped by Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP), as well as the number of Hispanic male passengers he was allegedly smuggling.
An archive showing the first version of its Sunday article reporting the transfer of Abrego Garcia from federal facilities in Virginia to Pennsylvania initially claimed that Abrego Garcia was stopped by THP in 2019.
Read the full story
Turning Point USA (TPUSA) spokesman and “Charlie Kirk Show” executive producer Andrew Kolvet told The Tennessee Star that Lipscomb Academy should “set things right with clear action” after students honored the organization’s founder, Charlie Kirk, by wearing red ties last Friday. The students were initially prohibited from wearing the ties and suit jackets by a school administrator on the day after Kirk was assassinated.
Lipscomb Academy confirmed last week to The Tennessee Star that head of school Jesse Savage prohibited students from wearing red ties and suit jackets on September 11, citing a dress code violation, but later claimed that students instead agreed to help faculty plan a chapel service as an opportunity to speak about their faith.
Read the full story
The criminal defense attorneys representing Kilmar Abrego Garcia in his federal human smuggling case last Friday submitted a court filing announcing that, earlier that day, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) moved their client to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, following their complaints about the difficulty reaching Abrego Garcia at a detention facility in Farmville, Virginia.
Despite being geographically closer to his attorneys at the New York-based law firm, Hecker Fink, the new filing claims that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Pennsylvania may be more difficult for the legal team to access than the Virginia detention center.
Read the full story
Cooper Moran, a law student at The University of Alabama School of Law and former reporter for The Tennessee Star, recently participated in oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Read the full story
Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) announced last week that he would introduce a bill to encourage the use of classical architectural styles in federal public buildings.
The legislative proposal would codify President Donald Trump’s executive order (EO), which promotes the use of classical architecture in federal public buildings. Trump’s EO applies to federal buildings that are expected to cost more than $50 million in 2025 dollar value.
Read the full story
A second member of the Grundy County School Board has resigned in the wake of the board’s controversial decision earlier this year to reject state funds intended as one-time bonuses for teachers.
Read the full story
A source told The Tennessee Star on Friday that Ben Schrader, the former U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutor who reportedly resigned over his opposition to the federal human smuggling case brought against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, is among the candidates under consideration for a magistrate judge position by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.
Schrader’s interest in a magistrate judge position comes following the announcement earlier this year that Magistrate Judge Alistair Newbern will retire on January 2, 2026, prompting the court to issue a call for applications in July.
Read the full story
A total of four candidates are seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination to represent Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. With early voting started, Nashville businessman and political consultant Darden Copeland and State Representatives Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville), Vincent Dixie (D-Nashville), and Bo Mitchell (D-Nashville) are making their case to Tennessee Democrats ahead of the primary election on October 7.
All seeking to win a seat ranked solidly Republican by the Cook Political Report, the Democrats have suggested different approaches to secure a majority. Multiple candidates have suggested strategies to expand the Democratic coalition into rural Tennessee, while Behn has argued the winning candidate must increase Democratic turnout will swing the district.
Read the full story