Eleven residents of Sumner County have been charged with illegally registering to vote and illegally voting. While performing a routine check of registered voters in the county, officials found 15 individuals who had registered to vote after felony conviction but four of them have since died. District Attorney Ray Whitley says the individuals committed a felony crime when filling out the voter registration form and when voting. “On those papers the question is: Have you ever been convicted of a felony in the state of Tennessee? … And they had apparently checked the box that they were not convicted of any felonies when in fact they were,” said Whitley. Nashville Public Radio has more on the story.

A spokesperson with Carter Malone Group, a public relations firm that works for the Shelby County Juvenile Court, told the Daily Memphian that court officials expect the juvenile court building to reopen in July. The building closed "indefinitely" in April while asbestos, mold and lead issues were abated. The Daily Memphian reports that officials are waiting on a formal announcement from Shelby County government about the reopening.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on Tuesday released its annual report on hate and extremism, reports the Tennessee Lookout. The report, which has been published since 1990, found a record increase in white nationalist and anti-LGBTQ+ groups in the United States last year, documenting 835 active antigovernment groups, up 133 from 2022’s count, and 595 hate groups, an increase of 72 over the previous year’s figure. The report also found that Christian "dominionism" and antisemitism are on the rise. One area in which the report documented a decline is in the militia movement, which diminished after hundreds of prosecutions following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) has announced the hiring of Justin Bailey as general counsel. Bailey was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Tennessee from September 2008 to October 2013. He then spent four years as litigation counsel for International Paper, before joining FedEx Freight as a senior attorney in June 2017. In December 2020, he was named senior counsel at FedEx Freight. In April 2022, he was made associate general counsel of compliance at Varsity Spirit. The Commercial Appeal has more.

In October 2023, Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s administration announced that the Office of Community Safety had been awarded a nearly $2 million Department of Justice grant to develop a “Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative.” With three years of funding, the initiative would “take a public health, community-focused approach to address the root causes of violence in Nashville’s most vulnerable neighborhoods.” Nearly eight months later, and as Nashville enters the historically violence-prone summer, the project is still in its early stages and has made little progress, according to The Nashville Banner.

According to new data from the Department of Labor, the U.S. economy added 272,000 jobs in May, and the unemployment rate rose slightly up to 4%, reports The Hill. Economists had predicted an additional 185,000 jobs and maintaining April's 3.9% unemployment rate. The Federal Reserve will vote next week on interest rates. The central bank has maintained rates at a range of 5.25% to 5.5% since July 2023 in an effort to curb inflation, which fell to 3.4% in April from its 40-year high of 9.1% in June of 2022. “After a lower-than-expected April jobs report, the labor market bounced back, revealing its ongoing strength,” Joe Gaffoglio, president of Mutual of America Capital Management, said in a statement.

Plaintiffs in four class actions are alleging that Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster failed to protect users' private information after a cyberattack. The suits, filed in the Central District of California, allege that the personal data of 560 million customers was taken and listed on the black market. Live Nation notified regulators last week that "a criminal threat actor'' tried to sell Ticketmaster data on the dark web. The Tennessean has more from USA Today. The suits come on the heels of an announcement that the U.S. Department of Justice and 30 states, including Tennessee, are suing Live Nation for antitrust violations related to Ticketmaster’s unrivaled control of concert ticket sales.

Pittsburgh-based boutique law firm, the Cozza Law Group PLLC, said this week it has opened a Nashville office and is looking to hire attorneys in the new location. “We are absolutely thrilled to begin to work with clients in Nashville," managing partner Rocco Cozza said in a statement. “When looking at strategic locations to expand, we were drawn to Nashville’s rich business community, hospitality industry and, of course, its renowned music scene. We believe our values closely align with the area’s mission for continued growth, honesty and collaboration.” The firm, which focuses on business, entertainment and employment law, will occupy space at 611 Commerce St., Nashville, TN 37203. Read more in the Nashville Business Journal.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have reached a deal that clears the way for potential antitrust investigations into the dominant roles that Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia play in the AI industry. Reuters reports that the agreement means regulatory scrutiny is gathering steam amid concerns over concentration in the industries that make up AI. Microsoft and Nvidia not only dominate their industries but are also the world's two biggest companies by market capitalization.

The American Civil Liberties Union has announced plans to sue the White House over President Biden's new executive order that would close off access to asylum when border numbers surge, Axios reports. "A ban on asylum is illegal just as it was when Trump unsuccessfully tried it," Lee Gelernt, who successfully argued a similar challenge under former President Trump, told the news source. Government officials say humanitarian exemptions and the fact that the asylum restrictions only lock into place when border numbers surge make Biden's order different from similar actions attempted by Trump via executive order.