A federal judge temporarily blocked on Friday President Donald Trump’s effort to limit the use of mail-in ballots ahead of the November mid-term elections, as ballots are going out in one state.
It is the same judge, Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, who blocked an earlier, related effort, ruling that the executive order Trump issued in March was likely unlawful and unconstitutional, according to NBC News.
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Nick Shirley announced today on X that he is suing the state of California over the controversial bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that critics have dubbed the “Stop Nick Shirley Act.”
AB 2624 restricts the publication of certain identifying information about workers at organizations that provide immigration-related services when a worker submits a written request that the information not be published.
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The Memphis Safe Task Force (MSTF) averaged about 28 arrests per day throughout August, according to the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), which said more than 850 alleged criminals were taken off the streets by task force members.
A USMS press release sent Monday said task force members made 853 arrests last month, averaging about 27.5 per day. As a result of the arrests, the MSTF also seized 118 illegal firearms, or about 3.8 per day.
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has revealed that the unlicensed driver arrested in July, and charged with Vehicular Homicide by intoxication for his alleged role in a fatal motorcycle accident, entered the United States illegally under President Joe Biden.
In a Wednesday press release, ICE said that Alfonso Vasquez-Morales is a Mexican national who illegally crossed the border into the United States sometime in 2023. The agency said Vasquez-Morales “entered the United States without authorization through Arizona and has resided in the country illegally for approximately three years.”
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The Department of Justice has filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools (KCKPS), alleging the district’s transgender and gender-nonconforming student guidelines violate federal law by facilitating “secret gender transitions” without parental consent.
The lawsuit follows a monthslong standoff and the Trump administration’s threat to withhold nearly $70 million in federal funding if the district failed to comply with parental rights laws.
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Judge William Sullivan on Friday declared a mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy murder case after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied the defense’s motion for an emergency stay.
Sullivan initially declared his intent to declare a mistrial on Friday morning, but walked back those plans to allow defense attorney Kevin Reddington to petition the higher court for intervention, which was denied on Friday.
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The Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General has concluded that Lori Chavez-DeRemer when she was the agency’s secretary had an “inappropriately close and unprofessional” relationship with her bodyguard, which created a hostile work environment for her subordinates.
The office released the 44-page report Thursday after having initiated the investigation from an anonymous complaint received in January. The complaint alleged that Chavez-DeRemer had the inappropriate relationship with the assistant special agent-in-charge of her agency’s Division of Protective Operations, according to Fox News.
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Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said a recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforcement operation at a Memphis nightclub could ultimately “expose a whole lot more,” raising questions about the establishment’s ownership, permits, and roughly $70,000 in federal Payment Protection Program (PPP) loans.
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Kevin Kreutz, who recently left his position as Deputy Attorney General of Tennessee, will be the latest attorney to pass from that office to Holtzman Vogel, the company announced on Tuesday.
Prior to leaving his position for the Tennessee Attorney General’s office, Kreutz was the lead counsel in a major challenge to Tennessee’s pharmacy benefit manger (PBM) laws, the counsel of record for Tennessee in a legal action that resulted in $25.6 million in restitution and $25.6 million in penalties against a precious metals company, and participated in Tennessee’s lawsuit over the Biden administration’s attempt to shield certain patient records from Medicaid fraud investigations.
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday told The Tennessee Star that Marco Sabillon-Urbina, who was among the more than 120 arrests made on Sunday at the Memphis nightclub El Corralón, is a previously deported illegal alien who previously pleaded guilty to using a controlled substance while in possession of a firearm.
The confirmation from DHS came one day after the Memphis Permits Office told The Star that El Corralón, which also uses the name Marisqueria El Corral, had obtained neither a beer permit nor a dance permit from the City of Memphis.
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The Ohio State University has agreed to pay the federal government a $2.1 million settlement over allegations the school didn’t disclose employee affiliations with China when seeking federal research funding, becoming the latest university to settle over such allegations.
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Three people were killed, including the suspected gunman, and six others were wounded after gunfire erupted Wednesday afternoon inside a downtown high-rise apartment building, officials said. Casualties included three Minneapolis police officers.
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The Memphis nightclub where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made more than 120 arrests on Sunday previously received two Payment Protection Program (PPP) loans during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an online database containing more than 11 million PPP loan records.
Though U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and pro-illegal alien activists in Memphis have described the establishment as a nightclub named El Corralón, the building where Operation Corral Light was conducted indicates it has been named Marisqueria El Corral since at least 2019.
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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Wednesday demanded the FBI turn over all evidence related to a counterintelligence operation during the 2020 election codenamed “Round River” that classified President Donald Trump’s own administration officials and political allies as “conduits” of Russian disinformation.
The letter from Jordan to FBI Director Kash Patel was prompted by the first substantive revelations about the Round River operation contained in declassified documents made public last month by the White House Government Transparency Task Force.
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A federal judge has dismissed a Justice Department suit against California over its policies on transgender participation in sports.
The Department of Justice took exception to California’s policy requiring schools to allow students to participate in athletics on the basis of their gender identity.
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A federal judge in Hawaii Monday allowed the state to continue prohibiting young adults under the age of 21 from owning firearms.
United States District Judge Jill Aiko Otake of the District of Hawaii, a Trump appointee, upheld the state’s prohibition on firearm ownership without a license that could not be issued to anyone under 21 in the ruling. The judge said the law, which was challenged in a suit brought by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on behalf of several individuals, didn’t violate the Second Amendment.
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The Justice Department’s new report on the Richmond Catholic Memo reveals that the FBI had cited the Southern Poverty Law Center more than 22,000 times, at times without any caveats, even though FBI policies would require any SPLC citation to note potential bias and contested credibility.
The Richmond office of the FBI published the notorious memo on Jan. 23, 2023, claiming that “racially-motivated violent extremists” were seeking to recruit “radical traditional Catholics.” The memo didn’t just cite the SPLC, it did so without any caveats about the SPLC’s questionable credibility.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti on Tuesday announced that U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker last week upheld the Tennessee law prohibiting courts from considering a defendant’s ability to pay when setting their bond.
Among other complaints, the litigation alleged that the law was unconstitutionally vague. Tennessee still allows its judges and magistrates to consider a defendant’s employment history, overall financial circumstances, and other statutory factors, but specifically prohibits considering a defendant’s “ability to pay” when setting a bond amount.
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 22 state attorneys general sued Amazon Monday, accusing the e-commerce giant of manipulating its advertising auctions to secretly charge advertisers higher prices, costs the agency alleges were passed on to consumers through higher prices.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleged Amazon collected more than $20 billion through undisclosed surcharges imposed on advertisers dating back to changes the company made to its auction system in 2019. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said millions of Amazon advertisers were misled into paying more for ads, with the increased costs ultimately being passed on to consumers, CNBC reported.
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) The Tennessee Star on Tuesday that more than 120 illegal aliens were arrested on August 30 at the Memphis nightclub, El Corralón, during a multi-agency operation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE).
DHS told The Star that Operation Corral Light resulted in arrests of illegal aliens with prior criminal history, including arrests or convictions for “larceny, drug possession, domestic violence, driving while intoxicated, assault, child endangerment, and prostitution.”
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The Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) on Monday announced it would take applications from news outlets seeking to serve as witnesses for the execution of Christa Pike, who is scheduled to be executed on September 30.
Pike was convicted in March 1996 of premeditated murder and conspiracy to kill Colleen Slemmer. Both students at the Knoxville Job Corps Center in January 1995, the killer lured her victim to a steam plant, where court documents state Pike beat Slemmer, repeatedly pelted her with loose asphalt, and cut her with a box cutter, in an attack that lasted between 30 minutes and one hour.
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Activists with Vecindarios 901 claim that more than 100 people were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during an enforcement operation in Memphis on Saturday, while a spokesperson for the federal agency only told The Tennessee Star that a “multi-agency targeted enforcement operation” was ongoing in the area.
According to a social media post by Vecindarios 901, the enforcement operation took place at the Memphis bar El Corralón. Authorities at the scene reportedly included ICE, the Memphis Police Department, and members of the Memphis Safe Task Force (MSTF), according to the activists.
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The Supreme Court on Monday stayed a lower federal court injunction that blocked construction of President Donald Trump’s planned ballroom renovations at the White House.
The massive project of the East Wing ballroom is estimated at $400 million, funded through private donations rather than tax dollars.
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On at least five occasions during his final two decades in government, Dr. Anthony Fauci asked recipients of emails to delete the contents after reading them, according to newly released evidence from Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul that chronicles a culture of secrecy under America’s former top doctor that extended to his dealings with U.S. spy agencies.
Fauci’s contacts with the intelligence community included efforts to steer the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence’s office toward scientists who were advocating that COVID-19 emerged naturally even as the FBI developed evidence that the deadly virus was man-made and may have leaked from a Chinese lab where research was funded by Fauci’s agencies, the memos show.
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Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Sunday posted the first photos of himself since his capture by U.S. forces in January.
In the photos posted to his X account, the ousted president displays peace signs and smiles as he stands in sweatpants, a sweat shirt and sneakers.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has vacated a lower court’s decision denying NetChoice’s request for a preliminary injunction against Tennessee’s law requiring age verification and parental consent for minors to create social media accounts.
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Friday revealed details of the investigation which led to the conviction of Camilo Campos-Hurtado, an illegal alien from Mexico who recorded his sexual assaults on Nashville children who he drugged, after gaining access to youth through a soccer program. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison last month.
In its press release, ICE appeared to reveal for the first time that investigators learned that Campos-Hurtado was in the country illegally after Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigators “recovered electronic devices containing child sexual abuse material and numerous counterfeit immigration and identification documents.”
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Devonte Sherley, a convicted felon now charged with attempted murder after a gunshot left a Nashville man paralyzed, was previously out on bond for felony gun and drug charges when he was implicated in a 2019 fatal robbery. That case did not conclude until last year, and Tennessee records show his resulting eight-year sentence ended just six weeks before the latest shooting.
Sherley, 29, is currently in Davidson County Jail, with Fox 17 reporting that Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) detectives said he was suspected of entering his sister’s apartment and shooting a man in the neck and knee on August 19.
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The Chattanooga Police Department (CPD) launched a Drone First Responder pilot program designed to give officers real-time information about emergency calls before they arrive on scene.
CPD said the program uses two prepositioned unmanned aircraft systems located at Chattanooga Fire Department Stations 4 and 9, which police said were selected based on crime data identifying areas where violent crime occurs most frequently.
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The Justice Department announced Thursday that a former federal employee has pleaded guilty to transmitting national defense information to an undisclosed foreign government.
The department said 29-year-old Nathan Vilas Laatsch of Alexandria, Virginia, started working for the Defense Intelligence Agency as an IT specialist in 2019 and pleaded guilty Wednesday to transmitting classified information to a friendly foreign government.
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The Homeland Security Department will require random audits of paper ballots in the midterm elections, citing long-simmering concern that the nation’s largest voting technology companies use Chinese parts in their voting machines, according to a letter from Secretary Markwayne Mullin released Thursday.
Mullin sent the letter to the White House Transparency Task Force earlier this week outlining the dangers posed by Chinese components in American voting machines and the way that these components could be exploited by hackers or other malicious actors.
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Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley sent a letter Wednesday to Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley, questioning the company’s “collection, retention, and dissemination of the data” from its AI-powered surveillance cameras.
The probe comes as the company faces bipartisan blowback for its network of 120,000 cameras, which help law enforcement track the movement of vehicles.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti spoke exclusively to The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy on Wednesday hours after announcing Tennessee’s nearly $752 million share of a historic $17.1 billion multistate settlement with Meta Platforms over allegations that Instagram harmed children.
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Following the recent decision by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis on Tuesday, a hearing was scheduled in the second lawsuit brought by Kilmar Abrego Garcia against the Trump administration after the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals denied part of the Trump administration’s appeal of two of Xinis’ orders.
While the appellate court said it would consider whether to reverse the Obama-appointed judge’s decision blocking ICE from arresting Abrego Garcia, it rejected the Trump administration’s argument that Xinis had already constructively denied its appeal of the judge’s order barring Abrego Garcia’s deportation to Liberia.
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A federal judge sided with Texas on Wednesday regarding Minnesota’s attempt to extradite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, ruling Minnesota failed to prove Texas Gov. Greg Abbott acted in bad faith by waiting on the extradition request.
Minnesota has argued that Abbott’s role in the case is ministerial and urged the judge to force the governor to return ICE agent Christian Castro, who is currently in Texas custody but is wanted on state charges in Minnesota.
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Three officials within the U.S. Secret Service’s communications office – including the agency’s top spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi – have been removed from their posts and stripped of their security clearances as investigators examine how classified or sensitive information reached the press, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
The three were escorted from Secret Service headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Monday and formally designated “do not admit,” meaning they are barred from entering agency facilities, two sources told RealClearPolitics, which first reported on the suspensions. One of those sources said both the FBI and CIA are participating in the inquiry, pointing to a probe with more weight than a routine internal personnel matter.
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The Justice Department said Wednesday it had seized internet domains used by two Chinese hacking platforms to hack into the agency as well as NASA, the Federal Reserve, the Senate and other sensitive government agencies.
The two platformers were called “QScan” and “QTRouter,” the DOJ said.
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A 32-year-old Mexican national residing in the U.S. illegally was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison after a Tennessee traffic stop uncovered marijuana, drug-trafficking equipment, cash, and a loaded pistol, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
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A list of the “Worst of the Worst” criminal illegal aliens detained on Tuesday across the United States, provided to The Tennessee Star by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), includes a citizen of Mexico who was arrested in Lebanon, Tennessee.
Among the five criminal illegal aliens included in the “Worst of the Worst” list for Tuesday is Margarito Rosales-Altamira, who DHS described as “a criminal illegal alien from Mexico” with prior convictions “for opium or derivatives and cocaine sale” in Lebanon.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced Wednesday a landmark $17.1 billion multistate settlement with Meta Platforms, Inc., bringing an end to Tennessee’s lawsuit against the company over allegations that Instagram was designed to encourage addictive use among children and teens.
The settlement, described by Skrmetti’s office as the largest Big Tech settlement in history, requires Meta to pay $17.1 billion and implement sweeping new safety measures on Instagram and Facebook aimed at protecting young users.
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Legal commentator and retired attorney Mark Pulliam said the legal establishment has “crossed the Rubicon” with a bar complaint targeting U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) General Counsel James Percival over his criticism of federal judges handling immigration cases.
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California intends to file a new lawsuit against the Trump administration over an executive order placing restrictions on mail-in voting.
President Donald Trump’s executive order, issued in March, directs the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to curate lists with the names of all citizens at least 18 years old in each state who are eligible to vote. The order requires the U.S. Postal Service to check the lists before sending out mail-in ballots.
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Friday announced it sent public records request letters to Tennessee school districts that “foolishly” display the Ten Commandments under a new law that allows them to be displayed, informing the districts that a team of nonprofits is “launching an investigation.”
According to an ACLU press release, letters were sent to records custodians at Blount County School District, Rutherford County Schools, Washington County Schools, White County Schools, and Wilson County Schools, and specifically seek “emails and other communications, as well as all board documents, regarding the display of the Ten Commandments.”
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The Supreme Court on Monday opened the door for President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at securing the upcoming midterm elections from ineligible voters and implementing verification standards for mail-in ballots.
The high court halted a lower court ruling that was blocking the president’s March 31 executive order establishing a whole-of-government approach to prevent noncitizens from registering to vote or voting in federal elections. A coalition of 23 Democratic states and Washington, D.C., sued the administration in Massachusetts to block the order.
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Anheuser-Busch InBev Worldwide Inc., the global alcohol giant that owns Budweiser and Bud Light, filed a new lawsuit against Tennessee, seeking a refund of nearly $2 million in taxes paid in 2022 and 2023.
Filed in Davidson County Chancery Court on Friday, the company’s lawsuit seeks more than $1.8 million, plus interest, after Anheuser-Busch sent a refund request to the Tennessee Department of Revenue in August 2025. It names Tennessee Commissioner of Revenue David Gerregano as the defendant.
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Lawyers for President Donald Trump are threatening to file a $5 billion defamation lawsuit against a liberal think tank if it doesn’t retract a report claiming that the White House’s deployment of National Guard troops has failed to lower crime rates in D.C. The group is refusing to comply.
The Center for American Progress published a report in July that found the troop deployments failed to reduce urban crime in the way Trump had claimed, the New York Times reported.
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Conservative media commentator, radio host, and media founder Clay Travis on Monday announced a $20,000 reward for information about the death of Cameron Frierson, the 16-year-old Hunters Lane High School student who was fatally shot at a North Nashville football game that Travis attended.
Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) confirmed the shooting on Saturday, announcing that Frierson was transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, but succumbed to his injuries while receiving treatment. Police said witnesses reported seeing the fatal shots fired from a white sedan with tinted windows.
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The United States Southern Command late Sunday conducted its first deadly missile strike on an alleged drug boat in months, which it claimed killed two “narco-terrorists.”
The command said Monday that the lethal attack was against a low-profile vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific, and that intelligence confirmed that the boat was engaged in narco-trafficking.
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California Attorney General Rob Banta on Monday canceled a publicly announced meeting planned between his office and the Paramount Skydance Corporation, reportedly accusing the entertainment giant of “playing games.”
Banta leads California in a 12-state lawsuit seeking to block Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery., but on Monday was planning to hold settlement talks with the company. The lawsuit was notably filed despite an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice determining the merger could move forward.
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The Supreme Court ruled Monday to pause a lower court’s order that blocked key directives from President Donald Trump’s executive order to restrict mail-in voting for the midterm elections in November.
The executive order, issued in March of this year, directed the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of eligible voters nationwide, on a state-by-state basis, and seeks to block the U.S. Postal Service from delivering absentee ballots to voters not on state-approved rolls.
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