News - Friday, June 20, 2025

In 2016, Sei-Ondra Williams threw a party to celebrate a decade as a Realtor. Dozens of guests gathered at a North Shore event space ahead of her arrival, enjoying refreshments and live music as they waited. Once the room had filled with people – and anticipation – the doors opened and she stepped in.

Tucked beneath Chattanooga’s iconic Walnut Street Bridge, Pedestrian Wine and Cheese has turned a busy corner of Frazier Avenue into an inviting destination for wine lovers, cheese enthusiasts and curious passersby.

The business, which held its grand opening and ribbon-cutting with the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce this month, offers more than bottles and bites – it’s also a celebration of art and community.

The latest seismic wave in the ever-changing landscape of college athletics will keep administrators and outside forces checking their balance – and balance sheets – when it emerges July 1.

Less than two weeks remain before the recently approved House settlement – a landmark $2.8 billion antitrust case against the NCAA – goes into effect, and everyone involved is scrambling to find the best way to implement the far-reaching agreement that will forever change the business of college athletics.

By Herald staff

Beverly Edge, chief operating officer, general counsel and partner at HHM CPAs, has been named one of Chattanooga’s 2025 Women of Distinction. The honor recognizes her professional achievements and dedication to civic and philanthropic causes throughout the region.

City and county officials, development leaders and community partners gathered Monday morning at the corner of 26th and Cowart streets to break ground on Broadview, a $22 million luxury condominium development in the heart of Chattanooga’s Foundries District.

The Chattanooga Symphony & Opera has announced its 2025-26 season. Titled “Reflection,” it will mark the beginning of a three-year initiative titled “Unspoken – Our Stories Through Sound.”

Framed as a musical exploration of the past, present and future, the new season will invite audiences to “reflect on history through a tapestry of orchestral storytelling,” writes CSO Music Director Ilya Ram in a message to patrons.

Perhaps you’ve heard the expression: “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” It’s certainly true about an unexpected job loss. And it may cause stress over your financial situation. Here are a handful of steps you can take shortly after the loss of employment to help put yourself in the best financial position. Some of these are time-sensitive, so the sooner you act, the better.

Chattanooga Tourism Co. is kicking off the next phase of a strategic effort to strengthen Hamilton County’s role as a destination for sports tourism with a series of site visits in June. These visits are part of a sports tourism facilities assessment that aims to evaluate the county’s tournament-ready venues and identify opportunities for future development.

There are some new cars that many shoppers tend to overlook even though they have a lot to offer. These hidden gems boast a special combination of attractive qualities and can potentially make excellent choices for savvy folks who want their ride to stand out from the sea of mainstream vehicles. 

Active Older Adults events. The city of Red Bank’s Active Older Adult program continues to feature free classes and special events aimed at residents 55 and older. All activities will take place at the Red Bank Community Center, located at 3653 Tom Weathers Drive. This month’s highlights include a return visit from local author and historian Lawrence Miller, who will present historic photos and stories about Red Bank Monday, June 9. On Thursday, June 26, Red Bank Police Sergeant Steve Hope will lead a discussion on fraud prevention and theft awareness. In addition to these events, the AOA program continues to offer chair yoga, qi gong, guided exercise, music jam, bingo and art sessions presented by The Chattery and supported by a grant from Tennessee Arts Build. Information: www.redbanktn.gov/316/Red-Bank-Active-Older-Adults and @redbanktn on Facebook.

God bless Southern Baptists. They may mystify, they may disappoint, but seldom do they surprise.

Take the recent annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas. Delegates, known as “messengers,” voted “overwhelmingly” that the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage should be overturned.

HARTFORD, Tenn. (AP) — Heavy rain, flooding and a rock slide have again closed a section of the major cross country highway Interstate 40 along its narrow corridor through the Great Smoky Mountains with engineers expecting the road closed for at least two weeks.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Farmers, cattle ranchers and hotel and restaurant managers breathed a sigh of relief last week when President Donald Trump ordered a pause to immigration raids that were disrupting those industries and scaring foreign-born workers off the job.

LONDON (AP) — Music streaming service Deezer said Friday that it will start flagging albums with AI-generated songs, part of its fight against streaming fraudsters.

Deezer, based in Paris, is grappling with a surge in music on its platform created using artificial intelligence tools it says are being wielded to earn royalties fraudulently.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is in the homestretch of a term that has lately been dominated by the Trump administration's emergency appeals of lower court orders seeking to slow President Donald Trump's efforts to remake the federal government.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday revived long-running lawsuits against Palestinian authorities from Americans who were killed or wounded in terrorism attacks in the Middle East.

The justices upheld a 2019 law enacted by Congress specifically to allow the victims' lawsuits to go forward against the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An appeals court on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump to keep control of National Guard troops he deployed to Los Angeles following protests over immigration raids.

The decision halts a ruling from a lower court judge who found Trump acted illegally when he activated the soldiers over opposition from California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

LONDON (AP) — U.K. lawmakers on Friday approved a bill to allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales to choose to end their lives, taking it one step nearer to becoming law.

The vote backing what is generally termed " assisted dying " — sometimes referred to as "assisted suicide" — is potentially the biggest change to social policy in the U.K. since abortion was partially legalized in 1967.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump honored Juneteenth in each of his first four years as president, even before it became a federal holiday. He even claimed once to have made it "very famous."

But on this year's Juneteenth holiday on Thursday, the usually talkative president kept silent about a day important to Black Americans for marking the end of slavery in the country he leads again.

KAKUMA, Kenya (AP) — Martin Komol sighs as he inspects his cracked, mud-walled house that is one rain away from fully collapsing. Nothing seems to last for him and 300,000 other refugees in this remote Kakuma camp in Kenya — now, not even food rations.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel and Iran exchanged strikes a week into their war Friday as President Donald Trump weighed U.S. military involvement and new diplomatic efforts got underway.

Trump has been weighing whether to attack Iran by striking its well-defended Fordo uranium enrichment facility, which is buried under a mountain and widely considered to be out of reach of all but America's "bunker-buster" bombs. He said he'll decide within two weeks whether the U.S. military will get directly involved in the war given the "substantial chance" for renewed negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As the war between Israel and Iran hits the one-week mark, Iranians have spent nearly half of the conflict in a near-communication blackout, unable to connect not only with the outside world but also with their neighbors and loved ones across the country.