What the Memphis-Shelby County Schools budget says about job cuts, additions.

Shelby County commissioners drew battle lines at their Monday, May 19, session as they go into the home stretch of their budget season.

Teachers with a bachelor’s degree will start with a salary of $51,000 annually and can top out at $76,296.

The new center should serve the community for at least the next decade, while replacing a facility the Bartlett Police Department had outgrown.

The Tuesday council day at City Hall also features a full briefing on a 120-year old brick culvert beneath the fire department’s maintenance shop that is at risk of “catastrophic failure.”

Chandler announced last week that he was leaving his position as executive director of the Germantown Performing Arts Center.

An old drive-in gets a new life, Fawn serves upscale comfort food and there’s more to the Memphis Grizzlies’ name than you might think. 

You know the Memphis NBA team is named the Grizzlies because they moved from Vancouver. But why did the Vancouver team have that name? 

Progress on xAI’s water-recycling facility has slowed to a bureaucratic trickle, but construction could come like a flood in a matter of weeks. 

Also happening this week: The city’s new arts office wants to hear from local artists about how it can help them thrive.

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris has proposed a property tax rate for the new fiscal year that starts July 1 but the commission may leave the ordinance setting the new tax rate blank for now.

Brooke Ehrhart, vice president of development at Make-A-Wish Mid-South, said the Memphis Area Association of Realtors Commercial Council tournament this year will grant a Senatobia, Mississippi, child’s wish to swim with pigs in Hawaii.

Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. calls out political rivals, campaigning for 2026 has already started and county budget hearings will be missing a lot of key people.

Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League session is expected to bring more than 400 basketball coaches and scouts to the Memphis area and fill more than 8,000 hotel rooms across the city.

With sunny skies and temperatures in the 80s, both the Memphis in May and SmokeSlam barbecue festivals are back to their regular schedules Saturday, officials said.

The leaders of two local safety-net nonprofits are watching Washington as closely these days as they watch a long list of clients and the bank balance of their organizations.

Imagine Academy is designed to help St. Jude patients keep up with their classwork when their treatment requires them to be away from home for extended periods. 

Work on a hotel and apartments at the former Mid-South Fairgrounds property may begin in the fourth quarter of 2025. The projected opening date is in early 2027. 

The old drive-in movie site in Southwest Memphis will have a police precinct and a public library with plans for private development modeled on the 5-year-old Raleigh Springs Town Centre.

Hear the birdsong, dance under a tree. Experience Memphis Gardens founder hopes to inspire locals to love their own yards. 

Following a deluge of public comments, the Shelby County Health Department said a decision on xAI’s application for an air emissions permit will take approximately 60 days. 

MEM works on better parking, Collierville leaders worry about fluoride and Nike gives us a reason to say “Ohhh, Yeah!”

Earlier this month, MLGW said xAI could need more power than the Tennessee Valley Authority, the region’s energy provider, can supply. 

The new Frayser branch library opened Thursday, May 15, to a standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 people at 2220 James Road, replacing the city’s smallest branch library farther north in Frayser.

After the death of Alegend Jones, the board chair for Youth Villages wrote to Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, saying that “irreparable damage to the reputation of our staff and this incredible organization will be done.”