As Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Roger A. Page plans to retire at the end of August, six judges from around the state are vying to replace him. In the coming days, The Tennessee Star plans to profile each of the applicants.
The first judge in the biography series is Judge J. Ross Dyer of the Tennessee Criminal Court of Appeals Western Section.
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All 11 members of the Tennessee congressional delegation sent a letter to President Joe Biden requesting the “swift approval” of Governor Bill Lee’s request for a major disaster declaration due to severe storms that devastated communities across Middle Tennessee over the weekend.
On December 9, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes ripped through Middle Tennessee. The storms caused six fatalities and dozens of injuries, produced significant damage to nearly 1,900 homes, and destroyed over 500 homes, according to initial reports.
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Democrat presidential candidate Dean Phillips will officially be absent from Tennessee’s March 5, 2024 ballot, according to the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office.
Last week, Phillips filed a nominating petition to gain access to Tennessee’s presidential primary ballot.
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The Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee published its annual Pork Report on Wednesday, highlighting the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars this past year across the Volunteer State.
Examples of “offensive” and “wasteful” uses of Tennessee taxpayer money highlighted in the 2023 Pork Report include the nearly $5 million taxpayer subsidy given to benefit the California burger chain In-N-Out’s move to Tennessee, large property tax increases in multiple counties, and the City of Memphis giving out over $1 million to a TV show on the verge of cancellation.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R) joined a 27-state coalition of state attorneys general on Monday to oppose the new rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) which will require gun owners to conduct background checks and register transactions with the agency any time they sell, gift, or trade a gun.
Skrmetti announced his office will join 26 other state attorneys general and the Arizona State Legislature in a letter “demanding” the ATF drop the rule, arguing it “violates the Second Amendment” and “risks making any individual who sells a firearm for profit liable to civil, administrative, and even criminal penalties for failing to register with a federal agency.”
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Tennessee’s celebrities and professional sports teams are coming together to support the middle Tennessee communities that were devastated by several tornadoes over the weekend.
Popstar Taylor Swift reportedly donated one million dollars to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, which that group confirmed on its Facebook page.
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On Monday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, Beacon Impact Director of Government Relations Jordan Long discussed why he supports Gov. Lee’s Tennessee Education Freedom Act. Long dives into the importance of expanding educational choice and the success of the existing program in three counties, highlighting the potential for exponential growth statewide and emphasizes the need for accountability measures. The Beacon Impact lobbyist also shares his valuable insights into the proposed legislation and its potential impact on education in Tennessee. This is a must-read for the parents of school-aged children who are looking at the future of their children’s education. TRANSCRIPT Michael Patrick Leahy: Tell us a little bit about Beacon and Beacon Impact and how long they’ve been around and what the main mission is. Jordan Long: So Beacon started as the Tennessee Center for Research and Policy and we’re actually going to celebrate our 20th anniversary next year at Beacon. After it was the Tennessee Center for Research and Policy, it was rebranded to “Beacon.” We’re part of the State Policy Network, so when you think of places like Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, we are essentially a Tennessee version of those organizations,…
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U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) sent a letter to James Comer (R-KY-01), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, requesting he subpoena the flight logs associated with the late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane.
“As you are aware, there have long been unanswered questions surrounding the sex trafficking ring spearheaded by the late Jeffrey Epstein,” Burchett wrote. “We know that Epstein and his associates engaged in child sex trafficking and catered to the rich and powerful elite from around the globe. Many of Epstein’s clients are alleged to be some of America’s most powerful and well-known people.”
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Six candidates will be considered by the Governor’s Council for Judicial Appointments to fill the Tennessee Supreme Court vacancy created by the upcoming retirement of the Honorable Roger A. Page.
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Drew Johnson, who founded and served as the first president of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, formerly the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, told The Tennessee Star he intends to take his years of policy experience to Congress if he wins election to the U.S. House to represent Nevada’s 3rd Congressional district.
Johnson explained to The Star that he started Beacon Center when in his early twenties, and lived and operated from his personal vehicle for the think tank’s first few months of operation. He told The Star he saved American taxpayers around $60 billion and brought about 100 charter schools to Tennessee over his time in public policy.
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Tennessee U.S. Representatives John Rose (R-TN-06) and Mark Green (R-TN-07) met with community members and surveyed some of the damage left behind after a series of tornadoes tore through Middle Tennessee over the weekend.
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A linebacker for the Tennessee Titans is supporting the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund through the National Football League’s (NFL) My Cause My Cleats campaign.
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The Tennessee Student Solidarity Network (TSSN) urged activists to “disrupt” a number of Nashville businesses on Saturday over their purported pro-Israel stance as part of the controversial Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Community organizing group Nour Nashville distributed a flyer on social media revealing a “BDS Direct Action” event scheduled for December 9. The group explained the post is a “call for action to disrupt businesses in support of genocide,” and urged its followers to message the TSSN “for details.” Neither Nour Nashville nor TSSN posted updates about their planned disruptions by press time.
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Amid an intense recruiting effort spearheaded by Gov. Bill Lee (R), Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) announced Thursday that nearly 40 cadets graduated from training and will join THP.
The 38 graduates participated in either the regular 17-week trooper cadet class or an 11-week lateral trooper cadet class.
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The state of Tennessee, via Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, announced Thursday that it is joining six other states in an antitrust lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
The lawsuit, according to Skrmetti’s office, challenges the NCAA’s student-athlete transfer eligibility rule, which currently states that athletes who transfer from one Division I school to another must sit out of competition for one season before they can resume playing.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee was elected to serve as the next chair of the Republican Governors Association (RGA).
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On behalf of the juvenile court judges and magistrates of Tennessee’s 98 juvenile courts, the executive committee of the Tennessee Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges announced this week its “full support” of the current efforts to increase the state’s judicial system’s budget for it to increase the compensation rate for court-appointed attorneys.
“Juvenile court is where the many problems facing our state’s children are addressed… Private attorneys are crucial for abused or unwanted children. Unfortunately, many attorneys do not accept appointments in juvenile court due to the inadequacy of the reimbursement,” the council said in a statement. “Simply stated, many court-appointed attorneys lose money taking these cases. They are hard cases and often last for years. There is absolutely no financial incentive for lawyers to take these cases.”
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Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) released a new Human Trafficking Statistical Report last week, revealing a sharp increase in human trafficking of minors in Tennessee in a five-year period.
The report, which was the first of its kind released in more than a decade, revealed there were 518 minor sex trafficking reports by November 5, and the agency notes that reports of minor sex trafficking “dramatically increased from 66 in 2016 to over 600 by 2021,” which is an increase of 809 percent. Similar numbers were reported in 2022 and 2023.
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Tennessee State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) requested investigations on Wednesday into Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan and Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy’s Office to determine if they orchestrated the “illegal” release of a Memphis man serving a 162-year prison sentence and the decision to move double murderer off death row.
In a Wednesday press release, Taylor noted Skahan and Mulroy worked together to secure the 2022 release of Courtney Anderson, who they claimed received an unjust sentence of 162 years, by reducing his sentence to 15 years. That decision was overturned by the Tennessee Court of Appeals this year, with Judge J. Ross Dyer writing in his October 18 opinion that Skahan “illegally” granted clemency for Anderson by essentially commuting his sentence, a power which the state constitution solely grants to the Governor of Tennessee.
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The Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office announced it certified the names of nine Republicans and one Democratic presidential candidate for the Super Tuesday Presidential Preference Primary and County Primary Election.
The 2024 Tennessee presidential primary will be held on the same day as primaries in 14 other states on March 5, 2024, known as Super Tuesday.
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Tennessee Tech University announced this week that it has secured the largest grant in its 108 year history, which will be used to help bolster the electric grid in Appalachia.
“The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) – an economic development partnership between the federal government and 13 states across Appalachia – awarded Tech a $10 million grant to lead a four-state consortium that will help rural electric utilities and energy supply companies deploy smart grid technologies to better serve their communities and address challenges such as the rolling blackouts that have impacted consumers across the country during times of peak energy usage,” according to the school.
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The Libertarian Party of Tennessee sued the state, claiming that a law requiring its candidates to get more than 40,000 signatures in order to be listed on general election ballots is “unduly burdensome.”
A lawsuit filed at the end of last week in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee names Secretary of State Tre Hargett and Elections Coordinator Mark Goins.
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U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) led seven of her Republican colleagues this week in introducing the Iran China Accountability Act, which would place certain conditions and limitations on any nuclear deals relating to Iran.
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The number of Tennessee citizens behind bars increased in 2022, coinciding with a drop in violent crime, according to data released this week by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and numbers tracked by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI).
Tennessee saw a 7.9 percent increase in the state’s prison population in 2023, according to the report. The new prisoners include 1,615 men and 125 women. Additionally, the DOJ data release notes that Tennessee is one of only four states that saw more than 1,500 new prisoners during 2022, joined by Texas, Florida, Mississippi.
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday that the enforcement of a Tennessee law meant to prevent the knowing spread of HIV violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
“Tennessee’s aggravated prostitution law is outdated, has no basis in science, discourages testing and further marginalizes people living with HIV,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, according to a DOJ press release. “People living with HIV should not be treated as violent sex offenders for the rest of their lives solely because of their HIV status. The Justice Department is committed to ensuring that people with disabilities are protected from discrimination.”
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Tennessee has two of the four among the largest 50 metro cities that doesn’t have set tax funding for transit agencies, according to a new report.
ThinkTennessee found Nashville and Memphis join Orlando and Hartford as the only four that don’t have dedicated transit funding. The report showed that 39 of those cities collect sales tax to fund transit with those taxes ranging from 0.375% to 2% bringing in an average $394 million annually.
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Jackson Mayor Scott Conger questioned the utility of the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, which would offer universal school choice in Tennessee, in a post on social media, even as Tennessee state data reveals the vast majority of students in his city are failing to meet the state’s education standards.
Conger wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that “average annual tuition for private schools” in Jackson “is $9,227,” and questioned, “How is a $7,000 voucher going to help economically disadvantaged student?” Conger claimed lawmakers instead should “[f]und early childhood education” to “change educational outcomes.”
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A Tennessee State Senator joined “Fox & Friends First” Friday morning to discuss violent crime in Memphis, which has been the subject of national news and viral videos in recent weeks.
“It’s really bad here, Todd,” State Sen. Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) told Fox News’ Todd Piro. “The crime is really out of control here in Memphis. Matter of fact, just last week I sent a letter to the governor asking him to send in additional state troopers to Shelby County. Just in a weekend, Todd, we had 21 shootings, five murders, four smash-and-grabs, we had a FedEx truck stopped in traffic by a group of people that then opened up the back of the truck and looted the back of the FedEx truck.”
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Three months after she testified as the Democrats’ star witness at the Jan. 6 congressional hearings, former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson submitted significant changes to statements and information she had provided in transcribed interviews with the U.S. House of Representatives dating to February 2022, according to an errata sheet reviewed by Just the News that was kept from the American public.
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U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) joined 22 of his colleagues this week in penning a letter to President Joe Biden demanding his administration come clean on his executive order instructing federal agencies to roll out voter mobilization plans.
The White House has refused to respond to the senators’ previous demands for transparency on Executive Order 14019, which appears to violate federal law prohibiting agencies from expending federal funds without congressional authorization.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed a notice of appeal to the injunction issued by a three-judge panel in October which determined the Tennessee General Assembly violated the state Constitution with its new law changing how the Metro Nashville Airport Authority board is selected.
Under the new law, two board members would be selected by the Nashville mayor, Tennessee governor, and top two lawmakers in the Tennessee General Assembly, respectively. When the injunction was filed, the board went back to its previous selection process, by which members are picked by Nashville’s mayor and approved by the Metro Nashville Council.
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The League of Women Voters – Tennessee (LWVTN) filed a federal lawsuit challenging the legality of a new law that requires Tennessee primary voters to be affiliated with the political party whose primary elections they plan to vote in, according to a Wednesday news release.
“The League of Women Voters of Tennessee and Tennessee voters Victor Ashe and Phil Lawson filed a federal lawsuit today challenging state laws that require voters to be ‘bona fide’ members of a political party to vote in the state’s open primary elections,” the release says.
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The Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled in Nashville on Thursday that a group of parents can intervene in the lawsuit seeking to compel the release of the manifesto written by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the Covenant School killer, affirming a lower court’s ruling. The parents wish to prevent the manifesto’s release.
In a 17-page order released Thursday afternoon, the appeals court ruled to “affirm the trial court’s judgement allowing intervention,” and sent the case back to the Davidson County Chancery Court for further proceedings. That court’s previous decision to allow the parents to intervene prompted the appeal.
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U.S. Representative David Kustoff (R-TN-08) joined Representative Max Miller (R-OH-07) this week in introducing a resolution condemning and denouncing antisemitism in the United States and around the world.
Kustoff and Miller, the only Republican Jewish members of the House, said it’s time to stand up to surging antisemitism infecting communities and institutions, including Congress.
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Music Spotlight artist Grace Leer made her acting debut in a Blake Shelton-produced new Hallmark Movie, Time For Her To Come Home For Christmas. Leer costars alongside Shenae Grimes-Beech and Chris Carmack in a holiday romance mystery that is airing during Hallmark’s annual “Miracles of Christmas” programming event.
To many, the words “Hallmark Movie” and “Blake Shelton” don’t appear to belong together, but this movie is the sixth installment of the popular movie franchise based upon the book Time for Me to Come Home by Dorothy Shackleford and Travis Thrasher and Shelton’s song of the same name. Leer performs Shelton’s hit “Time for Me to Come Home” in the movie as well.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) unveiled the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, which will offer education savings accounts (ESAs) for students in all 95 counties in the state, in a Tuesday event that featured Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) and included state lawmakers and school choice advocates.
Lee said the legislative proposal will establish statewide universal school choice, stressing at his Tuesday press conference that “a high quality education has the power to change a trajectory of a child’s life forever.”
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Shelby County General Sessions Court Judge Bill Anderson released alleged Thanksgiving Day murderer Edio White with zero bond, even after police said White admitted to driving the getaway car after the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old. In a newly resurfaced video, Anderson is seen railing against the “bond system” in Shelby County and Tennessee.
Anderson critiqued cash bail in Tennessee during a September 18 meeting of the Shelby County Commission, extending his condemnation to bail bonding companies, claiming “they don’t do anything but collect money from poor people.”
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In episode 42 of his newest production, “Tucker on X,” host Tucker Carlson interviewed Tennessee U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) about the decades-long government coverup of UFOs, also known as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).
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The Tennessee Board of Parole announced Tuesday that it will honor homicide victims with a “Season to Remember” event that is scheduled for December 7.
“For more than two decades, state and local public safety officials, along with families of homicide victims, have gathered to honor and remember victims and survivors of homicide during the holiday season,” said a press release. “This year will mark the state’s 21st annual ‘Tennessee Season to Remember’, which will be held at 5:30 p.m. (CST) on Thursday, December 7 at First Baptist Church in downtown Nashville.”
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Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee (AFP-TN) and the Beacon Center of Tennessee released statements applauding Governor Bill Lee’s announcement of his administration’s legislative proposal to establish universal school choice in the Volunteer State.
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Data from the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office shows that new business filings in Tennessee for the third quarter of 2023 were the highest in the state’s history.
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Attorneys for Star News Digital Media Inc., the parent company of The Tennessee Star, asked a federal judge to order the Federal Bureau of Investigation to respond to a motion for limited discovery as part of a nationally watched public records lawsuit.
Star News Digital Media Inc. filed the lawsuit in May, demanding the FBI release the manifesto and related writings of Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the Covenant School killer.
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The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) announced Monday it has awarded $1.5 million in STEM classroom grants to educators in public schools to “develop science, technology, engineering, and math education projects across the Tennessee Valley region.”
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The University of Tennessee (UT) System is reportedly rebranding its Division of Diversity and Engagement in order to “better reflect the division’s mission, as well as move away from some potentially divisive terminology,” according to The Daily Beacon.
The division’s mission, according to its website, is to “actively support, foster and enhance environments of inclusion where the diversity of all faculty, staff, and students are connected to fully engage in fair, respectful, and equitable campus experiences throughout the University of Tennessee community.”
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and First Lady Maria Lee announced that the state’s annual official Christmas events, including Christmas at the Capitol and “Heaven and Nature Sing” tours of the Tennessee Residence, will begin next week.
As part of the First Lady’s Tennessee Serves initiative, the Lees are inviting guests to bring requested items to the state’s Christmas events in support of five nonprofit organizations including Creative Aging Memphis, Birthright of Memphis, Jonathan’s Path, Dismas House, and Sevier County Food Ministries, according to a press release by Lee’s office.
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A new analysis by the international research think tank Tax Foundation shows which states in the nation collect the least and most taxes per capita as of fiscal year (FY) 2021, the most recent year for which full state-by-state data are available.
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A pro-Palestine, anti-Israel rally will occur on the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s (UTK) campus next week, according to the group Students for Justice in Palestine at UTK.
On Instagram, the group announced its plans to hold an art installation and rally for Palestine at the Pedestrian Walkway in the heart of the UT Knoxville campus on December 1 at 11:00 a.m.
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The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) revealed that agents with its Human Trafficking Unit worked with local law enforcement in Williamson County and Spring Hill to arrest 10 men who allegedly solicited minors for sex.
In a press release, TBI explains that on November 16 and November 17, undercover officers placed “several decoy advertisements on websites known to be linked to prostitution and commercial sex.” The portrayed themselves to be minor children, and the agency reported that “ten men were charged with patronizing prostitution of a minor” and were booked into the Williamson County Jail.
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Governor Bill Lee (R) confirmed to reporters on Monday that he does not intend to ask the Tennessee General Assembly to pass red flag legislation during the upcoming legislative session, effectively abandoning the push he began in April.
Lee told reporters he would not ask legislators to pass a bill he previously proposed that would allow for judges to sign orders for authorities to confiscate the firearms of a person deemed to be at risk, otherwise known as a red flag law.
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This week, the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security (TDSOHS), Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP), and Tennessee Highway Safety Office joined multiple law enforcement partners in announcing the Tennessee Interstate Challenge traffic safety initiative for this year’s Thanksgiving holiday travel period.
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