Reactions have poured in after Memphis police officer Joseph McKinney was shot and killed early Friday morning while he and other officers were responding to a suspicious vehicle call.
On Friday approximately 2:00 a.m., officers responded to a suspicious vehicle call at Horn Lake Road and Charter Avenue, according to the Memphis Police Department (MPD).
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Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell on Thursday provided details of how his proposed transit referendum would expand lines and services for the city’s bus system.
O’Connell posted the details to the social media platform X, where he wrote the bus transit improvements are “a key element” of his referendum. The mayor confirmed, “We’ll have local, frequent, new, and express service updates.”
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Businessman Tom Guarente confirmed to The Tennessee Star that he dropped his candidacy for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District on Thursday, leaving just one Republican challenger to Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05).
Guarente confirmed via text message to The Star on Thursday afternoon, “I dropped off the ballot today.”
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U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) joined 18 other Republicans in voting against reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on Wednesday. He told The Tennessee Star his vote would protect Tennesseans from “unreasonable searches and seizures by the federal government.”
Ogles explained his decision to break with the majority of Republicans and vote against reauthorizing FISA came after House leadership “chose to keep the doors closed and did not allow an open amendment process.” He noted he had six amendments that were all ignored by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA-04).
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Mike Olcott, a Republican who won last month’s primary election for Texas House District 60, invalidated News Channel 5’s Phil Williams’ claims that his opponent he defeated in the race, State Representative Glenn Rogers, was defeated by “billionaire” pro-school voucher “forces.”
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The Tennessee State Senate on Tuesday passed legislation to allow some teachers to be armed on public school property, but the Senate gallery needed to be cleared prior to the vote following a series of outbursts from activists opposed to the bill.
Lawmakers voted to pass SB 1325, which would allow school faculty and staff to carry concealed handguns if they obtain an enhanced handgun carry permit, complete 40 hours of school safety training annually, obtain approval of relevant school and law enforcement authorities and are not restricted from owning firearms.
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Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell will reportedly announce the full contents of his transit referendum, called “Choose How You Move,” on April 19.
O’Connell will outline his full plans for the future of transit in Nashville next week, with both the Nashville Post and the Nashville Business Journal confirming the April 19 unveiling will be held one week from Friday at the Southeast Community Center in Antioch.
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The self-described “world’s leading liberal voice” news outlet The Guardian published an attack-style article denouncing the Republican supermajority in Tennessee politics on Friday, claiming such a political makeup has “imprisoned our democracy.”
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Shaquille Taylor, the man accused of shooting and killing Belmont University student Jillian Ludwig last year, is set to appear in court next month for a competency hearing, according to WKRN.
The hearing is scheduled for May 1, according to the outlet.
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The treasurer for The Best of Tennessee Action Fund, part of the “Lincoln Project of Tennessee” announced on Wednesday, recently made two $1,000 donations to the presidential campaign of Nikki Haley, the former Ambassador to the United Nations who reportedly courted Democrats in her ill-fated primary campaign against former President Donald Trump.
Federal Elections Commission (FEC) records indicate James Seabury III is the treasurer for The Best of Tennessee’s super PAC, which it calls the Action Fund.
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The man police allege is responsible for killing one and injuring five in an Easter Sunday shooting in Nashville was a convicted felon out on bond for felony charges in Rutherford County.
Rutherford County District Attorney Jennings H. Jones said the suspect, 46-year-old Anton Rucker, should not have been released on bond.
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A pro-abortion lawyer based in Knoxville has joined forces with Tennessee political fundraiser Kim Kaegi to form three strategically intertwined organizations – a 501 (c) (4) nonprofit, a political action committee (PAC), and a super PAC, a Wednesday report reveals.
The PACs and nonprofit will be called The Best of Tennessee, and the political wing of the operation will focus on “pro-choice” messaging to elect moderate candidates, according to The Tennessean.
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The Tennessee General Assembly approved legislation on Thursday to label any food product with vaccine technology as a pharmaceutical drug. The bill is currently awaiting a signature from Governor Bill Lee.
HB 1894 was passed by the Tennessee House on Thursday and subsequently adopted by the Senate. It aims to define “food that contains a vaccine or vaccine material as a drug for purposes of the Tennessee Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.”
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The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is investigating the death of Coffee County Mayor Judd Matheny, who was found deceased inside his home by the Tullahoma Police Department (TPD) on Tuesday.
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A bill in the Tennessee General Assembly that already passed the Senate would, in part, require students to view a fetal development video as part of their sex education or human development curriculum.
SB 2767 requires the state’s education commissioner to submit a report of the disposition of each complaint filed by a parent or legal guardian against any school district to the General Assembly. The General Assembly’s goal is to ensure that school boards are held accountable for investigating complaints made by parents.
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Phil Williams, the NewsChannel 5 reporter known for his criticism of the effort by Governor Bill Lee to expand school choice in Tennessee, claimed on Friday that meddling by rich progressives in state politics is unworthy of his reporting because Republicans have a majority in the General Assembly.
Williams failed to acknowledge the recent funding of Nashville and Memphis by Bloomberg American Sustainable Cities, a climate change initiative backed by former New York mayor and Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg.
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The Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) has released the identity of a suspect being sought for the shooting that occurred at Roasted, a small restaurant in the Salemtown neighborhood of Nashville, on Sunday that killed one man and injured four others.
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A gunman opened fire at a Nashville cafe during Easter brunch on Sunday afternoon, killing one and wounding four in a harrowing shooting that sent patrons scrambling.
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A group of Tennessee lawmakers have condemned President Joe Biden for proclaiming Easter Sunday as Transgender Day of Visibility, saying the president’s proclamation is a “satanic and patently Marxist declaration” and a “direct assault on Christianity.”
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NewsChannel 5 and investigative journalist Phil Williams have so far refused to answer questions about the suspicious origin of a phone call recording Williams obtained and broadcast in a Monday report attacking a school choice advocacy group.
The recording captured a phone conversation between Executive Director Tori Venable of Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee and State Representative Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill), who currently opposes Governor Bill Lee’s pending school choice legislation.
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The Tennesse General Assembly passed a bill prohibiting banks from de-banking and closing consumer accounts based on “social credit score” systems.
SB 2148 “prohibits financial institutions and insurers from denying or canceling services to a person, or otherwise discriminating against a person, based upon the use of a social credit score or other factors,” according to the bill’s summary.
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A “non-partisan” political activism group that calls for gun control held a rally in Nashville Wednesday night on the year anniversary of the mass shooting at The Covenant School.
“Together, we will wear red and link arms as we mark the anniversary of one of our community’s darkest days and honor the memory of the hundreds of Tennessee lives lost to preventable firearm tragedies over the last year,” Voices for a Safer Tennessee said on its website. “Our goal is to form a chain of 13,000 people from Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt through Centennial Park and up Charlotte Avenue to our state capitol.”
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Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Scott Golden explained why the Republican National Committee (RNC) and state Republican parties are pushing voters to vote early in this year’s November general election when the time comes.
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The Tennessee House of Representatives Tuesday passed a bill that would significantly increase the penalty for making violent threats against schools.
HB 2198 “increases the penalty for the offense of threatening to commit an act of mass violence on school property or at a school-related activity from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class E felony.”
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Americans for Prosperity – Tennessee (AFP-TN) State Director Tori Venable responded to News Channel 5’s investigative segment on Monday accusing the conservative political advocacy group of threatening Tennessee state lawmakers to advance Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice bill.
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Tennessee Never Trump political operators Blake Harris and Kim Kaegi are pushing Metro Nashville Councilwoman Courtney Johnston to challenge Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) for his seat in the U.S. House, multiple sources familiar with the Metro Council and Tennessee Republican politics confirmed to The Tennessee Star.
Johnston recently confirmed reports she is considering a challenge to Ogles, stating to the media, “The people of Middle Tennessee deserve better than Andy Ogles.” The councilwoman confirmed, “I am taking a very close look at the district and am talking to voters. If I run, I intend to win.”
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Former President Donald Trump’s bond has been reduced to $175 million in his civil fraud trial.
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A former Franklin youth soccer coach has been indicted on child sex crimes and immigration crimes, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
“The indictment, returned yesterday by a federal grand jury, charges Camilo Campos-Hurtado, 63, with four counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, one count of receiving visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, one count of using or possessing fraudulent immigration documents, and one count of possessing an identification document or authentication feature which was stolen or produced without lawful authority,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee said in a March 21 press release.
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U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) slammed the passage of a “minibus” $1.2 trillion spending bill on Friday that would fund six of the 12 appropriations divisions for Fiscal Year 2024.
Moments before the House passed the bill by a 286-134 vote, Ogles, along with other members of the Freedom Caucus, held a press conference where he said the American people had been “sold out.”
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The body of Riley Strain, the 22-year old college student who had gone missing after being asked to leave Luke Bryan’s bar on the night of March 8, has been recovered in the Cumberland River in West Nashville, approximately 8 miles from downtown.
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Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell attended a Monday evening meeting with the city’s leading business leaders and lobbyists in a bid to secure their support for his mass transit referendum scheduled for November.
The meeting between O’Connell and Nashville community leaders took place at the offices of Ingraham Industries Inc., according to the Nashville Business Journal, which reported the mayor met with many of the groups and individuals who backed the failed transit plan pitched by disgraced Mayor Megan Barry in 2018.
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Video taken near El Paso, Texas, shows illegal immigrants tearing down a barrier and overwhelming members of the Texas National Guard as they stormed across the border.
The illegal immigrants are seen pulling the barrier open as four National Guardsmen try to keep them from crossing the border in the video posted on X by New York Post reporter Jennie Taer Thursday. The illegal immigrants rush through the gap opened, almost trampling the National Guard personnel, until coming up against a second, sturdier barrier.
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U.S. Representatives Andy Ogles (R-TN-05), Matt Gaetz (R-FL-01), and Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) have sent a letter to the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons requesting that unjustly imprisoned January 6 defendant Stewart Parks be moved to the minimum security satellite camp located at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Memphis.
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More than 30 school districts in East Tennessee have joined a lawsuit first filed by Clarksville-Montgomery County School System (CMCSS) against social media companies, claiming that those companies are harming children.
According to WBIR, Knox, Anderson, Blount, Claiborne, Fentress, Grainger, Greene, Hamblen, Lenoir City, Loudon, Maryville, Oak Ridge, Oneida, and Sevier counties have joined the suit, which names eta, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Google, YouTube and WhatsApp as defendants.
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Federal prison consultant Sam Mangel confirmed to The Tennessee Star on Tuesday that former Trump administration trade adviser Peter Navarro will serve just 90 days of his four-month sentence, and will complete the prison term at part of the minimum security satellite camp of the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Miami reserved for older inmates.
In a Tuesday phone conversation, Mangel contradicted previous reporting by The New York Times that claimed Mangel “said he was working to get Mr. Navarro into a unit devised for inmates over age 60 in a minimum-security satellite camp in the prison.”
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Sarah McAbee, the wife of J6 defendant Ronald Colton McAbee, said her husband has undergone unfair treatment both while incarcerated awaiting trial and during his jury trial for being present at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
D.C. U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras sentenced Ronald McAbee last month to almost six years in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $32,165 in restitution after being convicted and pleading guilty to six felony charges and one misdemeanor charge.
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Former U.S. Special Envoy for Haiti Dan Foote said Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland and former U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Michele Sison “teed up” the deal with unelected leader of Haiti Ariel Henry to delay elections in the country.
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Todd Bensman, senior fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Stephen K. Bannon on Saturday’s edition of WarRoom that the Biden Administration helped cause the current chaos in Haiti by scuttling free and fair elections in that Caribbean nation back in 2021.
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After a short debate, a bill requiring law enforcement to follow standard procedure and notify relevant federal law enforcement entities of illegal alien arrests has passed the Tennessee House.
HB 2124 “requires, rather than authorizes, law enforcement agencies to communicate with the appropriate federal official regarding the immigration status of any individual, including reporting knowledge that a particular alien is not lawfully present in the United States or otherwise cooperate with the appropriate federal official in the identification, apprehension, detention, or removal of aliens not lawfully present in the United States.”
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A federal judge on Friday ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to turn over all documents related to Covenant School shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale, including the killer’s manifesto, for a private review of materials.
The FBI was ordered to turn over the materials as part of the nationally watched lawsuit brought by plaintiffs Star News Digital Media Inc., the parent company of The Tennessee Star, and Michael Patrick Leahy, a resident of Tennessee and CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Star News Digital Media and journalist Matt Kittle. The plaintiffs are seeking the release of Hale’s manifesto.
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State Representative Justin Jones (D-Nashville) admitted on the floor of the Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday that he walked “across the border” with an illegal alien named Javier after visiting a migrant caravan camp in Mexico last week.
Jones made the admission while speaking in opposition to a bill, HB 2124, on the floor of the House of Representatives on Thursday.
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Bloomberg Philanthropies announced on Tuesday that three Tennessee cities will take part in an initiative that would use federal funds provided by the Biden administration.
Nashville, Memphis, and Chattanooga were selected for the organization’s American Sustainable Cities Initiative, which stated its focus would be on creating economic equity and green energy jobs, according to a Tuesday news release from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Mike Bloomberg, the former Democratic New York Mayor, founded Bloomberg Philanthropies.
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The City of Knoxville will consider on March 19 a resolution that would call for Tennessee’s U.S. Congressional delegation to join the city in demanding the Biden administration cease providing military support to Israel until the country agrees to a ceasefire with Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
Filed by Knoxville City Council At-Large Seat C Representative Amelia Parker, the resolution urges the United States act to force Israel to comply with an International Court of Justice (IJC) ruling that raised concerns about Israel’s practices in its defensive war against Hamas.
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According to a summary of refugee arrivals for the first portion of fiscal year 2024, the Democratic Republic of Congo tops the list of refugees resettled in Tennessee in terms of national origin.
The report says that the total number of Congolese refugees resettled in the Volunteer State from October 1 through February 29 is 264.
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Tennessee State Representative Justin Jones (D-Nashville) traveled to a migrant camp in Mexico on Friday where he claimed that there is “no invasion” of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
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The U.S. Senate failed to pass an amendment introduced by U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) that would bar illegal immigrants from being factored into the count for congressional districts and the Electoral College map that determines presidential elections on Friday.
A total of 47 Democrats, three Independents, and one Republican senator voted against the amendment, which failed to pass by a 45-51 vote.
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A Memphis Police officer is in stable condition after he was shot in the line of duty early Friday morning, according to the Memphis Police Department (MPD).
“At 4:19 am, officers conducted a traffic stop at 240 southbound near South Parkway. During the stop, an officer notified dispatch he had been shot,” said MPD on X. “The unknown motorist fled the scene. The officer was transported to Regional One critical. This is an ongoing investigation.”
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A report released on Wednesday claims Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell is committed to funding his proposed transportation initiative with an increase to the city’s sales tax.
O’Connell and his administration are reportedly “leaning toward a half cent sales tax” as the primary funding source of the transit referendum he plans to take before voters in November, a News Channel 5 report claims.
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) was the first lawmaker to make contact with President Joe Biden as he entered the House of Representatives to deliver his State of the Union address.
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Lawmakers in the Tennessee House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to advance legislation to expand school choice, moving forward the proposal announced by Governor Bill Lee in November.
Designed to create 20,000 new Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) for Tennessee students next school year, HB 1183 passed the House Education Administration Committee with 12 votes in favor and seven votes against.
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