In the war against opioid overdose deaths, Tennessee is winning one battle — doctors are prescribing pain pills at much lower rates — but still losing other battles.

Thirty-two years ago after quitting nursing school in her final semester, Penny Williams earned her RN degree in one of the first in-person commencement exercises in Memphis in more than a year.

The retreat Saturday, May 1, marks the first in-person council meeting in more than a year. It included new details of $16 million in bonuses to city employees in Mayor Jim Strickland’s $716 million budget proposal and a flap over whether team-building exercises and a tour of the Renasant Convention Center were open to reporters.

Overall, the Health Department has reported 95,598 total coronavirus cases and 1,620 deaths, classifying 92,340 cases as inactive/recovered.

Regional One Health earned the lowest marks for care and patient safety while Saint Francis-Bartlett and Methodist Olive Branch were the only four-star hospitals in the metro area.

City Council budget committee Chairman Worth Morgan said that the drop of the city property tax rate below $3 as appraised values have increased could set the stage for a tax rate hike.

The measure will allow veterans to be buried on Saturday. Previously burials were held only between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays.

Memphis Police Chief nominee Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis met the public on a limited basis Friday, April 30, during a one-hour online Q&A session with screened written questions. 

The judge deserves to be remembered as one of the most consequential public figures in Memphis during the second half of the 20th century, says Otis Sanford.

The 187 cases come from 2,795 tests, giving the day a positivity rate of 6.7%.

The annual Juneteenth celebration is moving from Robert R. Church Park to Health Sciences Park, held on the grounds where Nathan Bedford Forrest’s statue once stood.

A parallel pipeline is rediscovered, a new soccer team (with a throwback name) is made official and there’s a local case of the coronavirus variant running rampant in India. 

On “Behind The Headlines,” the incoming CEO of the Downtown Memphis Commission says federal pandemic relief funding due the city will likely make up the loss. The drop in sales tax revenue for the TDZ comes as sales tax revenues across the city have exceeded bleak projections at the outset of the pandemic.

The pandemic will need to end before businesses shift gears to full recovery mode, according to Douglas Scarboro, regional executive with the Memphis Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, who said, “July 1 seems like a key revaluation point.”

A bill allowing student athletes in Tennessee to make money from their brand has passed both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly with little opposition, and it is now headed to Gov. Bill Lee.

Property crimes dropped during the first three months of 2021, according to data from the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission and the Public Safety Institute.

One variant linked to India’s recent COVID-19 surge was detected in Shelby County this week, said David Sweat, Shelby County Health Department deputy director.

The 175 cases come from 2,947 tests, giving the day a positivity rate of 5.9%.

Members to meet Downtown for budget retreat.

The Shelby County Health Department reported 175 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, April 29, and no new deaths.

Midtown’s Lululemon couldn’t namaste. We’ve also got party lines and a party planned and plenty of jokes about cows. 

With much of the plan already outlined well before Wednesday’s speech, reaction from the city’s two congressmen and the state’s two U.S. senators was set along partisan lines. There was a social media blitz by all during President Joe Biden’s remarks.

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Biden to nation and the world: ‘America is rising anew’

Biden marked his first 100 days in office as the nation pushes out of a menacing mix of crises, making his case before a pared-down gathering of mask-wearing legislators for massive structural changes.

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City’s national representatives react to Biden’s ‘American Families Plan’

Sullivan, Knox, Hamilton and Madison counties lift mask mandates; Davidson is waiting.