News - Friday, May 29, 2026

At first glance, the small conference room inside Chattanooga startup incubator Brickyard looks too cramped to sustain Daniel Rau’s ambitions.

But for a stretch of time, it was also where he slept.

Rau gestures toward a cushioned bench tucked against a wall, laughing at the memory.

For Ila Wills, a childhood fascination with homes never faded. Long before she was helping buyers envision their futures in new Chattanooga communities, she was sketching floor plans as a little girl in North Carolina, paging through real estate magazines and admiring the polished Realtors smiling from glossy ads.

Jacki Madding came to a Chattanooga Realtors luncheon May 13 with both a warning and a pitch: Teachers, firefighters, restaurant workers and other working residents are increasingly being priced out of homeownership, but the city hopes a new $3 million down payment assistance program can help reverse that trend.

Buying or selling a home already comes with a lot of moving parts – and now there’s an added challenge many people do not expect.

Online scams are becoming more convincing, including the use of deepfakes, which can make a message, voice, photo or video seem real when it is not.

In our last article, we discussed how the Declaration of Independence laid the foundation for the rule of law and the concept of equality under the law. In this article, we discuss how the Declaration also foreshadowed one of the most essential components of democratic self-rule and the rule of law – trial by jury.

Crown Automotive Group has promoted Trevor Turner to pre-owned sales manager at Crown Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. Turner will oversee used vehicle inventory, manage sales staff and assist customers with vehicle purchases.

Turner joined Crown Automotive Group in 2016 as a sales and leasing consultant and has twice been named Best Salesman of the Year. Company officials said his decade of experience with Crown CDJR and his customer relationships made him a strong fit for the leadership role.

Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett, state agencies and AAA are encouraging parents and caregivers to use Tennessee’s free Baby in the Back car hangtags to help prevent heat-related illnesses and deaths among children during the summer months.

The city of Chattanooga’s Office of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy will host a series of public performances and artist-designed sidewalk murals across the city. Funded by the Tennessee Arts Commission, the initiative is designed to create spontaneous cultural experiences and highlight local performers through four designated performance zones featuring temporary murals by artists Lexi D’Ambrosio, Angie Jerez, Gavin Bird and Nathan Brown. Debut performances will include Chattanooga Street Dance Network from May 30 10 a.m.-noon at the Downtown Public Library Plaza, Ayeyoty from 1-3 p.m. on Frazier Avenue near Jimmy John’s and Hair Benders and Ashly Dilbeck from 1-3 p.m. at St. Elmo Avenue and the Tennessee Riverwalk across from the Incline Railway. Brown’s installation at Renaissance Park near Cardboard Hill is expected later this summer.

The sweeping rehabilitation of Chattanooga’s iconic Walnut Street Bridge remains on track for a September reopening after workers undertook one of the most extensive structural repair efforts in the bridge’s 136-year history.

City officials say the $47 million project required replacing and reinforcing enormous portions of the historic pedestrian bridge’s steel support system, a task made even more challenging by the structure’s age, location over the Tennessee River and historic significance. Yet despite uncovering far more corrosion than initially anticipated, the city says the bridge will reopen Sept. 26 without requiring additional local tax dollars.

Erlanger has announced plans for a major expansion and renovation of Erlanger East Hospital, a project leaders say will increase access to advanced healthcare services for residents across Southeast Tennessee.

The centerpiece of the project is a three-story, 52,000-square-foot medical building that will add 22 patient beds to the hospital and create room for future growth.

Given the ever-evolving landscape of college athletics, University of Tennessee softball head coach Karen Weekly could have already walked away from the sport with her Hall of Fame legacy firmly in place. She could have left others to deal with revenue sharing, NIL deals and the constant transfer portal moves.

Key takeaways 

• Despite their tax advantages, just 14% of adults include a 529 plan in their education savings strategy, according to a 2025 Edward Jones and Morning Consult study.

• 529 funds cover college, vocational programs, registered apprenticeships and can be used toward K-12 education. 

The Kia Telluride and Hyundai Palisade have been among Edmunds’ favorite three-row SUVs for many years now. They boast roomy seating, classy designs, a generous number of features and pricing that can potentially undercut the competition by thousands of dollars.

Major League Baseball owners made their long-expected salary cap proposal to the players' association on Thursday, a system the union has vowed never to accept, setting the sides on course for a confrontation that threatens the 2027 season and perhaps beyond.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, Brittany Howard and Joan Baez will headline a star-studded protest festival set for the Washington, D.C., area a month before the midterm elections.

Springsteen and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello announced the festival Wednesday while performing together at Nationals Park in Washington as Springsteen winds down his Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour.

NEW YORK (AP) — Saying it was time for a new approach and a new chapter, CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss has replaced the executive producer of "60 Minutes," naming outsider Nick Bilton, a longtime technology journalist and documentarian, as the show's new leader.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement Thursday to extend the ceasefire in the 3-month-old war by 60 days and launch talks on Iran's nuclear program, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market pushed to more records Thursday as profits keep piling up for companies like Dollar Tree, Snowflake and Hormel Foods. A tentative deal to extend the ceasefire in the war with Iran by 60 days also helped lift the market and rein in oil prices.

In April, President Donald Trump announced a project to revamp the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, hiring a contractor to coat its massive granite basin at a cost of what he said would be $1.5 million. He criticized his predecessors' efforts to fix the site at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, claiming they spent "hundreds of millions of dollars."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that his department has prepared the design for a $250 bill featuring President Donald Trump, anticipating the passage of stalled legislation in Congress to put the president on a new denomination of legal tender.

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called for a new partnership with the United States on Thursday, just weeks before President Donald Trump decides on whether to renew the free trade agreement between the countries.