GATLINBURG, Tennessee, Feb. 28 -- The National Park Service Great Smoky Mountains issued the following news release on Feb. 27, 2024: Last week, the National Park Service announced that 400 national parks reported a total of 325.5 million visits in 2023, an increase of 13 million or 4% over 2022. At Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 2023 visitation was 3% higher than 2022. With 13.3 million visits, it is the second highest year on record at the park, after 2021. June through October were th  more

OAK RIDGE, Tennessee, March 1 -- The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory issued the following news release: Fengqi "Frank" Li brings computational and architectural expertise to building energy modeling in ORNL's Grid Interactive Controls group. Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy Although he built his career around buildings, Fengqi "Frank" Li likes to break down walls. Li was trained as an architect, but he doesn't box himself in. Currently he is working as a co  more

FORT BELVOIR, Virginia, Feb. 28 -- The U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Logistics Agency issued the following news: Alvin Dyer got his first Black history lesson from the back seat of a car while riding around Memphis, Tennessee, when he was just 10. "That's the very spot where Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated," Dyer's father told him and his older brother, pointing to the Lorraine Motel, where King was shot on the balcony of his second-floor room in 1968. The civil rights activist   more

OAK RIDGE, Tennessee, Feb. 28 -- The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory issued the following news release: Mandy Mahoney, third from left, director of the DOE Office Of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Building Technologies Office, welcomed 21 students representing seven universities across the nation to the sixth annual JUMP into STEM finals competition at ORNL. Credit: Kurt Weiss/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy Students with a focus on building science will spend 10  more

OAK RIDGE, Tennessee, Feb. 29 -- The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory issued the following news release: Chuck Greenfield has joined the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory as ITER Research and Development lead for the Fusion Energy Division, or FED. He will be responsible for organizing and encouraging U.S. research in the international ITER project, now in assembly in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France. ITER is an unprecedented international collaboratio  more

OAK RIDGE, Tennessee, March 1 -- The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory issued the following news release: Anuj J. Kapadia, who heads the Advanced Computing Methods for Health Sciences Section at ORNL, has been elected as president of the Southeastern Chapter of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, or SEAAPM. "This appointment to an SEAAPM leadership position provides an opportunity to help impact the position, orientation and scope of medical physics in   more

ARNOLD AFB, Tennessee, Feb. 29 -- The U.S. Air Force Arnold Air Force Base issued the following news: By Bradley Hicks, AEDC Public Affairs Maj. Gen. Alice Trevino, deputy assistant secretary for contracting with Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, visited Arnold Air Force Base Dec. 5-6 to meet with base contracting personnel and get a closer look at some of the test capabilities at Arnold, headquarters of Arnold Engineering Development  more

OAK RIDGE, Tennessee, Feb. 29 -- The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory issued the following news release: Instantaneous solution quantities shown for a static Mach 1.4 solution on a mesh consisting of 33 billion elements using 33,880 GPUs, or 90% of Frontier. From left to right, contours show the mass fractions of the hydroxyl radical and H2O, the temperature in Kelvin, and the local Mach number. Credit: Gabriel Nastac/NASA A U.S. mission to land astronauts on the surfa  more

OAK RIDGE, Tennessee, Feb. 26 -- The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory issued the following news release: LCDR Rich Harvey, pictured on the left, poses with two colleagues at the 2023 POST Conference. Credit: Rich Harvey Rich Harvey has spent the last three decades of his career serving his country. At the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, he currently supports nuclear nonproliferation efforts as a fuel cycle analyst and, in his non-work time, serves  more

OAK RIDGE, Tennessee, Feb. 29 -- The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education issued the following news release: High school students from across the state faced off in East Tennessee over the weekend putting their wits to the test. The Tennessee Science Bowl is a fast-paced academic competition that pits teams of four students against each other in a quiz-show-style contest. The event serves all public, private and homeschool students in 9th - 12th grades. Thr  more

OAK RIDGE, Tennessee, Feb. 28 -- The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory issued the following news release: Two different teams that included Oak Ridge National Laboratory employees were honored Feb. 20 with Secretary's Honor Achievement Awards from the Department of Energy. This is DOE's highest form of employee recognition. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, Deputy Secretary David Turk and Under Secretary Geri Richmond presented the awards to the Actinium-225 Tri-Lab  more

OAK RIDGE, Tennessee, Feb. 28 -- The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory issued the following news release: A team that included researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory used a new twist on an old method to detect materials at some of the smallest amounts yet recorded. The results could lead to enhancements in security technology and aid the development of quantum sensors. The study employed the Seebeck effect, a thermoelectric phenomenon d  more

MEMPHIS, Tennessee, Feb. 28 -- The office of the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee issued the following news release on Feb. 27, 2024: A federal judge has sentenced a Shelby County man to more than 15 years in federal prison for unlawful possession of fentanyl with intent to distribute and for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. United States Attorney Kevin G. Ritz announced the sentence today. According to information presented in court, in 2020, the Multi-Ag  more

MEMPHIS, Tennessee, Feb. 27 -- The office of the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee issued the following news release on Feb. 26, 2024: A federal judge recently sentenced a Memphis man to federal prison for two carjackings that occurred in February 2022. U.S. District Court Judge John T. Fowlkes sentenced Martavious Marr, 20, to 275 months in federal prison for the crimes and ordered Marr to serve five years of supervised release upon completion of his prison term. United State  more

NASHVILLE, Tennessee, Feb. 27 -- The office of the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee issued the following news release: On February 20, 2024, a jury in the Middle District of Tennessee found Michael Davis guilty of attempting to possess with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, announced United States Attorney Henry C. Leventis. According to evidence presented at trial, in October 2020, Davis met with   more

CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee, Feb. 28 -- The office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee issued the following news release: On February 28, 2024, Randa Allison, 29, of Stevenson, Alabama, was sentenced to 14 months' imprisonment after being convicted of mail fraud involving a scheme to defraud COVID-19 unemployment programs in several states. Allison was sentenced by the Honorable Curtis L. Collier, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Cha  more

WASHINGTON, Feb. 29 -- The office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia issued the following news release: A Tennessee man was sentenced to prison today on six felony charges related to his conduct during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His actions and the actions of others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election. Ronald Colton McAbee, 29, of Unionville, Tennessee, w  more

ARNOLD AFB, Tennessee, Feb. 28 -- The U.S. Air Force Arnold Air Force Base issued the following news: By Kali Bradford, AEDC Public Affairs The University of Tennessee Space Institute hosted its 29th annual Black History Month Celebration Feb. 14 in the UTSI Auditorium where Arnold Engineering Development Complex commander, Col. Randel Gordon, was the speaker. He spoke about a personal hero, U.S. Air Force Capt. Ed Dwight Jr. A trailblazer in the world of aerospace, Dwight holds the distincti  more