The Knox County Commission unanimously passed a resolution that bans data center construction for one year.
The resolution will allow the county to develop zoning regulations for data centers to “address current and emerging technologies not yet covered by existing zoning regulations.”
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Metro Nashville on Tuesday told The Tennessee Star that Metro estimates it will need until July 10 to provide documents justifying the nearly $1.5 million in grants awarded to the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors (TNJFON) in the fiscal year (FY) 2027 budget passed earlier this month.
The response from Metro came six business days after Metro confirmed receipt of the public records request on June 12, at which point the request had been sent to the Metro Department of Finance, the law department, the mayor’s office, and the Metro Council.
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Dr. George S. Ford, the chief economist at the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies, last month released a bulletin contradicting claims made by a professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) and employee of the Electric Power Board (EPB) of Chattanooga about the economic impact of the EPB municipal broadband network.
Ford wrote the bulletin in response to claims published by EPB last November by Dr. Bento Lobo of UTC and EPB employee William Plank in their own report, which asserted the public utility’s fiber infrastructure produced “$5.3 billion and 10,420 jobs” between 2011 and 2025, and created the ecosystem for new businesses and entrepreneurs to thrive.
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Eight protesters whom the Justice Department accuses of having ties to Antifa were sentenced Tuesday to decades in federal prison in connection to a shooting last year outside a federal immigration detention center in Texas.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, who was one of two judges overseeing the trial, said the demonstration wasn’t a protest but “an assault on democracy.” He said the need to deter the type of behavior seen at the protest is high.
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A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent has evidence that his agency and federal prosecutors let more than 1 million fentanyl pills flow onto the streets of New Mexico during the Biden era and then tried to silence him from testifying after he blew the whistle, the agent’s lawyer tells Just the News.
“DEA has a campaign that says one pill can kill, and so the DEA allowing this to happen was really significant. It was driven also by the US Attorney’s Office in New Mexico,” Attorney Tristan Leavitt, president of the Empower Oversight, whistleblower center, said in an interview Monday night.
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California drivers sued several major gas stations Monday accusing them of using artificial intelligence to increase gas prices.
BP, Walmart, 7-Eleven, Marathon Petroleum, Circle K, and several other gas stations face a class-action lawsuit from drivers in the Golden State after allegedly using an AI tool to inflate fuel costs. The artificial intelligence uses data from competing gas stations to “coordinate high prices and wring more money from the pockets of consumers,” according to the suit.
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A federal judge on Monday struck down multiple state pilot programs that restricted Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients from using their benefits to buy unhealthy foods.
Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins incorrectly interpreted federal law when approving limits on what SNAP recipients could purchase with their benefits, Politico reported. The ruling impacts such pilot programs in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia, according to the outlet.
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The Justice Department has concluded that the Department of Agriculture’s preferences for “socially disadvantaged” farmers violate the Constitution’s promise of equal protection.
“Racial discrimination is illegal,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Monday in making the announcement, “and the government cannot show preference to certain groups when awarding special benefits without a compelling reason to justify the classification.”
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The Hill A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s efforts to fast-track deportations for undocumented immigrants across the country through an expedited process that’s typically reserved for individuals who recently crossed the southern border. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a 2-1 ruling, overturning a lower-court decision blocking the efforts last year. Advocacy group Make the Roads New York sued the Office of the Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security after it expanded the expedited removal policy, making it applicable to all immigrants who could not prove they’ve been residing in the country for more than two years. READ THE FULL STORY
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Breitbart Growth in business activity in the U.S. accelerated for the third consecutive month in June, boosted by strong growth in demand and output in the manufacturing sector. S&P Global said its flash composite purchasing managers index rose to a five-month high of 52.2 from 51.5 in May. That was a larger increase than economists had anticipated. The PMIs are derived from surveys of supply chain managers and corporate executives. The preliminary readings are labeled “flash” because they include only a portion of the responses. The composite PMI includes responses from executives in both the services and manufacturing sectors. READ THE FULL STORY
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CBS News The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a former Louisiana inmate’s effort to sue state prison officials after they shaved his dreadlocks in violation of his religious beliefs. The high court divided 6 to 3 along ideological lines in ruling against Damon Landor, with the three liberal justices in dissent. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the opinion for the majority. Landor, who is a devout Rastafarian, sought to sue the Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety and prison officials for violations of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, or RLUIPA, after prison guards shaved his head. While lower courts condemned Landor’s treatment, judges on two different courts dismissed his claims. The Supreme Court’s ruling upholds the decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit rejecting Landor’s effort to revive his suit against the officers. READ THE FULL STORY
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The Senate passed a piece of bipartisan legislation Monday that aimed to lower the cost of housing.
The upper chamber passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act in a 85-5 vote, which aimed to tackle the housing affordability crisis by cutting red tape and increasing the housing supply, expanding loans to build housing and curbing Wall Street’s ownership of single-family homes. While the House and Senate initially had their own versions of the bill, both chambers reached a deal Tuesday.
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Lisa Daftari, Editor-in-Chief of The Foreign Desk, said the U.S. must approach ongoing negotiations with Tehran cautiously, arguing that the Iranian regime has spent decades mastering the art of using diplomacy to advance its own interests while avoiding meaningful concessions.
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Rhode Island Senate president Valarie Lawson allegedly used her office to advance her teachers union’s political agenda.
Lawson is salaried as National Education Association of Rhode Island’s (NEARI) president in addition to presiding over the state Senate, Defending Education stated in an ethics complaint Monday. The complaint alleges that she used her overlapping roles to advance NEARI’s legislative priorities.
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Legal commentator and retired attorney Mark Pulliam said a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court opinion sharply criticizing Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner illustrates the dangers of progressive prosecutors who, he argues, fail to fully enforce the law and undermine the integrity of the criminal justice system.
Speaking during Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Pulliam discussed the court’s decision and argued that prosecutors who decline to aggressively enforce criminal laws can undermine the justice system.
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Senate Homeland Security Chairman Rand Paul issued a subpoena Monday to force former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci to testify in front of his panel after the Biden administration official declined to do so voluntarily.
The senator claimed Fauci previously agreed to testify in front of the panel, but former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on her last day in office last week declassified a several-hundred-page agency report on Fauci related to when he was NIAID director, the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuing, unresolved issue of the origin of the deadly virus.
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Somewhere in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, a small steel-town school district of about 1,400 kids, a school board member is looking at a budget line that didn’t exist a decade ago. In 2014, the district had approximately seven English Learner or “EL” students. In 2024, that number crossed 200.
Charleroi is a small story with a national plot. Over the past decade, the number of students who require extra support with English or multilingual education has exploded nationwide. From Georgia to Ohio and from Texas to Colorado, we are seeing the same thing: as the share of students needing English language services has gone up, the share of the budget going to core classroom instruction has gone down.
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Multi-talented artist Dennis Quaid, Tanya Tucker, and the late legendary Songwriter Kris Kristofferson recently released a new single, “On My Way to Heaven,” available from Gaither Music Group.
In 2023, Dennis Quaid released a gospel album, Fallen: A Gospel Album For Sinners, via the Gaither Music Group. The album combined seven soul-stirring renditions of hymns with five original songs, in which Quaid delivered honest, inspiring lyrics sung in an unmistakable tone that reflects heartfelt gratitude and eternal hope.
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