Some small businesses in Arizona can now request small loans of $50,000 and under, the governor’s office announced last week.
Dubbed the “Arizona Microbusiness Loan Program,” it uses $5 million in funding allocated from the legislature last year to distribute loans using partners financial institutions at the local level. A microbusiness in Arizona is defined as those with five or fewer employees, according to a news release.
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An Ohio lawmaker, federal lawmakers and both presidential candidates want to eliminate taxes on tips, but a nonpartisan tax policy group says the idea could create issues.
Rep. Jay Edwards, R-Nelsonville, recently introduced legislation exempting tips and gratuities from state income tax. It has not been sent to a committee, and lawmakers are not expected to return to session until after the November election.
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Over a million migrants hailing from Central America have crossed illegally into the U.S. since Vice President Kamala Harris was tapped to address the illegal immigration crisis stemming from that region.
Since the launch of her presidential campaign, Harris and her allies have vehemently pushed back on the narrative that she was appointed to serve as “border czar” for the White House, arguing that she was only given a limited role addressing the “root causes” of illegal migration stemming from Central America. However, roughly 1.7 million people from the Northern Triangle region, which includes El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, flooded into the U.S. after she was tasked with mitigating the crisis.
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The media is now working overtime to rewrite the background of the Harris-Walz ticket. With all eyes shifting to Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, they have their work cut out.
Get ready for a new, refined version of Walz, where he is cast as a moderate, pro-worker Midwesterner — meant to balance out Kamala’s left-wing liberalism. But Walz is not that and American steelworkers, their families and the communities surrounding the Twin Metals Mine of Northeast Minnesota know this all too well.
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Ohio is expected to launch the first-ever statewide human trafficking hotline later this year, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced at his office’s fifth annual Human Trafficking Summit held in downtown Columbus last week.
The statewide hotline number – 844-END-OHHT (844-363-6448) – will “funnel incoming tips on suspected sex and labor trafficking directly to law enforcement,” according to Yost’s office.
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President Joe Biden recently signed the Victims’ Voices Outside and Inside the Courtroom Effectiveness (Victims’ VOICES) Act into law, which was sponsored by Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).
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West Tennessee is projected to have a significant population increase in coming years with Ford’s Blue Oval set to open outside Memphis but zoning regulations will have a large impact on the affordability of new housing in the region, according to a new report from Beacon Center of Tennessee.
Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development estimates that, by 2045, West Tennessee’s population will grow by more than 176,000 and the region will need more than 70,000 new housing units.
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A New York judge ruled Monday that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cannot appear on the state’s ballot in November after it was revealed he listed a false address on his nominating petition.
Judge Christina L. Ryba wrote in the court’s decision that Kennedy had listed a New York address on his petition despite residing at a California address with his family, according to court documents. Kennedy promised to appeal the decision in a press release issued after the decision, claiming that the New York address is his primary residence and the legal battle is a political attack.
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It is less than 90 days to Election Day, and right on queue the group behind the “Zuck Bucks” campaign of 2020 is back with a new scheme. This time, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) is doling out millions in grant dollars to rural election administrators in 19 states.
Election officers beware. The group is trying to turn the government offices that run elections into bastions of partisan progressive activism. Election officials striving for nonpartisanship should steer clear.
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The Republican Party of Arizona has secured an agreement with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to test ballot tabulators used in elections, rather than only testing backup equipment.
The agreement states that the board “will inform the Secretary of State that it wants the test to be of at least six of the tabulators and twelve of the accessible voting devices scheduled to be deployed to early voting locations and vote centers.”
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The Freedom of Information Act exists to promote governmental transparency, although it doesn’t always accomplish that end, according to the Executive Director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, Megan Rhyne.
And though Virginia’s not unique in that regard, it’s difficult to compare states’ open records laws because they can differ by many variables, according to Rhyne.
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Arizona will have two referendums on the ballot in November, giving voters the opportunity to empower law enforcement to arrest and deport illegal immigrants and enshrine the right to abortion into the Arizona Constitution.
The Arizona Abortion Access Act was approved on Monday, with Secretary of State Adrian Fontes claiming the number of valid signatures broke the state’s previous record in remarks delivered to the press.
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Both Michigan candidates for the U.S. Senate hold “tough on China” stances, but in the wake of the Aug. 6 primaries, Democrat Rep. Elissa Slotkin and Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers have escalated accusations that their opponent supports Chinese businesses.
“Want to know the truth about Slotkin? All it takes is a quick Google search,” Rogers posted to social media recently.
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The United Auto Workers (UAW), which formally endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, announced on Tuesday that it filed federal labor charges against former President Trump and Elon Musk after their Monday evening live conversation on the social platform X.
The UAW argued that Musk and Trump tried to “intimidate and threaten” union workers.
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Rancor, recriminations, and serious formal misconduct complaints have plagued all levels of the Secret Service detail assigned to protect former President Donald Trump over the last year, distracting the team from its core mission of securing Trump from physical harm and preventing an assassination.
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A new bill pending in Congress would mandate open primaries across the country, giving roughly 23.5 million registered independents a chance to nominate candidates for federal office.
The “Let America Vote Act,” sponsored by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and cosigned by Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine; Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y.; and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., would impact 22 states where primary elections remained closed to registered party members.
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Vice President Kamala Harris has repeatedly espoused opposition to voter I.D. laws, yet her campaign recently required that attendees present a valid identification to RSVP for one of her rallies.
The event took place Friday at the Desert Diamond Arena near Phoenix, Ariz. Ahead of the event, the campaign distributed an email requiring attendees to RSVP and to present a government-issued I.D.
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The Biden-Harris administration tried improve tax compliance on tips prior to Vice President Kamala Harris’ following Trump with a vow to end tax on tips.
In 2023, the Treasury Department introduced the Service Industry Tip Compliance Agreement (SITCA) program to “take advantage of advancements in point-of-sale, time and attendance systems, and electronic payment settlement methods to improve tip reporting compliance.”
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At the beginning of this year, the Biden administration enacted a pause on liquified natural gas (LNG) permits. The policy created regulatory uncertainty in the industry, impacting jobs and billion-dollar investments.
The announcement of the policy followed a coordinated effort by activists at nonprofits and in academia, as well as dozens of Democratic members of congress, to hasten an energy transition away from fossil fuels by blocking exports of America’s abundant natural gas resources to countries abroad.
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A prominent pro-life group is warning Republicans about the “extreme” abortion platform of the Democratic presidential ticket, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA) sent a memo, obtained by the DCNF, to GOP candidates, leadership and state leaders about Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who have a record of supporting unlimited abortion and voting against life-saving legislation.
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One of the nation’s largest and fastest growing educational technology platforms, Newsela, is also a foremost provider of “media literacy” lessons for schools. The platform started in 2013 has experienced tremendous growth. Its educational products are used in over 90 percent of schools.
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by Cameron Arcand The Arizona Department of Education said that the federal government is providing them a waiver in hopes of getting back $29 million in school improvement and Title I funding for fiscal years 2021 through 2023 following a deadline controversy, as Democrats are requesting an audit. The Arizona Republic reported that certain money from the federal government was not used in time, and the ADOE argued in a news release afterward that the funds that were “reverted” were from the prior fiscal years in which former Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman was in charge. “I will always fight for more money for schools, so I am happy to submit this waiver request to the federal government,” Horne stated on Monday. “The under-utilization of about $29 million in federal funds began in Fiscal Year 2020 under the previous superintendent and the employee who incompetently handed these allocations no longer works at this department.” Horne also suggested it was a former employee from the Hoffman administration that was at fault for the error. “The mishandling and failure to notify districts of correct allocations with time for them to properly plan and spend the money resulted from an error by an employee…
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A company that canvassed Ohio to register voters could face criminal charges for submitting fraudulent registration forms.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced Monday he has referred evidence of suspected election law violations to 20 county prosecutors around the state.
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The chairman of the powerful House Administration Committee says his investigation into one of the Democrats’ most successful political action committees has pivoted to whether foreigners may be laundering money into the 2024 election.
Rep. Bryan Steil, W-Wis., said his committee has identified individuals who claim they did not make the donations attributed to them in Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports filed by ActBlue. His committee, which oversees election integrity issues, has “activated a full investigation.”
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Tennessee received more than $5 million in taxes from sports wagering in July, an increase from less than $4 million each of the past two Julys.
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Tennessee State Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) said he is working on drafting legislation to file during the next legislative session of the Tennessee General Assembly that would unbound the State of Tennessee from any policies created or pushed by the World Health Organization (WHO).
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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is starting a state Office of Outdoor Recreation after putting $207 million for state parks, blueways development, farmland conservation and outdoor recreation in this year’s budget.
Lee announced the department, within the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, will work on conservation to provide Tennessee residents and visitors have more access to the outdoors.
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If victorious in November, Arizona Democrats aim to institute laws they say would cut costs for Arizonans. Republicans say these measures would only hurt Arizona’s economy and lead to higher taxes.
Only two seats away from having a Democratic majority in Arizona’s legislative chambers for the first time in six decades, the Democratic Caucus has established a plan they say would allow them to hit the ground running in 2025 should they take control of the Legislature. This story is part of an ongoing series of what a Democratic trifecta would look like for Arizona taxpayers.
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The Republican mayor of Lynchburg, Va., has allegedly repeatedly attempted to silence her critics during her two-year term, according to residents, which has had a “chilling effect on free speech.”
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Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is attempting to cast her as a tough-on-the-border candidate, but a former leader of the Border Patrol is warning the public not to buy it.
The Harris campaign has released a slate of advertisements that claim the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate would “fix the border” and crack down on illegal immigration by increasing the number of Border Patrol agents. However, retired Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, who led the agency while Harris served as “border czar,” says voters must look at her record to understand how she would really handle border security.
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The company which provides Security Resources Officers (SROs) to Memphis Shelby County Schools (MSCS) has reportedly warned it will step back from its duties unless Shelby County changes its overtime policies, with the company’s owner claiming in a letter that SROs in the school district have already been told not to provide security for upcoming football events.
Bennie Cobb, who owns the Eagle Eye Security and Training company which provides SROs for the district, reportedly sent a letter to the MSCS Safety and Security division which warned its 128 SROs were told “[n]ot to report for duty on Friday, August 16, 2014 – and not to participate in the [football] jamboree that following night and following day.”
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Nearly 1,300 more buildings across the state will be torn down as Ohio continues to spend taxpayer money on grants it says will spur economic development.
The new projects in nine counties will cost $67.3 million and cover 1,277 vacant, dilapidated buildings – all part of the Building Demolition and Site Revitalization Program that has spent more than $200 million on nearly 5,000 projects in all 88 counties since it began in 2021.
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The Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission recently approved a pilot workforce housing program to make the region more attractive to new businesses and job seekers.
The commission was founded to foster economic growth and opportunity in 34 counties and six independent cities comprising Southwest and Southern Virginia – a region where tobacco farming was once integral to the economy. It’s funded entirely by proceeds from a major 1990s tobacco lawsuit settlement.
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The Biden administration is deploying roughly $85 million to boost production of a green appliance despite plummeting consumer demand, according to a Wednesday press release from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
The White House on Wednesday announced nearly $85 million in grants for four producers of electric heat pumps, the DOE wrote in a statement. The announcement comes despite cratering demand for the electric appliance, with total U.S. shipments of the product falling 16 percent in 2023 despite the federal tax credit being raised from $300 to $2,000 in January 2023, according to a study from the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
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Joe Biden won in 2020 on the premise that until the November election, he would pose as good ol’ Joe from Scranton and not scare voters.
So Biden talked about “unity” and “competency.” He erased his prior wild primary pandering to left-wing voters about shutting down fracking and opening the border.
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A Georgia State election board on Wednesday night voted to request that state Attorney General Chris Carr reopen an investigation into Fulton County’s counting of the results of the 2020 election.
The request comes after the board closed the matter in May, but voted to install an independent election monitor for the 2024 election, after an independent investigation found that the county likely scanned thousands of ballots twice in a recount of the 2020 election.
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The Left has let the mask slip and made clear that it intends to pack or otherwise decimate the Supreme Court.
President Joe Biden announced last week in a Washington Post op-ed that he would promote a “reform” of the nation’s highest court that would include term limits and new “ethics” rules for justices.
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Newly acquired police body cam video includes audio in which a local police officer moments after the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally complains about the Secret Service not having cover the rooftop from which the sniper shot.
“I f—ing told them that they needed to post guys f—ing over here,” says a Butler Township officer in the audio of tape obtained by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday under a public records request. “I told them that f—ing Tuesday,” said a in audio captured on his body-worn camera. “I talked to the Secret Service guys. They’re like, ‘Yeah, no problem. We’re going to post guys over here.’”
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After the resounding success of Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act, she has exclusively released to The Tennessee Star a guide for parents to keep their children safe online as they head back to school.
“When children are online, they are the product, and Big Tech is trying every method possible to keep them scrolling, clicking ads, and sharing every detail of their lives,” the guide says. “Social media platforms put children at risk of being exposed to eating disorders, suicidal ideation, sexual exploitation, and advertisements for illegal substances. Now is the perfect time to study up on how you can keep your kids safe online.”
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Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, R, signed an executive order Wednesday, codifying election security measures and listing procedures to prevent non-citizens from voting in elections.
The executive order directs the Commissioner of the Department of Elections to annually certify that election security measures are in place regarding ballot security, testing and certification of ballot counting machines, triple-checking the accuracy of election results, and daily updating of voter rolls.
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Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence, and Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., introduced a bill to “conduct annual assessments on terrorism threats to the United States posed by terrorist organizations utilizing foreign cloud-based mobile or desktop messaging applications, and for other purposes.”
Pfluger said that cloud-based technology has given “terrorist groups even more tools to use in their pursuit of deadly chaos” more than 20 years since the 9/11 attacks.
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A U.S. appeals court upheld a Maryland law banning assault-style weapons on Tuesday, ruling that the law does not violate the Second Amendment.
The Firearms Policy Coalition, Second Amendment Foundation, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and several Maryland citizens brought up the case challenging the constitutionality of the state’s “military-style assault weapons” ban, prohibiting the sale and possessions of the AR-15, AK-47 and Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle, among others. The ban has been in place since 2013 following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 20 children and six adults in Connecticut.
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Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is not concerned that Intel’s planned global layoffs could have an impact on the state.
“They’re expanding here. We’re thrilled to have their expansion here. We’re working with them on workforce initiatives to grow the skilled pipeline of workers that they need. We’re continuing to do that,” she told The Center Square at a media availability on Tuesday.
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A previously deported illegal migrant convicted of rape reentered the United States and committed another sexual crime, federal authorities say.
Rulaman Lopez-Nolasco, a 42-year-old Mexican national, was convicted in July of unlawful reentry into the U.S. following his apprehension by deportation officers in Massachusetts earlier this year, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Lopez has a criminal record with local and federal law enforcement spanning back decades.
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The Metro Nashville Council voted to pass a resolution condemning the July 13 assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump and all political violence during its Tuesday meeting.
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Ben Cunningham, founder of the Nashville Tea Party, said Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell is promoting lawlessness through his transit plan which will be presented to voters on the November 5 general election ballot.
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One of Wisconsin’s former governors is supporting the push to give state lawmakers a say in how Wisconsin spends billions of dollars in certain federal money.
Gov. Tommy Thompson said he supports the constitutional amendments that would give the legislature some authority to spend any future federal dollars.
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A coalition of New England states will share nearly $400 million in federal funding aimed at expanding clean energy sources and battery storage technology throughout the region.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it has selected the Power Up New England proposal to receive up to $389 million from the latest round of the federal agency’s competitive Grid Innovation Program. The proposal was submitted by energy officials in Rhode Island, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont.
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Democrats’ new running mate for presidential nominee Kamala Harris signed a bill last year allowing illegal immigrants to receive Minnesota driver’s licenses.
In March 2023, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed legislation allowing Minnesota residents to apply for and attain standard state driver’s licenses regardless of immigration status.
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The Georgia Public Service Commission could soon decide whether a railroad can seize private land for a proposed 4.5-mile-long spur after hearing oral arguments in the case on Tuesday.
The Sandersville Railroad, a Class III short-line railroad, initially petitioned the PSC in March 2023 to condemn land for the spur and subsequently moved to condemn additional land. The railroad’s existing tracks are about 25 miles from Sparta, and the spur would connect a rock quarry southeast of the city with a CSX Transportation rail line but not existing Sandersville Railroad tracks.
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