News - Friday, September 4, 2026

Before Taylor MacDonald set out to do his part to save the Earth, he was in the business of moving people and their belongings from one point to another on it.

At Chattanooga-based Bellhops, his focus was figuring out how to do that faster and more efficiently.

Taylor MacDonald has spent several years thinking about how to make Death Farm produce food. Eventually, another question presented itself: What would he do with all of it?

Over two years, MacDonald and volunteers planted 1,800 trees across the 20-acre Chickamauga farm. As its food forests mature, he expects their output to grow dramatically, projecting that Death Farm could eventually produce as much as 400,000 pounds of food a year.

A pinch of compost from Alter Eco Farms contains a world invisible to the naked eye.

Cofounder Krisi Olivero reveals it by mixing a small amount of the dark, crumbly material with water, placing a single drop on a glass slide and slipping it beneath a microscope. Magnified hundreds of times, what looked like little more than dirt begins to teem with life.

“How can I help my child buy a home?”

I hear that question more than you might think. It comes from parents, grandparents and family members who simply want to give someone they love a stronger start.

It’s a thoughtful question, but it’s not always simple to answer.

Josh Driver will perform at Miller Park in downtown Chattanooga. Born and raised on the Tennessee-Georgia state line, Driver performs folk, blues and country inspired by life in the region, accompanying his songs with acoustic guitar, harmonica and lap steel. Food trucks will open Friday at 11:30 a.m. The free Noontunes concert series continues Sept. 17 with soul, R&B and jazz vocalist Synamon Townsend and Sept. 24 with an artist to be announced. Presented by River City Company in partnership with the city of Chattanooga Office of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, Noontunes features Chattanooga-area musicians each Thursday in September.

The Chattanooga Police Department has launched a pilot program that uses drones to respond to 911 and police-generated calls, giving officers live video of incidents before they arrive on scene.

The Drone First Responder program uses two drones stationed at Chattanooga Fire Department stations at 2181 Curtis St. and 3250 Eighth Ave. Police said the locations were selected based on data showing where violent crime most frequently occurs.

We live in a world without Dolly Parton now; a world that’s a little less joyous, a little less beautiful, a little less kind. Perhaps a lot less, on all counts.

The tributes have come in from everywhere. Fellow entertainers, political figures, even an edifice: The Empire State Building was lit up in pink on the evening of her passing at 9:25, a nod to her hit song and movie “9 to 5.”

Your credit score can play a surprisingly big role in your financial life. From renting an apartment to getting a cellphone plan, your credit score can open doors or close them. 

Your credit score predicts how likely you are to pay bills on time. Lenders, landlords and even some employers use this number to evaluate how responsible you appear to be. A higher score signals that you’re reliable with money, which can lead to lower interest rates on loans, better insurance premiums and easier access to credit. Some service providers may even waive security deposits if you have a strong score.

Faizon Brandon could have returned home to North Carolina to visit family and friends during breaks from practice in the offseason. But the University of Tennessee true freshman quarterback wanted to give himself the best chance to play, so he chose to remain in Knoxville.

Coach Robert Saleh has pushed his chips to the center of the table, each metaphorically emblazoned with the face of second-year quarterback Cam Ward.

“This kid’s not going to fail,” Saleh said after his team’s 24-15 loss to the Chicago Bears in the preseason finale. “Obviously, I put my job on that one, but he’s not going to fail. He’s special.”

The Titans waived Will Levis during Sunday roster cuts, deciding to roll with just Cam Ward and Mitch Trubisky as their quarterbacks on the 53-man roster.

In the three years-plus that Levis was with the Titans, he went from zero to hero and back with the fan base, some of whom were skeptical from the start about him as an NFL quarterback.

Fun-to-drive coupés have been on the wane in the past few decades, which makes it worth paying attention when a new one shows up. 

The Honda Prelude returns after a 26-year hiatus for 2026, and it’s got some interesting elements to it. It comes standard with a frugal hybrid power train – which you wouldn’t necessarily associate with a performance coupé – combined with a specialized suspension and braking system to enhance the car’s handling and stopping.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The Southeastern Conference filed a lawsuit against LSU and its leadership in Alabama federal court on Thursday, alleging the school had "waged a deliberate and coordinated campaign to recruit professional athletes" against league rules.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer with lying to investigators about the events leading up to the shooting of a Venezuelan man during the Minneapolis immigration crackdown earlier this year, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.