Free Republic

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.

A federal judge ordered the FBI to release the writings of the transgender woman who shot and killed six people at a Christian school in Nashville on March 27, 2023. In the hours after the shooting, Breitbart News noted that police indicated Audrey Hale identified as transgender. Less than a month after the shooting, Breitbart News pointed out that Hale left behind a suicide note, 19 journals, and other items, and all of them have been kept from the public since the attack occurred. (The exception was a November 2023 leak of three pages, purportedly from the shooter’s writings. Seven...

Angel the red-tailed hawk is leucistic, which is similar to being albino.Almost 2.5 million rad-tailed hawks call North America home, but one of those birds in Tennessee is changing how scientists think, thanks to her survival story. Angel, the red-tailed hawk, is leucistic, similar to being albino. While an albino animal loses all of its pigmentation, a leucistic animal only loses part; both conditions, scientists say, can lower survival rates. “Back in the early 2000s, scientists and conservation biologists would say that leucistic and albino animals cannot exist in the wild.” Window to Wildlife’s Connor O’Brien said. “It would be...

An angry Black Lives Matter mob chased and menaced conservatives attending a Turning Point USA event at the University of Memphis featuring Kyle Rittenhouse on Wednesday evening. The crowd was caught on video hitting and spitting on cars of attendees as they left. Reporter Julio Rosas posted videos from the event on X and wrote that “police had to prevent the hostile crowd from physically attacking” the attendees. “Protestors at the event with Kyle Rittenhouse at the University of Memphis seen hitting and spitting on cars as they leave. They also attempted to block cars from leaving,” Turning Point USA...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A manager at a Cordova bar and grill, along with three other female employees, were taken into custody for allegedly beating up a waitress on Sunday. According to Memphis Police, officers responded to an assault call at 1740 Germantown Parkway. Police list the address as Mugshot’s Bar and Grill. The victim says it started with her talking to her manager’s ex-boyfriend. She told police that she got into an argument with the manager, Shereva Dortch, and her other coworkers, Arlina Fox, Nyla Fields, and Cailyn Williams. The victim claimed that Dortch and ten other people attacked her...

Workers at a Volkswagen manufacturing plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board, the UAW announced Tuesday. The move could make the Tennessee plant the first to join the UAW since the union earned pay raises and benefit increases for its members in a strike against the “Big Three” automakers last year. “I come from a UAW family, so I’ve seen how having our union enables us to make life better on the job and off,” plant employee Yolanda Peoples said in a statement. “We are a positive force in the...

New York Mayor Ed Koch had a commonsense approach to hiring first responders, and it made a lifelong impression on me when I first heard it maybe 40 years ago. "I don’t care what sex a firefighter is," Mayor Koch said all those years ago, "as long as they can carry a 200 pound Mayor out of a burning building." When it comes to dangerous jobs — first responders, soldiers, sailors, pilots, industrial workers, etc. — every other consideration must come in second to the question of whether or not this particular applicant has the physical and mental stamina to...

Tennessee State Senator Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville) warned state Republicans on Thursday moments after the Tennessee General Assembly passed a bill prohibiting local governments from inhibiting law enforcement that her Democrat constituents may respond with riots. @FoxNashville posted footage of the Thursday press conference at which Oliver and other Democrat legislators held at the Capitol in which they announced their disapproval of the bill. The legislation easily passed in the State Senate on Thursday in a partisan vote 26 to 6. The previous week, the Tennessee House passed the bill in a partisan 68 to 24 vote. “So yeah, we’re gonna...

federal judge ordered the FBI to provide Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale's manifesto and other documents for a private review as part of a lawsuit from Star News Digital Media Inc., the parent company of The Tennessee Star. "The court's order today is a significant victory for the public’s right to know about the motives of Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who murdered six innocent Nashvillians at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023," Tennessee Star Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy said. Star News sued the FBI in May 2023, claiming the bureau had violated the First Amendment by rejecting multiple Freedom of...

Step Directions ElapsedDistance 1 Begin at 601 Mainstream Dr on Mainstream Dr and go 0.4 miles 0.4 2 Turn right on Great Circle Rd and go 0.4 miles 0.8 3 Bear left and go 70 feet 0.9 4 Turn left on Metrocenter Blvd,TN-12,US-41A and go 0.9 miles 1.7 5 Bear right on ramp to I-65 and go 0.6 miles 2.3 6 Continue on I-40 West Ramp and go 0.6 miles 2.9 7 Continue on I-40 and go 81 miles 84.1 8 Exit I-40 via ramp and go 15 miles 99.4 9 Continue on access road and go 400 feet...

A video of a sermon from 2021 has now gone viral showing the pastor of Mineral Park Baptist church near the Hamilton Bradley County line expressing racially divisive comments during his sermon. Pastor Ronnie James was a featured speaker during The Faith Baptist Camp livestream. The video has now gained over 300 thousand views and local pastors are now calling him out. "We will never heal from stuff like this from this sin until we name it for what it is," said Pastor Samuel Burleson pastor of Covenant Community. Burleson says videos like this aren't uncommon to see in the...

ProPublica recently released the story of a woman who faced a life-threatening pregnancy complication in Tennessee in 2022. The outlet followed Mayron Michelle Hollis and her family for a year, inaccurately claiming that she was denied an abortion, and falsely blaming her long-term struggles on the state’s pro-life law. The Tennessee law Two months following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Tennessee enacted a law protecting the majority of preborn children from abortion. That law does allow induced abortion — the direct and intentional killing of preborn children — in situations in which the mother’s life is considered to be...

More Soldiers Volunteer than Expected An unexpectedly high number of soldiers from the Tennessee National Guard will be deploying to Texas to assist the Lone Star State as they continue to battle the Biden regime in their efforts to secure the southern border. As WKRN reported, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and his wife on Saturday flew from John C. Tune Airport to Millington-Memphis Airport, where they met with Maj. Gen. Warner Ross. They then visited soldiers before their deployment at the Millington Tennessee Army National Guard Armory outside Memphis. Back in February, Lee promised to send two waves of Tennessee...