A Republican lawmaker has told Tennessee colleges and universities that acknowledging LGBTQ students in public materials as “protected” under federal Title IX law could be violating state law.

Rep. John Ragan (R) reached out to public higher education institutions, including the University of Tennessee and East Tennessee State University, in August asking schools to “immediately revoke” or remove materials that suggest LGBTQ people are protected under the landmark law.

Title IX is a federal law that bars discrimination on the basis of sex at institutions that receive federal assistance, according to the U.S. Department of Education; the institutions are required to operate in a “nondiscriminatory manner” on the basis of sex.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama won his first Emmy for his narration of Netflix’s five-part documentary series, Our Great National Parks.

Grammy-winner Obama becomes the second President to win an Emmy, after Dwight Eisenhower, who was awarded a prize in 1956 while still in office, and the first to win a competitive award for a specific television project.

Obama nabbed the Outstanding Narrator award at tonight’s Creative Arts Emmy ceremony, beating Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Black Patriots: Heroes of the Civil War), David Attenborough (The Mating Game), W. Kamau Bell (We Need to Talk About Cosby) and Lupita Nyong’o (Serengeti II) in a star-studded category.

He was also previously nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy in 2016 for David Attenborough Meets President Obama.

Obama wasn’t present at the awards and the Academy accepted on his behalf after RuPaul presented the category.

In Our Great National Parks, produced by The Obamas’ production company Higher Ground, the former president and first lady Michelle Obama’s production company, shines the spotlight on some of the planet’s most spectacular national parks.

A former nurse practitioner who worked at a MinuteClinic in Virginia is suing CVS Health, alleging that the company fired her because she refused to give certain contraceptives or abortion-inducing drugs, in keeping with her religious beliefs.

Attorneys for Paige Casey said in a lawsuit filed in a county circuit court that CVS, which owns MinuteClinic, exempted the nurse for more than two and a half years from prescribing certain contraceptive drugs or devices that cause an abortion. It specifically cited Plan B and Ella, which are commonly referred to as morning-after pills. Casey was granted the accommodation after she wrote a request to the company based on her Catholic beliefs, the lawsuit said.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed an executive order Wednesday committing $10 million to build a new reproductive health care clinic near the state's border with Texas.

The future clinic is set to be located in Doña Ana County, just northwest of El Paso, Texas, and will offer "the full spectrum of reproductive health care" – including abortion.

“As more states move to restrict and prohibit access to reproductive care, New Mexico will continue to not only protect access to abortion, but to expand and strengthen reproductive health care throughout the state,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “Today, I reaffirm my resolve to make sure that women and families in New Mexico – and beyond – are supported at every step of the way.”

Student loan forgiveness will be considered taxable income in North Carolina, the state's Department of Revenue said on Wednesday.

Although the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness plan is exempt from federal tax, the debt relief is still triggering some individual state taxes.

In North Carolina, student loan relief is taxable because the state has not fully adopted a specific Section of the Internal Revenue Code. Congress used the provision — Section 108(f)(5) — to exempt forgiven student loans between 2015 and 2021 from tax as part of the American Rescue Plan Act.

The department said in the press release: "The North Carolina General Assembly did not adopt Section 108(f)(5) of the IRC for purposes of the state income tax. Therefore, student loan forgiveness excluded pursuant to IRC 108(f)(5) is currently considered taxable income in North Carolina."

Mitch McConnell is among the myriad Republicans questioning the Senate GOP’s quality of candidates in the midterms. Rick Scott wants everyone to stop doubting his recruits.

“Sen. McConnell and I clearly have a strategic disagreement here … We have great candidates,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee chair said in an interview Wednesday. “He wants to do the same thing I want to do: I want to get a majority. And I think it’s important that we’re all cheerleaders for our candidates.”

McConnell predicted in August that the House was more likely to flip than the Senate, because in the upper chamber “candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.” The comment reflected an increasingly public attitude within the GOP about their prospects of flipping the chamber.

And by acknowledging a rift with McConnell over the party’s strategy, the Florida senator is barreling ahead on his unorthodox approach.

Across the map, Republicans are worried about blowing an opportunity to flip the 50-50 Senate. J.D. Vance is struggling to fend off Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in Ohio, Herschel Walker is lagging behind Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Mehmet Oz is trailing Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in Pennsylvania and Republicans are starting to bail on Blake Masters’ challenge to Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.). But it is only September, and both parties expect races to tighten races and political spending to skyrocket.

David Bergstein, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said that “we know Rick’s been yachting in Europe so we’re happy to catch him up: his flunky candidates are still failing, his party’s position on abortion is still unpopular, and his fellow Republicans are still openly complaining about his self-serving, failed leadership of the NRSC.”

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden will host former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama next week to unveil their official White House portraits.

The event, which takes place next Wednesday, comes several years after former President Donald Trump snubbed the Obamas by not hosting them to unveil their official portraits during his time in office.

Traditionally, first-term presidents host their predecessor as a show of camaraderie in Washington.

Past presidents have hosted their predecessors for the ceremony.

Seven more Republican leaders have announced their endorsement for Pennsylvania's Democratic candidate for governor Josh Shapiro, following photos of GOP state Sen. Doug Mastriano wearing a Confederate military uniform.

This comes one month after nine Republicans vowed to support the Democratic candidate and called Mastriano an "extremist" who threatens American democracy.

According to a statement released by the Shapiro campaign on Tuesday, the group includes Michael Chertoff, the former US Secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, and Mario Civera, a former state
representative.

Andrew Feinberg
@AndrewFeinberg

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