Day: March 23, 2026

Questions Surround the Improbable Pickleball Death of Cheerleading Industry Founder Jeff Webb

Tom Pappert and Michael Patrick Leahy
Jeff Webb

Few additional details have emerged since news broke last Friday that Jeff Webb died at 76, reportedly about two weeks after suffering a fall while playing pickleball, leaving the public with little information about the circumstances preceding the passing of the Tennessee entrepreneur who is credited with catapulting competitive cheerleading into an international sport.

It remains unclear when the accident took place, with the announcement of his passing suggesting it occurred sometime between about March 3 and March 6. The hospital where Webb was treated for about two weeks after the fall, before his family decided to remove life support, has also yet to be named.

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President Trump Highlights ‘Historic’ Drop in Memphis Crime During Roundtable

Kaitlin Housler
Trump at Grantland

President Donald Trump visited Memphis on Monday, where he participated in a roundtable discussion with local, state, and federal leaders, highlighting what he described as dramatic progress in reducing violent crime through the Memphis Safe Task Force.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and Attorney General Pam Bondi were among those who joined Trump at the event, held at the Tennessee Air National Guard Armory near the Memphis airport.

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Senate Confirms New DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin as Democrats Continue Funding Blockade

Daily Caller News Foundation
Mullin hearing

The Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Monday night, the 38th day of the department’s partial shutdown.

The Senate confirmed Republican Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin as DHS Secretary the same day the administration sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to airports to assist with security while thousands of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees work unpaid through the shutdown. There has been little movement in negotiations over Democrats’ demands to reform the department’s law enforcement policies despite some bipartisan meetings on Capitol Hill the previous week.

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Far-Left Activist Refuses to Pay Federal Income Taxes over Opposition to Deportations, Iran Strikes

Tom Pappert
Rachel Cohen

A far-left activist who co-founded a grassroots organization that seeks to push the Democratic Party to adopt more progressive positions has received millions of views on TikTok videos claiming she will not pay her federal income taxes for 2025 due to her political opposition to the Trump administration’s strikes in Iran and mass deportations of illegal aliens. 

“I’m not paying my federal income tax this year,” said attorney and activist Rachel Cohen said in a video posted to TikTok earlier this month, which has since accrued more than 600,000 views.

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‘Free Tina!’: Trump Calls to Release Imprisoned County Clerk Convicted in 2020 Election Case

Just the News

President Donald Trump on Monday called for the release of Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk who was convicted for giving a man linked to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell access to a voting machine.

“For years, Democrats ignored Violent and Vicious Crime of all shapes, sizes, colors, and types. Violent Criminals who should have been locked up were allowed to attack again,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Democrats were also far too happy to let in the worst from the worst countries so they could rip off American Taxpayers. Democrats only think there is one crime – Not voting for them!”

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Aubrie Sellers Releases’ Attachment Theory’ Album

Bethany Bowman
Aubrie Sellers

Music Spotlight artist, Aubrie Sellers, has released her 3rd solo album, Attachment Theory. This project shows a darker, edgier side of the gifted singer/songwriter. It is full of hard-won wisdom from bracing through the hellscape of modern dating. It is paired with a companion podcast of the same name.

Little did we know when I featured Sellers and her Far From Home album in January of 2020 that our world would soon shut down and our lives would be forever changed. Sellers was slated to open for Tanya Tucker on the 2020 CMT Next Women of Country: Bring My Flowers Now Tour, but only a few select dates occurred.

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ICE Officers Deployed to Some Airports as TSA Callouts Worsen

Admin
BREAKING NEWS

CNN   Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been deployed to 14 airports today to help during the Department of Homeland Security shutdown. The Transportation Security Administration has faced growing callouts from officers who have gone without pay since DHS funding lapsed in February. Travelers have been dealing with worsening airport wait times, with George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston warning flyers it could take more than four hours to get through. LaGuardia Airport in New York was reopened this afternoon after a fatal collision between an Air Canada plane and a fire truck. Track wait times at major airports here. There are few signs lawmakers will reach an agreement to fund DHS, which includes TSA, ahead of a scheduled holiday break. President Donald Trump last night rejected a potential off-ramp to end the shutdown, sources told CNN, as he’s told Republicans to “only settle” if they can pass a federal elections overhaul bill. READ THE FULL STORY   

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Bipartisan Senators Unveil Bill Banning Sports Prediction Market Contracts

Admin
BREAKING NEWS

The Hill   Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and John Curtis (R-Utah) introduced a bill Monday that would ban prediction markets from listing sports bets or casino-style games on their platforms. The Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act would block entities that are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), like prediction markets, from allowing wagers on sporting events or games traditionally found in casinos. The measure comes amid a growing dispute between state and federal regulators over the platforms and whether they have to follow state gambling laws. READ THE FULL STORY   

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Trump Rejects John Thune’s Proposal to Fund DHS Without ICE

Admin
BREAKING NEWS

Breitbart   President Donald Trump reportedly rejected Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s (R-SD) proposal to cut a deal with Democrats to fund the Department of Homeland Security without funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Punchbowl News reported that on Sunday, Thune shared the proposal to Trump with the caveat that ICE could be funded down the line through reconciliation. The outlet reported: Democrats wouldn’t get some of their chief demands — banning masks for federal agents or requiring judicial warrants — if reconciliation were used. Plus, TSA agents would get their paychecks and the security-line madness at airports would end. READ THE FULL STORY   

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Trump Looks to Sever Cuba from Sponsorship of Its Foreign Patrons, Chinese and Russian Influence

Just the News
Trump and Cuba

President Donald Trump is executing the playbook he developed for Venezuela to pressure the communist Cuban regime to capitulate, thereby removing the last major bastion of foreign adversary influence in the Western Hemisphere.

And after essentially cutting off the island’s oil supply, there are signs that the regime is starting to feel the heat.  

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Biden Admin Let College Student’s Alleged Illegal Alien Killer into Country, DHS Says

Daily Caller News Foundation
Jose Medina

The illegal immigrant who killed Sheridan Gorman was released into the country by the Biden administration after being arrested by U.S. Border Patrol.

Gorman, an 18-year-old student at Loyola University, was allegedly shot and killed by Jose Medina-Medina late Thursday night near the campus. Medina-Medina, a Venezuelan illegal immigrant, approached Gorman’s group “while wearing a mask” and gunned down the student as she attempted to flee according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

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Chi-SpyGate: Intel Board to Probe If Spy Agencies Withheld China Election Secrets over Politics

Just the News
Vote Here polling place sign

The civilian board that oversees America’s spy agencies will probe whether political bias kept intelligence analysts from sharing with Congress and President Donald Trump evidence that China meddled in elections dating to 2020, its chairman says after an explosive report by Just the News.

“We ran a decade-long investigation in the Congress into China, and so this new bombshell that you just dropped is very concerning to me, and it should be to the Congress,” President’s Intelligence Advisory Board Chairman Devin Nunes told the Just the News, No Noise television show.

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Trump Installs Christopher Columbus Statue Outside White House

Daily Caller News Foundation
Christopher Columbus

President Donald Trump installed a statue of Christopher Columbus outside of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Sunday.

The statue originally stood in Baltimore, Maryland, and was dumped into the city’s harbor by Black Lives Matter rioters on July 4, 2020. The Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO) reconstructed the statue as a replica of the one destroyed in 2020, according to the organization’s press release.

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Filing Claims Colombian Journalist Arrested by ICE in Nashville Obtained REAL ID Despite Tennessee Blocking Driver’s Licenses for Illegal Aliens

Tom Pappert
Estefany Rodriguez Flores

A status update submitted to a federal court last Friday claimed the Colombian journalist arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this month, Estefany Rodriguez Flores, has been issued a REAL ID, even though Tennessee law prohibits illegal aliens from obtaining a driver’s license.

Attorneys representing Rodriguez Flores confirmed she was released after paying a $10,000 bond in last week’s status update to U.S. District Court Judge Eli Richardson, but also claimed, “ICE retained her Colombian passport, her REAL ID, and her work permit and is requiring her to make a certain request to try to recover them.”

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Commentary: The Cost of Closing Pharmacies

Star News Contributor

When tragedy strikes or major policy changes are enacted, the first question I ask is simple: who bears the risk? In Tennessee, a proposed bill (SB2040/HB1959) that would force numerous pharmacies to close. Pharmacies are not interchangeable storefronts. They are a necessary part of the health infrastructure. If we shutter a significant share of that infrastructure without a thoughtful transition plan, patients – not policymakers – will absorb the shock.

As a former public-safety leader and police chief who has managed large-scale crises, I’ve seen how critical pharmacies are to the health and resilience of communities. During the opioid epidemic, when our city’s Level I trauma center was overwhelmed with overdose patients, it was local round-the-clock pharmacies that stepped up. They became reliable sources of Narcan for individuals struggling with substance use disorder and for nonprofit harm-reduction agencies working to prevent deaths. That access saved lives and reduced pressure on emergency departments.
Pharmacies are also one of the primary access points for naloxone, the medication that reverses opioid overdoses. Wider access to Narcan saves lives before first responders arrive and reduces strain on emergency services. Policies that reduce pharmacy access risk reversing that progress.

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‘Not the Full Story’: Leahy, Pappert Seek Answers on Jeff Webb’s Fatal Pickleball Injury

Kaitlin Housler
Jeff Webb

The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy and lead reporter Tom Pappert are raising a series of unresolved questions about the circumstances of cheerleading pioneer Jeff Webb’s fatal pickleball injury earlier this month, casting doubt on how a routine fall in a low-risk sport could lead to a deadly head trauma and signaling the start of a broader investigation into what they say may be “not the full story.”

Webb, 76, died March 19 after suffering a severe head injury in a fall while playing pickleball roughly two weeks earlier.

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Trump Admin Urges Judge to Clear Immediate Path for Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia, Setting Stage for Appeal

Tom Pappert
KAG

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) submitted a filing last week asking District Court Judge Paula Xinis to dissolve her order prohibiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the alleged human smuggler whom the Obama-appointed judge ordered the agency to release in December 2025.

Despite the Trump administration working for months to deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia, Xinis ruled last year that he must be released, determining the only possible destination for his removal is Costa Rica, which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has declined to consider, leaving no realistic option for his removal.

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TN Congressman Andy Ogles Says His ‘Assimilation Act’ Would Be Largest Immigration Reform in U.S. History

Kaitlin Housler
Hart Celler Act

U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) said a bill he is working on, called the Assimilation Act of 2026, would fundamentally reshape the nation’s immigration system by repealing decades-old policies and tightening eligibility standards.

During a taping of the new long-form podcast, Michael Patrick Leahy Interviews, Ogles outlined key elements of the legislation and defended his broader push for stricter immigration controls.

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