The Daily Wire is moving to Nashville, with one of the founders citing lawlessness in Los Angeles as one reason.
The conservative media outlet is moving from Los Angeles, Deadline reported Tuesday.
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Tennessee’s graduation rate among public school students has declined for the first time since 2015, according to data on the Tennessee Department of Education’s website.
A total of just 89.6 percent of the state’s high school students graduated in 2020, the TDOE’s website reported.
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A Coffee County mother is reportedly suing the county school system over its mask mandate for students.
That woman, Heather Murchison, said the mandate prevents her son from concentrating at school, and she also said only parents can decide if their children should wear masks.
In a Facebook post last week, Murchison also said she observed a certain level of hypocrisy among the people enforcing the mandate.
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Politicians promised 10 years ago that if they invested millions of taxpayer dollars in a northwest Tennessee port they would create thousands of new jobs and deliver prosperity to an economically-distressed region.
But, thus far, that project, the Port of Cates Landing, has not created so much as one position.
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Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) Commissioner Penny Schwinn’s leadership problems could trickle down to the state’s public schools, and parents are right to worry.
Additionally, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, who appointed Schwinn, should worry that she could cost him reelection in 2022.
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Aitken Bibles tie into the lessons of the American Revolution in historical and even secular ways, said one of the men who wants to bring them to Tennessee’s elementary, middle, and high schools.
As reported, organizers of The American Bible Project want to donate these Aitken Bibles to the state’s school libraries.
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Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner (TDEC) Penny Schwinn must leave, said Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles on Wednesday.
Ogles posted on his Facebook page that Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee must remove Schwinn. Ogles said he formally called on Lee to do this only hours after he read Wednesday’s Tennessee Star article that quoted three former TDEC higher-ups. Those former employees, speaking anonymously, denounced Schwinn and her alleged on-the-job behavior. They said she falsified government records, ridiculed Lee at TDEC staff meetings, and lied to avoid appearing in public alongside U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
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At age 30, Robert Sherrill had served his time for a drug-related felony and was out of prison, destined for greater things, but more struggles were approaching.
In 2015 Sherrill started his own company, Imperial Cleaning Systems, which he said reaches nearly $1 million in revenue with more than 20 employees. He published an autobiography, The Journey Back to Now.
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As reported Saturday, Robert Sherrill’s path to redemption began on a bus ride to the federal prison facility in Forrest City, Arkansas. Authorities had convicted Sherrill of a drug-related felony.
At age 25, Sherrill had already resolved he wouldn’t die in a penitentiary, as his father did.
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University of Tennesse at Knoxville (UTK) Law Professor Glenn Reynolds on Thursday spoke to members of the Tennessee General Assembly about various topics, including a governor’s use of executive orders and the reasoning behind him having such power.
His appearance was before the Legislature’s Ad Hoc Committee to Study Emergency Powers.
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When is a COVID-19 patient not a COVID-19 patient? When the person has been dead for six months, as has reportedly happened in Memphis.
Media reports have carried the story, including coverage here by KVUE.
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Action 24/7, the only Tennessee-owned and operated sportsbook, is about to make its debut and will initially compete against three international operating publicly-traded companies.
“We believe we have a home-field advantage that will be hard for competitors to match. Our investors and our employees are from communities across the state,” said Action 24/7 CEO Tina Hodges.
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Republican political operative Roger Stone to the show to discuss his commitment to Jesus Christ and his appearance this Sunday at Global Bible Church in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee
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Technical glitches and other unforeseen problems nationwide could interrupt your child’s virtual classroom sessions, as students in Williamson County learned this week.
Zoom, which provides video conference services, malfunctioned Monday morning, according to the Williamson County School (WCS) System’s Facebook page.
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Tennessee U.S. Senate Democratic nominee Marquita Bradshaw late last week thanked the Democratic Socialists of America for helping her campaign, and she also said she can get Republicans to vote for her.
Bradshaw said this during an online conversation with DSA members nationwide. DSA Los Angeles officials posted the video on their YouTube channel.
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The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI) Securities Division will participate in the COVID-19 Enforcement Task Force, an international investor protection initiative to crack down on schemes related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The North American Securities Administrators Association, of which Tennessee is a member, is coordinating the task force.
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With the COVID-19 pandemic, racial justice protests and the looming presidential election dominating the headlines, the upcoming Supreme Court case, Google v. Oracle, has been all but forgotten.
It may seem like an inconsequential lawsuit between two Silicon Valley rivals fighting over a coveted piece of technology. But that analysis is wrong. The case has enormous potential consequences, not just for the two companies in dispute, but for countless Tennesseans and the state’s economy.
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Rapper Kanye West wants Tennessee officials to place him on the ballot for the 2020 presidential election.
An unidentified person representing West arrived at the Tennessee Division of Elections office Friday. That person picked up a petition that would allow West to run in the Volunteer State, said Tennessee Secretary of State spokeswoman Julia Bruck.
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed administrator for Centers of Medicaid Services and a member of the Coronavirus White House Task Force Seema Verma to discuss the recent uptick of COVID cases in Tennessee.
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Tennessee ranks eighth out of 50 states in economic outlook, according to the 2020 edition of Rich States, Poor States, released Wednesday.
The Virginia-based American Legislative Exchange Council published the book. Economists Jonathan Williams, Art Laffer, and Stephen Moore wrote it. The authors say they base a state’s economic outlook ranking on its current standing in 15 state policy variables.
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A Memphis man has won a lawsuit against the Tennessee Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners for denying him the right to work.
As The Tennessee Star reported in 2018, state officials denied that man, Elias Zarate, a barber’s license because he did not have a high school diploma.
A press release that the Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee emailed Monday updated Zarate’s case. Beacon, a right-of-center think tank, represented him.
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One group’s mission to give all Tennessee voters the power to recall school board members has withered away because of a chancery court judge in Madison County.
As The Tennessee Star reported last month, members of the Tennessee General Assembly proposed a law that would have given voters statewide the power to recall school board members. But legislators later watered down the bill so that it would apply only to Madison County, and they later passed it into law.
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U.S. Attorneys for the Western and Middle districts of Tennessee this week announced that federal officials have sentenced four ex-convicts in separate cases for possessing firearms.
Federal law prohibits ex-convicts from owning firearms.
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Tennessee’s current and prospective elected officials reacted Monday to U.S. President Donald Trump firing the chair of the Tennessee Valley Authority for hiring foreign workers.
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Three Tennessee Republican congressmen voted yes on a bill last month that the Gun Owners of America call a “Red Flag” that would permit the government to confiscate guns from members of the U.S. Armed Forces.
Members of the Democratic-majority U.S. House of Representatives passed that bill, H.R. 6395, late last month, at a vote of 295 to 125, according to the House website.
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State Rep. Robin Smith’s name was left off ballots in the first hour on the first day of early voting in one Chattanooga precinct.
On Friday, a voter called Smith to tell the Republican that her name was missing from the ballot for the 26th District, WRCB reported. This happened in Chattanooga’s Northgate 2 precinct. This impacted 10 early voters and 18 absentee ballots.
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Nearly 3,000 Tennesseans have signed up to be poll workers for the state’s August 6 primary election, Secretary of State Tre Hargett said.
“I am encouraged by how many students and young adults have applied to serve as poll officials,” Hargett said in a press release. “A successful election would not be possible without these Tennesseans choosing to serve in their community.”
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Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration Commissioner Butch Eley this week announced that revenues for June were $1.5 billion, which is $12.5 million less than the budgeted monthly revenue estimate.
State tax revenues, meanwhile, were $29.8 million less than June 2019. Overall collections for the month represented a negative growth rate of 1.91 percent.
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Facing eight federal lawsuits and opposition from hundreds of universities, the Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded a rule that would have required international students to transfer or leave the country if their schools held classes entirely online because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The decision was announced at the start of a hearing in a federal lawsuit in Boston brought by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said federal immigration authorities agreed to pull the July 6 directive and “return to the status quo.”
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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said Tuesday the state will do “whatever it takes” to defend the pro-life Heartbeat Bill in court.
U.S. District Judge William “Chip” Campbell in Nashville blocked the pro-life measure just hours after Gov. Lee signed it into law Monday.
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Pro-abortion advocates praised a Trump-appointed judge for blocking Tennessee’s Heartbeat Bill from becoming law.
U.S. District Judge William “Chip” Campbell in Nashville blocked the pro-life measure just hours after Gov. Bill Lee signed it into law Monday. Campbell’s mother, Beth Campbell, serves as a Republican National Committee member for Tennessee, the Tennessee Republican Party confirmed.
“An activist judge barely waited until the ink was dry to promote his own pro-choice view. We cannot allow the lives of unborn children to be jeopardized by radical judges. As your Senator, I will only vote to confirm justices who stick to the Constitution,” said Manny Sethi, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate.
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Bill Hagerty’s Senate campaign confirmed with The Tennessee Star that the Republican has resigned from the board of an investment firm that issued statements in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Hagerty previously served as President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Japan and was endorsed by the president in the race to replace Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who is retiring at the end of his current term.
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Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) called President Donald Trump a “textbook narcissist and sociopath” after he commuted the prison sentence of Roger Stone Friday night.
Stone had been sentenced in February to three years and four months in prison for lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. He was set to report to prison by Tuesday.
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The federal government granted Gov. Bill Lee’s request this week for a major disaster declaration for 20 Tennessee counties impacted by severe weather in early May.
President Donald Trump announced in a Thursday press release that he approved the declaration, which will make federal funding available for state and local recovery efforts in the affected areas.
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Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said he disagrees with President Donald Trump’s decision to terminate the United States’ membership in the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Trump administration formally notified the United Nations this week of its decision to leave WHO, The New York Times reported.
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Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has added her name to a bill that would prevent federal funding from going to cities with “violent anarchist jurisdictions.”
The bill, carried by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), defines an anarchist jurisdiction as a city or state that abdicates its constitutional duty to its citizens to uphold the rule of law, or fails to provide police, fire, or emergency medical services to its residents, according to Blackburn’s office.
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Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) urged Gov. Bill Lee to remove a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the State Capitol and rename a state park that bears his name.
In a letter sent to Lee Monday, Cohen asked the Republican governor to “demonstrate leadership on an issue that causes so much pain in the Black community in Tennessee.”
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Gov. Bill Lee announced a new partnership last week with law enforcement agencies across the state in an effort to reform policing in Tennessee.
“The intent of this partnership is the desire to ensure law enforcement are consistently reflecting the values of the communities they serve,” Lee explained in a press release.
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Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) called President Donald Trump’s Independence Day speech at the annual Salute to America celebration “one of the best” of his presidency.
The president delivered back-to-back speeches over the holiday weekend, the first of which took place Friday night in front of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. In both addresses, Trump delivered an unapologetic defense of American culture and history, mercilessly deriding the “cancel culture.”
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As of Sunday night Tennessee has had a total of 51,431 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 646 deaths. Officials at The Covid Tracking Project reported the latest numbers on their website Sunday night. The website also reported that the virus has hospitalized 2,871 Tennesseans. Exactly 949 of those Tennesseans remain hospitalized.. But the Covid Tracking Project also reported that 30,254 Tennesseans have recovered from the virus. As of press time, 844,735 Tennesseans had tested negative for the disease. The Tennessee Department of Health, meanwhile, reported on its website Sunday night that Shelby and Davidson counties continue to lead the state in confirmed and probable COVID-19 case counts. The TDH website listed the following numbers for Tennessee’s counties Sunday: • Shelby County: 11,793 cases • Davidson County: 11,089 cases • Rutherford County: 2,987 • Hamilton County: 2,781 cases • Sumner County: 1,610 cases • Trousdale County: 1,498 cases • Williamson County: 1,313 cases • Knox County: 1,171 cases • Wilson County: 941 cases • Putnam County: 883 cases • Robertson County: 834 cases • Sevier County: 804 cases • Bradley County: 707 • Lake County: 692 cases • Tipton County: 645 cases • Bledsoe County: 620 cases • Bedford County: 570…
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Gov. Bill Lee signed an executive order Friday granting the mayors of 89 counties the authority to issue local face mask mandates.
Six Tennessee counties – Sullivan, Knox, Hamilton, Davidson, Madison, and Shelby – have local health departments, and therefore already have the authority to issue mask requirements as needed, Lee’s office explained.
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Former Haywood County Mayor Franklin Smith filed a false accident claim after his wife was involved in an auto accident in May 2018 while she drove a county-owned vehicle, according to Tennessee Comptrollers.
Comptrollers did not identify the former county mayor by name in a report they submitted this week.
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The University of Memphis recently announced that its football players will wear helmets with a Black Lives Matter sticker for every game during the upcoming season.
“This season, for every game, our student-athletes’ helmets will have a BLM sticker,” Ryan Silverfield, head coach of the school’s football team, wrote on Twitter.
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Joe Carr, a conservative leader in Rutherford County, on Thursday endorsed Dr. Manny Sethi in his U.S. Senate race and said he will host the physician as well as U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) at a cookout on July 18.
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Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson to the studio.
At the end of the third hour, Leahy and Johnson answered calls from concerned parents about Governor Lee’s state of emergency extension that will last until August 29 and touched upon the potentiality of spreading COVID-19 through elementary and high school students.
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The Tennessee Supreme Court announced on Thursday it was canceling the July 28-29 administration of the Uniform Bar Examination.
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The Metro Nashville Police Department announced a “significant arrest” Wednesday night in connection to the May 30 riots outside the Metro Courthouse.
According to a press release, authorities have arrested 33-year-old Ryan Keith Ray on eight criminal charges. Ray has been charged with inciting a riot, arson, two counts of burglary, and four counts of felony vandalism.
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Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) wants to open up another impeachment inquiry, this time of U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr.
After calling for Barr’s impeachment last week, Cohen formally introduced a resolution Tuesday that would authorize an impeachment inquiry into Barr’s conduct.
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Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) led a bipartisan group of lawmakers in urging member states of the European Union to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) along with Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-NY-01) and Ted Deutch (D-FL-22) joined Blackburn in drafting the letter to EU member states. A total of 30 lawmakers signed their names to the letter.
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U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07) recently introduced a bill to require annual reporting on federal funds spent in China.
The bill, called the Our Money in China Transparency Act, would require detailed annual reporting on any federal funds spent on activities conducted in collaboration with China’s entities and institutions, Green explained in a press release.
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