Ray’s Take: The first recipient of a Social Security check was to a woman named Miss Ida May Fuller. It was issued in 1939 in the amount of $22.54.

Next holiday season, the original Corky’s Bar-B-Q restaurant on Poplar in East Memphis will have room to accommodate private parties and events.

The first baby of 2019 in Memphis was born at Methodist South Hospital at 2:47 a.m. 

The turning of the calendar signifies a year of possibilities, and for me that often means travel dreams. I have some travel resolutions I hope to see through in 2019.

A planned Memphis Sports Hall of Fame at AutoZone Park is picking up momentum with a project manager on board, an exhibit designer being recruited and fundraising coming in 2019.

The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 had a profound effect on many Memphians, but for Jocelyn Wurzburg, it was life-altering.

A little girl's brief life spawns a new way to help families in need while their loved ones are hospitalized.

Breast cancer consortium to probe why more women in the Memphis metro are not getting annual mammograms, and reasons behind the wide mortality gap between white and black women. 

The Crosstown Arts Theater and South Main Artspace Lofts both opened this year. Besides being spaces built with artists in mind, the spaces also have something else in common – the projects were designed by Memphis architecture firm Looney Ricks Kiss.

Happy 2019! I think we can all agree that 2018 was a tricky year. But, it’s time to start fresh. It’s time to refocus on an awesome New Year’s resolution: finding a new job. And it’s the perfect time. Unemployment is at a record low. Jobs are being added. For the first time in a long time, it’s a job seeker’s market.

For many business-to-business (B2B) companies, the ability to grow correlates directly with the ability to effectively expand the sales team.

As the years change, many of us reflect on the past and make promises for the future. We have visions of the wonderful things we will do personally, professionally and, most of all, for the nonprofits we serve. We’re with you on that journey with a few suggestions that relate to your nonprofit service.

An outpatient surgery center that employs 22 people is closing in mid-January.

Facial, hand and neck tattoos aren’t nicknamed “job stoppers’’ for nothing. And there’s nothing subtle about Robert Fortner’s face tattoo. Still, the self-described “misfit’’ has work that fits him like a glove over his heavily inked hands. He is a partner in what is arguably the most Bohemian bar in Memphis.

Frazer and Dana Gieselmann have had their share of grief and loss the past few years, but they haven’t let their circumstances stop them, instead turning their hardships into doing something good for the community.

An old adage says “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” The Federal Trade Commission didn’t take kindly to being fooled twice by MoneyGram International and imposed a $125 million fine on the company, which operates a network of about 350,000 money transfer locations worldwide. The Department of Justice said MoneyGram also violated a similar agreement it reached with the company in 2012.

After an up-and-down 2018, the site of the former Benchmark Hotel appears to be heading into the new year on a high note.

Memphis-based Sunshine Enterprise has announced funeral service details for four executives killed when a private plane crashed Dec. 20 in northwest Atlanta.

Memphis-based Jernigan Capital Inc. announced it has acquired complete ownership of a recently completed self-storage facility in Long Island, New York, by purchasing the membership interest from its development partner.

Shelby County’s jobless rate fell below 4 percent last month, mirroring a decrease across all of Tennessee’s 95 counties.

Methodist Le Bonheur is offering a new stent treatment for patients diagnosed with peripheral arterial disease, a condition that diabetics and those with high blood pressure are susceptible to develop. 

A local doctor has received the funds to test how mild hypothermia could prevent the harmful effects of brain seizures in newborn babies.

Ray’s Take: Day in and day out, we are bombarded with commercials, ads and billboards from companies promising to help us consolidate our debt and save us lots of money in the process. The fact that so many debt consolidation companies even exist shows the desperate financial situations many Americans find themselves in.

The 86-year-old scientist who linked the origin of the flu virus to migratory birds still comes to work at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to prepare for a possible pandemic should bird flu ever learn to spread among humans.

New Year’s resolutions are tempting to make, and they are even more tempting to forget. In spite of the insatiable appetite our society has for self-improvement and excellence, good habits just seem hard to acquire.