Spirit Airlines is expanding its services at Nashville International Airport (BNA) this year by offering five new routes to destinations in three states beginning in March, the airline company announced.
The company is adding two destinations – George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas (IAH), and Boston Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts (BOS) – to its Nashville route map beginning on March 5.
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The head of the Committee to Stop an UnFair Tax that opposed Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s Choose How You Move transit referendum told The Tennessee Star on Monday that her group will appeal the Monday decision by Davidson County Chancery Court Judge Anne Martin to dismiss the group’s lawsuit.
Emily Evans, who led the committee and is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, told The Star that Martin’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit under grounds that it was not a proper election contest was “not really unexpected,” and “sort of the pattern that we’ve seen in recent years.”
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A new study revealed that over the last decade, home prices across the country have nearly doubled, rising by 95 percent. At the same time, average hourly earnings have grown at less than half that rate, with a 44 percent increase.
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) introduced a bill on Monday that would authorize President-elect Donald Trump to enter negotiations with Denmark for the U.S. to acquire Greenland once he is inaugurated as the 47th president.
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A man is being held in Florida on a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer after police charged him with sexual battery against a 14-year-old girl who he allegedly transported to the state from Georgia.
Public records reveal Luis Mario Santizo-Mendez, 18, was booked into the Miami Dade County jail on Tuesday, where he was charged with lewd or lascivious battery on a child, and is now precluded from release due to both an immigration hold and an out-of-state warrant that may pertain to alleged crimes he may have committed in Georgia. He was initially granted a $7,500 bond.
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Tim Parrish, the state director of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) – Virginia, predicted that Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears has a “fighting chance” to beat either former Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07) or Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA-03) in the 2025 race for governor as polls show the Republican statistically tied with both candidates.
Parrish made the remarks during a Friday appearance on “The John Fredericks Show,” offering his analysis after The Virginia Star publisher John Fredericks suggested Earle-Sears has slim odds of repeating the 2021 victory that saw Governor Glenn Youngkin become the first Republican elected governor of Virginia since 2010.
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Chair of the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP) Gina Swoboda released a statement on Friday reacting to President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in the New York City hush money trial, describing the entire case as a “desperate attempt” by the Democratic left to “silence” Trump.
In May 2024, Trump was found guilty by a New York jury of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the Stormy Daniels hush money case.
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State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) on Thursday listed nine reasons he argues the Tennessee General Assembly should remove Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy in a press conference that lasted over an hour.
Taylor began by noting the process for the General Assembly to remove a District Attorney has been used twice in the last two decades, both times resulting in the resignation of the public official, before confirming he will provide his nine reasons for removal to lawmakers in the upcoming legislative session.
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Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced a package of four bills on Thursday aimed at combating human trafficking.
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Former U.S. Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07) and Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears are statistically tied in the race to become the next Governor of Virginia, according to polling released Thursday.
The Emerson College poll of Virginia voters found Spanberger narrowly leading with the support of 42 percent of the commonwealth, but Earle-Sears statistically tied at 41 percent of support, with the pollsters reporting a margin of error of 3 percent.
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Governor Bill Lee on Wednesday confirmed that, if requested, he will activate the Tennessee National Guard to assist President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration with the mass deportation of illegal immigrants.
During a press conference about his Tennessee Education Freedom plan to offer 20,000 partial scholarships to Tennessee families to promote school choice, Lee was asked whether would activate the National Guard to assist with mass deportations by a reporter who noted Lee was among signatories on a letter from Republican governors who pledged to assist the president-elect with his immigration agenda.
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Five men were arrested following the execution of a search warrant on Wednesday at a property in Antioch, Tennessee by state federal law enforcement agencies including the Metro Nashville Police Department, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), and the FBI.
The search warrant and arrests were first announced on social media by MNPD on Monday, when the department confirmed the five arrests were part of “an ongoing human trafficking investigation,” and the residence “is a suspected brothel.”
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) sent a letter to President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday urging him to eliminate the Presidential Medal of Freedom once assuming office.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti applauded a federal court’s order vacating the Biden administration’s Title IX rule nationwide.
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) introduced a bill on Thursday that would require the U.S. Department of State to develop and implement a policy that “ensures” U.S. tax money does not end up in the hands of the Taliban.
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U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) celebrated after a bill she co-sponsored that would ensure that the Women’s Suffrage National Monument is located on the National Mall was signed into law.
President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan Women’s Suffrage National Monument Location Act into law on January 4, officially authorizing a commemorative work to commemorate the women’s suffrage movement and the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.
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U.S. Representative Rob Wittman (R-VA-01) said Wednesday that the suggestions by President-elect Donald Trump that the United States should reassert ownership over the Panama Canal and purchase Greenland from the Kingdom of Denmark both serve U.S. national security interests.
Wittman made the remarks during an appearance on “The John Fredericks Show,” telling host John Fredericks, who is the publisher of The Virginia Star, that increased access to Greenland would help monitor Russian submarine activity while renegotiating the country’s interest in the Panama Canal would better position the United States against China.
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Davidson County Chancery Court Chancellor Anne Martin reportedly said on Wednesday that she intends to release a ruling in the lawsuit brought against Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, the Metro Nashville government, and the Davidson County Election Commission by February 1 over the successful Choose How You Move transit referendum, noting the plan is set to take effect on February 1 after voters approved it in November.
The lawsuit was filed in November by Emily Evans and her Committee to Stop an UnFair Tax, a group created to oppose the transit referendum, who claim the transit plan illegally uses the 2017 IMPROVE Act to raise Nashville’s sales tax to fund items not covered by the 2017 legislation, including sidewalks and traffic signals.
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New legislation introduced Tuesday in Tennessee would require the Tennessee Coordinator of Elections, Tennessee Department of Safety (TDOS), and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) to create new portals that will allow election officials to determine if voter applicants are U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote.
House Bill 69 by Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) requires the Coordinator of Elections and TDOS to “create a secure, electronic portal through which each county administrator of elections may access information to verify, prior to processing an applicant’s application to register to vote, whether the applicant is a non-United States citizen based on records on file.”
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U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02), who launched and remains co-chair of the Congressional Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Caucus, said on Wednesday that the unidentified drones spotted in December flying over New Jersey, Virginia and other states along the eastern seaboard, are likely a “test” from China, dismissing claims the drones are part of an American program to find radioactive materials.
Burchett made the remarks during his appearance on the Wednesday episode of the “What’s The Biggs Idea” podcast hosted by Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05), telling his colleague the drones likely originated in China, and that the United States likely “failed” whatever test the foreign government posed.
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Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) confirmed to The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy on Tuesday that confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees for attorney general and director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are set to begin in the Senate Judiciary Committee next week.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is chaired by Iowa U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
The Senate Judiciary Committee is chaired by Iowa U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
A majority of Virginia voters want state lawmakers to pass legislation that would set new standards for health insurance companies when it comes to transparency surrounding prior authorization decisions and approval rates, a new poll shows.
The polling firm Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy polled 625 registered Virginia voters from December 17-December 20 on their experiences and views regarding the healthcare industry, specifically health insurance companies providing customers with prior authorization before receiving medical care.
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Arlington County Republican Committee accused Arlington Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti of leniency when it was revealed the suspect in a Pentagon City double stabbing that occurred last month, 23-year-old Leonardo Reyes, previously reached a plea deal with her office in 2021 for armed robbery.
Dehghani-Tafti is one of the prosecutors who received significant political backing from an organization tied to the controversial Hungarian-American financier George Soros, and more recently, the prosecutor argued there was “no basis” to disrupt an anti-Israel encampment that formed near the Virginia home of Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Scott DesJarlais (R-TN-04) was appointed chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces on Tuesday.
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U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) on Monday said that the Pentagon under President-elect Donald Trump, if Pete Hegseth is confirmed to serve as the country’s Secretary of Defense, will drop the focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) seen under the Biden administration, and become focused exclusively on “lethality and competence.”
Hagerty stressed the importance of Hegseth’s confirmation during a Monday appearance on Fox News’ “Mornings with Maria,” telling host Maria Bartiromo that new leadership at the Pentagon would make the nation’s military more effective and address its recruitment and retention crisis.
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Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said the Metro Nashville Police Department and Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, as well as any other law enforcement agencies who fail to report data to the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference (TNDAGC) about illegal aliens arrested in the state, may face legal challenges for defying state law.
In May, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed HB2774/SB2158 into law, which, among other requirements, requires the TNDAGC to collect and analyze data from law enforcement agencies on the number of persons not lawfully present in the U.S. charged or convicted of a criminal offense in Tennessee during the previous year.
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The Davidson County Sheriff’s Office (DCSO) on Tuesday told The Tennessee Star that it submitted data to the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference (TNDAGC), who in turn confirmed to The Star that it received data covering the month of October 2024 from DCSO after The Star first contacted the agency seeking information about which Tennessee law enforcement agencies had submitted data in compliance with a Tennessee state law.
“We provided a spreadsheet of data, as required by statute, to the TNDAGC of those booked into Davidson County jails,” said Jonathan Adams, the director of communications for DCSO.
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Hundreds of attendees who paid $1,000 to $50,000 each filled up a sold-out event at Mar-a-Lago Saturday evening, where they watched a screening of a new documentary about the lawfare against Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman. Madison Media Fund, launched by film producer Gary DePew to support “freedom focused filmmakers,” deliberately timed The Eastman Dilemma: Lawfare or Justice for release on January 6. Incoming-President Donald Trump stopped by to watch the movie, flanked by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL).
The evening included a panel discussion with Eastman and others in Trump’s circle who were targeted by lawfare; Rudy Giuliani, Alan Dershowitz, General Michael Flynn, Jeffrey Clark, and Peter Navarro.
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McDonald’s is the latest business to end a number of its “woke” DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) policies after being investigated and approached by Robby Starbuck, the political commentator and filmmaker from Tennessee announced Monday.
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Virginia House Delegate Jason Ballard (R-Pearisburg) introduced legislation last Wednesday that could allow state law enforcement to apply an existing law against those who engage in “swatting,” a slang term for making a false police report to compel an intense police response, typically involving a SWAT team, to a specific address.
House Bill 1583 would amend and reenact the portion of Virginia code specifying bomb threats are a Class 5 felony to include threats, whether real or false, to “discharge a firearm within or at” any location where it is already illegal to call a bomb threat. It also would change the law to make such threats a Class 1 misdemeanor for offenders under 18.
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) was sworn into the 119th Congress on Friday, marking the beginning of his second term in Congress.
Ogles, who represents Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District, said it is an “honor” to continue representing the Volunteer State in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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President Joe Biden last week honored Metro Nashville Police (MNPD) Chief John Drake and the Nashville police officers who responded to the Covenant School shooting by awarding them the Medal of Valor, while the department reported that Attorney General Merrick Garland met with the Nashville police in the White House.
In posts to the social media platform X, the MNPD wrote, “Our Covenant School heroes, accompanied by Chief Drake, are at the White House & have just received our nation’s Medal of Valor from President Biden in the Oval Office. Attorney General Merrick Garland met with the team in the Roosevelt Room.”
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New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell confirmed on Sunday that she is seeking support from the White House to improve the city’s security ahead of the Super Bowl in February, and its famous Mardi Gras celebrations in March.
In a Sunday press conference, Cantrell stated, “I have specifically requested through the White House that the City of New Orleans be assisted with getting a tactical expert in our city this week to map our city for target hardening measures.”
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Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul issued a statement after Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) sent a letter to outgoing FBI Director Chris Wray demanding answers about the federal law enforcement agency’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies in the wake of New Year’s Day terrorist attack in New Orleans, accusing the senator of engaging in “hate and bigotry.”
The attorney general, a Democrat whose official biography states he is the son of Haitian immigrants with “a vast background in public service,” accused Blackburn and Republicans who support President-elect Donald Trump of launching, “unfounded attacks on immigration and diversity, equity and inclusion – even undermining the FBI as the agency’s dedicated public servants investigate the attack on their fellow Americans ringing in the New Year.”
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Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) was officially sworn into her second term in the U.S. Senate last week as she took the oath of office administered by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Blackburn, who was first elected to the Senate in 2018, said it is an “honor” to represent the Volunteer State in Congress.
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A law firm announced on Sunday it will file a lawsuit against the City of New Orleans and New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) on Wednesday over alleged “gross negligence” that purportedly allowed terrorist Shamsud Din Jabbar to drive a vehicle through a crowd of revelers early on New Year’s Day, killing 14 and injuring dozens.
The New Orleans-based Maples and Connick law firm stated in a press release that it will file its lawsuit against the city and police department on Wednesday morning, arguing, “their failure to implement basic safety precautions for citizens and visitors,” amounted to “negligence” that ultimately “paved the way for the tragic events that unfolded in the early morning hours of January 1, 2025.”
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A spokesman for The Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference (TNDAGC) told The Tennessee Star the conference is currently preparing its first report to the governor and state legislators to establish the cost incurred to Tennessee taxpayers as a result of illegal immigrants who are processed through the criminal justice system, to fulfill its obligations under a law signed last year to bill the federal government for the results of President Joe Biden’s immigration policy.
Despite the legal requirement for law enforcement to provide data about illegal immigrants who are arrested in Tennessee, the agency told The Star that neither the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD), nor the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, have provided data to the conference.
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The Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee published results of a poll it conducted on Monday revealing how registered Tennessee voters feel about a number of legislative issues at both the state and federal levels.
The right-of-center think tank polled 1,200 registered voters in Tennessee from December 16, 2024, to December 27, 2024.
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Scott DesJarlais (R-TN-04) was sworn into the 119th Congress on Friday, marking the beginning of his eighth term in Congress.
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Legislation filed last month in Virginia would require social media companies to obtain verifiable parental consent before allowing minors to create accounts on social media platforms, effectively raising the age for Virginia’s existing parental consent requirement from 13 to 18, while also prohibiting the sale of data collected about children.
Senate Bill 783 was submitted on December 27, 2024, by State Senator David Suetterlein (R-Roanoke), and the bill’s description explains it requires social media companies to obtain “verifiable parental consent” before any minor Virginian can create an account or at least “before collecting, using, or disclosing such child’s personal data,” specifically in a commercial transaction.
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The insurance company Allstate is facing calls for a boycott from conservatives on the social media platform X following its Sugar Bowl advertisement that seemed to blame the “addiction to divisiveness and negativity” shared by United States citizens for the New Year’s Day terrorist attack that claimed 14 lives in New Orleans.
Allstate’s commercial featured its CEO, Tom Wilson, and was broadcast during the Sugar Bowl game, which was held in New Orleans and delayed one day by the terrorist attack authorities say was committed by Shamsud Din Jabbar.
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Althea Duncan, the FBI Special Agent leading the agency’s investigation into the January 1 terrorist attack in New Orleans, wore a jacket emblazoned with the logo of the agency’s Critical Incident Response Group – Behavioral Analysis Unit (CRIG-BAU) during the same press conference when she denied the attack, which killed 14, was tied to terrorism.
“This is not a terrorist event, what is right now, is they’re improvised explosive devices that was found, and we are working on confirming if it is a viable device or not,” Duncan controversially said in a clip of the Wednesday press conference that accrued more than 10 million views on the social media platform X.
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Tennessee took in the 16th most H-1B workers during the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024.
This FY year went from October 1, 2023, to September 30, 2024.
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President-elect Donald Trump announced he is appointing Morgan Ortagus to serve in his incoming administration as deputy special presidential envoy for Middle East Peace on Friday.
Ortagus would serve under Steven Witkoff, who Trump announced in November was his choice for special envoy to the Middle East.
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The Texas Supreme Court issued a ruling on Wednesday dismissing the State Bar of Texas’s (SBT) four-year-long attempt to discipline Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster, calling it an “egregious invasion of the attorney general’s authority.” Webster assisted Paxton with combating election wrongdoing in the 2020 election, which included filing the lawsuit Texas v. Pennsylvania over the election irregularities in four states in 2020, which was joined by 21 other states.
Paxton, who is facing similar charges from the SBT, posted on X, “After four years of lawfare and political retaliation, the Texas Supreme Court has ended this witch hunt against the leadership of my office. The Texas State Bar attempted to punish us for fighting to secure our national elections, but we did not and will not ever back down from doing what is right. We have seen this playbook used against President Trump and other effective fighters for the American people and I am pleased that this attempt to stop our work has been defeated.”
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Tennessee ranked fifth in the nation for growth based on the number of one-way entries to the state in 2024, according to data compiled by the moving company U-Haul.
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) ensured that House Republicans, like Americans, want to see President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda move forward despite the drama surrounding Friday’s speakership vote.
On Friday morning prior to the U.S. House voting to elect Mike Johnson (R-LA-04) as its speaker, Burchett joined The Michael Patrick Leahy Show where he made the remarks.
On Friday morning prior to the U.S. House voting to elect Mike Johnson (R-LA-04) as its speaker, Burchett joined The Michael Patrick Leahy Show where he made the remarks.
Former U.S. Representative Denver Riggleman, the former Republican congressman who considered voting for President Joe Biden in 2020, and served under the House January 6 committee after he left Congress in 2021.
In remarks published on New Year’s Day by The Washington Post, Riggleman confirmed he has already started to launch an exploratory committee to determine his path to the Republican nomination to serve as Virginia’s next governor, telling the outlet he would run a campaign based on “facts, data, humor and integrity” to spread his message.
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Tennessee State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) celebrated on Thursday after Shelby County General Session Court Bill Anderson announced his resignation, confirming he will leave the judicial bench on March 1.
Anderson was previously the subject of complaints by Taylor to the Tennessee Board of Judicial Conduct (BJC), initially for declaring his “detest” for the Volunteer State’s bond and bail system, and more recently for releasing a man from jail despite the defendant being accused of firing a gun at a Memphis FedEx facility, citing the defendant’s ability to pay bail, despite Tennessee legislation that specifically prohibits judges from considering the financial circumstances of a suspect.
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New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said in a brief Thursday press conference that she was unaware New Orleans had “yellow archer” obstacles designed to prevent vehicles from driving on sidewalks.
Kirkpatrick’s remarks come after video was posted to the social media platform X showing the white Ford truck authorities say was used by terrorist Shasmud Din Jabbar to kill 14 people was able to evade a police vehicle and commit the attack after driving on the sidewalk.
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