Also happening this week: Memorial Day is Monday, and there’s a reception for the work that replaced Midtown’s Union Centre blue-dog paintings.

Medals will be sent out for the top times, but the cash prizes will not be given.

New budget proposal relies on rosy projections, cutting MATA funding in half and extending ongoing hiring freeze.

Before the April 28 fire at the Downtown church, there were fires at the Memphis home of the nonprofit’s leader and another in East Tennessee at a property owned by her family.

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Clayborn Temple fire was arson, MFD says

A stretch of Riverside Drive will be closed to allow for the construction of what it is calling a road-diet conversion.

The Memphis and Shelby County Economic Development Growth Engine committed the money to build an economic development plan for South Memphis neighborhoods. 

The fire that destroyed the Clayborn Temple last month was set intentionally, the Memphis Fire Department said in an X post Wednesday afternoon.

The U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday, May 21, that it was dropping the civil rights investigation into the Memphis Police Department and retracting its previous findings into MPD. 

The council also decided Tuesday, May 20, an appeal of a two-lot subdivision planned by one of its members in East Memphis and rejected a truck lot at Shelby Drive and Tchulahoma Road.

In a surprise move, the Memphis City Council suspended its rules and voted on raises for solid waste employees, machinists and police officers. But the mayor has warned it could mean cutting 550 positions. 

The Memphis City Council expressed frustration about the state of Downtown, also pushing to move 201 Poplar and change the state of Beale Street.

Elon Musk confirmed in an X post how much electricity xAI’s second Memphis data center, Colossus 2, could use. 

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.

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.

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 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.

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

The state appeals court affirmed that the city is protected from suit over claims that Memphis police allegedly failed to properly investigate when Cleotha Abston raped a woman in 2021.

The Memphis Fire Department said it and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been conducting “extensive off-site work, including detailed witness interviews and thorough video analysis.”

The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office and the Memphis Police Department temporarily shut down a business that has been the site of multiple homicides this year.

The City of Memphis moved for sanctions Tuesday, May 13, in response to a Monday statement from RowVaughn Wells’ legal team that said any discussion of the civil case bankrupting the city is fearmongering.

A trial date is forthcoming in the federal criminal case against Shelby County Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr.