Trump Justice Department Urges Supreme Court to Strike Down State and Local AR-15 Bans

AR 15

The U.S. Justice Department is urging the Supreme Court to strike down categorical bans on AR-15 rifles in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, arguing that the restrictions violate the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The position was presented in a brief filed Friday by Solicitor General D. John Sauer in two cases before the Supreme Court: Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins. 

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Tennessee Appellate Court Data Compromised in Cyberattack Affecting Court Systems Nationwide

cyber attack

The Tennessee Appellate Court Clerk’s Office confirmed last week that it was impacted by a “cybersecurity incident” disclosed by Thomson Reuters, the parent company of West Publishing, which owns the C-Track case management system used by appellate courts in the Volunteer State.

In an article published to the Reuters website, Thomson Reuters acknowledged “an unauthorized third party obtained” access to certain files in its C-Track case management platform in 11 states, including Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Wyoming, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

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‘So Vulnerable:’ Trump Administration’s MAHA Chiefs Declare War on Kids’ Screen Addiction

kid technology

Overweight, nearsighted, depressed and anxious. Many of America’s children are in the midst of a health crisis, and the Trump administration’s MAHA chiefs are declaring war on a primary cause: kids’ addiction to their tablet, phone and video screens.

“They are so vulnerable. So we had to sound the alarm, and here we are. We’re doing something about it,“ said Dr. Stephanie Hirodopoulos, the director of national health communications for the U.S. Surgeon General.

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ICE Facility Headed to Nashville Described as ‘National Coordination Center’ for 287(g) Law Enforcement Partners in New Federal Document

ICE office

A new draft document released last week by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offers more information about the federal government’s plans for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) National Coordination Center being built in Nashville, revealing the facility could support nationwide audits of local law enforcement agencies participating in the federal 287(g) immigration enforcement program.

In a Request for Information (RFI) released publicly on September 1, ICE – Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) asked public contractors to submit details about how they could perform compliance assessments of local law enforcement agencies who participate in the 287(g) program, which allows local authorities to perform certain federal immigration enforcement tasks. 

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Catholic Nuns Sue Illinois over Law Forcing Them to Help Terminally Ill Patients Kill Themselves

hospital patient

The Catholic Church in Illinois is challenging the Democrat-led state’s recently passed assisted suicide law in court.

Chicago’s archbishop, Cardinal Blase Cupich, joined two orders of Catholic nuns and an Illinois pharmacist in a lawsuit filed Thursday in an effort to block the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act (EOLOA), the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty stated in a press release. The law, which they say would force the Church to help terminally ill patients kill themselves in violation of its teachings on the dignity of life, was signed by Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker in December 2025 and is scheduled to go into effect Sept. 12.

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Climate ‘Lawfare’ Supporters Lay Out Battle Plan as Supreme Court Showdown Looms

SCOTUS

Climate litigation advocates laid out a legal strategy Thursday for states to pursue oil and gas companies over alleged climate deception even if the Supreme Court limits such lawsuits.

The Center for Progressive Reform, a left-leaning environmental advocacy group, hosted a webinar Thursday where panelists laid out a strategy beyond the Supreme Court itself, arguing states can use consumer protection and tort law to hold fossil fuel companies accountable.

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White House Promotes Cheaper Drug Prices and Jobs in Celebration of Labor Day

Trump workers

The White House and Trump administration used the Labor Day weekend to promote the August jobs report and highlight its efforts to lower prescription drug prices.

The Labor Department released August’s job reports on Friday, which noted that the U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in August, far exceeding Wall Street expectations, though the unemployment rate for last month held at 4.1%.

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Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith Says Nonprofit Probe Is Producing Results with Help of Treasury

Jason Lewis

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith says a more than two-year congressional investigation into how nonprofits have abused their tax-exempt status – as a source of foreign influence, fraud or political action – is finally producing results as the Trump administration cracks down.  

“We’ve been seeing progress over the two-plus years that we’ve been investigating nonprofits and the foreign interference of money and how they’ve been using nonprofits to help terrorist organizations,” Smith recently told the Just the News, No Noise TV show. “We have named names, and I’m glad to see that the Treasury Department has been responding to that as well.”

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Judge Once Again Blocks Trump’s Effort to Limit Mail-in Voting as Early Voting Begins

Mail In Ballot

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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Commentary: Trump’s Blockade Could Break the Iranian Regime

Trump and Iran

Pundits on cable news keep insisting that President Trump’s economic strangulation campaign against Iran cannot work. Sanctions, they say, have never brought down a regime. They note that Iran has survived decades of economic sanctions due to weak compliance and selling discounted oil through a shadow fleet, mostly to China.

That argument misses what is happening now. After the Iranian regime rejected President Trump’s diplomatic offers—including a generous Memorandum of Understanding and the substantial financial incentives that accompanied it—he turned to a different strategy. This is not another round of paper sanctions. It is a naval blockade, backed by asset seizures and targeted strikes. It does not merely ask governments and banks to comply. It stops tankers. That is why the campaign has a realistic chance of forcing a political rupture in Tehran that sanctions alone cannot produce.

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Commentary: The Forgotten Meaning of Labor Day

Labor Day Celebration

Labor Day is a U.S. national holiday held the first Monday every September. Unlike most U.S. holidays, it is a strange celebration without rituals, except for shopping and barbecuing. For most people it simply marks the last weekend of summer and the start of the school year.

The holiday’s founders in the late 1800s envisioned something very different from what the day has become. The founders were looking for two things: a means of unifying union workers and a reduction in work time.

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Nick Shirley Sues California over ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’

Nick Shirley

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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Homeland Asks DOJ to Probe Transfer of Private State Voter Data to Zuckerberg-Tied Nonprofit

mark zuckerberg

The Justice Department is being asked to investigate whether sensitive state voter data — including Social Security and driver’s license numbers — was transferred to a nonprofit tied to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in violation of federal privacy laws, according to a letter from Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin released Friday by the White House. 

The Department of Homeland Security first brought its concerns to the Justice Department in September 2025, Secretary Mullin wrote to Attorney General Todd Blanche in a letter dated Wednesday. It is unclear what the Justice Department did with the original information. 

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Memphis Safe Task Force Made About 28 Arrests Each Day in August, U.S. Marshals Reveal

Memphis Safe Task Force

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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Geoff Shepard: Leahy’s Watergate Book ‘Extracted the Essence’ of What Was Wrong with Trials

Richard Nixon

Former Nixon White House attorney and longtime Watergate researcher Geoff Shepard said the Watergate defendants were denied the fair trials guaranteed to them under the U.S. Constitution, arguing documents he uncovered show prosecutors and federal judges engaged in improper conduct during the proceedings.

Shepard detailed his research during an appearance Wednesday on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show about Leahy’s new eBook and documentary, How the Deep State Took Down Richard Nixon.

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DOJ Sues Kansas City, Kansas School District over ‘Secret Gender Transitions’

Classroom Teaching

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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RFK Jr. Now Probing Whether U.S. Service Members Died From COVID Vaccines

military vaccine

An Army doctor said she is teaming up with the Trump administration to investigate whether U.S. service members died from COVID-19 vaccines after a Biden-era mandate, Politico first reported Thursday.

Dr. Theresa Long told a Virginia federal court that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth selected her to be Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s senior medical military adviser, Politico reported, citing an Aug. 14 deposition. Long stated that she is probing whether 2,544 unverified deaths among troops reported to HHS’ Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) resulted from COVID-19 vaccines, according to the outlet.

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Judge Declares Mistrial in Lindsay Clancy Case After MA Supremes Deny Stay

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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Memphis City Council Passes Data Center Moratorium on Second Reading

Memphis City Council

Memphis City Council unanimously passed an ordinance on second reading that would temporarily ban new data center development for 12 months.

If the ordinance becomes law, the City of Memphis will develop regulations for data centers and stop approving new data center applications during that time. The ordinance would not apply to data centers already lawfully operating in Memphis, except if they seek to expand their operations.

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Chavez-DeRemer When Labor Secretary Had Inappropriate Relationship with Bodyguard, IG Report Finds

Lori Chavez-DeRemer

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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Holtzman Vogel Adds Another Tennessee AG Veteran as Kevin Kreutz Joins Brandon Smith

Kevin Kreutz

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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DHS Confirms Arrest of Previously Deported Illegal Alien Who Sought Beer Permit for Memphis Nightclub Raided by ICE

ICE arrests in Memphis Bar

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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New ‘Foundry School’ Targets America’s Manufacturing Skills Gap, U.S. Reindustrialization

Foundry School launch

The Trump administration on Thursday launched Foundry School, a new State Department–backed national training program aimed to prepare entrepreneurs, engineers, technicians and industrial leaders for what officials describe as America’s manufacturing comeback. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio headlined the event.

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Commentary: Tennessee’s Veterans Have Found Community and Connection in an Unexpected Place

Video Gaming

I spent 21 years in the Army before I spent years representing Montgomery County, a district shaped by Fort Campbell. In that overlap, I sat with more veterans than I can count who told me some version of the same thing. The hardest part of coming home wasn’t the transition itself. It was learning to live without the people who understood them.

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Marsha Blackburn Holds 21-Point Lead over Democrat Jerri Green in Race to Become Tennessee’s Next Governor

Marsha Blackburn

Polling released Thursday morning shows U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) holds a 21-point lead over the Democrats’ nominee, Jerri Brown, in the race to become Tennessee’s next governor. 

Beacon Center of Tennessee’s analysis of its poll, conducted by Targoz Market Research from August 15 through August 26, found that 55 percent of likely voters prefer Blackburn, while just 34 percent would vote for Green. 

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House Democrats Block Proposed Constitutional Amendment That Would Cap SCOTUS at Nine Justices

Supreme Court justices

House Democrats blocked a proposed Constitutional amendment on Wednesday, which would have capped the Supreme Court at nine justices if it had secured the two-thirds majority it needed to pass.

The vote, which failed in a 212-206 split, comes as calls to pack the court have grown in recent years, largely due to the success of Republicans in confirming conservative justices to the bench, who have gone on to rule in landmark cases favoring the right.

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Commentary: Don’t Believe the Polls Showing a Massive GOP Midterm Defeat

Trump in suit

“THE FAKE POLLS USED BY OUR CROOKED MEDIA ARE OUT OF CONTROL, AND SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT IT. FCC TO THE RESCUE!”

That was President Donald Trump on Truth Social on Aug. 30, suggesting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could be looking at television and radio over-the-air licenses for stations that publish what the President is calling “fake polls”.

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Records Show Memphis Nightclub Where ICE Arrested over 120 Illegal Aliens Received Two PPP Loans in Apparent Contradiction of SBA Policy

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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Jim Jordan Demands FBI Round River Docs After Memos Reveal Targeting of Trump Officials, Allies

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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This Disability Law May Be Parents’ Secret Weapon Against Transgender Policies in School

wheel chair

The law firm America First Legal released a parental rights toolkit Tuesday, explaining how a law that protects the rights of disabled children also helps parents defend their rights when schools adopt policies hiding a child’s transgender identity from parents.

“Parents hold the fundamental and constitutionally-protected right to direct the upbringing of their children, and that includes authority over their children’s education,” Julie Alexa Strauss, general counsel at America First Legal, said in a statement on the new toolkit, exclusively provided first to the Daily Signal. “Yet today, radicalized school personnel are exploiting their access to children, particularly vulnerable children with disabilities—often behind closed doors—to push ideological agendas.”

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California’s Plastics Law Is Creating a Compliance Nightmare Before Businesses Even Know What They Owe

Plastilite Corporation

California’s sweeping plastics law has already cost an out-of-state manufacturing company its largest customer, its CEO said in a court filing.

Plastilite Corporation President and CEO Jon Ehly detailed the alleged financial damage in an Aug. 10 filing supporting a multi-state effort to block California’s Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act. Under this law, out-of-state manufacturers selling to California may have to adapt their packaging to comply with rules governing a market containing roughly 11.5% of the U.S. population.

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