Voters in Florida on Tuesday were provided a constitutional amendment on property taxes for the Nov. 3 ballot.
The measure passed the House of Representatives 75-26 and the Senate 30-9.
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Former Attorney General Pam Bondi defended the U.S. Department of Justice’s release of files associated with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and did not answer questions about President Donald Trump’s involvement in the release.
Bondi testified in a closed session to lawmakers on the U.S. House Oversight Committee Friday over the release of more than three million documents associated with Epstein. She repeatedly referred lawmakers to acting attorney general Todd Blanche on further questions related to the files release, lawmakers said.
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A panel of federal district court judges temporarily blocked Alabama’s plan to enact its 2023 congressional map for upcoming elections.
The Alabama legislature moved to implement its 2023 congressional map after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened section two of the Voting Rights Act, a provision designed to create more majority-minority congressional districts across the country.
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Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday defended a nearly $1.8 billion taxpayer fund through the U.S. Department of Justice aimed at supporting victims of “lawfare and weaponization.”
The $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” would support individuals who have been targeted by “lawfare and weaponization,” according to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. The fund came out of the settlement of a $10 billion lawsuit between President Donald Trump and the IRS over the leaking of his tax returns.
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The Trump administration is still releasing unaccompanied alien children (UAC)s into the U.S., although the numbers are dramatically lower than the unprecedented numbers released by the Biden administration.
UACs are children under age 18 who are primarily smuggled to the U.S. border and arrive claiming they were brought to reunite with family members.
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Inflation increased 0.6% in April, with an overall rate of 3.8% over the last 12 months, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The energy industry remained a key driver of the inflation increase, rising by 3.8% in April. Energy prices were responsible for more than 40% of the overall monthly item increase, largely due to gas prices.
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No tax proposal before Congress would be sufficient on its own to put the federal debt on a sustainable long-term path, according to a new report from the Tax Foundation that finds spending on programs such as Social Security and Medicare is projected to outpace revenues for decades.
The report, “Can Tax Reform Solve the Debt Problem – or Just Slow It?”, released in April by the Washington-based Tax Foundation, simulated nine major tax proposals and found that even the largest tax increases would fail to close the primary deficit over the long run.
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The Trump administration is continuing to crack down on fraudulent visa schemes that are occurring nationwide.
In New Jersey, a Korean man pleaded guilty to fraudulently using a B-1/B-2 visa program in a forced labor and charity fraud scheme. The visas are for business or tourism and prohibit visa holders from working in the U.S.
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Planned Parenthood received $832 million in taxpayer funding in 2024-2025, an increase of $39.8 million from its previous report. A record number of abortions also were performed by the organization.
President of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America Marjorie Dannenfelser told The Center Square that “taxpayer dollars should never be used to fund Planned Parenthood, a business that profits off of killing hundreds of thousands of unborn children every single year.”
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The Department of Health and Human Services plans to appeal a judge’s temporary injunction to change the national childhood vaccine policy.
On Monday, Judge Brian Murphy of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts temporarily blocked Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s efforts to change federal vaccination policies regarding childhood vaccine recommendations and paused the replacement of Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices members.
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California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a coalition of states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over new federal requirements that colleges report detailed data linking race to admissions, financial aid and student outcomes.
The administration says the data will help enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. But the states argue the demands are unprecedented, overly burdensome and likely to produce unreliable data that could be used to launch politically motivated investigations of universities.
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Following a U.S. Senate hearing this week on birthright citizenship, U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt R-Mo and Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, joined a Heritage Foundation webinar panel Wednesday to discuss immigration issues.
“Things are different in part because of what foreign actors are doing; they are weaponizing immigration and using it as a tool to undermine American sovereignty and to advance their own political interests inside the United States,” Schweizer said. “We need to stop thinking of immigration as just an organic economic process driven by push‑and‑pull factors and recognize there are political and strategic implications behind what’s happening.”
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Wednesday, Lawmakers introduced a bill to require greater transparency on the national debt and GDP.
Reps. Lloyd Smucker (R-PA-11) and Jared Golden (D-ME-02) introduced the Debt-to-GDP Transparency and Stabilization Act. The legislation would require the president to submit reports in his annual budget requests that detail the effects of his budget on the country’s national debt and GDP.
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The Georgia police department that fired an officer for asking a biological male to stay out of a women’s restroom will begin putting all its officers through sensitivity training this month. The mandatory “LGBTQIA+” class will push several tenets of transgender ideology that remain in dispute, The Center Square has learned.
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Academic achievement in U.S. public schools continues to fall behind pre-pandemic levels, with national test data showing a persistent decline in math and reading scores years after COVID-19.
Test results from the National Center for Education Statistics show that average scores on 12th-grade math and reading assessments dropped three points from 2019. Among fourth graders, average math scores were also three points lower than before the pandemic, while eighth graders saw math scores decline by eight points over five years. Reading scores for fourth and eighth graders dropped five points between 2019 and 2024.
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Chaos in global energy markets following the launch of Operation Epic Fury is expected to drive record demand for U.S. exports of propane and butane, analysts said Monday.
Following a military strike by the U.S. and Israel that killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and approximately 40 senior officials, Iran launched missile attacks on Saudi Arabia’s largest oil field and targeted civilian and energy infrastructure in at least nine countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Jordan.
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of plaintiffs in a lawsuit against a California law that allowed public schools to conceal a student’s “gender transitions” from their parents, a policy SCOTUS said likely violates the First and Fourteenth amendments.
The lawsuit filed by the Thomas More Society in 2023 when two Escondido teachers sued the Escondido Unified School District in San Diego County, the California Department of Education and Attorney General Rob Bonta, after they were denied a religious accommodation from school policies that required staff to use students’ preferred pronouns upon request.
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“Ban the middlemen” has become the easy applause line in healthcare politics. Tennessee’s version is SB 2040, which would prohibit pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) from owning, controlling, or holding any beneficial interest in pharmacies, including mail-order and specialty operations that ship into the state.
That sounds like a tough stand for “fairness.” But it’s a state-mandated corporate breakup that substitutes political judgment for competition – and risks making access worse for patients.
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In one year, illegal border crossings dropped by 96% at the southwest border, an historic shift from record highs during the Biden administration.
In January, 34,626 illegal border crosser apprehensions were reported nationwide, up from numbers hovering around 30,000 in October, November and December.
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Ongoing smuggling operations continue at the U.S.-Canada border. After alleged offenders are arrested and charged by federal immigration officers, they are being indicted and prosecuted.
Ongoing border crimes are being committed in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Swanton Sector, which reported a record number of illegal border crossers during the Biden administration, The Center Square exclusively reported. The sector includes all of Vermont, six upstate New York counties, and three New Hampshire counties.
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Lawmakers have left town after failing to pass the Homeland Security full-year funding bill, ensuring a partial shutdown of DHS beginning Saturday.
This is the second time in less than six months that Democrats have forced a shutdown over policy demands, with the holdup this time centered around demands for immigration enforcement restrictions.
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The U.S. economy added 130,000 jobs in January, according to new data released from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The addition of jobs marks a significant upward shift from previous months. In December, the economy only added 50,000 jobs and in November it added 64,000.
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An expansion that would double the number of private school vouchers offered by Tennessee topped the list of priorities outlined by Republican Gov. Bill Lee in his final State of the State address on Monday.
The state spent $144 million providing vouchers of $7,295 to 20,000 students in the 2025-2026 school year. Lee proposed $155 million for the program in 2026-2027, which he said would fund vouchers for 40,000 students.
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The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will hear new accusations regarding the Minnesota fraud scandal investigation.
The hearing, which was originally scheduled for Wednesday, will likely feature fierce partisan debate as senators on the Judiciary Committee grapple with allegations of fraud in Minnesota and beyond. Senators postponed the hearing but did not announce a new date at the time of publication.
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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is banning the use of human fetal tissue sourced from elective abortion in federally funded research.
Under the new policy, researchers and institutions cannot receive National Institutes of Health funding if their research involves “the study, analysis, or use of primary HFT [human fetal tissue], cells, and derivatives, and human fetal primary cell cultures obtained from elective abortions.”
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The Tennessee Senate cancelled floor sessions and committee meetings for next week as ice and snow is expected in parts of the state beginning as soon as Friday evening.
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President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he could bypass Congress to send $2,000 tariff rebate checks to some Americans.
This directly contradicts his top economic adviser’s comments last month, making this the first time Trump has proposed issuing tariff-funded checks without congressional approval.
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Police deaths on the job fell 25% in 2025 to 111, an 80-year low not seen since World War II.
The number of law enforcement professionals nationwide who died in 2025 declined by a quarter compared to the same time period last year, according to preliminary data provided by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
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Negotiated lower Medicare costs for 10 popular prescription drugs went into effect Thursday.
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A majority of parents say it is important for high school students to learn civil debate skills, according to a new survey from EdChoice.
The survey examined public opinion on several education-related issues, including school choice policies, technology use in K-12 education and the teaching of “durable skills,” such as communication, critical thinking and teamwork.
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When Congress returns next week, lawmakers will have less than a month to pass the remaining nine appropriations bills funding federal agencies in fiscal year 2026.
Already, however, there are signs of further delay, with two Republican senators pledging to vote against the bill for Labor and Health and Human Services due to its inclusion of $5.69 billion for refugee assistance services.
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The U.S. Supreme Court will head into 2026 with numerous high profile decisions to issue. Transgender athletes, birthright citizenship, presidential firing power, tariffs and redistricting are several issues that hang in the balance of the high court’s decision making.
The Center Square compiled many of the key cases that could have widespread ramifications swpwnsing on how the court rules.
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In the 10 months after President Donald Trump designated Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization, more than 260 of its leaders and members have been federally indicted.
This month, five U.S. attorneys unsealed multiple indictments, including for terrorism, against more than 70 TdA members in Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York and Texas, the DOJ announced.
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As national education spending per pupil rises, student enrollment is dropping and test scores across the United States are falling, which raises concern over how effectively taxpayer dollars are being used in public schools.
Since 2002, K-12 public school spending has increased by more than 35%, yet enrollment has dropped 2.1%, which is over a million students over the past five years. Student achievement has also declined, with only one-third of students nationwide scoring at or above the proficient level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading, according to the National Assessment Governing Board.
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Budget watchdogs are sounding the alarm as the U.S. hit an unfortunate fiscal milestone in fiscal year 2025: government spending on debt interest payments alone topped $1 trillion this year.
The federal government added roughly $1.8 trillion to the now $38 trillion national debt in fiscal year 2025. While net interest on the debt totaled $970 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government’s net interest payments exceeded $1 trillion for the first time.
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When the U.S. Department of Justice released 30,000 more pages of files on Jeffrey Epstein, it also dropped an unusual warning to Americans: some of the files contain false allegations.
“Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election,” the DOJ posted on X on Tuesday.
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The U.S. Justice Department released thousands of documents on Friday related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. However, many documents were heavily redacted, causing outspoken frustration and calls for impeachment proceedings among lawmakers.
The release follows passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act by Congress in November requiring the Justice Department to make publicly available “in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to Epstein.
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Among the names of 33 people pardoned Thursday by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee was Jason “Jelly Roll” DeFord.
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The man suspected of killing two people and wounding nine others at Brown University on Saturday has been identified, multiple media outlets report.
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The United States added 64,000 jobs in the month of November, according to the most recent jobs report.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provided the November jobs report more than a week late due to the federal government shutdown from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12. The bureau did not release a jobs report for October but said the U.S. lost 105,000 jobs, mainly due to federal government cuts.
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More than 9,500 commercial truckers have been taken off of U.S. roads for failing English-language proficiency checks, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said.
“We’ve now knocked 9,500 truck drivers out of service for failing to speak our national language – ENGLISH!” Duffy said in an X post. “This administration will always put you and your family’s safety first.”
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U.S. House members advanced the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, the must-pass annual Pentagon funding bill, in a 312-112 vote on Wednesday.
The roughly $901 billion compromise legislation, which now heads to the Senate, is $8 billion more than the White House requested, but $24 billion less than the Senate’s version of the bill.
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Government unions across the country spent more than $900 million during the 2023-2024 election cycle, according to a new report.
The Commonwealth Foundation’s most recent report found the top four public sector unions: the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees spent over $915 million on politics during the 2023-2024 cycle.
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Amid a steady decline in K-12 enrollment, nearly 2,000 apartments were created from former school buildings across the U.S. in 2024, according to a new report by RentCafe.
The report showed a 296% increase from 2023 to 2024 in school buildings converted into apartment complexes. A
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States around the country, hooked on billions of federal dollars that flooded in during COVID, don’t want the party to end.
But the pandemic subsided three years ago and the federal government, which is $38 trillion in debt, is pulling back on sending money to the states, causing massive budget problems for states like California, Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Washington.
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More than half of all Americans plan to buy things over the five-day holiday weekend, the beginning of a retail shopping season with consumers projected to spend more than $1 trillion.
Some 186.9 million people plan to shop from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, according to a consumer survey from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. That’s about 3 million more shoppers than last year, when about 183.4 million people hit stores to spend more than $970 billion.
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Rising scrutiny of 194,000 state-issued nondomiciled CDLs to foreign workers with poor English language proficiency reveal two routes to safety.
Rule change is one, done by the U.S. Department of Transportation in September and idled by litigation. Congressional action – Rep. Dave Taylor, R-Ohio, filed a seventh related proposal Thursday – to create a statute is the other.
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Sales of existing homes climbed 1.2% in October, according to a report released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors.
The 1.2% increase in existing-home sales is equal to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.10 million in October. Unsold inventory dropped 0.7% to 1.52 million units. That’s equal to 4.4 months’ supply. A six-month supply is generally considered a balanced market.
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Affordable Care Act health insurance premiums are expected to rise about 26% in 2026, the biggest increase in eight years and much higher than overall U.S. inflation.
New industry data show ACA plans will see the largest cost spike of any major sector in the economy as Congress weighs the next round of federal healthcare funding.
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Average family health insurance premiums rose 6% in 2025, nearing $27,000, underscoring consistent increases and warning of more hikes ahead.
Higher healthcare spending, including increased hospital and drug prices, is driving up the cost of coverage, according to an annual survey from the nonprofit KFF. For most American families, $27,000 is a lot of money. The median household income was $83,730 in 2024. In the September, the average price of a new vehicle in the U.S. topped $50,000, according to Kelley Blue Book. A Toyota Camry costs about 27,000, so does a hybrid Toyota Corolla. The best selling vehicle in the U.S., a Ford F-150, costs about $39,000.
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