U.S. Rep. Matt Van Epps (R-TN-07) touted his legislative accomplishments as a freshman congressman and his efforts to strengthen national security during an exclusive sit-down with The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy ahead of Tennessee’s November 3 general election.
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Early voting for Tennessee’s November 3 general election begins Wednesday, giving voters a chance to cast ballots before Election Day in races for governor, the U.S. Senate, Congress, and the Tennessee General Assembly.
The November 3 general election will include contests for governor and the state’s U.S. Senate seat currently held by U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), along with all nine of Tennessee’s U.S. House seats.
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CBS News The tests confirmed a diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, the Vatican said in a medical bulletin after the surgery. It said the diagnosis had been suspected by preoperative tests and was confirmed during surgery. The 71-year-old pontiff was in the operating room for about 3 hours, the statement said. The surgery itself lasted approximately 90 minutes. “The surgery was successful, and there were no complications,” the statement said. “To ensure a radical resection, the lower lobe of the right lung was removed using a video-assisted technique,” the Vatican said in a statement. “Intraoperative histological examination confirmed the diagnosis of pulmonary adenocarcinoma, as suspected from pre-operative tests.” READ THE FULL STORY
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The Trump administration ended the Biden-era Welcome Corps refugee program months before one of its proponents, the Niskanen Center, published a report identifying seven Tennessee counties as potential destinations for new immigrants.
Niskanen, a pro-immigration think tank that has received funding from the Open Society Foundations, in March 2022 joined the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), Amnesty International USA, and the Community Sponsorship Hub in policy recommendations submitted to the U.S. State Department in response to a February 2021 executive order produced by President Joe Biden, which directed federal agencies to expand refugee resettlement.
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CNBC Bank of America was hit with more than $1.2 billion in federal penalties Tuesday after regulators said the nation’s second-largest bank failed for years to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions and fix longstanding anti-money-laundering problems. More than $1 billion of the unreported activity involved national security and other high-priority risks, including Chinese money-laundering networks and activity tied to the southwest border, Treasury said in a press release. The action also lands less than a day before the bank reports quarterly earnings Wednesday morning. READ THE FULL STORY
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Breitbart The U.S. Embassy in Caracas announced the restoration and reopening of a plaza honoring Abraham Lincoln Venezuela’s capital city. The Abraham Lincoln Plaza, often shortened to Lincoln Plaza, is a public space featuring a bust of the sixteenth United States president located in Bello Monte, a neighborhood in Baruta, one the five municipalities that form the broader Caracas Metropolitan District. The plaza was originally built in the 1950s but had fallen into disrepair in recent years as a result of the Venezuelan socialist regime’s animosity toward the United States during the rule of deposed dictator Nicolás Maduro. The American Embassy in Caracas announced on Monday that the plaza was restored and reopened on Friday during an official event alongside Mayor of Baruta Darwin González. The restoration of the Lincoln Plaza is part of the Trump administration’s Freedom 250 celebrations commemorating 250 years of American freedom. READ THE FULL STORY
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U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle on Tuesday confirmed her departure from the position in a social media post in which she said that her time in the role was “coming to an end.”
The White House announced that it had asked her to leave on Tuesday morning, amid a scandal involving her allegedly seeking $100,000 to pay off a credit card bill.
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A panel of federal judges last week dismissed the lawsuit brought by the Tennessee State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), who challenged Tennessee’s recently-redrawn Congressional maps based on claims that Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly exploited a rushed process to conceal their alleged use of racial census data in order to diminish the weight of black voters in Memphis.
The three judges assigned to the case noted in their dismissal order, which was made publicly available on Monday, that the plaintiffs “alleged that the legislature engaged in a racist conspiracy and public coverup to intentionally dilute the Black vote in Tennessee.”
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House Republicans are pushing ahead with sweeping legislation to obliterate sanctuary cities, setting up a post-election vote that would empower victims of illegal immigrants’ crimes to sue the local officials who released them from custody.
The Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act passed through the House Judiciary Committee with little fanfare last month, creating a path for GOP lawmakers to impose the toughest crackdown yet on states and cities that refuse to turn over illegal immigrants under federal detainers or outright release migrants in their custody.
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Three men are facing multiple felony charges after an armed robbery at a Franklin home, according to the Franklin Police Department (FPD).
On Monday, FPD announced in a release that officers responded to a home in northeast Franklin shortly after 11 p.m. on Friday, October 9, following a report of an armed robbery.
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A plurality of Americans now back a “Medicare for All” program, according to a new Axios-Ipsos poll released Tuesday.
The newly released survey found that 43% of respondents back a proposal to enact a “Medicare for All” program that would supply government-run health insurance to all Americans. Meanwhile, 24% of Americans said they would oppose such a proposal, while 32% said they were unsure.
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The search Monday of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington, D.C., home by federal agents was focused on the Minnesota Democrat’s immigration history, raising the prospects of legal and denaturalization risks for the Somalian-born lawmaker.
Federal agents with the Homeland Security Investigations division of the Department of Homeland Security were seen outside Omar’s home in the early hours of Monday.
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The SEC implemented standardized contracts for name, image, and likeness (NIL) and revenue-sharing contracts, according to CBS Sports.
The outlet reported that SEC school presidents voted Monday to make this change. These contracts, which will include customizable portions, went into effect immediately
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China is studying Russia’s bloody war in Ukraine, and experts say the lessons learned could make Beijing think twice about invading Taiwan.
The Chinese military is drawing lessons from Russian battlefield tactics and Ukraine’s successful attacks against Russian warships, airfields and military installations, according to a new Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report. The findings raise questions about whether Beijing could use the conflict to improve its chances in a future war over Taiwan, potentially challenging American military superiority in the Indo-Pacific, according to the CSIS analysis published Wednesday.
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Cornell University is suspending parties and other social events at fraternity houses for the remainder of the academic year, the school’s president said Tuesday, amid the resurfacing of allegations a female student was sexually assaulted at a frat house in 2024.
Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff said in announcing the ban on such parties that New York State Police will have a role in investigating sex crimes on campus.
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The Supreme Court will hear a case on whether the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has to release extensive records of deliberations on cutting government spending.
The Trump administration is challenging a lower court’s sweeping discovery order against DOGE despite a previous Supreme Court ruling to narrow the order. The administration argues that the department is exempt from public records law as a White House advisory board.
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Republican gubernatorial nominee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) made her case to Tennessee voters in an exclusive interview with The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy this week as early voting approaches, declaring she is the race’s “only conservative Republican” and warning her opponents would raise taxes, drive up prices, and make the state less safe.
“The campaign is going great; we are working hard,” Blackburn said Monday during an appearance on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it is not planning Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations targeting polling locations.
Popular Democracy Executive Director DaMareo Cooper laid out a list of grievances he said people should watch out for this election.
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The other day, I found myself facing two decisions. The first of these was whether I could take the time off work to drive four hours—two hours up and two hours back—for an event lasting less than twenty minutes. Given that the event in question was my son’s cross-country meet, it wasn’t a hard decision. He’s my youngest, after all, and in another blink of an eye, he’ll be done running high school meets and off doing something else, something I can’t take the afternoon off work to go watch, whether I want to or not. I’d have been a fool not to go.
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