We now have our first look at Harlan Coben's new mystery show, I Will Find You. Netflix has released the official teaser and release date for the upcoming series. It will debut to the streaming service on June 18. Sam Worthington, Britt Lower, Milo Ventimiglia, Logan Browning and Chi McBride star in the series, which will have eight 45-minute episodes. It follows an innocent father serving life for the murder of his own son who discovers his child may still be alive ...
We Were Liars has added six new actors as series regulars in its season 2 cast. Prime Video has announced that Josh Dallas, Costa D’Angelo, Parker Lapaine, Peyton List, Elysia Roorbach and Madison Wolfe have joined the second season of the series adaptation of E. Lockhart’s novel ...
Shailene Woodley has scored her next role. Deadline reports that the actress is set to lead the upcoming erotic thriller film Mother's Helper. She will star alongside Milo Callaghan and Luke Kirby. The film follows a woman who is struggling to balance work, kids and marriage, and hires a handsome young man to help out around the house ...
Billie Eilish and James Cameron attend the 'Billie Eilish Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour Live in 3D' U.S. Premiere on May 6, 2026, in Los Angeles, California. (Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)
BILLIE EILISH – HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR (LIVE IN 3D), a concert film the Grammy-winning star co-directed with James Cameron, hits theaters Friday, and Billie says she's happy that she and her fans will be able to watch it "forever."
At the LA premiere, Billie told ABC News of the film, "I just feel really, really grateful that it's gonna exist forever, and I'll get to watch this show and this tour that I loved so much, and made so many memories with them, forever."
"I think that's really magical for them to have and for me to have," she continued. "It's just a moment in time captured forever."
Billie also wants her fans to "sing and dance if they want and just have fun" while watching the film. She notes, "It's a concert. It is a movie, but it's a concert."
The Oscar winner was also "really grateful" that a director "as incredibly talented and legendary" as James was "so eager to collaborate with me and listen to my feelings and thoughts and opinions" while working on the project.
As for James, he tells ABC News that initially they were simply going to film a show on Billie's tour. But then, he says, "It got complicated, because then we started trying to tell a story about [Billie's] relationship with her fans ... and what her ... reality is like." As a result, he says, "It kind of grew a little bit."
But throughout, James says he was impressed with "how in control ... of the show and of the process" Billie was while filming. In fact, he says, "I had to keep up with her, and that energy of — I don't want to say perfectionism, because that sounds a bit elitist — but I would say, the pursuit of excellence."
TYLER — A Smith County gang member has been sentenced to three concurrent life terms after pleading guilty in a crack cocaine and money laundering conspiracy tied to the 5-2 Hoover Crips.
The Smith County District Attorney’s Office announced Thursday that Samatraus Forge pleaded guilty to his role in a 12-person conspiracy tied to crack cocaine trafficking, money laundering and gang activity. Judge Taylor Heaton handed down three concurrent life sentences, underscoring Forge’s role in the operation. Prosecutors presented evidence identifying him as a member of the 5-2 Hoover Crips, a gang that ran multiple drug houses and funneled narcotics through areas designated as drug-free zones.
A lead investigator from the Tyler Police Department testified about the year-long probe, revealing that at least three houses were used to move roughly $4,000 in narcotics proceeds each month. Forge is the first to be sentenced in the case. Eleven other defendants have been charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and are awaiting trial.
TYLER — After accepting a guilty plea deal, a man has been sentenced to eight years in state prison for a 2025 shooting at Lake Tyler on Thursday.
On May 18, 2025, the Tyler Police Department responded to a report of gunshots at a parking lot near Lake Tyler. Officials said no one was injured in the shooting. The suspected shooter, Dezavion Williams of Henderson, had a rifle and was taken into custody by officers. Williams was arrested and booked into the Smith County Jail for aggravated assault mass shooting.
On April 23, Williams was offered a guilty plea deal, according to Smith County judicial records. Williams accepted the guilty plea at a pre-trial hearing on Thursday and was sentenced to eight years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
POLK COUNTY (KETK) – A large indoor marijuana farm operating off U.S. Highway 59 was recently shut down after being discovered by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. On Tuesday, residents reported a persistent odor of marijuana in the area and suspicious activity involving frequent traffic to and from a property in the early morning hours, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies were able to obtain a search warrant for the property, and during the search, they found a large quantity of marijuana, including over 1500 plants. The owner of the building Elier Jimenez, was placed under arrest following the search and charged with possession of marijuana between 50 and 2,000 pounds
Kelly Clarkson on season 29 of 'The Voice.' (Trae Patton/NBC)
Fans of The Voice won't get a chance to sing "Since U Been Gone" to Kelly Clarkson — because she's coming back next season.
Kelly, Adam Levine and John Legend recently faced off in season 29's Battle of the Champions, which Adam won. Kelly has now been announced as a returning coach for season 30. Adam has also been confirmed as returning for season 30, which will air this fall.
Kelly's schedule should be a little easier to manage this fall, since she announced in February that the current season of her Emmy-winning chat show, The Kelly Clarkson Show, will be her last.
Season 30 will mark Adam's 19th on The Voice. It will be Kelly's 11th season on the panel. Those seasons were nonconsecutive, though, because both of them have left and returned to the show over the years.
State Senator London Lamar, a Democrat from Tennessee, holds a copy of the proposed Congressional map for Tennessee during a special legislative session at the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville, Tennessee, US, on Wednesday, May 6, 2026. Tennessee is considering redrawing its House congressional map following a key Supreme Court decision last week, a move expected to bolster Republicans ahead of what are forecast to be tough midterm elections in November. (Photographer: Madison Thorn/Bloomberg
(TENNESSEE) -- As protesters accused them of racial gerrymandering, Tennessee state lawmakers passed into law on Thursday a new congressional map that could allow Republicans to flip the state’s lone Democratic-held seat, notching the GOP another win in the mid-decade redistricting scramble.
Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill into law Thursday afternoon.
The session was interrupted by chaotic scenes with lawmakers shouting over protesters' voices and at one point forcing police clear the balcony above the House floor before it voted on the new map.
The new map breaks up the state’s current 9th Congressional District, which is primarily made up of Memphis, and the state’s only majority-Black district. The district is currently represented by Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen.
The legislature also passed bills on Thursday that will allow the state to legally redistrict outside of the normal once-a-decade cycle, as well as providing funding to help implement the new map in time for the 2026 elections.
Impact on the midterms and representation in Congress
With the map passed, it paves the way for President Donald Trump and Republicans to gain an additional House seat in the next Congress, increasing their chances of maintaining control of the House as they continue their redistricting battle across the country.
Tennessee Democrats will likely not have any representation in Congress next year if Republicans flip the seat and the map will dilute the Black vote by breaking up Memphis.
But legal challenges against the map are expected.
Cohen said Thursday he will file a lawsuit against the new map.
Cohen posted on X after the vote "[President Donald] Trump knows he HAS TO rig the game to keep his majority in November. And the TN GOP was willing to go along with it. It’s shameful. Next stop is the courts."
Cohen had said earlier this week on CNN that the Republicans' redistricting effort was a foregone conclusion, adding that he hopes the new congressional map can take effect in 2028 rather than 2026.
The speed at which the process occurred was remarkable -- it was only last week that the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana's congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, dealing a blow to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
And just one day after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, Trump posted on Truth Social that he spoke with Lee and that the governor said he would work to redraw the state’s congressional maps in order to net another GOP seat for Tennessee in the House. Lee called a special session the next day, April 30, to review the state's congressional map.
Potential redistricting efforts are also currently underway in Louisiana, Alabama and South Carolina, although each state has different procedural or legal barriers to overcome.
With Tennessee's new map, Republicans potentially could flip 14 Democratic-held seats in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida. Democrats could pick up 10 from new maps passed in California, Utah and Virginia.
Acrimonious debate and protests in the state capitol
The proposed congressional map underwent much acrimonious debate and protest inside the legislature on Thursday before it was passed.
On the House floor, Democratic representatives condemned the map, saying it would dilute the Black vote in the state. At one point, chants of "our house!" started in the House gallery.
As the vote came up for the new map on the House side, chaos erupted in the room. A trooper was asked to clear out the balcony above the House floor as people protested.
Earlier, Democratic State Rep. Justin Pearson, who is running for Congress in the 9th District that will be broken up on the new map, said that “what is happening here is immoral and wrong.”
“This is about attacking, targeting and cracking District 9 into pieces for more political and racial dominance and white supremacy in the state of Tennessee. And we need to realize that the Callaisdecision that you all are basing your decisions off of that gutted the Voting Rights Act, that that Voting Rights Act was paid in blood,” Pearson said.
Pearson later confronted law enforcement officers, ABC affiliate WKRN reported, as they worked on clearing the House gallery of protestors. Pearson later said his brother KeShaun Pearson was arrested.
After the House passed the bill and it was taken up in the Senate, Republican state Sen. John Stevens spoke in support of the new map over audible protests and yelling.
“Tennessee is a conservative state, and I submit its congressional delegation should reflect that. The proposed map ensures that,” Stevens said.
He later said, “This bill represents Tennessee's attempt to maximize our partisan advantage and allow Tennesseans to support a national Congress to be a Republican majority.”
But Democratic state Sen. London Lamar, who is Black, slammed the new map during debate as an attack on Black voters and said it “diminishes Memphis.”
“This map does not reflect Memphis. It diminishes Memphis. It slices our city into pieces and stretches our communities hundreds of miles away to places of different needs, different economies, different histories and different lived realities,” she said. “You cannot take a majority-Black city, fracture its voting power and then tell us race has nothing to do with it. Racism does not become less racist because it's called partisan.”
Later, chants of “Hands off Memphis!” rang out and another lawmaker soon unfurled a banner that read “NO JIM CROW 2.0 - STOP THE TN STEAL.”
Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaks to the reporters following a press conference, August 05, 2025, in Aurora, Illinois. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
With six months until the high-stakes midterm elections, the Democratic Party is struggling to raise money and keep up with its GOP counterparts, leading to frustrations among some donors with Democratic National Committee leadership and its chair Ken Martin.
At the end of March, the Republican National Committee outraised the DNC $21.2 million to $11.4 million, according to new reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. The RNC reported having nearly eight times more cash on hand -- $116 million to the DNC’s $13.8 million. In addition, the DNC is a little over $18 million in debt, according to FEC filings.
Democrats, though, are performing better than they did in 2018 at this point in the cycle when the party had raised $7 million and had little more than $9 million cash on hand. The party had just under $6 million in debt at that time, too.
Multiple Democratic bundlers, strategists and donors told ABC News that they are still angry over how funds were allocated during the 2024 presidential election -- and frustrated at Martin's unwillingness to publicly release a DNC audit that examined what went wrong for Democrats in 2024.
After Martin won his campaign to be DNC chair in 2025 following the presidential election, he committed to conducting a review of the 2024 election and making it public. However, Martin has yet to release the full audit, saying instead he's focused on looking forward and has released "lessons" from the audit.
Democratic officials and leaders -- including Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz, who is poised to become the No. 2 Senate Democrat after the midterms -- have urged for the report to be released as they look toward the midterms.
"What’s in the report that you wouldn’t want publicized?" "Pod Save America" host and former Obama administration speechwriter Jon Favreau asked Martin during an episode released April 28.
Martin replied that there was no "smoking gun" and that he wants to "keep the focus on the lessons."
A longtime DNC finance member, who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity, noted many donors are still questioning how funds were allocated during the 2024 race and the unreleased results of the DNC’s promised audit.
The member said donors were upset that, despite the DNC’s massive fundraising during the 2024 election, Kamala Harris didn’t win a single battleground state. It raised concerns about allocations toward paid media, voter outreach and, most troubling for many donors, the amount of money that went to consultants.
But following the 2024 election and Martin taking over the reins at the DNC, there has been a shift toward investing in state parties long before elections, as well as podcasts, influencers and more modern forms of public relations and communications
Cooper Teboe, a Democratic strategist in California, told ABC News that donors are "feeling incredibly jaded, incredibly unhappy" with the DNC over the 2024 election -- with some questioning whether their financial contributions make a difference.
"We're coming off of record fundraising for Democrats that seem to really not move the needle," Teboe said. "So, folks have been in a position of, well, does my money actually do anything? Does my money do anything to change the needle?"
DNC spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said the party is investing in ways that will help Democrats win.
"Democrats are putting our resources into the field, building infrastructure to power wins today and for years to come, and delivering overperformances all across the country, meanwhile Republicans are losing elections at a humiliating rate in spite of their billionaire donors,” Ehrenberg said in a statement to ABC News.
As frustrations with Martin over how he’s handling his job grow, a few members have started exploring options and rules for removing a chair, a source familiar with the situation told ABC News -- although the source framed the efforts as very informal and focused on asking about the process.
"I don't see Ken as a leader. The DNC reached out to me probably six months ago, and I told them to take me off their list, that it's a waste of their time to send me anything, and the more they send, the less chances they ever have of getting me back," said one longtime Democratic donor, who is now focused on individual candidates as opposed to the national committee.
Asked about his job to raise money for the party on "Pod Save America," Martin said "the job of the DNC chair is singular: It's to win," adding that he has been helping the party succeed in that effort.
Michael Knapp, a DNC member, said he supports Martin's work as chair, telling ABC News that Martin "came in with a clear mandate to shift the DNC towards long-term party building."
"[Ken’s] investing in state parties, organizing, partisan voter registration, infrastructure ... the things that actually win elections over time," Knapp said to ABC News in a text message.
"On the fundamentals of the job, I think he's very strong. The DNC's raising significant grassroots money even while paying down inherited debt," Knapp also said.
Daniel Weiner, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s elections and government program, told ABC News that historically, the party out of power has had an "uphill battle with fundraising that’s not unique to this moment."
“Frankly, over the years, the president has become much more habituated to raising the sort of big money that you would expect an incumbent to raise, and that Democratic incumbents have also raised, to some degree,” Weiner said. “And so we see the more traditional pattern emerging of the party in power just raises a lot more money than the party out of power."
A longtime DNC finance member said frustrations with the DNC have led donors to focus on "individual elections as opposed to the DNC as an organization."
While the national party is struggling to raise money, individual Democratic candidates are seeing a massive cash infusion ahead of November’s midterm elections, as donors show greater interest in investing in individual candidates.
Many of the Democratic Party’s top Senate candidates posted gainful fundraising hauls for the first quarter of 2026, massively outraising their Republican opponents, according to FEC filings.
"I think folks are very desperate for new leaders and new voices in the party, and I think that's why you're seeing the party infrastructure raising less, because the donors, both the donor class and the grassroots, want to see what is out there to define the future of the Democratic message and that's just not going to come from the DNC," Teboe said.
One senior Democratic official in touch with donors and party leaders told ABC News that while many big donors are frustrated by the results of the last election, an increasing number are expected to get off the sidelines and contribute more to various Democratic candidates and organizations through the summer and fall.
SMITH COUNTY – A Georgia inmate orchestrated a $13,000 scam by directing an elderly Smith County woman to a local crypto kiosk. Now, the Sheriff’s Office is pushing for legislation to outlaw the machines they say enable financial crimes.
The Smith County Sheriff’s Office took a theft report on March 31 from an elderly Lindale woman who said she received a call claiming she had missed a subpoena from the sheriff’s office.
According to our news partner KETK, officials said the caller used the name of a real sheriff’s office employee and told the woman she needed to pay $13,000 to avoid being arrested for missing her summons. The caller then instructed her to deposit the money into a Bitcoin kiosk at 302 West MLK Jr. boulevard in Tyler. The suspect used a 903 area code and also sent the victim a text message showing the amount she allegedly owed. Continue reading Prison based crypto scam
Javier Bardem and Amy Adams in 'Cape Fear.' (Apple TV)
The official trailer for the Cape Fear limited series adaptation has arrived.
Apple TV released the trailer for its psychological horror thriller based on the John D. MacDonald novel The Executioners. It's also based on the 1962 film Cape Fear and its remake, which was directed by Martin Scorsese in 1991.
Amy Adams, Javier Bardem and Patrick Wilson star in the new series, which has Scorsese and Steven Spielberg as executive producers.
"A storm is coming for happily married attorneys Anna (Adams) and Tom Bowden (Wilson) when Max Cady (Bardem), the notorious killer they are responsible for putting behind bars, is let out of prison — and he wants vengeance," according to an official description of the show.
The trailer starts with Bardem's Max Cady, fresh out of prison, staring intently at someone.
"Let me ask you a question," he says. "What is your worst fear?"
Later in the trailer we see him approach Adams' Anna at an event.
"I had a good life once, too," he tells her. "Are you afraid of me?"
Anna scoffs, before she says, "Why would I be afraid of you?" The trailer then cuts to Anna speaking with her husband, Tom.
"Is there any way Max could know about what we did?" she asks.
Cape Fear premieres its first two episodes to Apple TV on June 5. It will release a new episode every Friday through the finale on July 31.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Republican lawmakers in Tennessee approved a new U.S. House map Thursday that carves up a majority-Black district in Memphis, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of President Donald Trump’s strategy to hold on to a slim majority in the November midterm elections.
The final vote came amid protests and chaos. As demonstrators chanted loudly in the galleries and hallways, Democratic state Sen. Charlane Oliver stood on her desk in the Senate chamber, holding a banner denouncing the redistricting as a “Jim Crow” effort, then clapping and dancing. Other Democratic senators linked arms in the front of the chamber. Republican leadership quickly adjourned the special session, sending the new map on to Republican Gov. Bill Lee to be signed into law.
Protesters in the galleries also had disrupted the Republican-led House as it voted for the new map — yelling, chanting and blowing air horns. In the hallways, other shouting protesters were held back Tennessee state troopers.
Tennessee is the first state to pass new congressional districts since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week significantly weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities. But more Southern states could follow. Republicans in Louisiana, Alabama and South Carolina also have taken steps toward redistricting. More legal challenges are expected.
The Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with federal law. The high court’s decision altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.
Louisiana has postponed its congressional primary to give time for state lawmakers to craft a new House map. Legislation awaiting a final vote in Alabama also would upend the state’s congressional primaries if courts allow the state to change its U.S. House districts. In South Carolina, meanwhile, Republican lawmakers urged on by Trump are considering adding congressional redistricting to their agenda.
The states are the latest to join an already fierce national redistricting battle. Since Trump prodded Texas to redraw its U.S. House districts last year, eight states have adopted new congressional districts. From that, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats while Democrats think they could gain up to 10. But some competitive races mean the parties may not get everything they sought in the November elections. Tennessee Republicans act despite protests
As a first step to adopting new House districts, Tennessee lawmakers gave final approval Thursday to legislation — quickly signed into law by Lee — that repealed a state law prohibiting mid-decade redistricting. They then passed a bill that would reopen candidate qualifying until May 15 to allow time for new people to enter the U.S. House primaries and existing candidates to switch districts or drop out.
The new House map would break up Tennessee’s lone Democratic-held district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis, creating a ripple effect of alterations to districts throughout the western and central parts of the state. The geographically compact 9th District that includes Memphis — currently represented by Steve Cohen, who is white — would stretch a couple hundred miles eastward before reaching north toward the Nashville suburbs.
Unlike in Louisiana — where lawmakers had crafted a second majority-Black district to try to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act — Memphis has long been the base of its own congressional district.
Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton said the new districts were drawn based on population and politics, not racial data.
But Democrats dismissed such assertions.
“These maps are racist tools of white supremacy at the behest of the most powerful white supremacist in the United States of America, Donald J. Trump,” said state Rep. Justin Pearson, a Black Democrat from Memphis who is running for the U.S. House.
Republican state Sen. John Stevens defended the new districts he sponsored by noting that Democrats in Illinois, Massachusetts and other states also had drawn congressional districts to their advantage.
“This bill represents Tennessee’s attempt to maximize our partisan advantage,” he said.
It does so at the expense of both Memphis residents and democracy, said Sen. London Lamar, a Democrat from Memphis.
“You cannot take a majority Black city, fracture its voting power and then tell us race has nothing to do with it,” she said.
Democrats noted that the state Supreme Court in April 2022 rejected a challenge to the current congressional map, finding it was too close to the election to make changes. This year, there’s even less time before the Aug. 6 primary, raising the potential of confusion for both candidates and voters, Democrats said. A plan for a new primary advances in Alabama
Protesters watching an Alabama legislative committee Thursday erupted in shouts of “shame” as Republican lawmakers advanced legislation to authorize special congressional primaries if the state can put a new congressional map in place for the November midterms.
In the wake of the Supreme Court decision arising from Louisiana, Alabama is seeking to overturn a court injunction that created a second U.S. House district with a substantial percentage of Black voters. That map led to the 2024 election of Rep. Shomari Figures, a Black Democrat. Republicans want instead to use a 2023 map drawn by state lawmakers that would give the GOP an opportunity to reclaim Figures’ district.
If a court grants Alabama’s request, the legislation under consideration would ignore the May 19 primary results for congressional seats and direct the governor to schedule a new primary under the revised districts.
The House passed the legislation on a party-line vote Thursday after four hours of fiery debate. A final vote in the Senate is expected Friday. South Carolina may add redistricting to its agenda
The South Carolina Senate could take up a resolution Thursday giving lawmakers permission to return later, after their regular work ends, to redraw congressional districts that could eliminate the state’s only Democratic-held district. The proposal, which passed the House on Wednesday, needs a two-thirds vote in both chambers.
Republican House leaders said after the vote that they plan to introduce a new map Thursday and hold committee meetings on Friday. But during debate Wednesday, Republicans fended off specific questions from Democrats, including why they were willing to stop the June 9 U.S. House primary elections well after candidates filed and how much a rescheduled primary could cost.
Democratic Rep. Justin Bamberg said he felt sorry for Republicans who, he said, were giving up their principles to follow the whims of Trump.
“The president of the United States is a very powerful man, wields a heavy, heavy thumb — Truth Social, X, Meta, Instagram. To be honest, I don’t envy our Republican colleagues,” Bamberg said.
What do the following states have in common? California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania.
There are three correct answers. First, they are all deep blue states that have been under the control of Democrats for decades (OK, Colorado went blue fairly recently). Second, they all run huge budget deficits. And third, they’re all in serious debt.
On average these states owe $18,800 for every citizen living in them. That per capita debt is rising every year.
To put that in perspective, the per capita in deep red Texas is only $4,500. In now even deeper red Florida, it’s a thousand dollars less.
Politicians in these blue states have figured out that they can buy today’s votes – and thus gain the power and perks of office – with tomorrow’s money. Tomorrow being when the sovereign debt that they incur for lavish, vote-buying social spending has to be repaid.
Since they won’t be in office when the bill comes due, it’s essentially free money.
It gets worse. The social programs funded by all this borrowing are almost always poorly managed and almost always fall far short of addressing whatever the problem was that led to their creation.
But wait, it gets worse still. Massive social programs are magnets for massive fraud. Here’s an example. Though the problem was known as far back as 2022, the story of staggering fraud surrounding an organization called, “Feeding Our Future” in Minnesota became national headline news in late 2025. Staggering is too weak an adjective. Mind bending might be better.
Feeding Our Future was what is called a “sponsor organization” whose purported purpose was to use government funding to provide meals to children living in poverty, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. But instead of feeding children, the organization submitted bills to the government to the tune of about $9 billion for meals that were never provided. The money went to Feeding Our Future principals who instead used it to buy luxury homes, commercial real estate, cars and jewelry. And, because the whole thing was run by Somali immigrants, a lot of the money also wound up being offshored to Somalia where it is credibly alleged to have funded terrorism.
Fallout from the Minnesota story became the catalyst for exposing similar fraud schemes in New York, Illinois and elsewhere.
The United States of America is $39 trillion in debt. That is a real problem and bad on its face.
But the debt burdens being carried by deep blue states could actually be worse. There is no mechanism in the Constitution or under federal law by which a state can declare bankruptcy. If a state can’t pay its sovereign debt, there’s no way to fix it.
And when more than 100 percent of a state’s tax revenue is soaked up by debt service, who do you guess will suffer first and suffer most?
If you guessed the poor who are dependent on the debt-funded government programs that politicians used to buy their votes, you guessed correctly.
BULLARD – The State of Texas is conducting its second review of the Bluebonnet Point Wellness facility in Bullard after allegations of neglect of an elderly patient who recently died.
According to our news partner, 81-year-old Robert Percharich, died on Sunday under the care of Bluebonnet Point Wellness in Bullard. His son Matthew is now seeking answers about how he said his father was treated.
“If they had enough staff, would my dad still be alive?” son of Robert Percharich, Matthew said.
“The whole plan was for him to come out and come home, get him back up to as just a baseline as possible,” Percharich said.
Robert has lived with vascular dementia for six years and was under the care of his family. He was admitted to Bluebonnet Point Wellness in early April after a major injury. After Robert’s death, Matthew said he was still haunted by the conditions his father lived in during his final days. Continue reading Son seeks answers in father’s death
JACKSONVILLE – A newly expanded production facility in Jacksonville opened Wednesday, positioning itself as a key supplier for a wave of proposed data centers in Texas. The Italian multi-national company, Luve, is a global leader in ventilated equipment and heat exchangers. Their products are critical for the cooling systems used in the booming data center industry.
At Luve’s ribbon-cutting, hosted by the City of Jacksonville, the company also announced a new contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to support four future data centers in Texas.
“We were very welcomed here in the community. We can add to the community,” Ronald Bekker of the Luve Group said. “We have a responsibility as an employer to add to the community. You hear at the announcement of scholarships, for our people, for their children. So we are ready to step up our connection with the community here in Jacksonville.”
Additionally, the company said they expect to hire around 200 workers for the facility in the near future.
Larry David and President Barack Obama for 'Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhapppiness.' (Art Streiber/HBO)
We have our first look at the new sketch comedy series from Larry David and the Obamas.
HBO has released a teaser trailer for its new series Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhapppiness. The show is produced by former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground.
"President and Mrs. Obama wanted to honor America’s 250th anniversary and celebrate the unique history of our nation on this special occasion," according to the show's official longline, "But then Larry David called."
The trailer begins with Barack Obama making a direct-to-camera address.
"I have sat across the table from some of the world's most difficult leaders and wrestled with some of the globe's most intractable problems. Nothing has prepared me for working with Larry David," Barack Obama says. "I'm just a producer on this show, so I don't have to deal with him day to day. But still, it's a lot."
At the time the project was announced in July 2025, David released a statement on his decision to return to television after the end of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
“Once Curb ended, I celebrated with a three-day foam party. After a violent allergic reaction to the suds, I yearned to return to my simple life as a beekeeper, harvesting organic honey from the wildflowers in my meadow. Alas, one day my bees mysteriously vanished," David said. "And so, it is with a heavy heart that I return to television, hoping to ease the loss of my beloved hive.”
David and Jeff Schaffer wrote the series, which will feature a mix of Curb Your Enthusiasm actors and other noteworthy guest stars. Schaffer will direct the show.
Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhapppiness premieres June 26 to HBO and HBO Max.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Republican lawmakers in Tennessee approved a new U.S. House map Thursday that carves up a majority-Black district in Memphis, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of President Donald Trump’s strategy to hold on to a slim majority in the November midterm elections.
