Locals Only Gifts opens in Miller Plaza
Locals Only Gifts is opening next Wednesday, June 7, at noon off of Miller Plaza near the Community Pie restaurant.
The new store at 850 Market St., Suite 120, is dedicated to only Chattanooga makers, artisans and brands.
Some Chattanooga producers such as Olive Chattanooga, Pure Sodaworks, Main Street Meats and Miss Ginny's English Toffee will be on site from noon to 2 p.m. with samples.
Aerotek hosts job fair to hire 200 more at VW
The staffing agency Aerotek is hosting a career fair Saturday to hire more than 200 additional production employees to work at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga.
Aerotek, which already has hired 1,000 employees for jobs openings at the plant since December, said the job fair is scheduled from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Volkswagen Conference Center in Chattanooga.
Aerotek said it is searching for production employees "who are reliable and prepared to work." The company offers extensive training to work in assembly jobs at the VW plant. Applicants who are unable to attend the job fair can apply online at www.AerotekTN.com.
Summer gas prices lowest in a decade
Memorial Day travelers enjoyed the cheapest gas prices in Chattanooga in 12 years over the weekend with the average price of gas in Chattanooga at the start of this week priced 13.7 cents per gallon less than a year ago and $1.42 a gallon below the peak levels reached three years ago, according to GasBuddy's daily survey of 170 gas outlets in Chattanooga.
The average price of a gallon of regular gas this week in Chattanooga was unchanged from the previous week at $2 a gallon. Local gas prices average 36 cents per gallon below the U.S. average and were 10 cents per gallon less than the statewide average across all of Tennessee.
Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com, said motorists in 13 states, including Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama, enjoyed the cheapest Memorial Day gas prices since 2005.
"This sets up a great summer season to hit the road, pointing to rising U.S. oil production in the midst of oil production cuts from OPEC for the stable prices," he said.
Millener among top Network 50
Thanks to Geoff Millener, fourth-graders can watch sharks, sea turtles and saltwater reef fish in real-time on 4K ultra-high-definition TV in Masey Stubblefield's classroom at Red Bank Elementary School.
That's the sort of work that got the attention of the Mozilla Network, an offshoot of the company that created the Firefox Internet browser. It honored Millener by listing him as one of "50 People Who Made the Internet a Better Place in 2016."
Millener, 28, grew up in Chattanooga and had a variety of tech jobs here. They included helping people learn 3D printing on the 4th Floor of the downtown Chattanooga Public Library, being a program manager at DevDev, a digital literacy pilot program, and his current job as innovation and technology programs manager at the Public Education Foundation.
Millener was modest about making Mozilla's Network50 list, saying everything he did here was in partnership with other people and organizations.
"It's all in partnership. Chattanooga works in partnership," Millener said.
Consumer spending income up in April
Americans increased their spending in April at the fastest pace in four months, bolstered by a solid gain in incomes. The strong results underscored expectations that the economy is poised to rebound after a lackluster start to the year.
Consumer spending rose 0.4 percent in April after a 0.3 percent rise in March, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. It was the best showing since December. Incomes also rose 0.4 percent, double the 0.2 percent March increase.
Consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, grew at the slowest pace in seven years in the first quarter. That was a key reason the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, expanded by just 1.2 percent at the start of the year.