According to the Tennessee Healthcare Resource Tracking System, 92% of area intensive care unit beds and 93% of area acute care beds were in use.

The contract amendment increases Joris Ray’s annual salary to $293,550, up 3% from $285,000.

The VPOTUS is headed to the Bluff City, Bartlett is ready for a parade, and the Memphis City Council doesn’t need lobbyists to register. 

Council Chairwoman Patrice Robinson said council members who behave badly, as council member Edmund Ford Sr. did two weeks ago, can’t be removed or suspended. And restoring order is “a question of judgment” by the chairperson.

The council voted unanimously Tuesday to urge a statewide mask mandate, and several council members said their earlier vote against the city’s mask ordinance was wrong.

The measure by council member Chase Carlisle was one vote short of the seven needed. It failed after a council debate that included one council member remembering his own brush with corruption charges. Others argued the proposal was arbitrary and cumbersome.

Health Department, city leaders and hospitals accessing staffing, looking for more.

Related Story: Health Dept.: Inspectors made multiple visits to All Black Affair

A voting miscue Tuesday was reversed Wednesday with the passage of the resolution that directs the mayor to draw up a plan to end the use of any city money to buy bottled water. 

Vice President Mike Pence is visiting Memphis Thursday, Dec. 3, to discuss Operation Warp Speed. 

U.S. Dist. Judge Mark Norris has rejected a petition by seven Memphis landlords to temporarily, at least, block a federal ban on evictions. But the full case continues in court. 

Following the latest surge of coronavirus cases in Shelby County, the city of Bartlett is limiting its City Hall and Annex access to appointment only as of Wednesday.

Plans are underway to build low-density graduate student housing on Deloach and 500 apartment-style dorms on the Park Avenue Campus.

Shelby County Health Department Director Alisa Haushalter said that an enclosed tent is an enclosed space and should be treated as such.

Shelby County Health Department modeling predicted that more than 500 COVID-19 patients would be hospitalized in the area by Christmas Day. That figure reached 500 as of 5 p.m., Nov. 30.

The Memphis and Shelby County Joint COVID-19 Task Force is hosting another round of free surge testing from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, at Tiger Lane and Poplar Healthcare.

Plus, One Beale could be a beacon, medical residencies are under the knife and axe-throwing and other heart-pounding activities are coming to the former Fairgrounds.

Six experts in Memphis commercial real estate will offer their take on what’s happening during the pandemic and their forecast on what the post-COVID era will be like.

The president of the Memphis Restaurant Association doesn’t know of any local restaurateur who has been contacted and told that a diner in their place of business tested positive for the coronavirus. 

The outburst by City Council member Edmund Ford Sr. two weeks ago still raises questions about how to apply rules of conduct to elected council members. And it’s a discussion past councils have had about Ford and others on the body.

Curtis Givens did not respond to phone calls to his business, CGI Entertainment, or to requests to speak on his Facebook account about the party.

FedEx was expected to handle about 26 million shipments on Cyber Monday, Nov. 30, and more than 24 million shipments a day on Dec. 1, Dec. 7 and Dec. 14. 

The veteran state legislator will have an office on Capitol Hill in Nashville as part of the governor’s cabinet.

On Monday, Nov. 30, Methodist had a record 219 COVID in-patients, up from 183 on Thanksgiving Day.