MATHIS, Circuit Judge. Many people consider a college education the ticket to the American dream. Some take out student loans to get the ticket. Paying back those loans can turn into a nightmare. Congress and the U.S. Department of Education stepped in to help by creating income-driven student-loan repayment plans and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Various problems arose with these plans, including student-loan servicers steering borrowers into postponing or reducing their student-loan payments for extended periods of time. In response, the Department of Education announced, in April 2022 and July 2023, a one-time account adjustment that would count months or years that borrowers spent in excessive forbearance status toward debt forgiveness. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Cato Institute did not take kindly to the Department of Education’s action, so they sued to stop it. The question presented is whether Plaintiffs’ complaint sufficiently alleged that they suffered an injury in fact resulting from the adjustment based on competitor standing and deprivation of a procedural right. We hold that it does not. We thus affirm the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

The U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision ruled that a separate hearing is not required when police seize cars loaned to drivers accused of drug crimes. Two Alabama women loaned their cars to individuals who later used them in drug crimes. They had argued that they were entitled to a preliminary hearing to determine whether police could retain their cars during the forfeiture process. The court said Congress and the states have long authorized police to seize and hold personal property pending a forfeiture hearing, without separate preliminary hearings. The ABA Journal has the story.

PER CURIAM. On February 23, 2024, we held Bannum, Inc. and Bannum Place of Saginaw, LLC (collectively “Bannum”) in civil contempt and ordered Bannum to pay to the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) reasonable attorney fees. The NLRB now seeks $14,872.80 in attorney fees. For the following reasons, we GRANT in full the NLRB’s request, and we order Bannum to pay the NLRB attorney fees in the amount of $14,872.80.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the "Transparency In Charges for Key Events Ticketing (TICKET) Act," which would require event ticket sellers to disclose the total cost of tickets upfront to consumers, including so-called hidden fees. According to The Hill, lawmakers say the bill is aimed at increasing transparency in the live event ticket marketplace by requiring the full cost of event tickets to be disclosed to consumers upfront. The bill also seeks to ban sales of tickets that sellers do not have and guarantee refunds for event cancellations, according to a release detailing the measure. The bill also has been introduced in the U.S. Senate.

The defendant, Jonathan Keith Hughes, Jr., was convicted by a Dickson County Circuit Court jury of one count of first degree murder, one count of criminally negligent homicide, and three counts of conspiracy to commit murder. On appeal, the defendant challenges the trial court’s admission of evidence of his gang affiliation, the trial court’s failure to provide an accomplice instruction to the jury, and the sufficiency of the convicting evidence. Upon review of the record, we remand the case to the trial court for entry of corrected judgments reflecting the defendant’s convictions for conspiracy to commit first degree murder under the proper statute. We otherwise affirm the judgments of the trial court.

Kingsport City Manager Chris McCartt and Deputy City Manager Ryan McReynolds have announced that the new $19 million Kingsport Justice Center expansion and renovation, funded by $13.4 million in city bonds and $5.6 million in Sullivan County bonds, should be complete and ready for use no later than May 2026. The Times News reports that the project will add more than 17,000 square feet to the late 1980s building and put county offices still in the old City Hall under the same roof as city offices, Kingsport City Police and various courtrooms. Of the facility's 17,600 square feet, about 9,000 is on the first floor with the remaining 8,600 on the second floor.

FBI agents recently raided two East Tennessee residences, including a Carson-Newman University dorm room, which investigators say were part of a scheme allowing foreign technology workers to work for U.S. companies under the stolen identities of American residents. According to the search warrant, a laptop farm is a "location hosting multiple computers all connecting to the internet through the same network, wherein individuals at the laptop farm assist remote individuals with logging on to the computers." This makes it appear like the remote individual is working at the laptop farm to avoid suspicion from their employer. Knox News has more on the story. Read the school's statement about the situation to WBIR.

Seventy years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the "separate but equal" doctrine unconstitutional in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, ending segregation in schools. Chalkbeat has several articles on the impacts of that decision in Tennessee.

Cleotha Abston has been sentenced to 80 years in prison for three charges related to the 2021 rape of Alicia Franklin. Shelby County Criminal Court Division 7 Judge Lee Coffee handed down three consecutive sentences: 40 years for aggravated rape, 20 years for aggravated kidnapping and 20 years for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. He will not be eligible for parole on the rape or kidnapping charges, but has release eligibility after serving 85% of his firearm possession sentence. He cannot appeal his sentence because he agreed to it, though he can appeal his trial conviction. The Daily Memphian reports that Abston was not charged in the Franklin rape case until after he was charged in the September 2022 death of Memphis teacher Eliza Fletcher. Due to a testing backlog, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation had not tested Franklin’s sexual-assault kit prior to Fletcher’s abduction and death.

St. Thomas Rutherford Hospital on Monday filed a lawsuit in Davidson County Chancery Court, challenging the Tennessee Health Facilities Commission’s decision to grant approval for Vanderbilt Rutherford Hospital, a proposed 42-bed, acute care facility to be built near Murfreesboro. The Tennessee Lookout reports that the commission’s February decision marked a sharp reversal of an earlier decision by an administrative judge, who in 2023, denied Vanderbilt a so-called certificate of need, siding with three area hospitals who disputed a new hospital in the same market was necessary. TriStar StoneCrest Medical Center and Williamson Medical Center have contested plans for a new Vanderbilt facility but have not yet filed legal challenges.