The U.S. House of Representatives passed Tennessee U.S. Representative Andy Ogles’ (R-TN-05) Liberty in Laundry Act on Tuesday by a 215-200 vote.
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Cheatham Middle School in Ashland City, Tennessee on Monday announced its students are now “The Musketeers” following a survey conducted after the University of Cincinnati (UC) ordered the school to drop its previous “Bearcats” mascot the Ohio university claimed too closely resembled its own.
Cheatham County Schools Athletic Director Jeff Hobbs confirmed the mascot change to The Tennessee Star on Monday, when he explained the rivalry between the Xavier University Musketeers and the UC Bearcats prompted serious consideration after it was suggested on the social media platform X.
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State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) confirmed on Friday that enforcement of his legislation prohibiting Tennessee judges from considering a defendant’s ability to pay when setting their bail was allowed by a federal judge.
The judge made the decision despite determining the lawsuit brought by restorative justice organization Just City against Tennessee over the law will proceed.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said he believes that Tennessee Solicitor General Matt Rice strongly defended Senate Bill 1 (SB1) in front of the Supreme Court. SB1 is Tennessee’s state law that bans irreversible gender transition-inducing puberty blockers and hormones for minors.
Governor Bill Lee signed SB1 into law last year, which forbids healthcare providers from performing or administering to underage children “gender-affirming” medical procedures or treatments – including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and sex-change surgeries – for the purpose of enabling the child to identify with the opposite gender.
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Both Tennessee U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty have confirmed they will vote to confirm Pete Hegseth, who President-elect Donald Trump nominated to serve as his Secretary of Defense.
Blackburn and Hagerty both said they will vote to confirm Hegseth, with Hagerty declaring Trump’s nominee has the “momentum” to be confirmed when interviewed by CNN on Wednesday.
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The Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) may not meet its “goal” of completing the Covenant School shooting investigation by January 1, 2025, according to spokesman Don Aaron, who told The Tennessee Star on Tuesday he was unable to offer a firm date or time for the lead detective to finish documenting the case.
Aaron previously told The Star in November that “some work” was necessary to complete the documentation phase of the investigation early last month, then on November 12 confirmed it was “the goal” of the department to finish the investigation before the end of this year.
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Tennessee State Senator Adam Lowe (R-Calhoun) introduced a bill for the upcoming legislative session that would block the Tennessee Historical Commission (THC) from recommending the removal or destruction of any property deemed to be of historical, architectural, or cultural significance to Tennesseans.
Senate Bill 7 (SB 7) would limit the authority of the THC to the approval or recommendation of “certain renovations or alterations” to property deemed significant, according to its summary. It would also prohibit the commission “from taking adverse action,” such as fines, against properties boasting statues or monuments the THC wants removed.
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President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, said in a recently resurfaced interview that the FBI Director has the power to release major classified documents, including the manifesto left by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale and the client list once kept by disgraced financier-turned-sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and urged Trump to promise full declassification upon entering office.
Patel made the remarks in a December 2023 appearance on “Glenn TV,” when he told host Glenn Beck that the FBI Director has the authority to declassify both the “black book” used by Epstein and the ten or more notebooks full of writings left by Hale, the biological female who identified as a transgender man when she killed six at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023.
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Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, the Metro Nashville government, and the Davidson County Election Commission were sued on Wednesday by the Committee to Stop an UnFair Tax and its leader, Emily Evans, who asked a court to declare the mayor’s successful Choose How You Move transit referendum illegal under the 2017 IMPROVE Act.
The lawsuit notes the IMPROVE ACT, as passed by the Tennessee General Assembly in 2017, specifically allows local governments to fund transit systems by imposing a sales tax of up to 0.5 percent.
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Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell said his office and the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) are aware of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua’s “presence” within the city; however, he refused to provide specific information regarding arrests or activity related to the gang.
On Tuesday, O’Connell was pressed by Fox 17 reporter Kylie Walker on his knowledge of the Venezuelan gang’s presence in Nashville after a member of the same gang was arrested in Hamilton County on human trafficking charges the day prior.
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Robby Starbuck, Tennessee political commentator and documentary filmmaker, said he expected a “David vs. Goliath fight” when exposing Walmart Inc. for its “woke” corporate policies, however, ended up in discussions with Walmart executives that resulted in an agreement about the company’s woke policies moving forward.
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Despite Nashville voters passing the $6.9 billion Choose How You Move transit referendum proposed by Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, the mayor now seeks additional transit spending through the metro’s annual Capital Spending Plan (CSP).
O’Connell first proposed his $527 million CSP last Wednesday, with the mayor stating his proposed spending will “prepare us for the work to come from Choose How You Move.”
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A member of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has been arrested in Hamilton County as a result of law enforcement investigating a human trafficking operation, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) announced Monday.
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Tennessee U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) predicted on Sunday that President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees will be tasked with “executing” the Trump administration’s policies to fulfill his electoral mandate, and those who are unwilling or incapable of enacting Trump’s agenda will face consequences or be fired.
Hagerty offered his prediction for the Trump administration after he was questioned about the ideological differences between the president-elect and some of those asked to serve in his government, including Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard, during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”
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President-elect Donald Trump on Friday nominated Key Square Capital Management founder and hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary.
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The Nashville Banner announced in a series of posts to the social media platform X on Thursday that it is leaving the platform, citing the direction of the social media service since it was purchased by Elon Musk, who changed the company’s name from Twitter to X the next year.
In an announcement posted to the social media platform X, the news outlet wrote, “As of today, the Nashville Banner will stop posting on X.”
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After two Tennessee law enforcement agencies that serve Knoxville contradicted the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations (TBI), which last week warned the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is present in all major Tennessee cities, the agency pointed The Tennessee Star to a media advisory explaining local law enforcement may not be aware of the gang’s human trafficking operations.
The Knox County Sheriff’s Office stated last Saturday that Tren de Aragua members are the subjects of any investigations, and no associates of the gang are in its correctional facilities. Two days later, the Knoxville Police Department Chief Paul Noel said the department is aware of the gang, but is “not aware of any active members of Tren de Aragua in Knoxville.”
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A spokesman for Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) told The Tennessee Star on Wednesday that Sexton supports the lawsuit brought against the City of Memphis by the Tennessee Firearms Association (TFA) and Gun Owners of America (GOA) over its new gun ordinance that restrict Second Amendment within city limits.
The lawsuit was filed last week after Memphis voters passed legislation to require pistol licenses, impose red flag laws, and ban weapons deemed assault rifles, and Sexton’s spokesman confirmed his support for the lawsuit after the speaker previously promised the Tennessee House of Representatives would withhold Memphis’ share of state sales tax revenue if it imposed the ordinance.
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The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) this week acknowledged a “division-wide system outage” impacted the DOJ’s Civil Division last weekend through a Monday court filing.
Both Star News Digital Media, Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Tennessee Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy are currently waiting for a response from the DOJ after inviting the FBI to drop its opposition to the release of the complete written works left by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale before the transition of government to President-elect Donald Trump.
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Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) sent a letter to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell on Monday demanding accountability within the federal agency after it was reported that FEMA workers were advised to discriminate against Trump supporters who needed assistance after Hurricane Helene.
Earlier this month, The Daily Wire reported that a FEMA supervisor ordered workers to bypass the homes of Donald Trump’s supporters as they surveyed the damage caused by Hurricane Milton in Florida.
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The Tennessee Star learned on Sunday night that Nashville real estate developer Bill Freeman is dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
State Representative Bob Freeman (D-Nashville), the son of Bill Freeman, confirmed his father’s passing to Fox 17.
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The Tennessee Star on Friday extended a settlement offer to the Biden-Harris FBI through attorneys at the Department of Justice (DOJ) representing the FBI that would see the federal government drop its opposition to the release of the writings obtained by the FBI that were left by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the 28-year-old woman who self-identified as a man, and killed six at the Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, 2023.
Through their attorneys at the Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty, Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy and Star News Digital Media Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Star, offered the FBI, through its DOJ attorney, the opportunity to withdraw their objection to the release of Hale’s writings before President-elect Donald Trump’s presidential transition is complete.
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The Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) is investigating after a woman was stabbed to death at the WeGo bus station near the intersection of Harding Place & Antioch Pike.
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The parents of Jillian Ludwig filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Belmont University, the State of Tennessee, and Metro Nashville after the 18-year-old student was fatally shot near the university’s Nashville campus last year.
Ludwig was allegedly shot by Shaquille Taylor, who police say fired a weapon at public housing near Belmont after he was previously released from jail on unrelated firearm charges. Authorities deemed Taylor mentally incompetent, with doctors claiming he has the mental capacity of a small child. Taylor’s former coworker disputed this claim.
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The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) told Governor Bill Lee on Tuesday the expanding Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is now present in all of Tennessee’s “major cities,” and warned the group is engaged in human trafficking, organized retail theft, and drug trafficking nationwide.
On Wednesday, TBI communications director Josh DeVine confirmed to The Tennessee Star the bureau “has increased concerns about the potential for crime connected to Tren de Aragua (TdA), a prominent, violent Venezuelan transnational gang.”
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Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., won the post of Senate majority leader on Wednesday on the second round of voting.
He defeated Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and John Cornyn, R-Texas.
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Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) announced Tuesday evening she will be supporting Florida U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) for Senate Majority Leader.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Sunday revealed he is working with Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti to investigate whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) discriminated against Tennesseans affected by Hurricane Helene based on their political views.
Lee made the announcement after a FEMA official directed relief workers to avoid homes advertising support for President-elect Donald Trump after Hurricane Milton in Florida, specifically through guidance that told workers to “avoid homes advertising Trump” and “practice de-escalation and preventative measures” as best practices when providing relief.
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Metro Nashville Councilman Jordan Huffman sent a letter to Davidson County requesting the “removal” of an election worker who allegedly threatened to have him arrested, engaged in intimidation, and refused to accept some forms of photo identification at various points during the 2024 election cycle.
Councilman Jordan Huffman made his letter to Davidson County Election Administrator Jeff Roberts in public in a post to the social media platform X on Thursday.
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The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Resettlement Coalition (TIRRC) claimed in a Wednesday statement the landslide victory achieved by President-elect Donald Trump will make the country “less safe,” though the group was contacted by an Biden-Harris Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Louisiana to facilitate the release of thousands of illegal immigrants into Tennessee.
“The plans Donald Trump has promised will make every community less safe,” the group claimed in a statement posted to the social media platform X, before listing Trump’s proposals to end birthright citizenship, curtail public support for immigration nonprofits, and unleash the largest domestic deportation operation in the nation’s history.
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Republican leadership in the Tennessee General Assembly filed new legislation on Wednesday, the Education Freedom Act of 2025, to support Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice plan.
House Bill 1/Senate Bill 1 was filed by House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin).
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Former President Donald Trump will be the 47th President of the United States after being projected to win 270 votes in the Electoral College DecisionDesk HQ just after midnight on November 6, making him the President-elect of the United States. He will serve alongside Senator JD Vance, who was elected to serve as vice president.
At the time the race was called by DecisionDesk, Trump was additionally expected to win the popular vote against Vice President Kamala Harris, representing the first time a Republican presidential candidate won the popular vote since 2004.
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Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s multi-billion dollar transit plan was approved by voters on Tuesday, according to unofficial election results published by the Davidson County Election Commission.
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The Biden-Harris Department of Justice announced on Monday the arrest of 24-year-old Skyler Philippi, who prosecutors claim plotted to use a weapon of mass destruction to bomb a Nashville energy facility, as part of what Attorney General Merrick Garland called a “violent white supremacist ideology.”
In his Monday statement, the attorney general revealed, “the FBI had already compromised his plot,” and charging documents reveal the federal agency first gained knowledge of Philippi in June.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced Monday that the state will receive approximately $42.9 million from a settlement with Kroger over the grocery chain’s opioid-related misconduct.
The Volunteer State’s settlement with Kroger is part of a combined $1.37 billion settlement agreement between the grocery chain and a bipartisan coalition of 30 state attorneys general.
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U.S. House Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) predicted “blood” and “chaos” will follow should former President Donald Trump be declared to have lost the presidential election but dispute the election results, and revealed House Democrats already have plans to install security fences in Washington, D.C. before the next president is inaugurated.
Cohen made the remarks during an appearance on NewsNation in remarks to host Dan Abrams on Monday, after predicting Vice President Kamala Harris will win both the popular and Electoral College votes on November 5.
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Both the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Resettlement Coalition (TIRRC) Votes PAC and the Davidson County Democratic Party are among the groups that have provided in-kind contributions to the political action committee formed to support the Nashville transit referendum that will be decided by voters next week, the group revealed in a report filed Tuesday, when the Green Lights for Nashville PAC filed an amended financial disclosure statement with the State of Tennessee.
The report revealed the pro-referendum group received nearly $1.3 million in contributions, mostly from the Nashville Moves Action Fund, which is reportedly a 501 (c) (4) nonprofit that does not need to reveal its donors, but has nonetheless been ordered to register with Tennessee and disclose them by Election Day.
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Tennessee retailer D.T. McCall and Sons told The Tennessee Star on Monday that Cumulus Media refused to broadcast advertisements inspired by former President Donald Trump on the company’s Nashville radio station, SuperTalk 99.7 WTN, even after a disclaimer was added to the ads.
The offending ads feature a narrator performing an impression of the former president while extolling the virtues of D.T. McCall & Sons and excoriating nameless competitors at “the lumber yards.”
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Tennessee and 24 other states joined the amicus brief filed on Tuesday in the U.S. Supreme Court appeal launched by Virginia in its bid to overturn a ruling requiring the commonwealth to add about 1,600 noncitizens back to its voter rolls after they were originally included in error.
The amicus brief was filed in support of Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, who on Sunday appealed to the Supreme Court after the Biden-Harris Department of Justice obtained favorable rulings in lower courts to require Virginia to include the 1,600 noncitizen voters on its voter rolls prior to Election Day.
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The Tennessee General Assembly has been “unequivocally clear ” that illegal immigration is a high priority for them, but there’s only so much a state can do, the state’s attorney general said.
Jonathan Skrmetti told The Center Square in a telephone interview when he goes out and talks to people across Tennessee, he can’t think of a time when he hasn’t gotten questions about the subject.
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Rising in the polls and exuding confidence, Republican Donald Trump filled New York City‘s iconic Madison Square Garden with cheering MAGA supporters Sunday night in an historic effort to compete in blue territories and sweep control of the White House and Congress just 10 days from now.
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Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) demanded the release of former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon in a Thursday letter to Biden-Harris administration Bureau of Prisons (BOP) director Colette Peters that was obtained by The Tennessee Star.
Ogles accused the federal agency of “willfully facilitating the political persecution of the Democrat Party’s political opponents,” through its refusal to apply the First Step Act (FSA) good time credits accrued by Bannon, and demanded Peters take immediate actions to secure the former Trump adviser’s early release from prison.
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The Biden-Harris administration worked with former Nashville Mayor John Cooper and non-profit organizations to move thousands of illegal immigrants from federal facilities in Louisiana to Nashville, according to internal emails and documents published Wednesday by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, whose office successfully sued to stop the practice.
A press release from the attorney general’s office reveals that the plan was enacted by officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with cooperation from Cooper’s office. However, Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN), as well as Governor Bill Lee, opposed it.
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Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told The Tennessee Star on Wednesday that Vice President Kamala Harris must apologize after she fanned the “flames of political violence” in her remarks, delivered earlier that day from the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., comparing former President Donald Trump to genocidal dictator Adolf Hitler.
Ramaswamy described Harris’ speech as “insane” and “irresponsible” in a statement provided exclusively to The Star.
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Tennessee State House Minority Whip Jason Powell (D-Nashville) on Monday wrote that he and his daughter helped a woman being mauled in a Nashville greenway in a plea for Mayor Freddie O’Connell and the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) to increase public safety.
Powell urged O’Connell, MNPD Chief John Drake, and Nashville Parks Director Monique Horton Odom to take action in a letter posted to the social media platform X by Fox 17 Nashville reporter Kylie Walker, noting he witnessed the mauling only days after 34-year-old Alyssa Lokits was found dead in the Mill Creek Greenway on October 14.
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The Tennessee Star on Monday obtained a letter sent by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to Steve Bannon, wherein the federal agency acknowledged it is holding him the former White House chief strategist in violation of the First Step Act (FSA) of 2018.
Bannon’s attorneys filed the letter as part of an effort to secure an earlier release but it was sent to Bannon’s lawyers by the Acting Warden at the Federal Correctional Institute (FCI) in Danbury, Connecticut, where Bannon is serving a four-month sentence after he was convicted in 2022 for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena from the House select committee that investigated January 6.
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The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) on Monday declined to confirm to The Tennessee Star that Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist for the Trump administration, was evaluated for possible reductions in his prison sentence in accordance with the First Step Act of 2018.
Bannon, who is now serving a four-month prison sentence after he was convicted in 2022 for his refusal to comply with a Congressional subpoena by the House January 6 committee, stated on Friday to The National Pulse, “The Harris Bureau of Prisons is illegally holding me past my legal release date–trying to eliminate one of President Trump’s strongest advocates–these criminals reek of desperation,” and called Vice President Kamala Harris the “Mass Incarceration Queen” for the White House’s failure to implement the Trump-era First Step Act (FSA).
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The Biden-Harris administration failed to uphold the First Step Act of 2018 when implementing the four-month prison sentence handed to former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who remains scheduled for release from the Federal Correctional Institute (FCI) in Danbury, Connecticut on October 29.
Bannon raised the issue in his Friday statement, when he condemned Vice President Kamala Harris as the “Mass Incarceration Queen” for the failure of her administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) to uphold the Trump-era criminal justice reform in his case.
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Tennessee pro-life protester Bevelyn Beatty-Williams reported to the Federal Correctional Facility (FCI) in Aliceville, Alabama on Wednesday after she was sentenced to more than three years in prison for her role in a 2020 abortion protest in New York.
Williams was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison after she and other pro-life activists were accused of blocking the entry to a Planned Parenthood location in Manhattan, in violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act of 1994, following a federal jury trial in New York prosecuted under the Biden-Harris Department of Justice.
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Former Trump administration White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told The National Pulse on Friday the Biden-Harris administration prolonged his prison sentence by failing to uphold the First Step Act of 2018, branding Vice President Kamala Harris the “mass incarceration queen” as her administration keeps a former adviser to her political opponent behind bars.
From the Federal Correctional Institute at Danbury in Connecticut, the former Trump adviser told The National Pulse, “The Harris Bureau of Prisons is illegally holding me past my legal release date–trying to eliminate one of President Trump’s strongest advocates–these criminals reek of desperation.”
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