A member of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has been arrested in Hamilton County as a result of law enforcement investigating a human trafficking operation, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) announced Monday.
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To kick off Pride Month on June 1, a group called “Chattanooga Youth Pride” will host drag shows for children at the Seed Theatre in the Scenic City.
“The highlight of the event, there’s a stage set up for live performances by talented LGBTQ+ youth artists, including singers, dancers, poets, and drag performers,” says an online invite to the event. “The performances showcase the diversity and creativity of the community, while spreading messages of love, acceptance, and pride.”
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Penske Truck Rental employees in Nashville have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a decertification vote to remove International Association of Machinists (IAM) union officials from power, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation announced Wednesday.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee joined the governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas in issuing a joint statement in opposition of the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) unionization campaign.
The coalition of governors said it is “highly concerned” about the unionization campaign, adding such efforts are “driven by misinformation and scare tactics.”
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Like a bad penny, the UAW keeps popping up in Chattanooga, trying to stand in the way of a healthy relationship between workers and Volkswagen (VW). In two consecutive union campaigns, in 2014 and again in 2019, the UAW failed to gain the confidence of workers. Unfortunately, they’re at it again, rushing to scoop up workers at the Volkswagen plant.
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After recent wins, the United Auto Workers (UAW) looks poised to take on the non-unionized automakers and, if successful, could disrupt the whole industry.
The UAW recently filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a vote at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which employs around 4,000 autoworkers, as it looks to expand its reach to other automakers. A successful union vote in Chattanooga could be a key stepping stone in the UAW’s effort to break into the currently non-unionized auto plants, especially in the south, which has historically been less receptive to unions, all the while the UAW is being emboldened by labor-friendly regulators from the Biden administration, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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Vinnie Vernuccio, president of the Institute for the American Worker, said workers’ latest attempts to unionize the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga appear to be “failing.”
On Monday, the United Auto Workers (UAW) announced that a group of Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board for a vote to join the labor union.
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The number of gun thefts from vehicles in Nashville for the first six weeks of the year decreased 43% from 2023, according to a press release from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.
So far, 90 guns have been stolen from Nashville cars compared to last year’s 158. Gun thefts from cars comprise 72% of all gun thefts in Nashville so far for 2024.
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According to a statement from United Auto Workers (UAW), more than half of the employees at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tennessee plant have voted to unionize.
“A majority of workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tennessee plant have signed cards to join the UAW, less than sixty days after the workers announced their campaign to form a union at the German automaker’s only US assembly plant,” according to a UAW press release.
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A new study shows the percentage of Tennessee homeowners that have paid off their mortgages is above the national average by 2.4 percent.
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Steve Cortes, former Senior Spokesman and Strategist for the 2016 and 2020 Trump campaigns and National Spokesman of the Ron DeSantis Never Back Down super PAC, joined Monday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy where he discussed the city of Chattanooga’s embracement of the 15-Minute City concept.
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Steve Cortes, former Senior Spokesman and Strategist for the 2016 and 2020 Trump campaigns and National Spokesman of the Ron DeSantis Never Back Down super PAC, joined Monday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss his family’s move from Chicago, Illinois to Chattanooga.
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Three Tennessee cities have ranked among the Top 50 Best Job Markets in SmartAsset’s 2023 study of the 340 largest U.S. cities.
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Tennessee’s third-largest city launched a council to oppose “hate” and “extremism” in 2018, and that council has repeatedly collaborated with the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, which is notorious for branding mainstream conservative and Christian nonprofits “hate groups,” putting them on a “hate map” alongside the Ku Klux Klan.
Then-Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke, a Democrat, launched the Council Against Hate in 2018. In doing so, he referenced a July 2015 shooting in the Tennessee city.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was in a car crash Tuesday morning while on his way to a campaign event in Tennessee, but he is uninjured, his spokesperson said.
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Four Tennessee cities have landed a spot on ConsumerAffairs’ recent study ranking the nation’s top 20 cities with the worst drivers.
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Tennesseans will begin celebrating Independence Day as early as Friday night, according to a state travel guide.
The Chattanooga Lookouts, a minor league baseball team, will have a fireworks show after the team’s Friday and Sunday night games.
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Kordsa, Inc. officials announced Wednesday that the company will invest $50 million to expand manufacturing operations at its Chattanooga facility.
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A public policy group in Tennessee released a report this week showing a massive uptick in charter school growth in the Volunteer State.
According the report by The Beacon Center of Tennessee, charter schools in Tennessee have increased in number from fewer than 20 in 2010 to more than 110 in 2019. Such schools have only become more popular since 2019, and more than 44,000 students in the state are enrolled in a charter school.
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A resident of Chattanooga was arrested in Arizona for numerous criminal charges, including Flight from Pursuing Law Enforcement Officers across three agencies.
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A man from Chattanooga known as ‘MoneyMaal’ has been sentenced to 290 months in jail, which is just over 24 years, for drug trafficking.
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Following the news that a large Pentecostal church organization held a ribbon cutting ceremony on 20 new affordable housing units in Memphis, the city of Chattanooga has struck a similar deal with a network of churches.
“Kingdom Partners housing development group was selected by the city of Chattanooga for a grant of more than a million dollars to develop affordable housing units in Chattanooga,” according to reports. “The goal is push out 30 units over a two-year span with the help of churches and nonprofits in the area.”
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The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department continues to plead with the citizens of Nashville to lock their car doors and secure their guns as the number of firearms stolen from vehicles climbs to 1,163 this year.
“It’s become a disturbing trend, and it needs to stop; guns being stolen from vehicles. Criminals are continuously checking door handles, ready to steal, and it guns are left visible, they will do whatever it takes to break in. It takes just seconds for someone to grab your gun and go. Stats from this year shows a tremendous increase in guns being stolen from vehicles,” Chief of Police John Drake said in a video posted by MNPD in September.
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Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp (R) and others argue that the civil service measure recently passed by county commissioners bestows excessive protections on bureaucrats.
The legislative body approved the policy and another resolution extending County Attorney Rheubin Taylor’s contract, which Wamp tried to terminate earlier this month. The civil-service resolution would require a dismissal of a protected county staffer to undergo review by a special commission.
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A Hamilton County School Board member has fired back after a left-wing Hispanic group called for her job over comments she made regarding the explosion in growth in the school district’s Hispanic population.
“We had about 8,000 Hispanic students last school year, and at last count the number was 8,671 this year,” Rhonda Thurman told The Chattanoogan in August, sparking the controversy. “They arrive every day at schools like Howard in groups of five or more. It is mind-boggling to me the burden it puts on the schools, the teachers and the taxpayers.”
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A left-wing Hispanic group is calling for the resignation of a member of the Hamilton County School Board after that school board member noted a vast increase in the number of Hispanic students enrolled in county schools.
“We had about 8,000 Hispanic students last school year, and at last count the number was 8,671 this year,” Peggy Thurman told The Chattanoogan in August. “They arrive every day at schools like Howard in groups of five or more. It is mind-boggling to me the burden it puts on the schools, the teachers and the taxpayers.”
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Tennessee State Comptroller Jason Mumpower gave his conditional approval for the plan to build the new South Broad District in Chattanooga, which includes the Chattanooga Lookouts’ new stadium.
In a letter to Attorney Mamantov, Comptroller Mumpower stated that the final contract is in the best interest of the city if it includes a commitment to make annual lease payments of at least one million dollars for the next 30 years and if all excess tax revenues will be used for eligible purposes.
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The president and CEO of Chattanooga’s Chamber of Commerce, credited with spreading woke ideology during her time as the chamber’s leader, is leaving Chattanooga to take the same role in Oklahoma City.
Christy Gillenwater’s work “led to hiring a newly established Vice President of Diversity and Inclusive Growth as well as establishing the CEO Pledge for Racial Equity, a commitment by CEOs to intentionally enhance their efforts to achieve equity of opportunity within organizations and the broader Chattanooga community,” according to The Chattanoogan.
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The Chattanooga Police Department (CPD) says residents should be on high alert as mail theft in the city increases.
“Due to an increase in mail theft, we suggest that if you are mailing important documents or currency, please refrain from using mail drop boxes,” said a weekend message from CPD. “Go inside the post office instead.”
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An amendment to Chattanooga’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget adds nearly $1 million for the city to hire nine new law enforcement officers.
According to the report, $924,019 so the city can hire two Executive Chiefs, five Majors, and three social workers from the city’s Community Health Organization.
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A conservative non-profit in Hamilton County has launched a petition to bar anyone under 18 years old from attending a drag show.
“We the people of Tennessee sign below petitioning the legislature of our state to pass a law that requires all drag performances be for persons who have reached the age of 18 and above only,” says a petition page on the group’s website. “Children under the age of 18 shall not be permitted to attend, even if they are accompanied by a parent or guardian.”
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The brewery where a child touched the groin of a drag queen at a “family friendly” drag show claims it is the victim of Republican smears.
“We hosted Chattanooga Pride on Saturday September 24 as one of their locations to hold a Family Friendly Pride Event as part of Chattanooga Pride Week,” said Wanderlinger Brewing Company Co-Owner Chris Dial. “We have hosted a few of these events over the last few years for them with one of the more recent even including local politicians. The video that was taken by a supporter of Robby Starbuck [and] was a targeted attack against our business and more specifically the LGBQT community as seen with similar events they targeted at [Tennessee] Tech, Memphis and calling for action against more. If you look at his social media he is very strongly targeting this kind of activity across the state, whether you agree or not that is the fact.”
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On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced that the Biden-Harris Administration has awarded three Tennessee infrastructure projects a total of $64 million from the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program.
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A German automobile manufacturer with a plant in Chattanooga Wednesday announced that that location has become the first company’s first site in the United States to solely produce electric vehicles.
“We’re just starting to write a new chapter for Volkswagen in America, and it is very much an American story,” said Thomas Schäfer, global Chairman of the Volkswagen. “When we promised to bring Volkswagen EVs to the millions, it always included American workers building those EVs right there in Chattanooga. We couldn’t be prouder to see that vision realized today with our ID.4 electric flagship rolling off the lines. This is another milestone in Volkswagen’s ambitious electrification strategy for the U.S. market and globally.”
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As Tennessee experiences a massive influx of new residents from across the country, a study found that one state in particular is a popular feeder for the Volunteer State.
“Our 2022 data shows that California is the largest contributor to Tennessee’s population increase,” according to a MoveBuddha study. “Nearly a quarter (22.14%) of all search queries for moves into Tennessee are from the Golden State.”
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iFixit officials announced Monday that the company will establish its East Coast hub for distribution and innovation in Chattanooga. iFixit will invest $24.2 million and create 201 new jobs in Hamilton County over the next five years, according to a press release by the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD).
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The city of Chattanooga will spend tens of millions of dollars to build a new baseball stadium for the Chattanooga Lookouts, a minor league affiliate of Major League Baseball’s Cincinnati Reds.
“For more than two decades, this 140 acres around us have sat vacant as a sad, rusting reminder of our wasted potential,” Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly said in a press conference from what used to be the US Pipe site near I-24. “There have been no less than eight studies conducted on this site since 2003, but despite that, our western gateway has remained a blighted brownfield doing absolutely nothing to increase jobs, tourism or quality of life for our residents.”
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Chattanooga’s Department of Public Works has inspected more than 95 percent of all streets and filled in 90 percent of all potholes, according to a report delivered to the Chattanooga City Council.
Along with filling potholes, Public Works has created work orders for issues that require more than a patch, such as utility trench settlement, base failure, lack of base, and slope failure, according to the report.
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Five Star Food Service, Inc. officials announced Wednesday in a press release that the company will expand its headquarters operations in Hamilton County.
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The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) this week announced that former Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke will serve that agency in a senior leadership position and will have direct influence over President Joe Biden. Berke is joining NTIA as a special representative for broadband.
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Officials in two Tennessee counties, Shelby and Hamilton, use a bail calculation tool for criminal defendants that is also used in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Waukesha is where suspect Darrell Brooks Jr. faces homicide charges for using his car to kill six people at a recent holiday gathering. Prosecutors handling a previous case of physical abuse and vehicular assault involving Brooks asked a court to set bail bond for the defendant at a mere $1,000. Court officials agreed.
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Eleven men were arrested in Chattanooga this week for seeking illicit sex from minors, and one woman was charged with promoting prostitution.
The arrests were made during a two-day undercover Human Trafficking Operation run by Chattanooga Police, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), Homeland Security Investigations, and the Tennessee Human Trafficking Task Force.
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Metropolitan Nashville’s (MetroNashville) Council, the legislature for the city of Nashville and Davidson County, is currently preparing to consider a second draft of the its newly revised Council-district map.
A number of Nashville Council’s 35 districts stand to change dramatically, particularly with districts losing land mass in the city’s northeast, as population growth there has not kept pace with the city’s southern area.
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A former Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) project manager has pleaded guilty to falsifying information as part of what federal officials call a fraudulent scheme. This, according to a press release that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee published Friday.
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A new construction vocational facility for high school students and adults broke ground in Hamilton County on Thursday. Next week, workers will officially begin the building process of the Construction Career Center in Chattanooga’s Avondale neighborhood.
The old, vacant Mary Ann Garber School at 2225 Roanoke Avenue in Chattanooga is being renovated in order to house the new college-level vocational training center for 11th and 12th-grade students as well as adults in the community.
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After the finalization of the U.S. Census every ten years, state and local governments set about redrawing their lawmakers’ and school directors’ district lines.
Throughout this fall and winter, legislators across the state will toil over this process sure to directly impact many of their futures. Although political considerations inevitably loom large in redistricting, the proceedings are theoretically intended to make districts as compact and contiguous as possible—i.e. to ensure that they don’t look like irregular puzzle pieces.
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The mayors of Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, and Knoxville declined to say Monday whether they support public schools teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT). This, even though those four mayors — Jim Cooper, Jim Strickland, Tim Kelly, and Indya Kincannon — belong to the United States Conference of Mayors, which recently adopted a resolution supporting CRT in K-12 public schools.
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A closed shelter in Chattanooga again was the focus Thursday for much of the Tennessee Legislature’s Study Committee on Refugee Issues meeting.
Tennessee Department of Children’s Services Commissioner Jennifer Nichols said the home, run by the Georgia-based Baptiste Group, remains under suspension as the Baptiste Group appeals its license suspension in chancery court.
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Tennessee’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD) is offering grants to educate Hamilton County immigrants in English literacy and civics. However, TDLWD confirmed with The Tennessee Star that it won’t be requiring proof of legal status for participation. TDLWD hasn’t required proof for nearly two years. The department explained that its Adult Education Division made the change to align with federal regulations concerning the program. The only requirements for immigrants who participate in the program are that they are over 16 years old, not enrolled in secondary school, and classified as an English language learner.
Hamilton County drew significant attention over the last few months after it was discovered that the Biden Administration was driving and flying unaccompanied migrant children into Chattanooga. Several weeks ago, followup reports emerged that these children were potentially enduring abuse at their holding facilities. Around the same time, one teenage boy went missing from the Chattanooga facility.
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Tennessee’s role as a center for creating electric vehicles continues to expand.
On Tuesday, NOVONIX announced a $160 million expansion that is expected to create 290 new jobs at its Chattanooga manufacturing facility.
Since March 2017, NOVONIX has made anodes through its PUREgraphite brand. Anodes are a negative electrode used in creating lithium-ion batteries, specifically those used in electric vehicles.
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