After years of preparation, the city of Memphis on Thursday, Oct. 25, will formally open the new city maintenance yard it has been planning through two administrations.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s administration has a proposal for changing the city’s approach to economic development that is making the rounds with other organizations involved in attracting businesses.

Memphis City Council members voted Tuesday to use the council’s government affairs account to fund a “public information campaign” on the three city charter amendment referendums on the Nov. 6 ballot.

It’s not just that Phil Bredesen and Marsha Blackburn have different views on many issues. The Democratic and Republican contenders for the U.S. Senate seat on the Nov. 6 ballot differ on what’s at stake in the statewide race.

Early voting in advance of the Nov. 6 election day continues through Nov. 1 at 27 locations across Shelby County. You can find those locations and hours at www.shelbyvote.com, the website of the Shelby County Election Commission, along with a sample ballot. Here are some other basics about early voting in Shelby County.

Plans for a hotel at Overton Square would include some acreage for stacked townhomes or apartment buildings if the Memphis City Council approves an amended version of the hotel plan on Tuesday.

After nearly six months of silence since former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton announced he would run for mayor again in 2019, his aspirations came to life Wednesday as early voting began in the Nov. 6 general election.

When the first day of early voting in advance of the Nov. 6 election day had ended Wednesday, Shelby County election commissioner Norma Lester offered her verdict on how it went with a brief Facebook post. “Don’t know any other way to say it except the first day of Early Voting was absolute HELL!” she wrote. “Hoping for a better Second day.”

Here are the three city charter amendment referendums on the Nov. 6 ballot in Memphis in the order that they appear on the ballot.

The city committee trying to build a better way of pursuing economic development will meet later this month with the two organizations that play the major roles in the existing system – the Greater Memphis Chamber and the Economic Development Growth Engine.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland's administration will take its Tourism Development Zone plan for the Fairgrounds to the Tennessee Building Commission for approval next month.

A “drafting error” in the city referendum that would extend city council and mayoral term limits from two consecutive terms to three would bar former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton from running for mayor again in 2019.

Former Vice President Joe Biden told several thousand people at the National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Awards Wednesday, Oct. 17, that the gains made by the movement honored in the museum are “under siege.” “Once again, we need your energy,” Biden said as he accepted the award at the Orpheum theater.

Shelby County voters begin casting ballots in the last election of 2018 Wednesday, Oct. 17, as early voting opens before the Nov. 6 election day. The 27 early voting sites across Shelby County are all open from Wednesday through Nov. 1. The midterm general election cycle typically sees a higher turnout than the August county general and state and federal primary elections.

Rev. Jesse Jackson knows the National Civil Rights Museum well. The two-time Democratic presidential contender, close associate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and leader of the merged civil rights groups Rainbow-PUSH has been there often since the museum opened in 1991.

Additional parking along Riverside Drive, better access to the riverfront and improved safety are more important than keeping the Downtown thoroughfare at four lanes, a new survey for the Memphis River Parks Partnership shows.

When Jess Gaughan spoke last month at the start of an aborted debate that became a forum for Democratic Senate nominee Phil Bredesen at Rhodes College, the leader of Rhodes' Democrats didn’t get the same attention she might have.

Voters in Shelby County have decided 52 referendums in the last decade of elections, from wine sales in food stores to the formation of suburban school systems to amendments to the Tennessee Constitution.

Two Memphis fire stations are fostering dogs in a pilot program with Memphis Animal Services that is drawing inquiries from other fire departments and requests from other firehouses in the city. The stay at the fire stations could be two to three weeks before the dogs are transported to other cities for adoption there.

The Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club says a proposal to end Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division’s ties to the Tennessee Valley Authority and instead buy electricity from a renovated Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in Alabama is “pie in the sky.”

Questions on three city charter changes will stay on the Nov. 6 ballot. Shelby County Chancellor Jim Kyle denied Thursday a legal motion by critics of the referendums to remove them from the ballot as misleading and in violation of state law.

Memphis City Council members never got a chance to see the video made by backers of a move to make a renewed Bellefonte Nuclear Plant the major supplier of electrical power to Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division.

The former chief operating officer of the Tennessee Valley Authority wants Memphis Light Gas and Water Division to drop TVA as its electrical power supplier in five years.

Memphis City Council members approved a New Bellevue Baptist Church sanctuary and set of 17 single-family homes Tuesday, Oct. 9, on 4.6 acres of land on the border of the Hein Park subdivision.

A group of 50 protesters and a few dissenters outside the Peabody Place office building Downtown Monday evening played out the ongoing national debate over the Senate confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. And it came with a brief tug of war over a megaphone at the rally organized by Ama Ehrmann that drew leaders of the Indivisible Memphis organization.