Three individuals have been arrested for conspiring to distribute over 13 pounds of fentanyl-mixed pills in Nashville, according to the Middle District of Tennessee U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Read the full story
Tennessee State Representative Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood) filed HB 1653 on Monday to compel Tennessee law enforcement to release materials and evidence related to the Covenant School shooting, including the manifesto written by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who fatally shot three 9-year-old students and three faculty at the school in March 2023.
Bulso’s bill would require “all state and local law enforcement” to comply with a request from any member of the Tennessee General Assembly seeking “a copy of all records collected by the agency, including, but not limited to, all writings and medical, toxicology, and other reports, of a perpetrator involved in a school shooting incident that occurred at a public or private school in this state in March of 2023.”
Read the full story
Lou Dobbs, the newest host on the John Fredericks Radio Network, joined the newsmaker line on Monday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy.
Dobbs shared details about his early career covering the southern border from Yuma, Arizona during the height of the Caesar Chavez era, and discussed how his early experiences shaped his America first world view.
Dobbs’ new show launches at 7pm Easter / 6pm Central on WENO AM760 The Flame – Nashville’s only America First news talk radio.
Read the full story
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Tennessee Department of Revenue have extended the tax filing and payment deadlines for Tennesseans affected by the December 9 severe storms and tornadoes.
Read the full story
The conservative House Freedom Caucus slammed House Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposed top-line spending deal with Senate Democrats as a “total failure,” arguing the potential agreement costs about $68 billion more than the Louisiana Republican said it would.
Read the full story
Pope Francis on Monday slammed surrogacy as a “deplorable” practice comparable to human trafficking, and he called for a global ban on it.
“The path to peace calls for respect for life, for every human life, starting with the life of the unborn child in the mother’s womb, which cannot be suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking,” Francis told members of the Vatican Diplomatic Corps in an annual address Monday.
Read the full story
In a brazen act of political theater worthy of an ethics investigation, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves gave an hourlong rehash of the events of January 6 to a handful of reporters last week. Graves, a Biden 2020 campaign advisor who was appointed by Biden in November 2021, is overseeing the Department of Justice’s unprecedented and ongoing criminal investigation into the four-hour disturbance that has so far resulted in the arrest of more than 1,200 Americans.
Read the full story
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti led a group of 18 other state attorneys general in filing a public comment letter in opposition to the Department of Commerce’s “Business Diversity Principles” proposal.
Read the full story
The state of Tennessee spent 43% of the state sales tax on education last fiscal year and 56 cents of every dollar of state and local sales tax went to education in that same span.
Sales tax accounts for most of both state and local tax collections in Tennessee. The state collected $13.8 billion in sales tax of the $22.0 billion it collected. There was $4.3 billion in local sales tax collected out of nearly $4.7 billion in total collections over that same span, according to the Tennessee Department of Revenue’s Annual Report.
Read the full story
Tennessee was once again one of the top states to move to, ranking fifth in U-Haul’s annual rankings of growth states based on its data for one-way equipment rentals.
Texas, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina topped the list as Tennessee moved up from sixth to fifth this year.
Read the full story
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday said Congressional leaders reached a topline spending deal to avert a federal government shutdown by providing funding through the rest of the fiscal year.
Read the full story
The foundation created by Mexican-American “social entrepreneur” and billionaire Daniel Lubetzky is funding a group called the “Tennessee 11,” which seeks to pass a red flag law and other gun control legislation this year in Tennessee.
Lubetzky is the founder of the snack company Kind LLC, and it was reportedly worth $5 billion when the company was sold to Mars Inc. in 2020. When the company was under his management, Lubetzky was named a Presidential Ambassador of Global Entrepreneurship by former President Barack Obama and his administration’s Commerce Secretary, Penny Pritzker.
Read the full story
Middle Tennessee State University named Jennifer Woodard as the new program coordinator for the school’s Social Justice Journalism concentration, according to the university’s online academic catalog.
Woodard, a Ph.D. in mass communication from Indiana University-Bloomington and an MTSU alumna, is an expert in “diversity, equity and inclusion,” “race, class, gender and media issues,” and “mediated representations of women” according to her university faculty bio. She is also a faculty member of the Women’s and Gender Studies department and “concentrated on scholarship that would enhance her ability to teach students the value of a diversified newsroom” while pursuing her Ph.D., according to her faculty bio.
Read the full story
A Majority of Tennessee voters who support former President Donald Trump say they will not vote for another candidate if the former president is convicted at any of the charges levied against him in four states and by the federal government.
The Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee published data on Thursday indicating 58 percent of voters who support Trump “would still vote for him” even if he “were to be convicted of one or more of the crimes that he has been charged with before the next election.”
Read the full story
A United States congressman from Tennessee is still pushing for a full list of dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s clients, after unsealed court documents from earlier this week named several high profile figures as associates of Epstein’s.
“I don’t care about the list of people Epstein interacted with in just ANY capacity,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) on X, formerly Twitter. “I care about the list of people who participated in his sex crimes and exploitation, especially when it involved minors. Where’s the actual client list?”
Read the full story
The family of Tyre Nichols, who five black Memphis police officers beat following a traffic stop and foot chase last year, will hold two candlelight vigils on Sunday to mark the first anniversary of his death.
Nichols’ family, who is being represented by civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, will hold a vigil in Memphis at the intersection of Castlegate Lane and Ross Road at 7 p.m. CT and in Nichols’ hometown of Sacramento, California, at the Tyre Nichols Skate Park at 5 p.m. PST.
Read the full story
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump reportedly urged Memphis Mayor Paul Young to embrace the police reforms passed through city ordinances following the death of Tyre Nichols last year, even after former Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland claimed the ordinances were illegal.
Crump, who represents family members of Nichols, said in a statement issued on the anniversary of Nichols’ death that the family and legal team “are deeply disturbed by the recent revelation by former Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland that he actively avoided signing and enforcing the Driving Equality Act in honor of Tyre Nichols that the Memphis City Council passed in Spring 2023.”
Read the full story
Roger Simon joined host Michael Patrick Leahy and original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in-studio on Friday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss Simon’s new, highly-anticipated book, American Refugees.
The Oscar-nominated screenwriter and Epoch Times columnist shared personal details about his own journey to Nashville, including the city he almost moved to before settling on Music City.
Read the full story
Ten officers with the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) have been reassigned duties following an investigation into the November 6 leak of the manifesto written by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale, according to reports.
Read the full story
A total of 1,203 guns were stolen from vehicles in Nashville last year, according to the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD).
Read the full story
A adult caregiver in Maury County has been arrested for allegedly draining the bank accounts of her home care patients, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI).
“In June 2023, after receiving referrals from Adult Protective Services, TBI agents initiated an investigation into an allegation that a caregiver for several home care patients in Maury County was using the victims’ debit cards to make fraudulent, personal charges on an online gambling site,” according to a TBI release. “The investigation identified Cynthia Dobbins as the caregiver responsible for the theft from the victims’ accounts.”
Read the full story
Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB) announced its program that provides emergency heating assistance to those in need will run through February 6.
Read the full story
Political consultant Ward Baker joined Wednesday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy in-studio to discuss his insights to the state of the 2024 election cycle across the 50 states.
With the Iowa caucuses less than two weeks away and Super Tuesday a scant nine weeks after that on March 5, Baker takes listeners inside the campaigns as he shares the polling, players and places that matter most in 2024.
Read the full story
Memphis had the highest murder rate of 2023 in a comparison of 10 major cities identified as “homicide hubs” within the United States, according to an analysis published Wednesday.
The only Tennessee city tracked for the Wirepoints report, Memphis had a murder rate of 63.9 homicides per 100,000 people in 2023. A total of 397 homicides were reported in the city last year, up by 38 percent from 2022, when the city saw 288 homicides.
Read the full story
Natalie Winters, an on-air personality with Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” announced that she has launched a line of women’s clothing.
She’s So Right, launched earlier this week by the 22-year-old Winters, is inspired in part by the young founder’s disdain for the Chinese Communist Party and its stranglehold on the American economy.
Read the full story
Co-founder of the Jewish Republican Alliance Mitch Silberman recently joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss his work with the group as well as the changes he’s seen among Jewish voters amid the terrorist group Hamas’ attack on Israel last year.
Read the full story
Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) released a statement on Wednesday after a batch of 40 documents from a defamation case relating to the late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein were unsealed.
Read the full story
The Tennessee Star obtained the letter written by an attorney representing Dr. Carol M. Swain sent on Wednesday to the Harvard Corporation, including Interim President Alan Garber and Senior Fellow Penny Pritzker, demanding answers about what Swain claims is plagiarism of her work by outgoing President Claudine Gay.
The letter revealed Swain requires answers about what Harvard considers “duplicative language,” which is what the university has acknowledged Gay committed in several of her academic works. Writer and activist Christopher Rufo in December raised allegations that the former Harvard president plagiarized material from Swain’s work for her 1997 Ph.D. thesis. Swain is a former political science professor at Vanderbilt and a graduate of both the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Yale University.
Read the full story
Middle Tennessee State University offers a “Social Justice Journalism” track of study for undergraduate students.
The track is called the Social Justice Journalism concentration, which students can declare if they are pursuing a major in journalism. A concentration is a specialized track of study an undergraduate student can pursue within their declared major, according to Academic Info.
Read the full story
The Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee published results Thursday of its poll revealing which topics registered Tennessee voters are looking forward to being discussed this upcoming legislative session.
Read the full story
A report published in November found more than 30,000 Tennesseans left Memphis between 2017 and 2022, causing the city to shrink by almost 5 percent, even as Tennessee’s other major cities grew over the same period. The exodus coincides with a years-long struggle with crime in Memphis that has subsisted despite repeated attempts to render aid by the state and federal governments.
The 2023 study of population decline in United States cities by SmartAsset found that Memphis declined from 652,231 residents in 2017 to 621,050 residents in 2022, marking a 4.78 percent decrease in the city’s population. Memphis had the 27th worst decline in population in the country, according to the study.
Read the full story
A Tennessee nurse who was wanted for negligent homicide in the death of a patient has been arrested in Tennessee after nearly nine months on the run, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI).
“After a referral from Adult Protective Services, TBI agents began investigating an allegation that in March 2022, a certified nurse aide who worked in a care facility in Clarksville failed to properly use a lift while attempting to move a patient,” TBI said in a news release. “As a result, that resident, Patricia Oliver, sustained a fall that caused her serious bodily injury, ultimately resulting in her death. The investigation identified Takesha Tucker as the nurse aide responsible for the incident.”
Read the full story
Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security Mark Green (R-TN-07) traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border on Wednesday where he announced a full Committee hearing to initiate impeachment proceedings against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Read the full story
Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07) issued a statement on Tuesday in response to a report of 2023 congressional stock trades, which found his stock portfolio increased in value by 122 percent in 2023. Green stated that he has no knowledge of trades made in his name until after they are made, and revealed that he instructed his broker to “disregard any instructions” about trades should he provide them.
Green said in a statement on his website, “In fact, in my first year in Congress, to go above and beyond even the hint of impropriety, I instructed my broker in writing to manage my family’s investments and to disregard any instructions from me should I try to provide input (which I have not).”
Read the full story
Matthew Giffin, the newest member of The Tennessee Star team of journalists, joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy in-studio to discuss the controversy surrounding his resignation as editor-in-chief of MTSU Sidelines, Middle Tennessee State University’s official student newspaper.
Giffin brings listeners into the room and shares the events leading to his resignation, triggered by the publication of an article covering a student’s concern for family and friends in Tel Aviv during a conflict. The story faced intense backlash on social media, leading to threats against the interviewed student.
Giffin details the editorial board’s decision to take down the article, the subsequent false statement issued, and his decision, ultimately, to walk away from the outlet.
Read the full story
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said on Wednesday that the crisis at the southern border is a “disaster by the president’s own design,” adding that Biden has the authority to fix the problems.
Read the full story
As its new mayor was sworn in Monday, the City of Memphis recorded its first homicide.
Just after noon on Monday, a man was shot and killed at a Whitehaven gas station, according to reports. Two others were injured in the shooting, and a suspect has not yet been identified.
Read the full story
Both of Tennessee’s U.S. senators were part of a letter that questioned the removal of an Office of Personnel Management (OPM) web page that formerly provided the number of work hours used as “official time” for union activities since 2013.
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) led a group of 10 senators in a letter sent December 14, 2023, “to express concern” over OPM’s decision “to remove a page from its website that has documented, for over a decade, the amount of ‘official time’ taken by employees of federal agencies.”
Read the full story
Tennessee State Senator Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville) plans to introduce a bill that would expand abortion access in Tennessee. He claims his bill would allow mothers to have an abortion if it is believed carrying their child to term would later result in the mother becoming “sterile and unable to bear children” in the future.
In a Tuesday interview with WKRN News 2, Briggs revealed he seeks to create a new legislation enabling pregnancies “where either the child cannot survive outside of the womb, or it’s a condition where, if the woman is not treated properly, that she could end up unable to have children” to be aborted. Briggs argued the bill is necessary because of Tennessee’s 2019 abortion law, which became active in 2022 when the Supreme Court effectively overturned Roe v. Wade.
Read the full story
As the Tennessee General Assembly prepares to gavel back into session next week, State Representative Jody Barrett appeared on Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to reflect on the lessons learned during his first term in the Tennessee General Assembly and discuss his key legislative matters including red lag laws and school choice reform.
Read the full story
Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) continued his crusade for the release of dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s client list Tuesday morning, noting that he said he believes that the coverup will continue.
“What I want is the client list,” Burchett told Rob Finnerty on NewsMax’s “Wake Up America.” “You know, you’ve got these skeevy old dudes that everybody says, ‘Well, they’ve gone and had sex on this island, what’s the big deal?’ No they haven’t. They’ve done an act of violence against a child. They need to be burned on that. That’s the list we need.”
Read the full story
WarRoom host Stephen K. Bannon made an appearance on The John Fredericks Show Tuesday morning, where he joined Fredericks in calling on former President Donald Trump to demand the immediate resignation of Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel.
Bannon criticized the current state of the RNC, citing a substantial list of failures, including financial issues, lack of focus, and questionable priorities such as organizing debates that foment anti-Trump sentiment.
Read the full story
The Biden administration drastically simplified the vetting process for Chinese illegal immigrants in April 2023, according to an internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) email obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The April 2023 email, which was sent by a CBP supervisor to a “master list” of about 500 Border Patrol agents, instructs CBP officials to radically reduce the number of interview questions for Chinese migrants apprehended after illegally crossing into the country from roughly 40 to just five. The “headquarters guidance” came as border agents were overwhelmed with near-record numbers of illegal crossings.
Read the full story
A law increasing the number of points charged to a person’s driving record for violations of driving while using a cell phone went into effect on Monday.
Read the full story
Tennessee Black Lives Matter activist and former Memphis mayoral candidate Pamela Moses is running for U.S. Senate as an independent candidate. She will seek to challenge Senator Marsha Blackburn (R) and the Democratic Party nominee.
A Facebook page for Moses’ campaign has been active since November 20, and on December 30 she appeared in a live stream to confirm her candidacy. Federal filings reveal she filed paperwork for her Senate run in 2023.
Read the full story
Ohio journalist and entrepreneur Jack Windsor joined host Michael Patrick Leahy on Monday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report to discuss the connections and divides behind the shocking decision by Governor Mike DeWine to veto measure that would prohibit genital mutilation of children and transgender males competing in girls’ sports. Windsor unveils the deep ties between the Buckeye State governor and the “medical industrial complex,” and how this particular veto – perhaps unbeknownst to DeWine – could influence the 2024 elections in Ohio. The Ohio Press Network journalist then breaks down the hotly contested republican nomination race for U.S. Senate to see who will face long time incumbent Sherrod Brown. TRANSCRIPT Michael Patrick Leahy: 12:33 p.m., broadcasting live from our studios in downtown Nashville on Monday, January 1st, 2024. We are broadcasting live. We’re the only talk station talk show in Nashville broadcasting live today. Another hard worker is our very good friend formerly with The Ohio Star now with the Ohio Press Network and the host of his own program in Columbus Ohio, our good friend, Mr. Jack Windsor. Jack, thanks for joining us. Jack Windsor: Michael, it’s great to be with you. Happy New Year. And thanks for allowing…
Read the full story
Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) will headline the Williamson County Republican Party’s Reagan Day Gala by delivering the keynote speech at the event.
Read the full story
A bill authorizing the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security to create a voucher program for the purpose of offsetting the cost of individuals taking a handgun safety course for the first time will take effect on January 1, 2024.
Read the full story
Nashville spent nearly $700,000 out of pocket on four lawsuits challenging state laws this year along with 1,645 hours of the department’s time, according to a new report from The Tennessean.
The $682,949 in out-of-pocket expenses included paying for outside counsel, expert witnesses, filing fees and court reporters, the newspaper said.
Read the full story
A 20-page complaint was submitted on Thursday against Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert, detailing an alleged pattern of paranoia and workplace incompetence that has resulted in a severe backlog in vehicle registrations and a working environment reportedly described as “hell” by an employee.
Shelby County Commissioner Mick Wright promised the formal complaint against Halbert was forthcoming in a social media post on Wednesday, which responded to a letter from Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp (R), which explained the need for a formal letter of complaint about Halbert. Wamp’s office began investigating Halbert after District Attorney Steve Mulroy recused himself.
Read the full story