Free Republic

A Tennessee teacher who was named Teacher of the Year has quit after accusing the school district of directing her to change a failing student’s grade. Samira Hardcastle, named the 2025-2026 Teacher of the Year at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Antioch, Tenn., submitted her letter of resignation in May after eight years teaching art in Metro Nashville Public Schools. “District leaders asked me to fabricate grades for a parent who sat in the office for hours until her daughter’s failing grades were changed,” Hardcastle said in an impassioned speech at Tuesday’s school board meeting. “It creates false entitlement....

Blackburn advances to general election, first woman to win party nomination Despite polls predicting a tight race, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn easily beats two Republican opponents By J. Holly McCall - August 6, 2026 8:42 pm U.S. Sen.Marsha Blackburn, photographed on Aug. 6, 2026, will be the Republican gubernatorial candidate in November (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout) U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn on Thursday advanced to the general election in November, defeating U.S. Rep. John Rose and becoming the first woman to win the Republican nomination for governor. Despite polls in the final weeks of the campaign showing a tightening race, Blackburn...

The former president of Taylor Farms’ Tennessee division has been accused of stealing $32 million from the company through multiple schemes that included funneling money to a sham company and keeping his wife and other family members on the payroll. Taylor Farms, the major U.S. produce supplier at the center of a lettuce recall and diarrheal illness outbreak, made the allegations in a federal lawsuit filed in Tennessee. According to the lawsuit, Brian Thure served as president of Taylor Farms Tennessee from 2012 through March of this year. In the roughly 14 years he was head of the Tennessee division,...

Beretta’s five-century history—from a small Italian workshop supplying the Venetian Republic to becoming a major manufacturer for the United States military—offers a striking backdrop to its long and increasingly strained relationship with Maryland.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was accused of putting on an accent during a Memphis rally last week, with critics on social media comparing her to former Vice President Kamala Harris. Ocasio-Cortez was speaking at a campaign rally in Memphis on Friday for progressive U.S. House candidate Justin Pearson, who currently serves as a Tennessee state representative. "We cannot afford to leave Tennessee behind," she said. "We cannot afford to leave Kentucky behind, Alabama behind, Mississippi behind, Georgia behind, South Carolina behind. There is no country where we are split apart." "About a month or two ago, we were in Montgomery,...

Two appearances by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this week have reignited criticism from conservatives as speculation continues over whether the New York Democrat could eventually seek the White House. The back-to-back moments quickly spread across social media, with critics questioning both her campaign style and her response to a question about the U.S. Senate. Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., first drew attention while campaigning in Tennessee for Democratic state Rep. Justin Pearson, who is running for Congress in the state’s 9th District. Speaking at a get-out-the-vote event, Ocasio-Cortez urged supporters not to overlook traditionally Republican states. “We can’t afford to leave Tennessee behind, Kentucky...

A Tennessee mother shot and killed a man she found hiding under her 13-year-old daughter’s bed, according to cops — and now she’s facing first-degree murder charges. Kendra Scott was arrested after police found a 20-year-old man dead from a gunshot wound in the back of his head outside her Memphis home just before 2 a.m. Thursday, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by The Post. Her lawyer called the situation, “the worst nightmare of any parent of a 13-year-old girl.” The 36-year-old mother told officers she came home and “saw a dude under my kids’ bed.” “And I did...

The challenge the entire industry faces is that in every single location, I don't care whether it's Michigan, West Virginia, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, if you announce you're doing a data center, all of a sudden you get a plethora of misinformation, like it's three times the size of Manhattan, it's so hot it's gonna melt a hole in the ground, the amount of water it's going to use, it's gonna suck the ocean dry. All of this stuff is just not true. I think as we get the real facts out, we'll turn this around. There seems to be an...

Tennessee is courting David Ellison’s Paramount, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. In a letter to Ellison on July 2, Tennessee Deputy Governor Stuart McWhorter urged the Paramount CEO to relocate the studio’s corporate headquarters amid a rift with California over its $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. “Our success is rooted in fiscal discipline, low taxes, predictable governance, and a steadfast belief that government should be a partner in private-sector growth,” stated the letter. “Companies that choose Tennessee find more than a favorable business climate — they find a state committed to helping them succeed.” The invitation was delivered...

Advocacy group calls on acting attorney general to lead ‘thorough, transparent federal investigation’The deaths in recent days of two Black men in Tennessee, one in the custody of police and the other at the hands of national guard troops, has prompted the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to demand the suspension of the so-called Memphis Safe Task Force, Donald Trump’s anti-crime alliance of federal, state and local law enforcement.In a letter to the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, on Friday, the NAACP also demanded “a thorough, transparent federal investigation” into the actions of the taskforce, which it...

Dennis Quaid is making his break from California official with the listing of his longtime Brentwood home after relocating full time to Tennessee. “The Parent Trap” star has listed his 4,100-square-foot manse at 2536 Pesquera Drive in Brentwood Hills for $5.2 million, Realtor.com reported. The actor put the five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bathroom home on the market nearly a decade after buying it for $3.9 million and completing an extensive renovation of the property The listing comes just weeks after Quaid publicly criticized California’s taxes, government services and wildfire response, saying those frustrations helped drive his move to Nashville. “It used to be...

Memphis police say National Guard troops fired their weapons in the early morning hours Sunday, killing a man who was armed with a handgun. Police say officers were responding to calls of shots fired in downtown Memphis just before 4 am local time when they saw "an armed male carrying a handgun." The man — identified by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation as 20-year-old Tyrin Johnson — fled on foot, pursued by Memphis police officers along with Tennessee National Guard soldiers who are assigned to the area. What happened next was not immediately clear. "For reasons under investigation, the situation...

A Tennessee soccer coach received a 30-year sentence for child exploitation and immigration offenses. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee says 66-year-old Camilo Campos-Hurtado of Franklin sexually exploited children, received child sexual abuse material, and had false immigration and identification documents. Campos pleaded guilty in June of last year on these charges: Sexual exploitation of a minor (four counts) Receiving visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct Using or possessing fraudulent immigration documents Possessing an identification document or authentication feature that was stolen or produced without lawful authority The attorney’s office requested a sentence...

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce donated $26 million to a group of charities across the U.S. this week, including multiple in New York organizations, ahead of their alleged ceremony, Swift's rep confirmed to NBC News. The Store, which helps with food insecurity in Middle Tennessee and was founded by country singer Brad Paisley…posted on Instagram: "Thank you, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce,"… "Your generosity is providing food and hope to families in need." Nonprofit Education Through Music revealed in a press release that they received a $2 million gift from the bride and groom. "This gift will help us reach...

Eighteen-year-old Leotha Bush thought, allegedly, that he was going to get one up on a group of workmen at a Memphis, Tennessee, home when he pulled a pistol on them earlier this month. In the end, he was the one who ended up tied to the rails of the front porch of the home. According to WREG-TV, Bush allegedly tried to rob the work crew in the Highland Heights neighborhood on June 8 using a BB gun that looked like a semi-automatic pistol. Bush had apparently walked up to the house and asked for a cigarette lighter, the station reported....

President Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to the national lab in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Thursday for consultations with a team of technical experts that could play a role in nuclear negotiations with Iran, Axios has learned. Why it matters: The White House is trying to reach a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran to end the war and begin in-depth nuclear negotiations, and wants to have experts at the ready should those talks be launched. (snip)The intrigue: Axios was alerted on Thursday to the fact that Witkoff had made an unannounced trip to eastern Tennessee. Two...

Governor Bill Lee has signed Tennessee Bill SB1847 into law on May 22, 2026. The bill reforms the law on restrictions of the use of deadly force, allowing some uses of deadly force to protect property in certain circumstances.Tennessee Bill SB1847 started out as a significant expansion of the legal use of deadly force in Tennessee. The bill would have made the use of deadly force in defense of property legal for a broad swath of issues, including trespass. In the Legislative process the bill was amended to specify the use of deadly force would be legally acceptable in fewer...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A driver’s cell phone was out and recording when a fight broke out in the middle of a busy Fox Meadows intersection early Saturday night. Kevin Coleman couldn’t believe what he was seeing in front of him. The brawl between two women and a man and a woman was blocking both lanes of traffic at Mendenhall and Knight Arnold Roads. Mendenhall and Knight Arnold Saturday night. Courtesy: Kevin Coleman “You never know what you are fixing to see in Memphis, man,” Coleman said in a Facebook post. One of the women who was taken to the ground...

Controversy has erupted in Tennessee after a viral TikTok video showed an angry woman vandalizing her neighbor’s property by removing a sign that simply expressed their support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and their operations to detain and deport illegal aliens from the United States. The sign, which was a flag reading, “I Support ICE,” was torn down by the woman, who then proceeded to toss it in the trash while loudly insulting the individual who displayed it. The woman claimed that the actions ICE have taken to enforce immigration law in the United States made the flag highly insulting...

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is facing a new impeachment resolution put forward by a House Democrat. The long-shot effort was introduced on Thursday by Representative Steve Cohen. The Tennessee Democrat announced last week that he would forgo his reelection bid after it became clear he was unlikely to win, as the state moved swiftly to gerrymander following a seismic Supreme Court opinion in late April that gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.