Mason Burchette, owner and chief operating officer of the Knoxville-based company True Metal Supply, continues to purchase billboards across East Tennessee and Western North Carolina to honor the life of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk.
Kirk died after being shot at his American Comeback Tour event held at Utah Valley University on September 10.
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After a joint operation by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) found “mass patterns” of marriage and other immigration fraud in Minneapolis, the agency’s director says denaturalization and prosecutions are on the table.
Operation Twin Shield, which was conducted by USCIS in coordination with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the FBI in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, flagged over 1,000 cases suspected of involving “fraud or ineligibility indicators,” the agency shared in an after-action announcement.
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Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James will headline a rally on Monday for Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, marking her first public appearance following her federal indictment.
The indictment against James, unsealed on Thursday, centers around allegations of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution, which she claimed were “baseless charges.” Mamdani’s rally, titled “Our Time Has Come,” will launch the campaign’s call for constituents to get out and vote ahead of the Nov. 4 general election.
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State Representative Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) earned an early endorsement from the Justice Democrats, a progressive political action committee (PAC) launched by former staffers for Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), in his campaign to unseat U.S. Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN-09).
On Monday, the group began raising money for Pearson, sharing with their audience his participation in a 2023 anti-gun riot at the Tennessee State House, which resulted in his expulsion from the legislature that year.
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President Donald Trump is urging China to reverse sweeping export restrictions on rare earth elements vital to advanced manufacturing, warning that further escalation of tariffs could lead to a depression.
“Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine!” the president wrote in a post Truth Social on Sunday evening. “Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment. He doesn’t want Depression for his country, and neither do I. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!!”
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House Speaker Mike Johnson says he has spoken with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene following the fellow Republican lawmaker’s criticism of their party over healthcare costs and Obamacare subsidies that could expire at the end of the year as Congress is paralyzed by a government shutdown.
Johnson also said he offered to give Greene a seat at the table on healthcare negotiations, likely to rein in her sharp criticism.
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The Associated Press Republican Speaker Mike Johnson predicted Monday the federal government shutdown may become the longest in history, saying he “won’t negotiate” with Democrats until they hit pause on their health care demands and reopen. Standing alone at the Capitol on the 13th day of the shutdown, the speaker said he was unaware of the details of the thousands of federal workers being fired by the Trump administration. It’s a highly unusual mass layoff widely seen as way to seize on the shutdown to reduce the scope of government. Vice President JD Vance has warned of “painful” cuts ahead, even as employee unions sue. “We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history,” Johnson of Louisiana said. READ THE FULL STORY
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Axios JPMorgan announced Monday that it’s planning a $1.5 trillion investment initiative aimed at bolstering sectors critical to the U.S. economy over the next decade, including up to $10 billion in direct equity and venture investments. The announcement comes on the heels of President Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese goods in response to Beijing’s expansion of rare earth export controls — one of the most heated exchanges since the trade war began. On a call with reporters, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon made it clear this investment is about strategy, not a move to curry political favor with the administration. READ THE FULL STORY
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The Washington Post A historic wave of retirements and other departures has swept through the federal workforce in recent months, putting enormous strain on agencies as they cope with a new government shutdown and administration layoffs. This mass exodus — unprecedented in its scale — includes 154,000 federal employees who accepted buyout offers and were largely removed from the payroll as of the end of last month. Some of those are among nearly 105,000 employees who took regular retirement during the fiscal year that ended in September, an 18 percent surge from the previous year. Tens of thousands of the cases are still awaiting processing, creating a crisis for already understaffed human resources offices across the government and the Office of Personnel Management. READ THE FULL STORY
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Todd Kaestner, a Tennessee healthcare executive and former Williamson County commissioner now running for mayor, says his campaign is focused on “preserving and protecting” the lives of Williamson County residents by bringing his executive experience to local leadership.
Kaestner announced his candidacy for Williamson County mayor last month, kickstarting his campaign with $250,000 of his personal funds.
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The Metro Nashville Council approved a contract last week that provides $355,200 to a nonprofit organization to deliver healthcare services to homeless people in the city.
United Neighborhood Health Services (UNHS) will be providing homeless people with “medical, dental, mental health, and substance abuse services at two or more clinics located in or near downtown Nashville.”
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One of the Maryland immigration attorneys representing Kilmar Abrego Garcia in his civil lawsuit against the Trump administration on Friday slammed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after its witness, who was ordered to appear on short notice by Obama-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis, provided no new information about what steps were being taken to deport his client to Costa Rica.
Abrego Garcia first designated Costa Rica as his preferred destination for removal earlier this year, when the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and State Department obtained diplomatic assurances from the Central American nation as part of a plea deal that Abrego Garcia later declined.
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The Humphreys County Sheriff’s Office reported that Friday’s explosion at an explosives manufacturing facility in McEwen is believed to have resulted in 16 fatalities.
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Today we remember the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who in October 1492 landed in the Bahamas and became the first Western European to discover what the Europeans would call the New World.
When Columbus and his crew of approximately 200 sailors left Spain in three crowded ships – the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria – they set their sails toward an unknown horizon. They expected to discover a trade route to India. (Most Europeans at the time knew the earth was round – but they were unaware of the North and South American continents.) Instead of finding a route to Southeast Asia, Columbus and his crew landed on a continent of new opportunities. Columbus’s accidental discovery opened a permanent passage across the Atlantic and redrew the known map of the world.
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