A close friend of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is speaking out against new allegations from a left-wing news outlet that GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow improperly paid for Thomas' great-nephew's private school tuition, and says those claims are "another attempt to manufacture a scandal."

A billionaire Republican donor paid private school tuition fees for the grandnephew of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a new report says.

Real estate magnate Harlan Crow said in response that he often paid tuition fees for pupils "from personal funds".

The revelation is the latest reported by ProPublica, which last month revealed Mr Crow had treated Justice Thomas and his wife to lavish holidays.

A friend of Mr Thomas has defended him and called the report "malicious".

Update, May 4, 2023: This story has been updated to reflect that Mark Paoletta, a longtime friend of Clarence Thomas who has also served as Ginni Thomas’ lawyer, acknowledged Harlan Crow’s tuition payments.

Despite a recent Texas House vote to prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars for private education, Gov. Greg Abbott pledged on Tuesday that a Texas school choice initiative would pass “this session.”

“One size does not fit all. No one in government knows better than mom and dad about which education option is the best for their child and that is what we will deliver this session,” said Abbott.

A school head, a custodian and a substitute teacher are among the victims of a shooting that has left six dead at a school in Nashville, Tennessee.

Three staff members and three pupils were killed in the attack by a 28-year-old former student at the Covenant School on Monday.

The three children, all aged nine, have been named as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney.

The three employees killed were Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Michael Hill, 61.

Police said they did not believe any of the victims had been specifically targeted.

Three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a private religious school in Nashville, authorities said.

The shooter, who police said was a 28-year-old from the Nashville area, was shot dead by two officers. Police initially identified the shooter as a woman but a spokesperson later told WPLN's Alexis Marshall that the shooter was assigned female at birth and used he/him pronouns.

Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale may have been driven to kill by “resentment,” according to the city’s top cop.

Police have said Hale was a former student at the Covenant School, a private Christian elementary school, where Hale slaughtered three 9-year-old students and three adults Monday morning before police closed in and killed her.

But they have yet to pinpoint a clear motive.

A sweeping education bill introduced in the Texas Senate late Friday would allow families to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools, establish new opportunities for parents to review instruction material and impose new rules on how gender and sexual orientation is taught in all grades.

If signed into law, Senate Bill 8 would give families up to $8,000 in taxpayer money, per student, to pay for private schooling through an educational savings account, cementing Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's signature educational proposal into law.

Any Iowa student who wants to attend a private school could use public money to pay for tuition or other expenses under a plan passed Tuesday by the Legislature and quickly signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds, making the state the third to pass a measure that allows such spending with few restrictions.