The Knox County Commission unanimously passed a resolution that bans data center construction for one year.
The resolution will allow the county to develop zoning regulations for data centers to “address current and emerging technologies not yet covered by existing zoning regulations.”
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Metro Nashville on Tuesday told The Tennessee Star that Metro estimates it will need until July 10 to provide documents justifying the nearly $1.5 million in grants awarded to the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors (TNJFON) in the fiscal year (FY) 2027 budget passed earlier this month.
The response from Metro came six business days after Metro confirmed receipt of the public records request on June 12, at which point the request had been sent to the Metro Department of Finance, the law department, the mayor’s office, and the Metro Council.
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Dr. George S. Ford, the chief economist at the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies, last month released a bulletin contradicting claims made by a professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) and employee of the Electric Power Board (EPB) of Chattanooga about the economic impact of the EPB municipal broadband network.
Ford wrote the bulletin in response to claims published by EPB last November by Dr. Bento Lobo of UTC and EPB employee William Plank in their own report, which asserted the public utility’s fiber infrastructure produced “$5.3 billion and 10,420 jobs” between 2011 and 2025, and created the ecosystem for new businesses and entrepreneurs to thrive.
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Lisa Daftari, Editor-in-Chief of The Foreign Desk, said the U.S. must approach ongoing negotiations with Tehran cautiously, arguing that the Iranian regime has spent decades mastering the art of using diplomacy to advance its own interests while avoiding meaningful concessions.
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Legal commentator and retired attorney Mark Pulliam said a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court opinion sharply criticizing Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner illustrates the dangers of progressive prosecutors who, he argues, fail to fully enforce the law and undermine the integrity of the criminal justice system.
Speaking during Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Pulliam discussed the court’s decision and argued that prosecutors who decline to aggressively enforce criminal laws can undermine the justice system.
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Legal commentator and retired attorney Mark Pulliam said the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in United States v. Hemani represents an important victory for Second Amendment rights while leaving unanswered questions about how Congress should regulate gun ownership by drug users.
Discussing the case during Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Pulliam explained that the Court’s ruling struck down a federal law used to prohibit certain drug users from possessing firearms. The decision was authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch.
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Civil rights attorney Ben Crump on Saturday claimed Tennessee’s new law requiring those applying for a driver’s license to demonstrate their lawful residence status in the country and take an English proficiency exam has the potential to undo “30 years of progress” in the Volunteer State.
Crump made the comments on social media while sharing an article about House Bill (HB) 1708, the legislation signed into law by Governor Bill Lee earlier this year. Once effective in January 2027, it will require those applying for a Tennessee driver’s license to submit documentation providing citizenship, and to complete an English proficiency exam.
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Three East Tennessee individuals have pleaded guilty and been sentenced for their roles in a prescription fraud operation involving the Riddle Drugs pharmacy chain, that caused Medicare, drug plans, and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to pay more than $7.3 million, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee announced earlier this month.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) press release explained that Grant Riddle, Brian Woods, and Barbara Smith all pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud over each of their roles in the procurement, creation, and submission of reimbursement requests related to a formulary, a list of prescription drugs meant to balance “appropriate therapy while promoting effective resource utilization,” created solely based on their high reimbursement values for Riddle Drugs.
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Following the sentencing of former South African Air Force Brigadier General Portia Anyamba for acting as an unregistered agent of South Africa while working at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), The Tennessee Star’s lead reporter Tom Pappert said the case leaves critical questions unanswered.
Speaking during an appearance Monday on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Pappert pointed to lingering uncertainty surrounding Anyamba’s immigration history, citizenship status, security-clearance eligibility, and how a foreign intelligence asset was able to work inside one of the nation’s most sensitive U.S. Department of Energy facilities before federal investigators intervened.
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A rainbow crosswalk located at the intersection of 14th St and Woodland St in East Nashville originally painted in 2024 was updated with a fresh coat of paint on Saturday ahead of next weekend’s Nashville Pride Fest and Parade set to take place downtown.
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Over 6,000 people have signed an online petition urging a rural Tennessee county to impose an 18-month moratorium on data centers.
The petition comes as Lawrence County may be getting a data center in Lawrenceburg. The city’s planning commission will hold a meeting on July 9th to discuss the data center’s site plan.
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The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) on Saturday announced that five men were arrested in Sumner County as a result of a human trafficking investigation that included the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Sumner County Sheriff’s Office, and the Hendersonville Police Department (HPD).
One of the accused, Kasim Barnes, was formerly an officer with HPD. He was arrested in June 13, and Fox 17 reported last week that the department said in a statement that Barnes’ employment was terminated on June 15. He is charged with six counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of solicitation of a minor to commit aggravated statutory rape, according to the outlet.
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Monroe County Sheriff Tommy Jones on Thursday announced that Criminal Court Judge Andrew Freilberg issued an eight-year prison sentence to Calvin Suttles, who pleaded guilty earlier this week to providing the fentanyl that caused Larmar Rose to die of a fatal overdose in 2023.
According to the press release posted to social media by Jones, law enforcement obtained surveillance camera footage allegedly showing Suttles and the victim meet and exchange money for the illicit substance at a gas station in Madisonville. Just two hours after their transaction, the victim experienced a fatal overdose, according to the sheriff.
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A former Brigadier General in the South African Air Force has been sentenced to six months in federal prison and two years of supervised release after pleading guilty to acting as an agent of the Republic of South Africa and making false statements in an application to obtain a security clearance, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee announced Thursday.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the sentence was imposed after 59-year-old Portia Anyamba admitted to regularly communicating with an intelligence officer of the South African State Security Agency (SSA) in 2023 and 2024, when she was working as a program management operational specialist in the National Security Program Office at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
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Veteran Washington correspondent Neil W. McCabe said Friday that continued fighting between Israel and Hezbollah remains the greatest threat to the newly signed U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding.
Appearing on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, McCabe discussed reports that planned U.S.-Iran negotiations in Switzerland had been postponed and argued that the conflict in Lebanon could undermine progress made by Washington and Tehran.
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Tennessee announced on Thursday that it received settlement money from a rent-pricing manipulation lawsuit.
The Volunteer State got $7 million from the settlement with LivCor, a Chicago-based real estate investing company, over allegations that the company used rent-pricing software, including RealPage products, and competitors’ confidential data to raise apartment rents.
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Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, argued that the alleged White House UFC Freedom 250 terror plot raises significant concerns about both illegal immigration and the growth of violent extremist networks operating online.
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Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said Metro Nashville’s newly approved $1.5 million for two immigration-focused nonprofits raises serious questions about transparency and compliance with state law.
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A man accused of nearly killing his girlfriend by slashing her throat during a brutal 2024 attack in Campbell County has been captured following an extensive multi-state manhunt, according to the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS).
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Davis Hunt, founder of the Nashville-based publication The Pamphleteer, said during an interview Thursday with The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy that low voter turnout in Metro Nashville elections has allowed progressive political organizations to exert outsized influence over city government, while arguing that increased participation could reshape the city’s political landscape.
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Shelby County General Sessions Clerk Tami Sawyer was suspended from her position on Wednesday, just days after the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee unsealed a federal grand jury indictment in a “significant” public corruption case that could land the Memphis Democrat behind bars for up to 20 years if she is convicted.
A court order first reported by NewsChannel 3 revealed that Sawyer was suspended from her office for 60 days by the General Sessions Court for Shelby County, effective on Wednesday, in accordance with Tennessee Code Annotated (TCA) 18-1-302.
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U.S. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) was considered as a target by those accused of planning a drone-and-sniper attack at the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC): Freedom 250 event held on the White House lawn on Sunday, according to criminal complaints filed by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) against two of the alleged plotters.
All four of the criminal complaints against the five named defendants appear to contain similar allegations, including the DOJ complaint filed in the Northern District of Nebraska against the plot’s alleged ringleader, Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, who illegally remained inside the United States after his visa expired in 2001, and was later granted Deferred Action Against Childhood Arrivals (DACA) by the Obama administration in 2014.
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Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) introduced a bill designed to end the Optional Practical Training visa program, which incentivizes employers to hire foreign students.
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As Nashville prepares to host its biggest Independence Day celebration yet, the city’s annual Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th event is set to be broadcast to a nationwide audience through Disney’s live television special, “Disney Celebrates America: Nashville’s Star-Spangled Bash,” as part of the America 250 commemoration.
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Mayor Freddie O’Connell lauded the Metropolitan Council’s approval of the Fiscal Year 2027 operating budget Tuesday night, highlighting a half-cent reduction in the local grocery tax and the largest-ever local investment in affordable housing.
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State Representative Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) on Tuesday told Marc Elias, the prominent Democratic election attorney and founder of Democracy Docket, that Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District remains highly competitive for Democrats, even after state lawmakers with “evil intention” allegedly divided the district along racial lines.
Pearson made the comments during his Tuesday appearance on “Defending Democracy with Marc Elias,” a podcast produced by the lawyer’s Democracy Docket platform, after first insisting that Tennessee’s recent redistricting, completed in response to the Louisiana v. Callais decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, proved Tennessee is no longer a “constitutional democratic republic.”
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Judson Phillips, Tea Party Nation founder and former prosecutor, said the defense strategy reportedly being pursued by accused killer Luigi Mangione is a mental-health-based legal defense that rarely succeeds and is typically used when other legal options are limited.
As reported by Just The News, Mangione’s attorneys indicated in a New York court hearing Wednesday that they plan to argue he was suffering from an “extreme emotional disturbance” at the time of the 2024 fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
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The Metro Nashville Council approved a modified version of the budget submitted in May by Mayor Freddie O’Connell, including the nearly $1.5 million he requested to appropriate as grants for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors (TNJFON).
In a 35-2 decision on Tuesday, the Metro Council approved a $3.8 billion budget after adopting a substitute budget filed by Council Member Kyonzte Toombs that replaced the version submitted last month by O’Connell.
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A week-long targeted enforcement operation conducted in East Tennessee last month resulted in the arrests of 117 illegal aliens, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Tuesday.
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An Ashland City man is facing an aggravated assault charge after police say he chased a group of teenagers who allegedly removed an anti-ICE sign from his yard and then strangled a 17-year-old driver during a confrontation at a local auto parts store.
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Wilson County may be the next county in Tennessee to establish zoning regulations for data centers.
On Monday, at its county commission meeting, Commissioner Lauren Breeze said that she was working on introducing an amendment to regulate data centers in Wilson County.
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University of Tennessee alumnus Randy Bresnik has been selected by NASA to command the Artemis III mission, a major milestone in the agency’s effort to return astronauts to the Moon and prepare for future missions to Mars.
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The 2022 proposal by the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors (TNJFON) confirms the pro-illegal alien nonprofits sought more than $3.5 million to provide immigration legal services in Davidson County.
Attached as an exhibit to the June 2022 resolution appropriating Biden-era American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to “expand critical immigrant legal services” in Nashville, the document confirms the nonprofits proposed using the funding to help immigrants obtain “protections from deportations.”
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U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) spoke exclusively to The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy on Tuesday, promoting a new bill that would provide additional federal election security funding to states that submit voter registration data to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for citizenship verification.
During an interview on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Blackburn discussed the Election Security Partnership Act, legislation she introduced with U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that would provide bonus election security funding to states that participate in DHS’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.
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U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Tuesday endorsed State Representative Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) in his campaign to become the Democratic Party nominee in Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, which is currently represented by U.S. Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN-09), who announced his retirement from Congress shortly after the Tennessee General Assembly redrew the district earlier this year.
Sanders’ endorsement was first reported by The Intercept, which reported the former Democratic presidential candidate shared his support for Pearson in a statement emailed to the publication.
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The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) unveiled the design concept for a new federal courthouse in downtown Chattanooga, marking the first renderings of a project to reflect the Trump administration’s emphasis on traditional civic architecture.
The approximately 191,000-square-foot courthouse, planned for Vine Street, will consolidate several federal judicial functions into a single secure facility, including the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, and the Circuit Library.
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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Monday that the state is suing TikTok, saying the social media platform broke state laws by ignoring them.
The first, Florida House Bill 3, or the Online Protections for Minors Act, limits social media access for minors.
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Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell signed an executive order allowing Metro departments to review the impact of large-scale data centers on the city.
“We don’t want the potential negative impacts of large-scale data centers in our neighborhoods, so in partnership with the Metro Council, we’re taking action to ensure we put proper regulations in place before any more of these things are proposed,” said O’Connell on Monday.
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When a predator or an abuser takes a child, the clock starts ticking. License Plate Reader cameras scan public roadways and cross-reference law enforcement databases in real time. If a vehicle matches an AMBER Alert, a stolen car report, or an active warrant, officers are notified instantly.
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Four different departments within Metro Nashville confirmed they received the public records request filed Thursday by The Tennessee Star, seeking any records explaining the purpose and justification for the grants proposed for the pro-illegal immigrant nonprofits, Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors (TNJFON) and Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC). The nonprofits would receive nearly $1.5 million combined in the budget submitted last month by Mayor Freddie O’Connell.
The Metro Nashville Department of Finance was first to confirm receipt of the Tennessee Public Records Act (TPRA) request submitted on Thursday by The Star, confirming it was entered into Metro’s system in a Friday morning email.
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The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee told The Tennessee Star on Monday afternoon that Shelby County General Sessions Clerk Tami Sawyer was named in a six-count indictment it described as a “significant public corruption case,” following the release of video showing Sawyer at the federal courthouse in Memphis with her attorney on Monday morning.
According to the indictment, Sawyer is accused of using county procurement and travel systems to steal or misdirect nearly $45,000 between August 2024 and June 2025.
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Legal commentator and retired attorney Mark Pulliam said the misconduct allegations surrounding U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross represent “one of the worst” scandals he’s seen involving a federal judge and predicted that the Georgia jurist will ultimately resign rather than face a congressional impeachment battle.
Ross, a federal judge in the Northern District of Georgia appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2014, was the subject of a lengthy investigation by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after complaints from former law clerks.
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More than a decade after Diesel-Gate first rocked Volkswagen’s U.S. business and reputation in 2015, ultimately leading to criminal penalties and billions in settlements for the company, a court in the United Kingdom (UK) is weighing claims that five other automotive manufacturers, including two with Tennessee footprints, have allegedly installed systems in diesel vehicles designed to circumvent emissions regulations.
News first emerged that Volkswagen was accused of selling vehicles with software designed to skirt American emissions standards, and in 2017, Volkswagen pleaded guilty in federal court, admitting to a conspiracy to defraud the United States, engage in wire fraud, and violate the Clean Air Act. It also pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and importing merchandise by means of false statements.
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Don Palmer, a senior legal fellow for election integrity with the Heritage Foundation Institute for Constitutional Government, sat down for an exclusive interview Friday with The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy, where he detailed how a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision could compel several states to overhaul their election laws by requiring mail-in ballots to be received by Election Day.
During an appearance on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Palmer discussed election administration, voter confidence, citizenship verification, civic education, and concerns about the federal judiciary.
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U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn on Friday sent a letter to the head of the company which owns Kik, the controversial messaging platform used by Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, which was recently called a “predator’s paradise” in an article by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE).
The senator began her letter to MediaLab CEO Michael Heyward by directly referencing the NCOSE research released on June 4, which detailed an experiment that saw a Kik account belonging to a fictional 12-year-old girl overwhelmed with graphic sexual messages and requests from strangers. The report also detailed four arrests, convictions, or sentences of the platform’s users since April.
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Metro Nashville on Friday confirmed receipt of the request filed by The Tennessee Star pursuant to the Tennessee Public Records Act (TPRA), seeking records explaining the purpose of the nearly $1.5 million in proposed grants in the 2027 budget released by Mayor Freddie O’Connell for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors (TNJFON), which both support illegal aliens living in the Volunteer State.
The budget proposed last month includes a $735,000 grant for TIRRC and $718,000 for TNJFON. While a spokesman for O’Connell told The Star the grant for TIRRC would not support lawyers for illegal aliens, the Metro Clerk Austin Kyle told The Star on Monday that the new grant only represented a change in funding source but otherwise extensions of its previous grant, which was signed in 2022 and is set to expire on June 30.
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The Metropolitan Planning Commission decided to put off a decision on regulating data centers in Davidson County.
The planning commission will consider a proposed ordinance on June 25th that will provide a “comprehensive regulatory framework for data centers.”
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Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) announced Friday it has selected Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet High School student Hannah Said to serve as the next student member of the Metro Nashville Board of Education, placing a student who has pledged a “deep commitment to social justice” in a prominent advisory role on the district’s governing body.
She succeeds Hannah Nguyen, who graduated from John Overton High School in May.
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Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, praised the Memphis Safe Task Force after federal officials announced the coalition of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies had surpassed 10,000 arrests since its deployment in September 2025.
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Three Mississippi residents living near the Tennessee border have filed a class action lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) company behind the conversational chatbot Grok, alleging the company has committed negligence and negligence per se while establishing dozens of natural gas turbines that have created a public and private nuisance.
Filed on Monday by three residents in the Northern District of Mississippi, and assigned Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Debra Brown following the recusal of Bush-appointed Chief District Judge Michael Mills, the lawsuit seeks class certification, appointment of the plaintiffs as class representatives, judgment on their claims, and a jury trial.
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