News - Friday, June 13, 2025

The parking lot at Acropolis Mediterranean Grill is full at 2 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon. It’s not a special event, there’s no celebrity in the dining room and yet the tables are brimming with families, couples, solo diners and staff who greet regulars by name.

Heather Heatherly and Kelly Hutt didn’t set out to start a fitness revolution in Chattanooga’s Southside – but when the opportunity came, they ran with it.

Heatherly, 42, is a Nashville native with a lifelong background in ballet and yoga. “Movement has always been at the core of my being,” she says. “As I got older, I realized yoga alone wasn’t enough. I needed strength work to stay healthy.”

In 1971, Samuel C. Hurst, Ph.D., invented the world’s first electronic touch interface in an Oak Ridge basement. Half a century later, the device’s descendants are used for everything from paying for purchases to tracking global shipping and receiving data. And the company Hurst started, Elographics (now Elo Touch Solutions), continues to roll out products and services from its global headquarters in Knoxville.

If you’d been standing at the corner of McCallie and Highland Park avenues a few years ago, you would’ve seen a vista of overgrown weeds and abandoned industrial buildings – not a gathering of picnic tables and taco enthusiasts. You definitely wouldn’t have spotted a menu offering Bangkok Shrimp or Chicken Tikka Masala tacos – or frozen Cheerwine with booze.

June is National Homeownership Month – the perfect time to mull the joys and responsibilities that come with owning a home. With warmer weather settling in, now is also an ideal moment to get ahead of summer’s challenges.

Nicole Slaughter Graham at HouseLogic.com offers expert-backed advice to help homeowners keep things running smoothly indoors during the hot summer months. From boosting energy efficiency to refreshing your living space, these tips are a great reminder that a little planning now can make a big difference all season long.

For readers in the Tennessee Valley, summer usually signals lake season – lazy weekends on the water, family barbecues and, for some, dreams of a second home on Chickamauga or Nickajack. But in 2025, that dream is colliding with an uneasy economy.

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. Red Bank Police Sergeant Steve Hope will lead a discussion on fraud prevention and theft awareness Thursday, June 26. 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. Complete schedule

Susan Caminez of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera has been selected to participate in the League of American Orchestras’ prestigious Essentials of Orchestra Management program. She is one of 35 orchestra and arts professionals chosen from around the world for the ten-day leadership development intensive.

This fall, Chattanooga will serve as the host of the 2025 Medal of Honor Celebration, a weeklong event recognizing American citizens whose lives exemplify the values tied to the nation’s highest military honor.

Scheduled for Sept. 30-Oct. 4, the celebration will culminate with the 2025 Patriot Awards Gala Saturday, Oct. 4, at the Chattanooga Convention Center. The gala will honor four individuals whose work and values reflect the principles of patriotism, citizenship, courage, integrity, sacrifice and commitment.

Some financial decisions can be challenging, like whether to use your money to reduce your debt or to invest. If you already have a significant amount of debt and not a lot in savings or investments, it can be hard to figure out which issue should be a priority.

If you wanted a midsize truck 10 years ago, your choices included an aging Toyota Tacoma or an even older Nissan Frontier design. Today, renewed versions of the Chevrolet Colorado, Ford Ranger and Honda Ridgeline have revitalized the segment enough to have spawned a new compact pickup class, led by the Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A Republican member of the South Carolina House who prosecutors say used the screen name "joebidennnn69" has been arrested and charged with 10 counts of distributing sexual abuse material involving children.

RJ May was arrested at his Lexington County home after a lengthy investigation and was ordered Thursday by a federal judge to remain jailed until his trial.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Democratic U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla on Thursday was forcefully removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's news conference in Los Angeles and handcuffed by officers as he tried to speak up about immigration raids that have led to protests in California and around the country.

NASHVILLE (AP) — Cam Ward talks so much that Tennessee coach Brian Callahan asked the rookie if he needed to wait until the Titans quarterback stopped before calling a play during practice.

NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee judge is scheduled to hear arguments Friday about whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia can be released from jail pending the outcome of a trial on human smuggling charges.

In a motion asking U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes to order Abrego Garcia detained, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Rob McGuire described him as both a danger to the community and a flight risk. Abrego Garcia's attorneys disagree. They point out that he was already wrongly detained in a notorious Salvadoran prison thanks to government error, and argue that due process and "basic fairness" require him to be set free.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday temporarily blocked a federal judge's order that directed President Donald Trump to return control of National Guard troops to California after he deployed them there following protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids.

NEW YORK (AP) — More than 1.15 million power banks are under recall across the U.S. after some fires and explosions were reported by consumers.

According to a Thursday notice from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, electronics maker Anker Innovations is recalling certain "PowerCore 10000" power banks because the lithium-ion battery inside can overheat.

NEW YORK (AP) — Popular online services across the globe were disrupted Thursday due to ongoing issues at Google Cloud.

Tens of thousands of users of Spotify, Discord and other platforms began noticing issues with their services early in the afternoon, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages.

SEATTLE (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday pulled the U.S. out of an agreement with Washington, Oregon and four American Indian tribes to work together to restore salmon populations and boost tribal clean energy development in the Pacific Northwest, deriding the plan as "radical environmentalism" that could have resulted in the breaching of four controversial dams on the Snake River.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumer sentiment increased in June for the first time in six months, the latest sign that Americans' views of the economy have improved as inflation has stayed tame and the Trump administration has reached a truce in its trade fight with China.

VENTURA, Calif. (AP) — Large-scale immigration raids at packinghouses and fields in California are threatening businesses that supply much of the country's food, farm bureaus say.

Dozens of farmworkers have been arrested recently after uniformed federal agents fanned out on farms northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County, which is known for growing strawberries, lemons and avocados.

NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices are leaping, and stocks are slipping Friday on worries that Israel's attack on Iranian nuclear and military targets could escalate further and damage the flow of crude around the world, along with the global economy.

The PGA Tour is hiring longtime NFL executive Brian Rolapp as the first CEO of its new commercial division, created two years ago when tour reached a tentative agreement with the Saudi backers of LIV Golf, The Associated Press confirmed Thursday.

Jay Monahan, who announced the framework agreement in June 2023, will stay on as commissioner of the PGA Tour. Monahan announced in December the search for a CEO of PGA Tour Enterprises, now backed by a $1.5 billion investment from Strategic Sports Group.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — After a week of tense protests over the federal immigration raids, about 200 Marines have moved into Los Angeles and will protect federal property and personnel, a military commander said Friday.

Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, commander of Task Force 51 who is overseeing the 4,700 troops deployed, said Friday that the Marines have finished training on civil disturbance.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration this week provided deportation officials with personal data -- including the immigration status -- on millions of Medicaid enrollees, a move that could make it easier to locate people as part of his sweeping immigration crackdown.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican tax bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives would cost the poorest Americans roughly $1,600 a year while increasing the income of the wealthiest households by an average of $12,000 annually, according to a new analysis released Thursday by the Congressional Budget Office.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tech billionaire Elon Musk has lost some of his luster with Republicans since his messy public falling-out with President Donald Trump last week, a new survey finds.

Fewer Republicans view Trump's onetime government efficiency bulldog "very favorably" compared with April, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

WASHINGTON (AP) — When videos first rocketed around the internet Thursday afternoon showing security officers forcibly removing Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla from a news conference with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in California, senators in both parties were already gathered together for a long series of votes.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House narrowly voted Thursday to cut about $9.4 billion in spending already approved by Congress as President Donald Trump's administration looks to follow through on work done by the Department of Government Efficiency when it was overseen by Elon Musk.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Eight years after President Donald Trump was dazzled by a grand military parade down the Champs-Élysées in Paris, he is finally getting a chance to try to top the spectacle.

His long-delayed dream is expected to be realized Saturday with an extravaganza of American military might featuring tanks and other armored vehicles rolling through the nation's capital, thousands of soldiers marching the streets and military aircraft flying overhead. In a final flourish, an elite parachute team is to jump from above the White House, land near Trump and hand him an American flag.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem pledged to carry on with the Trump administration's immigration crackdown despite waves of unrest across the U.S.

Hours after her comment Thursday, a judge directed the president to return control to California over National Guard troops he deployed after protests erupted over the immigration crackdown, but an appeals court quickly put the brakes on that and temporarily blocked the order that was to go into effect on Friday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals scheduled a hearing on the matter for Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is shifting military resources, including ships, in the Middle East in response to Israel's strikes on Iran and a possible retaliatory attack by Tehran, two U.S. officials said Friday.

The Navy has directed the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner, which is capable of defending against ballistic missiles, to begin sailing from the western Mediterranean Sea toward the eastern Mediterranean and has directed a second destroyer to begin moving forward so it can be available if requested by the White House.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel launched a blistering attack on the heart of Iran's nuclear and military structure Friday, deploying warplanes and drones smuggled into the country to target key facilities and kill top generals and scientists -- a barrage it said was necessary before its adversary got any closer to building an atomic weapon.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel attacked Iran early Friday with a barrage of airstrikes that took out top military officers and hit nuclear and missile sites, calling it just the beginning and raising the potential for an all-out war between the two bitter Middle East adversaries. It appeared to be the most significant attack Iran has faced since its 1980s war with Iraq.

NASHVILLE (AP) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose mistaken deportation has become a flashpoint in President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, pleaded not guilty on Friday to human smuggling charges in a federal court in Tennessee.

The detention hearing was the first chance the Maryland construction worker has had in a U.S. courtroom to answer the Trump administration's allegations against him since he was mistakenly deported in March to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices leapt, and stocks fell on worries that escalating violence following Israel's attack on Iranian nuclear and military targets could damage the flow of crude around the world, along with the global economy. The S&P 500 fell 1.1% Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.8%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.3%. The strongest action was in the oil market, where crude prices jumped 7.3% and returned to where they were early this year. Iran is one of the world's major producers of oil, and escalating fighting could limit its flow. Markets worry that rising oil prices could push inflation higher.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear from a faith-based pregnancy center in New Jersey challenging a state investigation into whether it misled people into thinking its services included referrals for abortion.

The justices agreed to consider an appeal from First Choice Women's Resource Centers, which wants to block a 2023 subpoena from Democratic New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin seeking information about the crisis pregnancy center's donors, advertisements and medical personnel. It has not yet been enforced.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a New York court to take a new look at whether some religious organizations should be excluded from a state regulation requiring health insurance plans to cover abortions.

The justices acted after the court unanimously ruled earlier in June that Wisconsin discriminated against a Catholic charity by forcing it to pay state unemployment taxes.

NEW YORK (AP) — Millions of Americans are seeing their credit scores suffer now that the U.S. government has resumed referring missed student loan payments for debt collection.

After 90 days of non-payment, student loan servicers report delinquent, or past-due, accounts to major credit bureaus, which use the information to recalculate the borrower's score. Falling behind on loan payments therefore can affect an individual's credit rating as severely as filing for personal bankruptcy.

PARIS (AP) — The Louvre, the world's most-visited museum and a global symbol of art, beauty and endurance, has withstood war, terror, and pandemic — but on Monday, it was brought to a halt by its own striking staff, who say the institution is crumbling under the weight of mass tourism.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday directed federal immigration officials to prioritize deportations from Democratic-run cities, a move that comes after large protests erupted in Los Angeles and other major cities against the Trump administration's immigration policies.

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — Leavenworth, Kansas, occupies a mythic space in American crime, its name alone evoking a short hand for serving hard time. The federal penitentiary housed gangsters Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly — in a building so storied that it inspired the term "the big house."

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — Private prison operators are marketing their shuttered lockups to federal immigration officials as President Donald Trump pushes for mass deportations, with some facilities nabbing lucrative no-bid contracts.

When Trump, a Republican, took office, politically connected private-prison giants CoreCivic Inc. and The Geo Group Inc. had around 20 idle facilities, partially the result of sentencing reforms that reduced prison populations.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just over a month after Pope Leo XIV became the first U.S.-born pontiff in the history of the Catholic Church, a new poll shows that American Catholics are feeling excited about their new religious leader.

About two-thirds of American Catholics have a "very" or "somewhat" favorable view of Pope Leo, according to the new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, while about 3 in 10 don't know enough to have an opinion. Very few Catholics — less than 1 in 10 — view him unfavorably.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The man accused of killing a Minnesota lawmaker and wounding another went to the homes of two other lawmakers to carry out more carnage on the night of the shootings, a federal prosecutor said.

But one of the other lawmakers was not home and the suspect left the other house after police arrived, acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said at a press conference Monday.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump family said it is licensing its name to a new mobile phone service, the latest in a string of ventures that have been announced while Donald Trump is in the White House despite ethical concerns that the U.S. president could mold public policy for personal gain.

CALGARY, Alberta (AP) — President Donald Trump would have unique influence over the operations of U.S. Steel under the terms of what the White House calls an "investment" being made by Japan-based Nippon Steel in the iconic American steelmaker.

Administration officials over the past few days provided additional insight into the "golden share" arrangement that the federal government made as a condition for supporting the deal.

KANANASKIS, Alberta (AP) — When U.S. President Donald Trump last came to Canada for a Group of Seven summit, the enduring image was of him seated with his arms folded defiantly as then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel stared daggers at him.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has been clear about his red line as the Senate takes up the GOP's One Big Beautiful Bill Act: no Medicaid cuts.

But what, exactly, would be a cut?

Hawley and other Republicans acknowledge that the main cost-saving provision in the bill – new work requirements on able-bodied adults who receive health care through the Medicaid program -- would cause millions of people to lose their coverage. All told, estimates are 10.9 million fewer people would have health coverage under the bill's proposed changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. That includes some 8 million fewer in the Medicaid program, including 5.2 million dropping off because of the new eligibility requirements.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Republican senators consider President Donald Trump's big bill that could slash federal spending and extend tax cuts, a new survey shows most U.S. adults don't think the government is overspending on the programs the GOP has focused on cutting, like Medicaid and food stamps.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump rejected a plan presented by Israel to the U.S. to kill Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

The Israelis informed the Trump administration in recent days that they had developed a credible plan to kill Khamenei.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Iran fired a new wave of missile attacks at Israel early Monday, killing at least eight people, while Israel warned hundreds of thousands of people in the middle of Tehran to evacuate ahead of new strikes.

The warning came on the fourth day of the conflict, when the Israeli military claimed it had achieved air superiority above the Iranian capital and could fly over the city without facing major threats. The military has issued similar evacuation warnings for civilians in parts of Gaza and Lebanon ahead of strikes.