Nineteen years after a Cordova murder conviction the District Attorney's office now calls an injustice, prosecutors stood beside the defense on August 25, 2026 and asked the court to clear Andrew Hayes' sentence.
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The outgoing Shelby County Commission closed its four-year term on August 24 by putting a ceiling on the county's contribution to the MSCS takeover litigation, days before eight new commissioners inherit the case, the budget deadline, and everything else.
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Tennessee's Trial Court Vacancy Commission nominated four Memphis attorneys August 17 for two newly created Criminal Court judgeships in the 30th Judicial District. Governor Bill Lee will pick the two judges, per the Daily Memphian.
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Fire Chief John Selberg resigned August 21, days after being placed on leave. The town released the administrator's memo against him, his own eight-page letter asked for the chance to "correct this situation," a special-called meeting was postponed, and the record closes one-sided, with the town saying only that he served honorably.
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Meeting in Memphis on August 20, the TVA board created a data center rate class effective October 1, 2026, approved a $13 billion-plus spending plan through FY2029, and, per FOX13, gave SpaceXAI the go-ahead for a direct connection to the TVA grid at its Whitehaven facility. The analysis behind the rate has not been released.
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A post on State Rep. Joe Towns Jr.'s Facebook page urged readers to "shoot on sight" and not to trust law enforcement. Towns, who takes office as Shelby County Criminal Court Clerk August 31, says his account was hacked. The post is confirmed; the hack claim is his alone.
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A jury convicted former deputy Courtney Parham of criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment in the 2022 jail death of Gershun Freeman, acquitting him of second-degree murder, and found former deputy Stevon Jones not guilty on all counts. Sentencing is September 25. Seven co-defendants still await trial.
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A bow echo with straight-line winds reported at 80 to 100 mph hit Shelby County the evening of August 22. MLGW President and CEO Doug McGowen says the vast majority of customers should have power back by the evening of August 27. The 901 Report is putting the utility's own commitments on the record at hour one, so the week can be scored against them.
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MLK50 reports that nearly 1 in 5 Memphis households experienced at least one utility disconnection in 2025, and that disconnections are rising. MLGW's own published rules show a two-tier rating system, staggered shutoffs, and a $58 reconnection fee.
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Mayor-elect Mickell Lowery announced his "One Shelby" transition team on August 13 and said the county needs deep financial audits, naming the payroll borrowing and the generational bills coming due: schools, the jail, Regional One, and county buildings.
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The Shelby County Commission approved $500,000 from the opioid settlement special revenue fund for the county drug court on August 10, 2026. The presiding judge said the program exhausted most of its inpatient treatment funds over the past year.
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Shelby County releases capital funding to municipal school districts only after Memphis-Shelby County Schools spends its 85 percent share. The county finance director confirmed on August 10, 2026 that fiscal 2024 funds tied to an East Campus project remain unspent.
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The Shelby County Commission voted ten to one with one abstention on August 10, 2026 to allocate up to $350,000 in contingency funds for a jail study. The sponsor said the figure came from his own consulting experience rather than a formal solicitation.
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The Shelby County Health Department told commissioners on August 5, 2026 that Title V permit fees must fully fund the county air permitting program or the general fund covers the gap. Countywide industrial emissions have fallen from more than 25,000 tons a year in 2004 to roughly 5,800.
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The Shelby County Commission approved a $366,623.26 contract and emergency purchase order with Access DNSI, Inc. on August 10, 2026 for low voltage and information technology construction at the Election Commission operations center. County engineering told the committee the work was completed by April 15.
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A substitute resolution handed out at the August 5, 2026 committee meeting raised the Memphis-Shelby County Schools budget figure from $1,679,759,131 to $1,799,354,177. The Shelby County Commission approved it on August 10 by a vote of seven to four with two recusals.
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Chief Inspector Michael Green was the shift commander at 201 Poplar on October 5, 2022. He testified for several hours Saturday in the trial of Stevon Jones and Courtney Parham, who are charged with second-degree murder and are presumed innocent. Jurors saw video of Gershun Freeman being punched, kicked and pepper-sprayed.
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The Comptroller found Lieutenant Bryan Childress reported working for the police department and a private security company during the same hours on 59 days, totaling 66 overlapping hours and $2,971.89 in unearned wages. He is presumed innocent. A separate state review in January found officers under his record-keeping missing training hours, including firearms.
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T.L. Harris took District 6 and Tanya Frey took District 8 in the first partisan school board election in the district's history. No Republicans filed for any seat. What the winners control depends on litigation neither of them is party to.
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Mickell Lowery declared victory in the county mayor's race and Anthony Buckner was elected sheriff, both on August 6. They take office September 1, 26 days later. Buckner named the jail as his immediate priority. Lowery voted for the borrowing he will now administer.
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Officials attribute the machine that dropped four judicial races for 307 Bartlett voters to human error tied to a headquarters move and congressional redistricting. At an August 5 press conference, NAACP Memphis Branch President Kermit Moore said there have been discrepancies across the county. Polls are open today.
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David Reaves is renewing a proposal that first surfaced more than 35 years ago, and floating a second version in which the six outlying cities join adjacent counties instead. No new county has formed in Tennessee in close to 150 years. There is no filed proposal, and this post does not treat the idea as pending.
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Classes began Monday, August 3, 2026 with a federal judge's pause keeping the state-appointed oversight board from taking control of Tennessee's largest district, and with the litigation unresolved while students are in class.
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Jury selection began August 3 for Stevon Jones and Courtney Parham, each charged with second-degree murder. Both have pleaded not guilty and are presumed innocent. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. The case is being prosecuted by a district attorney from Nashville.
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Roughly 700 absentee voters got incomplete ballots in July and were sent supplemental ones. The 300 who voted on one machine at Christian Life Church cannot be identified, because their ballots are secret. Election Day is Thursday.
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Auditors identified email exchanges among board members and the district's legal counsel that they concluded may have influenced district decisions, including superintendent searches and contract negotiations. The finding is a management finding, not a charge.
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The county could not issue its payroll borrowing without an emergency waiver from the Tennessee Comptroller, because its fiscal 2026 budget was never state-approved. The fiscal 2027 budget is due August 31.
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The state-ordered forensic audit found more than $54 million in Memphis-Shelby County Schools spending that auditors identified as potential fraud, waste or abuse. More than $48 million of it traces to one 2022 custodial award to ServiceMaster Clean. The district awarded the company a new yearlong contract effective January 1, 2026.
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Rockez McDaniel, 33, died in custody in July 2025. His family filed suit on July 28, naming Shelby County, jail officers and supervisors, nurses, and the jail's medical contractors. Every claim in the complaint is an allegation. No court has ruled.
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The school board passed its budget in late May. Nearly two months later the Shelby County Commission, which funds the district, has not acted on it. Four days before that, commissioners borrowed $125 million to cover the county's own payroll.
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A federal judge suspended the state oversight board's authority on July 1, the day it was to take control. Four weeks later there is still no preliminary injunction hearing on the calendar. Classes begin August 3 with the governance question open.
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"We would like to see more than four commissioners sitting in the gallery to hear it." The ordinance passed first reading 11 to 0, in a meeting where commissioners also learned they have not received the school district's budget, which state law requires 45 days before adoption.
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The chairwoman called for a second, waited, called again, waited longer, and then ruled the item was not properly before the body. It never got a vote. Twelve other commissioners were in the room.
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No commissioner asked a question at committee. No commissioner pulled it from the consent agenda five days later. The money is fiscal 2026 general funds, and fiscal 2026 ended on June 30.
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A commissioner did the arithmetic out loud on Monday. "It's got to be not even 1%." Commissioners approved the contract anyway, 10 to 1, along with a personnel line the city's library director told them is about $75,000 short.
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The vote was 9 to 3. It is the county's second borrowing to fund operations in under a year, and the first with an outside lender. Finance told commissioners cash on hand will be $50 to $60 million against $155 million in payroll over the first five months of the fiscal year.
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The public works director disclosed the documents Monday while laying out four scenarios ranging from $81 million to $110 million. The $92 million already in the capital plan does not begin releasing until 2028.
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A Shelby County committee voted 4 to 0 on Wednesday to ask Mayor Lee Harris to accelerate funding to replace the 96-year-old juvenile court campus. The vote came a day after a consultant delivered a preliminary summary, and before any commissioner had seen the full report.
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Two commissioners have now written the county mayor asking for a formal study of the Criminal Justice Center. The building has disrupted court operations for most of the past month, and the officials being asked to act are both leaving office within weeks.
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Superintendent Roderick Richmond told board members this week that improvements are coming to internal controls, procurement, human resources and cybersecurity. The district's own rules say the corrective action plan has to be far more specific than that.
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Gerald Thornton takes over as General Sessions Court Clerk Pro Tempore on August 8. His term is not tied to Tami Sawyer's suspension. It runs until her case ends or her term does.
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A federal judge has scheduled a four-day trial for the suspended General Sessions Court Clerk. The judges who suspended her have already named a stand-in whose term is tied to the outcome of her case, not to her suspension.
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Together4Students launched in May, backs the state-appointed oversight board, and is gathering signatures to pressure the district into abandoning its case. Its founder says it has no funding and declines to name the organizations on its strategy team.
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The utility told the City Council the project would push rates down, not up, and would be fully operational by December 2028. The presentation did not include a public price tag.
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The ouster case against the Shelby County Clerk was voluntarily dismissed after the trial landed in the final week of her term. The county's chief litigating attorney says continuing would have cost taxpayers money for a trial that could no longer change anything.
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Early voting is underway for the District 6 and District 8 seats on the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board. Because the state takeover of the district remains tied up in federal court, it is not yet clear how much authority the winners will hold when they take office September 1.
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On July 1, the day a state oversight board was to take control of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, a federal judge ordered everything paused. The district calls the takeover unconstitutional. The state has asked the judge to lift the freeze. The case will decide who runs the district as the school year begins.
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After 14 detainees and five staff were overcome by heat inside the Criminal Justice Center, commissioners are pressing Mayor Lee Harris to order a full assessment of the building. The county has already spent $58 million on emergency repairs, and the Sheriff says the facility is crumbling.
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Outages are falling across Memphis, and that is real. But 17 percent of customers still lose power three or more times a year, and that number is rising. Everyone paid the same rate increase.
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Temperatures hit 92 degrees at 201 Poplar. Fourteen detainees needed medical attention, one was hospitalized, and five kitchen workers overheated. Staff called the conditions "inhumane and cruel."
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A "processing omission" left four of six special judicial races, and a county charter referendum, off ballots already mailed. Replacement ballots are due Wednesday. Check yours.
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The Tennessee Comptroller's four-volume review flagged about $54.2 million in transactions the auditors called consistent with potential fraud, waste, or abuse, most of it in procurement, and made 133 recommendations. It is an accountability review, not a criminal case, and no one has been charged.
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Commissioners delayed final votes on the county's operating and capital budgets to June 29, a meeting that will also decide the property tax rate. One commissioner has proposed raising the rate by 6 cents.
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Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the Shelby County Commission, and all nine elected board members filed a federal lawsuit on June 19 seeking to block the state-appointed oversight board from taking control of the district on July 1.
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As The 901 Report opens its MLGW beat, here is how the city-owned utility is governed, when its board meets in public, and where the rate increase now on every bill is supposed to go.
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The Shelby County Sheriff's Office is one of the largest pieces of the county budget the Commission votes on June 29. Sheriff Floyd Bonner has said the county shortchanged his office, even as the aging jail at 201 Poplar faces serious scrutiny.
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Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk Tami Sawyer was suspended for 30 days beginning June 17, days after a six-count federal indictment accused her of embezzling about $44,600 in public funds. She has pleaded not guilty.
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Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk Tami Sawyer surrendered to federal custody Monday morning, according to Action News 5. The indictment is sealed, and the specific charges have not been made public.
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Shelby County DA Steve Mulroy filed an emergency lawsuit today to block two new state laws targeting the county's criminal justice system. The fight now centers on who controls local prosecutions and court oversight in Shelby County.
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Gov. Bill Lee just turned Memphis schools over to a nine-member state board of Republican appointees. That means Shelby County’s largest district is entering a new power structure - and families need to know who will be held accountable when decisions land.
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Gov. Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act is now a live fight for Memphis families, not a talking point. The question for Shelby County is simple: who gets paid first when the state redirects education money?
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MSCS has put a $1.7 billion budget on the table for 2026-27, and the new state-appointed board is walking into the hardest question in city schools: what gets cut, what gets protected, and who owns the fallout?
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Memphis-Shelby County Schools has put forward a $1.7 billion budget for 2026-27 as a new state-appointed board prepares to take over. The proposal puts funding choices, staffing, and school stability back under a microscope.
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