Welcome to another work week, Memphis. It’s Monday, Feb. 23, and two Memphis Tigers football players will get a chance to show off for the pro bigwigs beginning today at the NFL Combine. 

The Shelby County Commission meets today — as a body of 12 instead of the usual 13, since former Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. resigned. But 10 people applied for his position by the Friday deadline. 

Plus, the Memphis Grizzlies have a home game against the Sacramento Kings. See more in This Week in Memphis.

THE NEED TO KNOW

Members of the National Guard walked through a Memphis Target on Dec. 8, 2025. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)

Bleeding out? When the Memphis Safe Task Force kicked off last fall, some suburban leaders worried it would just push crime outside Memphis’ city limits. Collierville’s police department even increased its patrols to offset any impact. But that didn’t last long, because crime has actually fallen across the county’s suburbs, despite the fact that the Task Force’s jurisdiction remains inside city limits. 

A Watkins Uiberall audit found that Memphis-Shelby County Schools failed to properly record employee transfers and terminations during a staff reorganization last school year. (Photo illustration by Kelsey Bowen/The Daily Memphian)

Payroll probs: The 2024-25 school year was busy with hirings and firings for Memphis-Shelby County Schools, and that led to payroll problems, according to a new audit of the district. This is not the state-ordered forensic audit that lawmakers have been making a big deal over. That one is yet to be released, but this routine audit found that MSCS failed to properly record employee transfers and terminations during the staff shakeup orchestrated by former Superintendent Marie Feagins. And that led to improper tracking of pay rates and other issues. Speaking of Feagins, there was some drama around her county mayoral candidacy.

The Sheraton Memphis Downtown Hotel was built in 1985 and is the largest hotel in the city with 600 rooms. (Sophia Surrett/The Daily Memphian)

Revive and rebuild: Downtown’s Sheraton Memphis hotel should be renovated and ready just a few months before the Earth’s close call with the asteroid Apophis. (That’s early 2029 in case you haven’t been paying attention to space news.) The City of Memphis bought the aging hotel last fall to protect its investment in the nearby Renasant Convention Center. Once complete, the hotel will have a new entrance, more meeting and event space and maybe even a coffee chain. In other news of rebuilding, the Historic Clayborn Temple renovation got some big bucks toward its next life.

“I’ve seen what happens when eviction proceedings are livestreamed in real time. Belongings are placed at the curb. Locations are exposed. Children are visible. Private medical information can be captured,” said Rep. Antonio Parkinson, D-Memphis. (George Walker IV/AP)

Eviction is ‘not entertainment’: Rep. Antonio Parkinson, D-Memphis, is sponsoring a bill that would prohibit people from livestreaming home evictions on social media. The bill came about after Parkinson saw live videos of two separate Memphis evictions. “Eviction is already painful enough,” he said. And in other news from Nashville, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are coming together for a “grassroots uprising” against AI-driven insurance claim denials and other insurance practices that discriminate against patients.

QUOTED

“I don’t think the National Guard has been much help at all. I think it’s been a waste of money,” said Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy on WKNO’s “Behind the Headlines.”  (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian file)

“Arresting law-abiding, taxpaying people who have lived in our communities for decades … that’s not making Memphis safer. ”

— Steve Mulroy, Shelby County district attorney general
Mulroy shared his mixed reviews of the Memphis Safe Task Force on WKNO’s “Behind the Headlines.” He said the presence of ICE agents is “the most toxic” aspect of the federal surge, and he also called the National Guard deployment “a waste of money.” But he did praise the task force for helping the city “reduce our backlog of outstanding warrants.”

THE NICE TO KNOW

Kevin “Shea” Grauer was killed in a shooting that occurred in the early morning hours of Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023, near South Belvedere Boulevard and Lockett Place. (Courtesy Karen Carrier)

True crime 101: Brothers Beau and Shea Grauer were killed in two separate — and seemingly unrelated — Midtown shootings less than seven months apart. Beau Grauer was shot by an intruder at a home on Hawthorne Street in 2022, and Shea Grauer was killed in a high-profile robbery outside Zinnie’s in 2023. In today’s Ask the Memphian, reporter Jody Callahan looks at how a class of six students at Christian Brothers University is trying to bring attention to these two cold cases.

Memphis guard Julius Thedford, middle, drove to the basket against UAB on Sunday, Feb. 22. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)

You lose some: Okay, when we’re talking Memphis basketball these days, you lose a lot. The Memphis Tigers continued their downfall Sunday with a 78-67 loss to UAB. It was a game that started off behind and stayed that way, despite a late-second-half surge that just didn’t cut it. The undermanned Memphis Grizzlies lost their game, 136-120, with the Miami Heat on Saturday. But there were some fireworks as guard Scotty Pippen Jr. got into a shoving match with Heat guard Myron Gardner. The Grizz loss was at least kind of a win since the team is tanking anway. The NBA is trying to squash that practice with some proposed new rules — and our own Chris Herrington has an anti-tanking proposal of his own.

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center has a small memorial to those who have donated their bodies to science. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian)

Body count: The University of Tennessee Health Science Center has a body shortage. The school accepts body donations so its medical students can get hands-on experience, but donations can’t be accepted if the donor died from a contagious disease. So, naturally, the pandemic put a real strain on acceptable donations. Reporter John Klyce looks at what happens to bodies that are donated to science, the extent of UTHSC’s shortage and why donation is easy on the wallet. 

Good Fortune Co.’s Tan Tan Ramen is vegan when ordered from the restaurant’s menu. Now you can make it at home. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)

Good Fortune for all: Happy Lunar New Year, y’all. We didn’t get you an envelope of cash (the traditional Lunar New Year gift), but here’s the next best thing: The recipe for Good Fortune’s Tan Tan Noodles. This ramen bowl, which was inspired by Chinese dan dan noodles, is a personal fave of mine from Good Fortune’s menu, where it’s naturally vegan since they use a plant-based meat topping. But if you make it at home, you can use meat or a vegan sub. 

Mid-South Raptor Center volunteer and part-time rehabber Nick Smith released a barred owl in Meeman Shelby Forest State Park. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian)

Owl be there for you: When wild birds of prey are found injured, volunteers at the Mid-South Raptor Center do what they can to save them. Since 2003, the center near Shelby Farms has rehabilitated and released more than 2,000 wounded birds. Think owls, hawks, etc. The Daily Memphian’s John Klyce shadowed volunteer Nick Smith, who, in one day, helped save two owls and did his best to help a partially blind hawk.

THIS WEEK’S WEATHER

Oh hey, did you think winter ended early this year? Sike! (Yes, that’s how you spell it; I looked it up.)

It’ll warm up in time for the weekend though. Just think of this as a good chance to give those sweaters a little more love before they’re packed up for the year.

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