Tennessee prison riot contained after several hours; 3 inmates and 1 guard injured
On Sunday evening, a large group of inmates at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center from several housing units left their cells and accessed an inner yard, becoming 'disruptive and confrontational' and refusing to follow the staff's directions, according to CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin. The prison in Hartsville, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Nashville, is the subject of an ongoing U.S. Department of Justice investigation.
One correctional officer was assaulted and released from the hospital. Three inmates were being treated for minor injuries, Gustin said.
The prison's staff used chemical agents on the inmates, who were secured by early Monday morning. They did not reach the perimeter and state troopers and local law enforcement officers were positioned outside the facility. The Tennessee Highway Patrol deployed about 75 troopers and the agency remained on site overnight until 'every prisoner had been accounted for,' Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security spokesperson Jason Pack said.
The prison remained on lockdown while CoreCivic and the Tennessee Department of Correction investigate the riot, Gustin said.
The incident followed an assault by two Trousdale inmates Saturday that injured a correctional officer who remains at the hospital, Gustin said.
Last August, the U.S. Department of Justice announced an investigation into the Trousdale prison after years of 'reports of physical assaults, sexual assaults, murders and unchecked flow of contraband and severe staffing shortages,' according to then-U.S. Attorney Henry Leventis. The department confirmed Monday the investigation remains ongoing.
Tennessee's corrections agency has fined CoreCivic $37.7 million across four prisons since 2016, including for understaffing violations. Records obtained by The Associated Press also show the company has spent more than $4.4 million to settle about 80 lawsuits and out-of-court complaints alleging mistreatment — including at least 22 inmate deaths — at four Tennessee prisons and two jails since 2016.
The state comptroller released scathing audits in 2017, 2020 and 2023.
The Brentwood, Tennessee-based company has defended itself by pointing to industry-wide problems with hiring and keeping workers. CoreCivic has said it offers hiring incentives and strategically backfills with workers from other facilities nationally.
Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee's administration has stood by CoreCivic.
However, the Republican-led Legislature this year showed its concern by unanimously passing a bill that would move 10% of inmates out of a private prison each time the annual death rate is twice as high as a comparable state-run facility. Lee signed the legislation. Department of Correction spokesperson Sarah Gallagher said the agency is developing a procedure to calculate and report the death rate for 2025 under the new law.
The legislation was spurred by the advocacy of Tim Leeper, a roofing businessman who has attended the same local Rotary Club as the two Republicans who ultimately sponsored the bill, Rep. Clark Boyd and Sen. Mark Pody. Leeper's son Kylan was an inmate at Trousdale when he died of a fentanyl overdose. His family has sued CoreCivic over his death.
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5 minutes ago
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Four stories that are more important than the Epstein Files
is a senior editorial director at Vox overseeing the climate teams and the Unexplainable and The Gray Area podcasts. He is also the editor of Vox's Future Perfect section and writes the Good News newsletter. He worked at Time magazine for 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, a climate writer, and an international editor, and he wrote a book on existential risk. It's not too much to say that the business of America has all but halted because of a years-old criminal the past couple of weeks, one story has overshadowed every other, no matter how important they might be: Jeffrey Epstein. Unless you've been taking your summer vacation on Mars, you probably know the contours of the story. (And if you don't, my Vox colleague Andrew Prokop wrote a useful summary this week.) But what matters here isn't so much the details as it is the sheer, unrelenting attention it has commanded. Between July 6, before the story really began to blow up, and July 13, online searches on the topic increased by 1,900 percent, according to a Newsweek analysis. A CNN analyst noted that over roughly the same time scale, Epstein was Googled 2.5 times more than Grok — this during the AI model's, uh, newsworthy launch — and 1.4 times more than tariffs. The furor over the case has led to Congress essentially shutting down early for the summer, a Republican effort to evade Democrats' sudden and politically convenient demands for transparency. It's not too much to say that the business of America has all but halted because of a years-old criminal case. I'm not saying the Epstein case is totally without importance. The crime was horrific, the investigation details murky, and the political ramifications if the case shakes the president's connection to his political base are obviously meaningful. (And if you want to read about any of that, well, good news — you have no shortage of sources.) But there is virtually no way we'll look back in 20 years and think that the relitigation of the Epstein case was clearly the most important thing happening in the world in July 2025. Related Something remarkable is happening with violent crime rates in the US Attention is a finite resource, and you are where your attention is. A story like Epstein is analogous to a mindless, out-of-control fire consuming all the oxygen in a burning house. So I thought I'd put together a list of four stories happening right now that matter far more for the country and the world than the contents of the Epstein Files. And fair warning — they're not all good news stories, but they absolutely are worth your attention. 1) America's dangerous debt spiral Through the first nine months of the 2025 fiscal year, which goes up to this June, the United States spent $749 billion on interest on the national debt, more than it spent on anything other than Social Security. Not the debt itself — just the interest. And our debt problem is accelerating: According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), President Donald Trump's recently passed budget bill will add $3.4 trillion to the national balance sheet over the next decade. You might say: So what? Budget scolds have been warning about the debt since at least the 1980s, and the most dire predictions have yet to come true. But as the economist Herbert Simon once warned, referring specifically to unsustainable economic policies: 'If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.' While 'there's no magic number at which the debt load becomes a full-on crisis,' as my colleague Dylan Matthews wrote last year, just about everything that is happening now — including persistently high interest rates, which make debt that much more painful, as anyone with a recent mortgage knows — indicates that crisis point is on its way. And what will happen then? The CBO warns that unless budget patterns shift dramatically, the country will face an unpalatable mix of massive tax hikes, severe cuts to essential services, even default. And our debt problem intersects catastrophically with some of America's other generational challenges, like the fertility and aging crisis (see No. 3) and the country's ability to defend itself (No. 4). 2) A global hunger crisis I've written before about the long-term improvements in child mortality and extreme poverty. Those trends are real, and they represent some of the best reasons to feel optimistic about the world. But positive long-term trends can mask periods of setback. When it comes to childhood hunger, the world is in danger of falling back. A new UNICEF report shows that after more than two decades of consistent progress, child stunting — early-life malnutrition that can lead to less growth and lifelong health problems — appears to be rising again. 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Americans have lived with the background assumption that the US would never really face a war with a true geopolitical rival — and certainly wouldn't lose one. Of all our national privileges, that might be the most foundational one. But that foundation is in danger of crumbling. At the same time, America's munitions reserves are dangerously low. In supporting Israel during its recent conflict with Iran, nearly 14 percent of the US's vital THAAD missile interceptor inventory was expended — just replenishing those stores may take up to eight years. Meanwhile, Pentagon authorities temporarily paused shipments of Patriot missiles and other critical air-defense systems to Ukraine amid global stockpile pressures. US air defenses now reportedly have only a quarter of the interceptors needed for all the Pentagon's military plans. Should a major conflict pop up in, oh I don't know, Taiwan, essential munitions could be depleted far faster than production could replace them. That's how you lose wars. None of these stories are scandals, and none of them generate great social media content. They're hard, long-term, wonky, even boring. But they are important. And they deserve our attention. A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Sign up here!
Yahoo
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Karl Rove on Trump, Epstein saga: ‘There's hell to pay'
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Yahoo
11 minutes ago
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Former Epstein lawyer says Bondi ‘jumped the gun a bit' on files
David Schoen, a former lawyer for Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, said Attorney General Pam Bondi and other officials 'jumped the gun a bit' in overhyping the Epstein files. Schoen in an interview with BBC 'Newsnight' Thursday said there is no Epstein 'client list' that would highlight connections between the disgraced financier and wealthy individuals. 'If someone were to think that there's actually a list — which Jeffrey Epstein wrote down the name of, you fill in the name of the famous, wealthy person with some young girl — that just doesn't exist,' he said. He also suggested that Bondi and other officials created a hyped environment about what might be included in the files that couldn't be matched by what was released. Schoen was careful to not blame President Trump for overhyping the files. He said he thought Trump had called on the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI to release anything big they found and that the others jumped the gun in how they described what was coming. 'I think what happened is, President Trump said he's open to the idea, and it should be disclosed if there's any such file that hasn't been disclosed so far. But he didn't know what was in it,' Schoen said. 'I think that maybe some of the others, the attorney general, director of the FBI, and so on, jumped the gun a bit. They were in favor, for good reasons, of disclosing and full transparency, but they didn't know what they had yet,' he said. 'When they saw what they had, there was no 'smoking gun' and therefore they said there was nothing to release of any substance. And now you see this catch-up,' Schoen said. The controversy over the Epstein files has continued for weeks, causing problems for Trump and Republicans in Congress. Democrats have sought to further divide the GOP over the issue by offering amendments in committee to release more federal information on Epstein. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on Friday was set to meet with Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is imprisoned on sex trafficking charges. Trump said Friday he hadn't thought about pardoning Maxwell. Republicans in Congress have been divided over how to handle the issue. Some have called for the release of all files on Epstein held by the DOJ, while others have wanted to put guardrails on disclosures. Schoen is far from the first person to argue the files were overhyped. Karl Rove, republican strategist, said Thursday, 'There's hell to pay when those who hyped the conspiracy have closed the books on the case.' Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino as a conservative pundit outside the administration was among those pressing the idea there were files that showed the government could be protecting wealthy associates of Epstein. Epstein's acquaintances include a number of luminaries — including Trump and former President Clinton — which has sparked conspiracy theories for years. Schoen previously made statements that no client list existed and that Trump was not involved in the Epstein case. He stated June 16 on NewsNation that Bondi and Trump were not hiding a client list. On June 5, Schoen posted on social platform X, 'I was hired to lead Jeffrey Epstein's defense as his criminal lawyer 9 days before he died. He sought my advice for months before that. I can say authoritatively, unequivocally, and definitively that he had no information to hurt President Trump. I specifically asked him!' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
