Happy Wednesday, Memphis! It’s Feb. 12, and you can watch basketball for about six hours straight this evening if you want. The Memphis Tigers women’s team plays North Texas at 6:30 p.m., and the Memphis Grizzlies play the Los Angeles Clippers at 9:30 p.m. 

And for even more basketball, enter to win two tickets to see the Memphis Tigers men’s team take on FAU at FedExForum on Sunday, Feb. 23. The deadline to enter is next Wednesday.

THE NEED TO KNOW

TacoNGanas has seven locations in the Memphis area, and the raid happened the Cordova location. This one is at 4255 Summer Ave. (The Daily Memphian file)

TacoNGanas raid sends shockwaves: There are still more questions than answers about Monday’s raid of a TacoNGanas food truck by “federal agents” (according to a city statement) wearing hoodies and masks. The men entered the truck and took three workers, but as of Tuesday, it’s not clear if those agents were with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or why they were there. TacoNGanas owner Greg Diaz has been under a federal investigation for his recruiting and employment practices, but it’s also not clear if that was a factor. A similar raid was apparently conducted at Curry Bowl on Hacks Cross Road last week. The possibility of raids by unidentified agents is sending fear through the immigrant community, and local attorneys worry such raids will lead to tragic outcomes.

The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office was on the scene of a shooting at Shelby Farms Oct. 19, 2024. (Jody Callahan/The Daily Memphian file)

Cops charged over arrest of Memphis homicide suspect: Six officers, from multiple law enforcement agencies near Memphis, have been charged after the violent October arrest of Jackson Hopper in Dyer County. Hopper had been on the run from police after allegedly shooting and killing his ex-girlfriend Ellie Young in a parking lot at Shelby Farms on Saturday, Oct. 19. Officers captured Hopper after he wrecked his car, and they can be seen on video repeatedly punching him.

State Rep. John Gillespie, R-Memphis, (right) and state Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis, (left) have proposed a bill that would raise Shelby County’s sales tax for a new jail. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian file)

New jail tax? State Rep. John Gillespie, R-Memphis, and state Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis, are proposing a full percentage jump in the local sales tax to fund a new Shelby County Jail. They’re sponsoring a bill that would allow for a tax raise referendum to be decided by local voters. The bill, to be heard in committee today, doesn’t name Shelby County per se, but it applies to Tennessee counties of more than 900,000 people (and wink, wink, Shelby County is it). If approved by voters, the tax rate would go back down after the jail is paid off.

MEET MEMPHIS

Dr. Brion Randolph, who served as the University of Tennessee’s first Black drum major, now practices medicine at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian)

Dr. Brion Randolph, who practices medicine at Baptist Memorial Health Care and serves on the faculty of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, became the first Black drum major at UT back in 1992. Randolph played clarinet and chose UT for both its band and its nuclear engineering program. “I’ll never forget when you march into that stadium … turn that corner and it’s just a sea of orange. And you’re playing ‘Rocky Top,’” said Randolph. Since Randolph’s time, there have only been two other Black drum majors: Kenon A. Brown (selected in 2004) and current drum major Christian Carroll. And all have ties to Memphis. 

THE NICE TO KNOW

Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant and Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant shook hands after the game on Tuesday, Feb. 11, in Phoenix.(Rick Scuteri/AP)

Durant record and a Grizz win: NBA basketball doesn’t get much better than this. Grizz fans watching on TV got to see Phoenix Suns superstar Kevin Durant make history, becoming only the eighth player ever to reach 30,000 career points. That’s certainly satisfying to see, but it’s even more so in a close game where the Memphis Grizzlies still earned a W. The Grizzlies beat the Suns, 119-112, with Ja Morant, Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. all in peak form and a bench that outscored their Suns counterparts 44-26.

Egg prices are high, and it may be months before they drop due to the spread of avian flu across species. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)

Get used to high egg prices: If you’ve been complaining about the price of eggs lately, you may as well deal with it. The bird flu, which has led to the slaughter of more than 23 million poultry birds in the U.S. in the last 30 days, isn’t going away quickly, and now cows (and cats, raccoons, bears, humans and even dolphins are getting it, too). Some vaccines are in the pipeline, but experts say it’ll take at least six months, at a minimum, to replace the lost birds. You can’t grow an animal overnight, after all. The Daily Memphian’s Jane Roberts looks into the disease’s rapid spread amongst birds and surprising jump to other animals. (And this is where I recommend oatmeal again, y’all. Fiber is sexy.)

An 85-room hotel sits unfinished near Carriage Crossing. (Abigail Warren/The Daily Memphian)

Ghost hotel: Construction work has stopped at the Holiday Inn Express being built near Carriage Crossing. The Town of Collierville issued a stop-work order in January over insufficient fire access to the building. Now, the building, which is framed out but missing windows, sits on an overgrown site, and its future remains unclear.

This image released by Sony Pictures shows the character Paddington, voiced by Ben Whishaw, in a scene from "Paddington in Peru." (Sony Pictures via AP)

Teddy or not, here it comes: I have not watched the live-action Paddington movies, though they look super cozy and cute. But our own Chris Herrington is a bear-y big fan, and he went so far as to call 2017’s “Paddington 2” an “absolute delight, a life-affirming, for-all-audiences movie miracle.” So, needless to say, he has high hopes for the new “Paddington in Peru,” which opens in Memphis theaters this week. Read more of his thoughts on the series, plus a new Captain America movie with a new lead actor, in Memphis Movies This Week. 

St. Jude goes global: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is partnering with the World Health Organization to provide life-saving cancer medicines for children across the world. They’re focusing on countries with pediatric cancer survival rates, and the two pilot countries — Mongolia and Uzbekistan — are already getting meds. Four other countries are next up on the list. 

WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT

Thanks to Yuki, the Memphis Grizzlies are No. 1 in Japan. They seem to have a thing for Ja Morant, too. 

Sayonara, friends. And see you in the morning!

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