Nashville public school records containing private student information were reportedly found at a local Goodwill outlet, raising questions about whether Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) adequately protected student information covered by federal privacy law.
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Despite a Tennessee Supreme Court decision clearing the way for the release of records from the 2023 Covenant School shooting, The Tennessee Star’s lead reporter Tom Pappert warns that Metro Nashville could use procedural maneuvers to delay the documents’ release.
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National teacher unions contribute at least 10% of their annual budget to lobbying and political activism, which includes calling for the impeachment of Republican President Donald Trump in the 2026 American Federation of Teachers handbook. Efforts also include supporting Democratic causes such as messaging against immigration enforcement.
Some teachers raise questions about whether union dues are being used to advance causes the instructors actually support.
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An abused wife opens a credit card statement and discovers her abuser ran up $40,000 in her name. A soldier overseas finds out a predatory lender jacked his car-loan rate while he was deployed. A family buried under medical debt tries to negotiate a settlement with the help of a debt relief company. And a Washington lobby group spends millions making sure they can’t.
Meet the American Financial Services Association. AFSA says it’s fighting for consumers. Don’t buy it. AFSA is a creditor trade group that has gone to war against domestic violence survivors, military families, and working Americans drowning in debt.
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Metro Nashville joined a lawsuit against the federal government for withholding millions of dollars in funds unless it implements election-related policies.
Metro Nashville, along with Harris County, Texas; El Paso County, Texas; and the City of Columbus, Ohio, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is using homeland security funding to require states and local governments to change how they administer elections.
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The Tennessee Supreme Court’s decision not to hear Metro Nashville’s appeal represents a major victory in The Tennessee Star’s years-long effort to obtain records related to the 2023 Covenant School shooting, according to The Star‘s lead reporter Tom Pappert.
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A major permitting bill that passed the House in December 2025 still hasn’t been passed by the Senate, with environmental and clean energy groups putting pressure on lawmakers to oppose the measure.
The Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act, which passed the House in December 2025, aims to fast-track energy and infrastructure permitting by reforming the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). It has not advanced beyond referral to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) with clean energy groups and environmental justice organizations objecting to the legislation, arguing it would cause major setbacks for the climate by adding more fossil fuel projects and lifting environmental protections.
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In a tense March 2020 meeting just months before the presidential election, the National Security Agency’s (NSA) deputy director blocked the release of a long-delayed report on foreign targeting of U.S. elections—not because the intelligence was flawed, but because he feared it would brand the agency as part of the “deep state.”
The memo states: “DDIR explained that he was concerned that releasing the [report] at this time – in the current political climate, with an acting ODNI who had been tasked (according to DDIR) to ‘clean house’ in the intelligence community, and with an administration that is suspicious of the IC and aggressive in removing anyone who stands in their way – would damage NSA’s credibility. He believed that questions would be asked as to why the NSA was choosing to release this information, most obviously pertinent to the 2016 election, now, more than a year after the election, and that NSA would be accused of releasing it for political purposes.”
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A Tennessee man who pleaded guilty to exploiting a 12-year-old girl as part of his participation in the Nihilist Violent Extremist (NVE) network, 764, was allegedly leading a “devil worship” group while in Blount County Jail, federal prosecutors said in a court filing earlier this month.
In his 2024 plea agreement, Kyle William Spitze admitted to affiliation with 764, an NVE offshoot group called HarmNation, as well as two counts of production of child pornography, one count of possession of and accessing with intent to view child pornography, and one count of knowingly abetting the distribution of animal crushing videos.
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The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday filed an appeal to the decision by U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, to drop the federal government’s human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia over a purported failure of the DOJ to rebut claims of vindictive prosecution.
Submitted by U.S. Attorney Braden Boucek, the appeal argues, “The district court’s order dismissing the charges against Abrego is erroneous at every step.” The appeal claims Crenshaw applied an incorrect legal standard when weighing the possibility of vindictive prosecution, as no other judicial circuit allows the presumption of vindictiveness to be applied to an initial indictment.
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In May 2021, Janet Woodcock, the Acting Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), sent an email to Dr. Anthony Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and Dr. Francis Collins, then director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director, expressing concern about the large number of adverse events she was hearing about following COVID vaccinations.
The correspondence, released by Senators Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Sunday, expose how federal health officials ignored early safety signals.
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U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro isn’t happy that a U.S. judge on Monday ordered the release of a Kentucky woman who was accused of vandalism at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Melissa Farris, 41, was taken into custody last week and charged with two felony counts, the Associated Press reported.
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Disney’s ABC filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday, claiming the agency’s recent review into the company is part of a “retaliatory campaign.”
The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., alleges that the Trump administration’s “campaign against ABC has been building over the course of the current Administration’s second term.” The litigation comes after the FCC issued an order in April which directed Disney’s eight owned-and-operated television stations to file their broadcast license renewals early, NBC News reported.
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A man previously recognized as an “outstanding refugee” by the Minnesota Department of Human Services has been charged over an alleged Medicaid fraud scheme, according to news coverage.
Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced Monday that his Medicaid Fraud Control Unit had charged two men for allegedly stealing more than $1.5 million from the state’s Medicaid program. Salman Ahmed Elmi was charged in the first case with 8 felony theft offenses linked to Reva Health allegedly billing over $1,000,000 in Medicaid-funded services that were either never provided or were ineligible for reimbursement, per the announcement.
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Vice President JD Vance endorsed Republican nominee Kenny Cody in the race for Tennessee House District 11.
In a statement distributed by Cody’s campaign, Vance called the Republican nominee a “friend” who would make a “fantastic” state representative for the district, which includes Cocke County and portions of Jefferson and Hamblen counties.
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Retired attorney and legal analyst Mark Pulliam said the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) “hate map” placed mainstream conservative organizations alongside groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), arguing that the organization’s approach to labeling groups as extremists has helped define its public identity and fundraising model.
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Students at tnAchieves are graduating from college at the highest three-year rate in the program’s history, according to the nonprofit’s 2026 prosperity report.
The report, titled “Accelerating Economic Prosperity for Tennessee Students,” credits the statewide implementation of the organization’s COMPLETE coaching and completion grant model with helping drive an 8-percentage-point increase in the three-year graduation rate over two years.
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The American Civil Liberties Union asked the Supreme Court on Monday to hear its challenge to Texas’ law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in their classrooms.
The request comes after a federal appeals court upheld the state law in April, which passed the Republican-led state legislature last year and requires elementary and secondary school classrooms to post a display of the Ten Commandments.
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Bill Clinton holds the distinction of being the only elected president since World War II to lose both houses of Congress while leading a trifecta. Republicans swept the 1994 midterms by winning over the working class, which had formed the backbone of the Democratic Party since the Great Depression.
Democrats would have to make similar inroads among working-class voters who elected President Donald Trump to sweep this year’s November midterms. But that would require repairing the party’s brand, which cultural radicals have trashed with these voters, and Democrats’ own social progressivism simply won’t allow it.
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The City of Nashville lacked formal plans and procedures to handle a January winter snowstorm that left nearly half of its residents without power, according to an interim report.
Nashville’s Winter Storm Response Commission released a report on Friday detailing the city’s failures in a storm that left an estimated 85,000 people without power for nearly a week. Approximately 29 people experienced weather-related fatalities from Winter Storm Fern, according to the state Department of Health.
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A new report from Defending Education has identified at least 83 universities and 26 K-12 schools across 30 states that exposed their students to Chinese Communist Party propaganda through the Young Envoys Scholarship program.
According to the report, titled “Little Red Classrooms: China’s Infiltration of American K-12 Schools,” the program is monitored by the China Education Association for International Exchange, or CEAIE, and serves as an alternative to the Confucius Institutes, which Congress began restricting in 2021.
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In a major victory for The Tennessee Star, the Tennessee Supreme Court declined to accept an appeal from Metro Nashville, the Covenant School, and a group of Covenant parents challenging a February ruling from the Tennessee Court of Appeals in the Covenant School killing-records lawsuit.
The denial issued last week leaves intact the appellate court’s decision reversing Tennessee Chancery Court Chancellor I’Ashea Myles’ broad order withholding the records, and sends the case back to Davidson County Chancery Court for further review.
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Tennessee State Senator Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville) said she is “seeking legal redress” over the punishments meted out by Lt. Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) after her outburst during the Tennessee General Assembly’s special session that saw Republican majorities redraw the state’s congressional districts.
“During the redistricting special session in May, I made the courageous decision to stand on my Senate desk and sing with pride after the Speaker cut my mic while giving a floor speech. I held up a banner that read ‘No Jim Crow 2.0,'” wrote Oliver in a post to the online newsletter platform Substack. “For that, GOP leadership refused to count my ‘NO’ vote. Then they came for my paycheck.”
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Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Monday that the Justice Department (DOJ) was reviving a process by which those who lost gun rights due to criminal convictions could have them restored.
While federal law provides for a process to restore Second Amendment rights lost after a felony conviction or other circumstances, Congress had largely blocked the process since 1992 by refusing to allow the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to spend any federal funds on it. Blanche described the new process as “commonsense” while also respecting Second Amendment rights.
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Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said the prolonged legal battle surrounding Kilmar Abrego Garcia highlights what he described as the lasting impact of judicial appointments made during the Obama and Biden administrations, arguing the case demonstrates how federal judges can shape immigration policy through their rulings.
Pappert previously broke the story for The Star that Abrego Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) in 2022 while transporting nine people in a vehicle under circumstances that raised suspicions of human trafficking.
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The FBI developed evidence that a Chinese woman with direct ties to that country’s intelligence service had potentially compromised a Democratic congressman from California with sex, foreign interns and illicit donations while she was being recruited to become a bureau informant a decade ago, according to bombshell memos that expose another threat to America’s political system from Beijing.
The files chronicling the relationship between Rep. Eric Swalwell and the Chinese national Fang Fang – also known by her English name Christine Fang – were declassified by President Donald Trump and released Monday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force as part of a broader effort to unmask foreign threats to U.S. political and election systems.
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Tennessee led the United States in property tax hikes from 2019 to 2025, according to an analysis by the Beacon Center of Tennessee.
The pro-free-market nonprofit think tank examined Wall Street Journal-produced data that shows Tennessee “with a double-digit lead over” Colorado, its nearest competitor. “The Volunteer State stands alone as the only state with over a 75 percent increase,” the Beacon Center revealed.
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Facing President Donald Trump’s crippling tariff threat that’s set to come into effect on Wednesday, Canada is continuing to negotiate a trade deal that will allow it to avoid the tariffs and get additional relief on existing tariffs in key sectors.
However, despite meetings between Canadian and American negotiators over the last three weeks, the two countries can’t move beyond an impasse in these last days, the CBC reported.
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The Tunnel to Towers Foundation officially opened its new Memphis Veterans Village, providing housing and supportive services for up to 110 veterans and their families.
The grand opening ceremony occurred Friday morning, marking the completion of the foundation’s project to transform a former hotel on Riverdale Bend Road into permanent housing for homeless veterans.
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Florida voters are set to head to the polls to choose the Republican and Democratic nominees for Senate and governor on Tuesday, with the governor’s race setting up a test of President Donald Trump’s endorsement power.
The president has endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., to succeed Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., in the state, but he faces several candidates that have waged aggressive campaigns against him. DeSantis himself has not issued an endorsement in the contest.
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For many families in Knox County, the dream of homeownership feels further away today than it did just a few years ago. Rent has climbed drastically. Home prices remain high.
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The most important healthcare document released this year wasn’t another regulation, another Inspector General report, or another congressional hearing.
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A citizen of the United Kingdom, who was in Tennessee working as a Director for an Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) program, on Wednesday was sentenced to 19 years in prison for his sexual exploitation of two 17-year-old girls on social media, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced.
Andrew Worrall, 56, will serve 19 years in federal prison under the sentence imposed last week by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Varlan, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush.
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Two federal agencies gave taxpayer dollars to charities with ties to terrorism, new reports show.
The State Department worked with World Vision to distribute $2 billion in global health foreign assistance even though an Israeli court convicted the nonprofit’s Gaza affiliate operations manager of sending up to $50 million to Hamas in 2022. Separately, the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) provided nearly $80 million to 14 organizations linked to terrorism and extremism.
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America’s private fortunes are the economic engines that built the most prosperous economy in world history, and they are giving themselves away.
Since her 2019 divorce from Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott has handed out $26 billion—much of it to racial equity, DEI, and “social justice” causes. Warren Buffett has pledged 99% of his roughly $170 billion. Bill Gates has given away more than $100 billion and vows to spend his foundation to zero by 2045. George Soros has poured $32 billion into his Open Society Foundations. Different fortunes, different causes—but the same destination, and the same motivating logic: The tax code has made nongovernmental organizations the most rational place for private fortunes to end up.
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Memphis is considering implementing a temporary moratorium on data centers.
The Memphis City Council will discuss an ordinance in executive session at its meeting on Tuesday, August 18th, about a temporary ban on “ the acceptance, processing, approval, and
issuance of zoning, land use, building, and other associated infrastructure permits for data
center developments within the City of Memphis.”
Tea Party Nation Founder Judson Phillips warned major American school systems are “dumbing down kids” following the resignation of an award-winning Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) teacher who publicly criticized the district’s academic standards, discipline policies, and treatment of teachers.
Phillips made the comments during Friday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show while discussing former MNPS teacher Samira Hardcastle, who resigned in May and appeared before the MNPS Board of Education earlier this week to explain why she left the district.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth District this week allowed the Trump administration’s appeal of a decision blocking U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia to proceed, but simultaneously granted the request by the foreign national to return his deportation fight to District Court Judge Paula Xinis.
In a decision released publicly on Wednesday, the three-judge Fourth Circuit panel rejected the portion of the appeal included by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that sought to reverse Xinis’ block on deporting Abrego Garcia to Liberia, the West Africa country that was first identified as the federal government’s preferred destination to deport him last October.
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President Donald Trump on Friday stated that he would declare the Strait of Hormuz as U.S. territory after the end of the Iran war.
Trump made the remarks during a speech at the Nassau County Police Academy in New York.
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The business model and medical coding practices of the so-called gender-affirming care industry for minors, long obscured by the jargon and secrecy of the profession, are facing the harsh glare of federal scrutiny, as the evidence base for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries for gender-confused youth gets picked apart globally.
The best-case scenario for hundreds of “wolves in white coats” – potential scofflaws identified in a new Department of Health and Human Services report on gender medicine billing fraud – may be simply losing federal money. HHS on Wednesday cut off federal Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program funding for “sex-rejecting procedures on children.”
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After pulling the plug on tungsten mining for over a decade, a massive discovery in Nevada could put America back in the game.
Developer 3 Proton Lithium (3PL) estimates its Railroad Valley Minerals project holds 1.78 million metric tons of tungsten, potentially the largest known deposit of the metal in the country, and more than five times the size of the next-largest U.S. resource, according to MINING.com. The rare metal is extraordinarily dense and heat-resistant, making it essential for armor-piercing munitions, cutting tools, semiconductors and aerospace and defense hardware.
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The average interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage stands at 6.69%, which is down from a rate as high as 6.83% in late July, according to Mortgage News Daily.
The decline in mortgage rates corresponds to drops in oil prices and Treasury yields, which closely track mortgage rates, ABC News reported.
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Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges and admitted in federal court on Friday that he shot and killed a health care executive in Manhattan in 2024.
“I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan. I understood that my actions would place him in fear of death of bodily injury. I knew what I was doing was illegal,” Mangione told the judge, the New York Times reported.
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Major corporations are raking in billions from tariff refunds that are improving their balance sheets following a major Supreme Court decision, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
Billions of dollars in federal tariff refunds flowed back into the balance sheets of companies such as Apple Inc., Nike, FedEx and General Motors Co., according to The Wall Street Journal. Some justices cautioned in February that the ruling could trigger a complex process for returning billions in collected duties while noting that President Donald Trump could still pursue tariffs using alternative statutory trade authorities, which he eventually did.
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Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star, recommended Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matt Boyle to become the next White House Press Secretary following Karoline Leavitt’s announcement that she will leave the position at the end of August.
Leavitt announced her departure Wednesday after serving as President Donald Trump’s press secretary since the beginning of his second term. Trump said Leavitt would leave the administration to spend more time with her family while continuing to serve as one of his outside advisers.
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Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of The Tennessee Star, believes he has uncovered the historical reason Tennessee holds its primary elections on Thursdays, a tradition he said has puzzled him since he moved to the state more than three decades ago.
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The FBI led multiple operations prior to the 2020 election that helped politically and financially damage President Donald Trump and, at the same time, protect then-presidential candidate Joe Biden from law enforcement.
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The liberal media melted down last week as the Department of Homeland Security’s top attorney, James Percival, criticized “the worst of the worst” activist judges who are blocking President Trump from securing our borders and our homeland.
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Student visa fraud will be reduced under a new Trump policy limiting how long foreigners can attend college, an expert told The College Fix.
Set to go into effect on September 15, the “duration of status” rule will now set a fixed, four-year limit on student visas or shorter, depending on the normal length of the program. Prior to this change, students could stay here as long as they were enrolled in school.
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The campaign manager for Dr. Telisa Franklin, the Democratic nominee for Tennessee’s 96th State House district, did not respond to a Thursday request from The Tennessee Star to provide details about the date she received her doctorate in divinity, or the doctoral thesis she submitted in order to obtain the credential, which is the highest formal academic or professional degree one can obtain in any field.
On her website, Franklin states that she obtained “a doctorate in Divinity and a Ph.D. in Christian Counseling,” but does not name the institution that granted the credential. Notably, a doctorate in divinity is abbreviated as D.Div., while a doctor of philosophy in Christian counseling is a Ph.D.
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