The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on three preliminary injunctions issued by federal district judges in Seattle, Maryland and Massachusetts, which bar the government from implementing the president’s executive order ending birthright citizenship in certain situations. The court is giving the other side until April 4 to respond, according to SCOTUSblog. The executive order made it official government policy that children born to mothers not legally in the country or here temporarily, and whose fathers are not citizens or lawful permanent residents at the time of the birth, would not automatically become citizens of the country.

Legislation proposing state intervention in Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) passed its first hurdle in the Tennessee House's K-12 Education Subcommittee Tuesday morning, the Commercial Appeal reports. The bill now moves to the full Education Committee though no date for consideration has been set. The bill, if enacted, would establish a state-appointed board to assume control of school systems in four specific situations: when 30% of student grades are D or F, when the district falls into the bottom 5% of statewide performance, when there is 25% chronic absenteeism rate for students or when a vote of no confidence is taken by the local government body. Sponsor Rep. Mark White, R-Memphis, says he has been working on the proposal for two years and believes the move is in the best fiscal interest of the state due to the amount of money provided to MSCS.

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. After a jury convicted Lonnie Hubbard of operating an illegal “pill mill,” the government punished him in the expected ways. The district court ordered Hubbard to serve decades in prison. The government also confiscated his homes, vehicles, watercraft, and financial accounts using the criminal-forfeiture laws. Years later, though, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sought to punish Hubbard in an unexpected way. As part of the earlier forfeiture, the IRS had seized over $400,000 from Hubbard’s individual retirement account (or IRA, in the vernacular of retirement planning). The IRS suggested that the transfer of this money into its own coffers qualified as “income” for Hubbard that he should have paid taxes on from prison. The tax court agreed and ordered Hubbard to pay over $180,000 in taxes and penalties.

We reverse. The tax court found that the transfer of the IRA funds qualified as Hubbard’s income because it discharged an “obligation” that Hubbard owed. This conclusion misunderstood the type of forfeiture at issue. When courts impose a forfeiture, they can either grant the government ownership of a specific asset or enter a money judgment that allows the government to collect on any of the defendant’s property. The forfeiture order in Hubbard’s case granted the IRS ownership of his IRA; it did not enter a money judgment against him. So when the IRS withdrew the funds from the IRA, it was not taking Hubbard’s money to discharge a debt. It was simply transferring its own money. The tax code provides that the “payee or distributee” of withdrawn IRA funds should pay these taxes. 26 U.S.C. § 408(d)(1). Because the IRS owned and controlled the IRA and received the funds, it qualified as the payee or distributee.

The Metro Nashville Council adopted legislation this week to add guardrails to Fusus, a camera surveillance system that will allow the Nashville Police Department to access businesses’ private security footage with the owner’s consent to address calls for service. The proposal had failed by one vote last year. This year, the legislation received eight additional votes. Debate on the measure centered on whether the cameras could be used for government overreach or target marginalized communities. Supporters argued that the system will not be used to target immigrants or specific groups. “It is just a photo of a criminal leaving a business,” said council member Bob Nash. He has supported the system from the beginning. Read more from the Nashville Post.

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge. Three Kentucky Republican Party county executive committees (“the executive committees”) challenge the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance’s (“the Registry”) requirement that they register as a political issues committee to expend funds in support of a state constitutional amendment that was on the November 2024 general-election ballot. The district court denied the executive committees’ application for a preliminary injunction. Because we initially construed the Registry’s requirement as a ban on the executive committees’ speech, we granted an injunction pending appeal of the preliminary-injunction denial. Upon further briefing and oral argument, we now conclude that the Registry has imposed only a disclosure requirement on the executive committees, which is sufficiently tailored to the Registry’s interests in providing the public with timely and accurate information about ballot-issue campaigns. We accordingly AFFIRM the district court’s denial of the motion for a preliminary injunction.

The pro se Petitioner, Jamauri Ransom, appeals the Hardeman County Circuit Court’s order granting the State of Mississippi’s request that he be extradited to Mississippi on a murder indictment. We conclude that the Petitioner has waived consideration of his claim regarding the alleged invalidity of the extradition paperwork by failing to include an adequate record for appellate review. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Petitioner, Dale Merritt, appeals the denial of his motion to correct an illegal sentence, filed pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 36.1. Following our review of the entire record and the briefs of the parties, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

A Knox County jury convicted the Defendant, Antonio Gipson, of second degree murder and unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and the trial court imposed a sentence of forty years. On appeal, the Defendant argues that the evidence is legally insufficient to support his conviction for second degree murder. He also asserts that the trial court erred by (1) finding that prior threats made by the victim were hearsay; and (2) excluding a video of the victim displaying a firearm in the weeks before the shooting. Upon our review, we respectfully affirm the judgments of the trial court.

The U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) and FBI this week announced the launch of Joint Task Force October 7 (JTF 10-7), an initiative that will "seek justice for the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel and address the ongoing threat posed by Hamas and its affiliates." According to the department, 47 U.S. citizens were killed that day and eight were taken hostage. The task force will focus on “targeting, charging, and securing for prosecution in the United States” the individual perpetrators of the Oct. 7 attack as well as take responsibility for pending charges against Hamas leadership. In addition, the group will investigate “acts of terrorism and civil rights violations by individuals and entities providing support and financing to Hamas, related Iran proxies, and their affiliates, as well as acts of antisemitism by these groups.” Read more in a release from the department.

Defendant, Michael Dunford, appeals as of right from his jury convictions for two counts of aggravated robbery and two counts of aggravated kidnapping, for which he received an effective sentence of fifteen years. On appeal, Defendant contends that the evidence was insufficient to prove his identity as the perpetrator and that the trial court erred by imposing a longer sentence than the minimum in-range sentence of twelve years. Following our review, we affirm.