The AM/DM

Collierville Town Administrator Molly Mehner recently left her position with the suburb. Her departure hasn't been classified as a termination or a resignation, but it did follow a conflict between Mehner and John Selberg, then-Collierville fire chief, that then spilled over to the town's Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

Today, Collierville reporter Abigail Warren is here to discuss the ongoing impact of the conflict.

Plus:

• The Memphis Hershey plant's leader is trying to get it more involved in the community
• A Minnesota artist claims their fourth victory at the national duck stamp competition
• The Grizzlies are adding 29-year-old Julius Thomas as an assistant coach
• A Texas company says SpaceXAI owes them almost $2M
• The American Conference is not looking to expand
• New stores and development signify a growing Millington

This week brings us some specially designated days, starting with Memphis Grizzlies media day on Monday and continuing through Tom Lee Day on Saturday. Newsletter editor Bianca Phillips is here to talk about those events.

Plus:

• SpaceXAI offers to buy out some Southaven residents over a lawsuit
• Collierville owes Molly Mehner more than $180K as part of an agreement
• Lindsey Whiteside pleads guilty in a federal case
• ACLU presses for immediate court intervention against the Memphis Safe Task Force
• A shooter wounded by a Task Force agent is sentenced to 18 years in prison
• A judge denies a request to restrict the Highway Patrol's immigration enforcement
• The Bodine School expansion is halted by neighbors' appeal

Newsletter editor Bianca Phillips is here to lead us through the weekend.

Plus:

• A nightclub is shut down after a history of crime
• Lee Harris said he doesn't know how much Regional One has cost
• Tigers assistant Tony Madlock left his coaching job to come home
• The battle about The Station has finally ended
• There is more 'focused-time' in the County Clerk's Office to clear the car-title backlog
• AutoZone sees 'more normalized' inflation ahead
• Most Collierville aldermen say that wouldn't have fired Selberg

Earlier this summer, demolition began at the old Commercial Appeal building on Union Avenue. The site is slated to become the home of a new Regional One hospital, which could cost more than $900 million and would replace the hospital's existing campus, some of which dates back to 1943. Joining us today is reporter Sam Hardiman, who's been trying to figure out, as this project moves forward, who is paying for it?

Plus:

• A lawsuit seeks to end Tennessee Highway Patrol and ICE collaboration
• The Federal Duck Stamp contest takes place in Memphis
• Shelby County tourism remains a $4 billion engine
• A man acquitted in the Young Dolph killing pleads guilty in other case
• Bartlett breaks ground on a new school
• Developers buy a historic Downtown Memphis building
• A teen music lab is named for late Memphis producer Tay Keith

In August, Robert Hodges, aka Prince Mongo, died. After his death, tributes poured in, with many people sharing strange stories. Many were positive, but some weren't. Joining us today is Jody Callahan, who dug into some of the more troubling stories surrounding Hodges, to talk about the story we ran, how we reported it and why we ran it.

Plus:

• A contractor files a $4.2M lien notice against a SpaceXAI subsidiary
• CBU enrollment remains flat this year
• DA's office taps new leadership
• A Memphis professor gets a $125K contract to help with MATA's ' chicken-and-egg problem'
• Memphis will have a voice on a newly formed Tennessee music panel
• A Chapter 11 filing triggers jockeying for Memphis Wendy's sites
• A Collierville company bands with Whole Foods to donate supplies to hundreds of schools

Food and dining writer Sophia Surrett joins us today for our occasional roundup of recent restaurant news.

Plus:

• The University of Memphis breaks ground on the Liza Wellford Fletcher Stadium
• A Memphis poet wins a Tennessee Book Award
• Wing Wars hopes to showcase Memphis as more than barbecue
• SpaceXAI is sued over a worker death
• The second area Big Bad Breakfast is to open soon
• SpaceXAI posts more than 100 jobs as the data center's moratorium momentum slows
• A smashburger food tuck is to open in a Poplar Avenue space

Arts and culture editor Elle Perry is back today to help us set up the week ahead.

Plus:

• MPD's monthly review shows the crime decline continues
• Gallaway is pumped for Buc-ee's to open next year
• The new Sultana Disaster Museum prepares to embark in Marion
• CBU plans to leave the NCAA and is applying to join the NAIA
• A Cordova Countrywood development gets $47M
• The Container Store puts a lid on Germantown
• A Central Avenue hotel project is set to start

This weekend brings us a quintessential Memphis event: the Cooper-Young Festival and its accompanying run, the Cooper- Young 4-Miler.

You also have a chance this week to watch "The Matrix" on the big screen — the really big screen — at the Pink Palace, take a parking spot over as a pocket park and get your ballet on, very quickly.

Arts and culture editor Elle Perry is on the show today to talk about it all.

Plus:

• City Council members plan to ask the Task Force to leave
• Three former daycare workers plead not guilty
• Hernando plans to use AI at City Hall
• Data center moratorium proposals are delayed until October

For years, the Memphis Zoo has worked to bring the Louisiana pine snake and the dusky gopher frog of the southeastern U.S. back from the brinks of extinction. But, recently, it began a project focused on the wildlife of West Tennessee using cameras, mounted at human knee height, to take pictures of animals in their natural habitats near parks, golf courses, cemeteries and other open spaces.

Features reporter John Klyce is here today — on The Daily Memphian's eighth birthday — to talk about the project and what the zoo has learned so far.

Plus:

• A jail contract, clerk funds and a judge appointment were approved at the first commisison meeting
• A Cordova apartment complex sells for $56.6 million
• The Belmont Grill building has a new owner
• A federal court could soon decide if the MSCS takeover will remain paused
• Germantown buys a new snowplow

After former Landers Center Executive Director Todd Mastry was fired in January of 2025, he filed a federal suit against DeSoto County and the county's Convention and Visitors Bureau for wrongful termination.

Mastry claims he was fired because members of the DeSoto County Board of Supervisors wanted him to stop booking Black artists and he refused to do so.

Last month, DeSoto County and the CVB asked the court to dismiss Mastry's case. In doing so, Mastry's attorneys filed a number of documents why the case shouldn't be dismissed, including statements from former CVB members who said they were appointed, and in some cases later replaced, solely to terminate Mastry.

North Mississippi reporter Aarron Fleming is here today to talk about what exactly we have learned from these newly filed documents.

Plus:

• Detainees sue Shelby County over extreme heat, broken fire alarms and raw sewage at 201 Poplar
• Knowledge Bowl is placed on hiatus after nearly four decades
• Halcyon Bakery aims to elevate Memphis' pastry scene
• FedEx raises rural delivery fees amid an intensifying parcel competition
• Young musicians will jazz up a Downtown brunch
• Memphis library's book sale returns without a longtime partner
• Full funding for the Imagination Library would double Shelby County's reach