News - Friday, June 30, 2023

A young attorney is a guest at a dinner party hosted by one of his firm’s partners. As the evening proceeds, his colleagues begin to take turns telling their favorite lawyer joke, sparking much self-effacing laughter.

Not wanting to come up short, the associate loads ChatGPT on his smartphone and enters, “Tell me a lawyer joke.”

To say T.J. Gentle loves football would be like saying Peyton Manning showed promise as a Vols quarterback. It’s not up for debate.

There was even a time when Gentle – a Jasper native who played ball for TSSAA Hall of Famer Ken Colquette of Marion County High School – possibly wanted to become a football coach, he says. However, Colquette steered him in a different direction.

We can say with a good degree of confidence that the vast majority of United States citizens desire to be good citizens. It is hard to imagine many people, if asked, would say they strive to be poor citizens.

We might disagree on what it means to be a good citizen, but within our own definitions, we all want to be good ones.

Greater Chattanooga Realtors raised more than $64,500 during its Tee Up & Wine Down fundraiser at WindStone Golf Club this month. The biannual event involves a golf scramble and a live auction of donated items and benefits Habitat for Humanity of Greater Chattanooga.

Summer is a great time of year to pay extra attention to some often-overlooked areas of one’s home.

In a recent post from HouseLogic.com, Kelley Walters identifies five summer maintenance tasks to undertake during this season’s longer days and better weather that will save time and money this winter.

Building a new home is a significant investment of time and money, so finding a builder whose business approach aligns with your preferences is critical to ensuring the process goes smoothly.

When you initially meet with a homebuilder, they’ll ask you many questions about the dream home you want to build. During this time, you should also ask the builder about their professional experience to help determine if they’re the right builder for you.

Chattanooga auctioneer and Realtor Paige Holt has launched a new auction and real estate business – NeXstep.

“I’m looking forward to showcasing the options people have when buying or selling a property,” says Holt. “Some of the finest assets in the world are sold using the auction method. Why should real estate be any different?”

Magnolia Trust Company has hired Brent Taylor as its business development and strategies director. Magnolia is an independent trust administration with offices in Chattanooga and Atlanta.

Taylor will foster new and existing relationships with high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families, business owners and intermediaries.

The city of Chattanooga’s Department of Parks and Outdoors has released its 2023 Parks and Outdoors Plan, the blueprint for achieving a Chattanooga where all residents and guests have access to parks, greenways and recreational facilities.

The plan – the city’s first in 25 years – builds on planning documents as far back as the Nolen Park Plan (1911), the Riverfront Plan (1985) and the ReCreate 2008 Plan (1998), a news release from the office of Mayor Tim Kelly reveals.

The addition of 10 new murals along the outside of EPB’s 10th Street Substation brings the number of paintings to 30 as year three of the four-year project to adorn the entire enclosure ends.

Created by 10 local artists, this year’s murals honor the history, heritage and significance of downtown Chattanooga’s Martin Luther King Boulevard neighborhood.

We all hope to retire comfortably. But once we reach retirement, we may need to adjust our expectations and behaviors somewhat in response to financial issues – and that’s especially true for women. So, if you’re a woman, what can you do to live a financially secure life when you retire?

Raiding your retirement accounts can be expensive. Withdrawing money before age 59½ typically triggers income taxes, a 10% federal penalty and – worst of all – the loss of future tax-deferred compounded returns.

A 30-year-old who withdraws $1,000 from an individual retirement account or 401(k) could lose more than $11,000 in future retirement money, assuming 7% average annual returns.

The mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville has led to an extraordinary legal battle over the public records law and transparency of our criminal justice system.

The school, the church that owns the school and the parents of the school’s students are seeking to stop the public from seeing evidence collected by police in one of the most horrific crimes in Nashville in recent memory, saying that it would be too painful and inspire more school shootings.

Making a will isn’t a task just for the old and wealthy. It’s also for the well-prepared.

Recent years serve as a heavy reminder that you might not know when your last days are. Life expectancy in the U.S. dropped in both 2020 and 2021, driven by COVID-19 deaths and an increase in accidental deaths, according to the most recent data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

What features do you consider a priority when car shopping? Horsepower or cargo space are often mentioned, but the reality is that today’s vehicles are quite similar in how they drive and how much stuff they can hold.

However, there is one attribute that still makes a significant difference: a vehicle’s infotainment system.