Chattanooga Times Free Press
DUI CHARGES TOP IMMIGRANT ARRESTS
Drunk driving was the most common primary charge for people arrested in Hamilton County last year whose citizenship status was unknown or could not be verified by law enforcement, according to data from the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office. More than...
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Police numbers rebound
Chattanooga Police officer Kyle Hullander sang the national anthem a cappella before a full auditorium at Silverdale Baptist Church, the hums of the audience serving as a backing track. Friday was the first day Hullander was authorized to wear that...
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Volkswagen workers approve union contract
Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga have formally approved their first union contract, which promises to boost wages 20% over the next four years and ensure eligible workers receive at least $14,200 in bonuses. The vote, with 96% of the ballots cast...
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VW voting is underway
Workers began voting Wednesday on a final contract between Volkswagen and the United Auto Workers union that contains several key differences from a version the company originally unveiled in September. Still, much of it remains unchanged. In early...
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‘In better shape than it’s ever been’
Jimmy White, a local developer working to build a new riverfront district in Chattanooga called The Bend, said he’s confident in the future of the 7-year-old project as the city asks for updates it said were overdue. The former GE Power site west of...
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NO CLEAN-CAR RULES
The momentous end to the federal government’s legal authority to fight climate change makes it official. The United States will essentially have no laws on the books that enforce how efficient America’s passenger cars and trucks should be. That’s the...
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SECRET WEAPON
Republican elected officials in Tennessee have encouraged President Donald Trump to use the Tennessee Valley Authority as an instrument to achieve his energy goals, and the possibility is greater with a new board of mostly Trump nominees. Last week,...
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Base camp for the outdoors
After years of deliberation about what Hamilton County should do with McDonald Farm, officials have landed on an answer: turn much of its acreage into a state park. The park will encompass about 1,300 acres of the historic Sale Creek farm, once owned...
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Tourism funds at risk
Hamilton County commissioners may divert money away from the Chattanooga Tourism Co. amid a dispute over salaries and what some officials describe as its lack of cooperation with a newer agency focused on sports tourism. Commissioner Chip Baker,...
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‘We’re gonna make his life miserable’
Don Moul, CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority, traveled to Washington on Wednesday moments after the board of the federally owned utility fulfilled a wish of President Donald Trump by voting to keep two coalfired power plants open. Moul sat in the...
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Frost pleads guilty, free on $10K bond
Former Chattanooga accountant Jonathan Frost is free on a $10,000 bond after he pleaded guilty to three federal financial crimes in court Wednesday. He officially entered the plea in court before Magistrate Judge Christopher H. Steger in the...
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Top cop: Helping ICE isn’t on agenda
The Chattanooga Police Department is not involved in any kind of immigration enforcement, nor does it intend to be, according to Chief John Chambers. That’s what he told the Chattanooga City Council and a room full of residents and city staffers...
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NOT GIVING UP
A Volkswagen employee who’s part of an effort to remove the UAW from the company’s Chattanooga plant said he and his coworkers are forging ahead with the push despite the union reaching a tentative agreement on a final contract. However, the actual...
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Paving signals ‘important step’ for I-75/I-24 project
If the weather cooperates in the coming days and weeks, contract crews reconstructing the second phase of the Interstate 75/Interstate 24 interchange in Chattanooga will be performing paving work and attending to final details on the I-24 portion of...
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‘A lot of uncertainty’
Before the Signal Mountain Planning Commission deferred voting on a proposed 106-home subdivision Thursday, town officials wanted to make clear that a new policy from the Hamilton County Board of Education may affect the school zoning of the proposed...
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‘Old-school TVA’
The Tennessee Valley Authority is nearing a decision on whether to build a multibillion-dollar hydroelectric plant inside a mountain in northern Alabama. TVA first proposed the pumped storage facility in 2023. It would cost between $2 billion and $4...
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‘WATCH THIS’
After a monthslong stalemate, Volkswagen and the United Auto Workers have reached a tentative agreement on a final contract that the union said includes some key concessions from the company. However, it doesn’t accomplish everything. In a statement...
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‘A WELCOMING CITY’
Several Chattanooga City Council members broke out in smiles as Amalia Jacinto Ramirez presented a routine rezoning request to start her own business — all in Spanish. She used an interpreter to present her plan, and the council unanimously approved...
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Survey: Half of St. Elmo residents oppose gondola
Residents in the historic St. Elmo neighborhood of Chattanooga have made their voices heard in a survey on a proposal from Rock City to build a gondola lift nearby. Half of respondents oppose it. The opposition is an extension of a yearslong battle...
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COSTLY MISTAKES
U.S. Rep Chuck Fleischmann, R-Ooltewah, said the contractor for the Chickamauga lock replacement, Shimmick Construction, made mistakes that contributed to cost overruns with the project. “They were multiple,” Fleischmann said in a phone call....
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‘If anybody deserves death…’
Lawmakers aim to strengthen a law involving sentencing for child rapists after a Signal Mountain man avoided the death penalty last week when he pleaded guilty to that crime, among others. Prosecutors initially wanted to seek the death penalty for...
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BIG BUMP IN SIX-FIGURE PAY
The number of city of Chattanooga employees making six figures nearly tripled over the course of 2025, according to an analysis of salary data by the Chattanooga Times Free Press. In February, there were 81 employees making at least $100,000 in the...
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Escape from Washington
WASHINGTON — There’s increasingly one place that U.S. senators want to be — anywhere but Washington. Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota became the fourth sitting senator to seek leadership of a home state in 2026 when she announced her campaign...
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DIVERTING TRAFFIC
Around 96% of the more than 500,000 annual visitors to Rock City in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, drive down Tennessee Avenue before veering right up Ochs Highway, one of the main roads up the mountain. If the tourist attraction builds a gondola lift and...
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FROST AGREES TO PLEA DEAL
Jonathan Frost, who turned a Chattanooga accounting business into a hub for flashy social media-driven investments that collapsed, has agreed to plead guilty to federal conspiracy charges involving wire and tax fraud and money laundering, according to...
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US braces for more cold
Many in the U.S. faced another night of below-freezing temperatures and no electricity after a colossal winter storm heaped more snow Monday on the Northeast and kept parts of the South coated in ice. At least 30 deaths were reported in states...
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WINTER WEATHER
A massive winter storm dumped sleet, freezing rain and snow across much of the U.S. on Sunday, bringing subzero temperatures and halting air and road traffic. Tree branches and power lines snapped under the weight of ice, and hundreds of thousands of...
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‘Turning that corner’
Five years after Montessori Elementary at Highland Park opened its doors, parents and staff have raised concerns about high teacher turnover and a lack of adherence to the Montessori philosophy at the public charter school. The situation at the roughly...
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Area braces for ice storm
An ice storm warning has been issued for the western Tennessee Valley and the Chattanooga region from 1 p.m. Saturday through 7 p.m. Sunday as forecasters call for potentially crippling icing problems until heavy rains and higher temperatures bring...
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WINTER STORM DRAWS CLOSER
Significant snow is almost out of the forecast for most of the Chattanooga region, and more focus is on higher elevations where a quarterto a half-inch of ice could coat roads, trees and power lines on Signal, Lookout and Monteagle mountains. As...
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Winter worries
Mother Nature may be about to put your weekend plans on ice. It all depends on where the snow-ice line ends up this weekend as an arctic front sweeps into the South, dropping a wintry mix on Tennessee. Too far south, the winter storm system could act...
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Infusion for The Bend
The Bend, a highly anticipated and delayed mixed-use project on Chattanooga’s Westside, received a $47.5 million loan from an out-of-town company to help fund the next phase of development. The loan from Chicago-based financial services firm Hilco...
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Erlanger resident reflects on his journey, US intervention
Today, Aaron Barreto-Diaz, 29, is a family medicine resident at Erlanger hospital, but 12 years ago, he was living in Caracas, Venezuela. The recent U.S. incursion into Venezuela comes with complicated feelings for him, but not for his parents,...
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RECRUITING RETAIL
River City Co., a nonprofit that leads development efforts in downtown Chattanooga, has entered a three-year contract with a national consultant it says will help recruit major retailers to the heart of the city. The nonprofit will work with...
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DRIVING HAZARD
People charged with operating a vehicle without a valid driver’s license in Whitfield County made up half of all transfers to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody from the county’s jail last year, data shows. An additional 15 individuals, 4%,...
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Sky lift project needs OKs to get off ground
Rock City wants to build a gondola lift up the side of Lookout Mountain, Georgia, to expand its tourist attraction while shifting vehicle traffic from the small town above Chattanooga to the valley below it. A property Rock City has owned for decades...
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Big problem for big rigs
The 1978 International Transtar II, a flat-faced semitruck with its engine positioned under the cab, started its life in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It worked in a gravel quarry in Muncie, Indiana, idled for long time in a barn and then hauled grain before...
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COMMON SENSE
NEW YORK — Some 250 years after “Common Sense” helped inspire the 13 colonies to declare independence, Thomas Paine might receive a long-anticipated tribute from his adopted country. A Paine memorial in Washington, D.C., authorized by a 2022 law,...
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New Ringgold hospital to open Sunday
A new state-of-the-art hospital is opening Sunday in Ringgold. The hospital at 4710 Battlefield Parkway is owned and operated by CommonSpirit Health, which has centers in Chattanooga, Hixson and now the new building in North Georgia. The...
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Enterprise South plans canceled
Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp has dropped his proposal for industrial development on 500 acres of Enterprise South Nature Park, his office announced Tuesday. Wamp’s original plan to open up 500 acres of the nature park to industrial development...
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DIVIDED REGION
MEXICO CITY — In his celebratory news conference on the U.S. capture of Venezuelan strongman leader Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump set out an extraordinarily forthright view of the use of U.S. power in Latin America that exposed political...
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Split project on track for spring 2026 finish
Construction remains behind schedule on the $161.6 million second phase of Chattanooga’s monstrous road-building project, the Interstate 75/Interstate 24 interchange at the Tennessee-Georgia state line. Work will continue into 2026, months beyond the...
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Trump: US will ‘run’ Venezuela
CARACAS, Venezuela — Hours after an audacious military operation that plucked leader Nicolás Maduro from power and removed him from the country, President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States would run Venezuela at least temporarily and...
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AMONG THE HIGHEST
Tennessee has transferred more people from its jails into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in recent months than almost any other state in the country. Only Texas, California and Florida, the country’s three most populous states, had more...
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Chattanooga-based winners, losers on 2025 stock market
Three of eight publicly traded companies based in the Chattanooga area reported rising share prices across 2025, as the broader stock market pulled off gains despite added uncertainty from President Donald Trump’s tariffs and fears of an artificial...
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From tattoo shops to traffic stops
Tennessee has several new laws set to take effect in the new year, spanning from tattoo shops to traffic stops. Key 2026 laws address immigration and human trafficking in the state. “The laws taking effect on Jan. 1 reflect the priorities and values...
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UTC AVOIDS BIG HIT
Graduate-level nursing students, particularly those pursuing advanced specializations, could have a harder time paying for training after the Department of Education removed the profession from a proposed list of degrees eligible for large federal...
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ONE TREE AT A TIME
For more than 20 years, conservationists have been fighting a tiny insect killing the region’s hemlock trees. Efforts to protect the trees through insecticide and the deployment of natural predators have been tedious and largely ineffective, and until...
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Priority shift
Arecent city-funded study on the best use for the former Harriet Tubman public housing site in East Chattanooga recommends a shift away from large-scale residential use to commercial development after a decade of debate over whether new housing would...
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GROWING PAINS
As the December meeting of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission stretched into its fourth hour, Commission Chair Ethan Collier expressed frustration that every residential project heard by the planning board during the meeting...
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‘THAT’S A BIG JOB’
A high-profile herd of hungry goats that has been grazing on invasive plants on Chattanooga’s Maclellan Island is taking a winter break so volunteers can dig into the work of rewilding the urban oasis with native plants. “We’re only able to do a...
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‘Get to the root cause’
When describing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — known as “forever chemicals” — Shaw Industries’ Kellie Ballew, likes to use apples as an analogy. “There’s a tremendous number of varieties,” Ballew, vice president of environmental affairs, said...
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Wamp signs letter in support of summer food aid
County mayors across Tennessee, including Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp, have signed on to a letter urging Gov. Bill Lee to restore the state’s participation in a summer nutrition assistance program before the deadline to apply is up. The federal...
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Homegrown developer
Across the street from the CommonSpirit Memorial Hospital Chattanooga campus, a handful of new houses stand out on Chamberlain Avenue. They’re Thedric Lester’s billboard promising change in the area. “I pay more, but I think the vision and the impact...
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‘PLEASE TELL ME YOU DON’T HAVE TRUMP STUFF IN YOUR OFFICE’
Accusations of racism stemming in part from a local educator’s Donald Trump campaign pin set off a staff revolt at one of Hamilton County’s top schools, spawned an ongoing lawsuit and has now prompted a federal claim that he was discriminated...
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Letter grades released for local schools
The typical Hamilton County school again received a C under the formula Tennessee uses to assign letter grades to every public school. Of the 81 county schools — including charter schools — that received letter grades for the 2024-25 academic year, 13...
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Local Jewish celebration grows after Bondi attack
Led by a blue-and-white Ghostbusters van, over 40 vehicles topped with light-up menorahs paraded across downtown Chattanooga on Wednesday, from Coolidge Park to Ice on the Landing at First Horizon Pavilion. The menorah parade and ice menorah lighting,...
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Zoning board vote may be put on hold
The Hamilton County Commission may be hitting the pause button before it even takes the first step toward dissolving a regional zoning board. Commissioners are set to vote on a resolution from Commissioner Jeff Eversole, R-Ooltewah, during their...
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Rural health providers could be damaged by $100K visa fee
Bekki Holzkamm has been trying to hire a lab technician at a hospital in rural North Dakota since late summer. Not one U.S. citizen has applied. West River Health Services in Hettinger, a town of about 1,000 residents in the southwestern part of the...
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Water testing excludes taps
Lawyers suing major employers in Northwest Georgia aren’t testing tap water for contaminants that they’ve accused the companies of dumping into water. Instead, they’re sampling dust, dirt, wells, ponds and creeks on residents’ properties as they...
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More connections coming to airport
Rather than ballooning into a major hub, the Chattanooga Airport needs to be “good enough” to avoid being a hindrance to economic development, Mayor Tim Kelly told a roomful of local leaders. It’s on its way there, he said. “We’re not going to catch...
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Tennessee executes man by lethal injection
NASHVILLE — Tennessee executed Harold Wayne Nichols by lethal injection Thursday in Nashville for the 1988 rape and murder of Karen Pulley, a 20-year-old student at Chattanooga State Community College. Nichols, 64, had confessed to killing Pulley as...
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Quantum hub draws Vanderbilt presence
Hundreds of Vanderbilt University faculty and students will live and work in Chattanooga at a quantum institute launched through a partnership with EPB after Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly and other officials invited the powerhouse university to work with...
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CULTURE CLASH
KYIV, Ukraine — For a few weeks this fall, it felt as if Kyiv had been taken over by Kazimir Malevich, the 20th-century avant-garde artist whose “Black Square” painting helped to revolutionize art. Movie theaters in the Ukrainian capital screened a...
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TVA gives YouTuber access to film nuclear reactor
When engineer Destin Sandlin posted his latest video to his popular YouTube channel SmarterEveryDay, fans could hardly believe what they were watching. Sandlin had not only taken cameras inside an operating commercial nuclear power plant but had also...
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‘Shiny ball syndrome’
Even as the number of logistics firms in Chattanooga has proliferated over the past 15 years, one member of the industry said local politicians have been enamored with other, emerging fields that don’t lean into the region’s existing economic...
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ROAD WOES
Chattanooga commuters wasted more time and gas than ever before while sitting in snarled traffic in 2024, and Tennessee’s fourth-largest town ranks in the top 101 U.S. cities for delays, with commuters as a group logging more than 14 million hours...
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‘Pattern of deceit’
The Chattanooga tow operator accused Tuesday of 28 auto crimerelated offenses previously served a nine-year federal prison sentence and owed over $4.28 million in restitution after pleading guilty to defrauding over 400 vehicle dealerships nationwide,...
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‘JUST AS GUILTY’
Red Bank officials had time to double-check the city’s property tax rate for months, according to Hamilton County Property Assessor Marty Haynes. The city is expected to experience an $800,000 shortfall in its $11 million budget this year because it...
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Tow company owner has history of trouble
The Chattanooga tow truck company owner accused of illegally selling vehicles across the Southeast has pleaded guilty to thefts in the past and is connected to a trail of bankruptcy, debt and property foreclosures in several states, public records...
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Tow operator faces charges of auto theft
A Chattanooga tow company owner accused of running an illegal vehicle theft and reselling operation in multiple states was arrested Tuesday on 28 charges while the Chattanooga Police Department and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office executed two...
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2020 election looms over Georgia midterms
The election interference case against President Donald Trump in Georgia was dismissed last week, but the ghosts of the 2020 election are still looming over the state as next year’s midterms approach. Trump’s Justice Department has been investigating...
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Broadband in orbit
Tennessee could see more satellitebased internet connections in rural areas in coming years as the state adapts its broadband expansion plans to meet new guidelines from the second administration of President Donald Trump. The Broadband Equity, Access...
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THE MASTER
ATLANTA — From what used to be a parking lot where Georgia Power stored electrical equipment at the heart of America’s eighthlargest metro area, a stylish hotel, office tower and apartment complex rise in a semicircle like members of a giant...
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