The National Civil Rights Museum’s annual Freedom Awards Friday, Dec. 11, will be basically a “greatest hits” online moment in this year of the pandemic.

City of Memphis and Memphis River Parks Partnership officials hold virtual groundbreaking on Cutbank Bluff, the first phase of a $60 million overhaul of Tom Lee Park.

The Memphis Regional Megasite made the organization’s top 3 in its 15-year list of worst government waste.

National nonprofit, FedEx and Memphis Athletic Ministries partner to distribute the coats across the city of Memphis.

Drag racing would still be a misdemeanor under the legislation proposed by two Shelby County legislators. But it would be a higher grade misdemeanor. The City Council will also see some resolutions on its agenda supporting the bill.

Christ Community Health Services, the Mid-South Food Bank, Las Americas and MICAH will be honored for outstanding service in a very unusual year. 

Three billboard companies are donating digital billboard space to encourage Memphians to “Shop Local 901.” The colorful message will be displayed on about 15 billboards about 140,000 times a week this holiday season.

The new Raleigh branch library is set to open Dec. 14, replacing the 54-year-old location at 3157 Powers Rd., which is closed as the transition begins to its future home.

The city estimates a quarter of solid waste crews have the COVID virus and are in quarantine.

Leaders of the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association and Mid-South Food Bank talked on “Behind The Headlines” about how the pandemic has changed their distribution models. 

National Civil Rights Museum president Terri Lee Freeman is leaving in February to lead a museum in Baltimore. She arrived at the helm of the museum just as the city’s new activism began to surface.

The next-to-last council meeting of the year saw some votes change, the simple become complex and the obvious spelled out. There was also a rare slip that saw an item that appeared to fail win approval after all.

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.

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. 

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.

A 40,000-square-foot entertainment and arcade venue called High 5 has signed a letter of intent to be at Liberty Park. And that doesn’t include High 5’s planned, 25,000-square-foot miniature golf course. 

Both e-commerce and early shopping could be contributors to the smaller-than-normal crowds, not to mention the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of 5 p.m. Monday, Nov.23, the Health Department reported that 89% of the area’s acute care hospital beds were occupied.

Concerns about the spread of the coronavirus forced organizers to cancel the Whitehaven Christmas Parade and the Memphis Holiday Parade.

MemFeast, the annual Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless and those in need, had to change the way it distributes meals because of the pandemic. Six churches will serve meals from food trucks in their parking lots.

No location has been decided on for the re-interment, according to SCV leader Lee Millar. But court documents suggest the remains and equestrian statue of Forrest removed from Health Sciences Park could be bound for a new National Confederate Museum in Columbia, Tn.