Free Republic

Volkswagen workers at an automotive plant in Tennessee voted to unionize Friday, becoming the first southern car manufacturer to do so since the 1940s, the Washington Post reported. Roughly 75% of the 3,613 workers employed at the plant voted in favor of joining the United Auto Workers(UAW) union over the course of the election, according to a Volkswagen press release. The vote to unionize was opposed by a coalition of six Republican governors in the region, citing concerns that a stronger union presence could lead to fewer companies investing in new factories and, by extension, fewer jobs, the Washington Post...

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Workers in attendance for Friday's United Auto Workers (UAW) watch party feel they've made history. And for those Volkswagen employees who wanted unionization, the third time was the charm. In order to unionize, the UAW needed 50% plus one vote. Both previous UAW elections fell short of this, with 2014's election showing 47%, and 2019's election showing 48%. But Friday night, employees won by a landslide with the official National Labor Relations Board results reporting 2,628-985 votes for union representation. Some who came to watch the vote were from other right-to-work states in the U.S., wanting to...

A decisive majority of the Volkswagen workers employed at a factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee cast their ballots in favor of joining the United Auto Workers union, the German automaker announced on April 19, 2024. Persuading any Southern autoworkers to join a union had long been one of the U.S. labor movement’s most enduring challenges, despite persistent efforts by the UAW to organize this workforce. To be sure, the UAW already has members employed by Ford and General Motors at facilities in Kentucky, Texas, Missouri and Mississippi. However, the union had previously tried and largely failed to organize workers at foreign-owned...

VW’s Chattanooga Assembly Plant has voted to join UAW, in a historic move on the back of several recent union wins in the US. The UAW have had quite a year, launching an unprecedented strike against all three major US automakers at the same time last September. The tactic worked, and six weeks later the UAW had made a deal with all three automakers, winning big pay increases and other assurances from each of them. The win didn’t just help UAW workers, though, as soon after the strikes closed, several other companies announced big pay increases. Workers at VW, Hyundai,...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Memphis Police are responding to reports of multiple people shot in Orange Mound. Viewer videos from the scene showed dozens of gunshots fired as a crowd gathered at the Orange Mound Community Center. People could be seen running for cover.

If you came into contact with someone with a face that looked like a demon and eyes that were completely black as night, what would you do? Encounters of this nature are popping up on social media at the exact same time that the mainstream media is trying really hard to convince all of us that anyone that is seeing black-eyed demon faces has a “disorder”. In fact, if you type “demon face” into Google News, you will literally get hundreds of articles about a disorder known as prosopometamorphopsia. But this is a very, very rare disorder. At this point,...

Over four years ago, someone sent me a November 2019 Huffington Post article titled “Coal Knew, Too” by Élan Young, a writer for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of (UTK). The story, remarkably, also promptly appeared in Mother Jones, the UK’s Daily Mail, and even in an article from the Kent Law School. We were told that the Department head, Chris Cherry, “accidentally discovered what is, so far, the earliest known evidence of the coal industry acknowledging its awareness of the impending climate crisis”. The supposed “confession”, which fit nicely into an ongoing activist litigation...

Whether the journals of a Nashville school shooter can be released to the public will go before a Tennessee judge on Tuesday after nearly a year of legal wrangling over who can participate in the case. What started as a simple public records request has ballooned into a messy mix of conspiracy theories, leaked documents, probate battles and new legislation as different sides try to gain an advantage. And even though the main issue of which police investigative records can be released has finally made it to a court hearing, any decision by Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea Myles is likely...

Memphis Police officers responded to a call about a suspicious vehicle this morning at around 2 AM. Two teenage boys were found at the scene of the alleged crime and became engaged in a shootout with the police officers. One of the teens, 18-year-old Yaylen Loble, was recently caught inside a stolen vehicle by police officers with an illegally modified firearm that could be used as a machine gun. He was arrested and released without bond in March. The teen thugs murdered one Memphis Police Officer, while two more officers have been hospitalized.

Tennessee is divided over reparations, with a black Memphis pastor leading the charge against a bill that would prohibit the funding of a proposed reparations study in the state. Rev. Earle Fisher, the senior pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church, has garnered more than 1,100 signatures for his petition against the “reprehensible legislation” introduced to the state legislature to prohibit local governments from “engaging in the vital work of studying or disbursing reparations.” The commissioners of Shelby County — which includes Memphis — voted last year to launch a “feasibility study to examine reparations for the descendants of slaves,” the Daily...

At least one person is dead and five others are injured after an Easter Sunday shooting at a coffee shop in the Germantown section of Nashville, according to police. The incident was reportedly called in at around 3:03pm local time at Roasted Salemtown, a brunch place on Garfield Street. According to police, one person has been killed by gunfire, while five others have been shot, with police saying that they are not critical. 'A total of eight persons were transported from the scene, one of them deceased, 5 others confirmed gunshot victims, one other with a scratch, the cause of...

Investigations are underway after a suspicious trailer fire in Wilson County on Easter Sunday. The Wilson County Sheriff's Office published a statement about the incident around 9:00 a.m. on Facebook. According to officials, the fire began around 6:00 a.m. and caused a road closure at the Old Lebanon Dirt Road and Chandler Road intersection. Mt. Juliet Police Department swiftly responded to the scene, accompanied by the Mt. Juliet Fire Department who worked quickly to extinguish the blaze. Early investigations, led by the WSCO, show that the trailer was full of Bibles. Officials believe that the trailer was intentionally dropped off...

In January 2023, Ministry Watch reported on the arrest of a worship leader and music teacher—Joseph “Kade” Abbott, 27—for sexual misconduct against a 14-year-old girl. Authorities charged him with three counts of sexual assault. According to his attorney, last week he agreed to plead guilty to all three counts. Apostolic Christian Academy in Maryville, Tennessee / Facebook Abbot taught at Apostolic Christian Academy, held on the property of First Apostolic Church in Maryville, Tenn. The victim was a student at the academy, and the two met weekly one-on-one during school hours. They also participated in the same group trip to...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A woman who is three months pregnant says she was carjacked at gunpoint after a crash, but an AirTag hidden inside a Bible helped her track down her vehicle. Zaliyah Hughes said she was headed to Tops Bar-B-Que on Summer Avenue when a light-colored Nissan crashed into the passenger side of her Hyundai Sonata at the intersection of Summer and Holmes. “I was going through the light, and they were supposed to stop. They were speeding and hit me,” said Hughes.”Once they hit me, the man who had a black mask on already had his gun pointed...

A forensic expert has added his voice to growing concerns about Riley Strain's last moments after his body was pulled from the Cumberland River in Tennessee without pants. The half-naked body of the 22-year-old student was hauled from the water on Friday, 14 days after he vanished in Nashville on a night out. An initial police autopsy found no indication of foul play, but also no signs that he drowned after leaving Luke's Bridge Food and Drink at 9.30pm on March 22. A second autopsy ordered by the family confirmed there was no water in his lungs, increasing fears that...

Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee isn’t holding back when it comes to the border. In remarks made on C-SPAN2 and posted by Townhall to X, the Tennessee representative impressed upon the American people the dire circumstances of the border crisis and the inaction by Congress. “When I first took office and this border issue was already an issue, I can remember we started talking then, and I said, ‘No border, no budget,'” he began his Monday remarks surrounded by Freedom Caucus members. “That’s how important it is to the American people,” he continued before starting in on the $1.2...

A Nashville nightclub is redefining the concept of faith - and clubbing - with heavily attended gatherings that have strict rules against twerking, drinking, and smoking. Enter The Cove - an 18-and-up pop-up started this past year by seven young, black Christians, that only enforces the three above rules. There's an unspoken one as well - a playlist devoted entirely to Christian music. The establishment comes in response to a post-pandemic decline in church attendance, organizers this week said - citing the mostly black, Gen-Z crowd. These pious partiers flood their doors regularly, the masterminds revealed -speaking for a feature...

Strain disappeared on March 8 after being kicked out of Luke’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink in downtown Nashville while on a trip with his fraternity. University of Missouri student Riley Strain's body has been found in the Cumberland River Friday morning, the Metropolitan Nashville Police announced. "The body of Riley Strain was recovered from the Cumberland River in West Nashville this morning, approximately 8 miles from downtown," the department wrote on X. "No foul play-related trauma was observed. An autopsy is pending." Police received a call around 7:28 a.m. from a worker at a nearby business who discovered Strain's...

The body of missing University of Missouri student Riley Strain has been found in a Nashville river after he went missing leaving a country bar earlier this month, authorities said. “The body of Riley Strain was recovered from the Cumberland River in West Nashville this morning, approximately 8 miles from downtown,” the Metropolitan Nashville Police wrote on X. His body was found in the Cumberland River near 61st Avenue North around 7:30 a.m. Friday, news station WKRN reported. No foul play is suspected, but an autopsy has been scheduled, police said. Strain was visiting the Music City with his Delta...

Tennessee cop-gone-wild Maegan Hall settled her lawsuit with the city of La Vergne for $500,000 after she was fired when an internal probe revealed her raunchy romps with six male officers. The 28-year-old was fired in January 2023 after it was first discovered that she had sexual relationships with several cops in the department - some who have been terminated, others suspended. The rookie cop hit back in a federal lawsuit, claiming she was groomed and abused by lecherous superiors, including Police Chief Burrel 'Chip' Davis and Sgt. Lewis Powell, a 15-year law enforcement veteran.