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How the life coaching industry transformed Jonathan Frost | 2024 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | Years before the fraud allegations, a Chattanooga accountant was molding himself in the image of a new set of mentors. Story followed multipart investigation, which won a national Eppy Award for business reporting.
NYC’s Private Garbage Industry Is Getting Overhauled. Can a Notorious Teamsters Local Clean Up Again? | 2021 | Mother Jones | Inside Local 813’s campaign to escape the trash heap of history.
Before state money flowed, Tennessee faith project had big private donor: the governor | 2025 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | The Tennessee governor was easily largest private donor to his faith-based passion project, previously unreported documents show. Then, at his urging, Tennessee lawmakers tweaked the law to send the nonprofit millions in taxpayer funds.
Can Seattle’s Minimum Wage Crusader Survive Her Recall Election? | 2021 | The New Republic | Kshama Sawant brought an uncommon passion to a successful stint on the City Council. It may now be her undoing.
Luis Mauricio Durón wonders: Is Trump’s mass deportation talk bluster, or something more? | 2024 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | A Mexican man who has resided in the U.S. illegally for decades reflects on the coming presidency of Donald Trump.
Immigrants transformed this North Georgia town. Fear runs deep for many — but one man’s hustle goes on | 2025 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | Report from a nondescript warehouse in Dalton, Georgia, which has been transformed in recent decades by thousands of entrepreneurial immigrants, many of them undocumented.
Hamilton County law enforcement turning more and more people over to ICE | 2025 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | Between 2021 and 2024, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office turned over an average of 41 people per year to federal immigration authorities. In 2025, the sheriff’s office participated in 41 such transfers — in April alone.
Over decades, Chattanooga ministry encouraged millions to read the Bible more closely. Can it fulfill this mission through an app? | 2023 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | With a fresh brand and a just-launched mobile application, the storied nonprofit Precept seeks to replicate the model of habit-forming software like the Duolingo language app and bend it to the cause of Christ.
The rise and fall of Knoxville Bishop Richard Stika | 2023 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | A priest called the East Tennessee bishop’s tenure a ‘yearslong cloud of gaslighting.’ Stika said he did his best.
‘Allie always shows the real’: A Catholic mother, a jarring diagnosis, and an online world of hustle and communion | 2024 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | A #MomLife influencer documents her biggest challenge yet.
A Chattanooga church’s electioneering apparently violated federal tax law. Does it matter? | 2024 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | A megachurch church helped a raw milk enthusiast defeat a powerful incumbent Tennessee lawmaker. Legal experts weigh in.
In Chattanooga cigar bar, evangelical ‘fellowship of merry men’ ponders its place in Trump’s America | 2024 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | At “Might & Mirth” gatherings, Glenn Jones said, men encourage one another while embodying God’s masculine designs: Strong and forceful, but jolly all the same.
Why can’t I take a train from Chattanooga to Nashville? Lawmakers are talking, but challenges run deep | 2023 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | State and local lawmakers have talked of reviving passenger rail in every decade since it left Chattanooga. Is this time any different?
After nightmare loss of family on Chattanooga street corner, what could justice ever really look like? | 2024 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | Bundled in monochrome dark green, his young child ran around the bridge, restrained by a yellow harness with a leash managed by his wife. Then a bang, and the minivan came spinning toward them. Story was part of series that won first place for public service reporting at the 2025 Tennessee Press Association journalism awards.
Food issues run deep at Washington State Penitentiary | 2018 | Walla Walla Union-Bulletin | Food quality declined and costs when up at the local penitentiary — and statewide — when a business arm of the Department of Corrections took over the kitchens.
Land of Usher | 2024 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | How Chattanooga shaped Usher Raymond.
Near Chattanooga, a tiny (and monumental) glimpse into the origins of the written alphabet | 2025 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | “The development of writing is probably the most important invention of human kind,” said an archaeologist who helped unearth the the ivory comb of Tel Lachish.
How a soldier saved by Signal Mountain’s Larry Taylor fought to see him receive the military’s highest honor | 2023 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | A Vietnam War battle, a daring helicopter recuse — and a man’s yearslong push to get his old combat buddy the Medal of Honor.
Queens of Walla Walla | 2017 | Walla Walla Union-Bulletin | In a conservative agricultural region undergoing a cultural and economic transformation, a local drag queen commands a passionate following.
Animal Rights Activists Rescued Two Piglets From Slaughter. They Wanted to Get Caught. | 2022 | The New Republic | Liberating the pigs from a Smithfield facility was just the first step in Wayne Hsiung and Paul Darwin Picklesimer’s grand plan. Now they want their legal case to start a sea change in animal rights.
How a pledge involving the Middle East came to be mandated in government contracts across Tennessee | 2023 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | In recent years, Christians United for Israel helped bring an anti-boycott law to 35 states, including Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. How did it do it?
Protest candidates: The political educations’ of Marsha Blackburn and Gloria Johnson | 2024 | Chattanooga Times Free Press | In Marsha Blackburn, Gloria Johnson challenges Tennessee’s first female senator and a Fox News stalwart, known to critics primarily for throwing fuel on the day’s culture war flare-up. But allies see in Blackburn something more.
The Grindr lawsuit that could change the internet | 2019 | The Outline | A law written in 1996 defines the limits of free speech on the internet today. A new court case involving the dating app Grindr will put it to the test.
The price of a conviction | 2018 | Walla Walla Union-Bulletin | Court-imposed debt can undermine the reintegration process for ex-convicts living in poverty around Washington State. Thanks, in part, to the example of a local woman who sought and successfully received relief from her debt, Walla Walla County is at the forefront of widespread efforts for reform.
Night at the Library | 2019 | The Baffler | Searching for the future of public space at Brooklyn’s Central Library.
Teleology | 2019 | Mangoprism | How we murdered two city ducks in the crucible of youth.
I Am the Worst Collegiate Golfer in America | 2015 | Mangoprism | Meditations on being the worst collegiate golfer in America.