Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said a recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforcement operation at a Memphis nightclub could ultimately “expose a whole lot more,” raising questions about the establishment’s ownership, permits, and roughly $70,000 in federal Payment Protection Program (PPP) loans.
Read the full story
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday told The Tennessee Star that Marco Sabillon-Urbina, who was among the more than 120 arrests made on Sunday at the Memphis nightclub El Corralón, is a previously deported illegal alien who previously pleaded guilty to using a controlled substance while in possession of a firearm.
The confirmation from DHS came one day after the Memphis Permits Office told The Star that El Corralón, which also uses the name Marisqueria El Corral, had obtained neither a beer permit nor a dance permit from the City of Memphis.
Read the full story
A 32-year-old Mexican national residing in the U.S. illegally was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison after a Tennessee traffic stop uncovered marijuana, drug-trafficking equipment, cash, and a loaded pistol, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Read the full story
A Middle Tennessee city is considering implementing a temporary moratorium on new data center development.
On Monday, the Gallatin Municipal Planning Commission recommended the city council implement a 12-month moratorium on new data centers.
Read the full story
The City of Memphis is moving toward implementing a temporary moratorium on new data center development.
On Tuesday, the Memphis City Council passed an ordinance on first reading that would be in effect for 12 months.
Read the full story
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday announced that Clayton Bratcher, who was convicted of committing armed robberies in Memphis, was sentenced to 14-years in federal prison. Bratcher’s conviction by federal prosecutors followed the decision by Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy to enter into a plea agreement that dropped charges against the defendant.
The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee’s office said that Bratcher committed armed robberies at two McDonald’s locations, as well as a Taco Bell store, during late night hours between July 8-9 2023.
Read the full story
The Tunnel to Towers Foundation officially opened its new Memphis Veterans Village, providing housing and supportive services for up to 110 veterans and their families.
The grand opening ceremony occurred Friday morning, marking the completion of the foundation’s project to transform a former hotel on Riverdale Bend Road into permanent housing for homeless veterans.
Read the full story
After securing the Democratic Party’s nomination for the 9th Congressional District on Thursday, State Representative Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) named SpaceXAI owner Elon Musk in his Thursday victory speech. In a post to social media, Pearson said the victory came despite “attacks” from Musk and his company.
“Exactly 61 years from the signing of the Voting Rights Act, we won our primary despite a redistricting blow that cracked Memphis’s representation in Congress,” wrote Pearson in a post to X, including a portion of his victory speech.
Read the full story
Two Tennessee cities ranked among the 10 least safe large cities in the United States in a new study released Monday by financial technology company SmartAsset, with Memphis finishing last overall and Nashville also appearing near the bottom of the rankings.
Read the full story
Following the Shelby County Commission’s decision to borrow more than $100 million to meet its payroll expenses, State House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) questioned whether Memphis voters were “tired of being blue” in a social media post.
“This is what happens when liberals are in charge: higher taxes, more debt, and budgets so poorly managed they have to borrow money just to make payroll,” Sexton wrote in a post to social media.
Read the full story
State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis), who recently secured President Donald Trump’s endorsement in Tennessee’s Republican primary for the newly redrawn 9th Congressional District, reflected on his journey from small-town businessman to state lawmaker during an exclusive interview with The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy, arguing his experience in both business and government has prepared him to serve in Congress.
During the interview, which aired during Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Taylor recounted growing up in a small town where his father owned a retail lumberyard and hardware store before discovering a career in the funeral industry as a teenager.
Read the full story
A federal district judge on Wednesday handed down a 20-year sentence to Sanjeev Kumar, who operated a women’s health clinic in Memphis, Tennessee, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
U.S. District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman sentenced Kumar (pictured above) to 20 years in prison, plus two years of supervised release, about six months after the Memphis jury found him guilty of 18 counts of adulteration of medical devices, 16 counts of misbranding medical devices, and six counts of healthcare fraud.
Read the full story
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is investigating a fatal officer-involved shooting that occurred early Sunday morning in downtown Memphis involving Tennessee National Guard soldiers assigned to the Memphis Safe Task Force.
According to TBI, the shooting occurred at approximately 4 a.m. near the intersection of Ida B. Wells Avenue and Union Avenue. The Memphis Police Department (MPD) said its officers had responded at approximately 3:56 a.m. to reports of shots fired in the area of Ida B. Wells Avenue and Gayoso Avenue.
Read the full story
New figures presented by Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis during Tuesday’s Memphis City Council meeting show crime continues to trend downward across the city in 2026.
Read the full story
Shelby County General Sessions Clerk Tami Sawyer was suspended from her position on Wednesday, just days after the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee unsealed a federal grand jury indictment in a “significant” public corruption case that could land the Memphis Democrat behind bars for up to 20 years if she is convicted.
A court order first reported by NewsChannel 3 revealed that Sawyer was suspended from her office for 60 days by the General Sessions Court for Shelby County, effective on Wednesday, in accordance with Tennessee Code Annotated (TCA) 18-1-302.
Read the full story
U.S. Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN-09), State Rep. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis), the Tennessee Democratic Party, and several other voters and candidates moved to voluntarily dismiss their federal lawsuit seeking to halt the implementation of the state’s newly enacted congressional map and election law changes ahead of the 2026 election cycle.
Read the full story
Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies have arrested 24 individuals during a coordinated enforcement effort targeting criminal activity in and around federally subsidized housing in Memphis, the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) announced Monday.
The operation, known as Operation Clean House: Memphis, was conducted through a partnership between USMS, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General (HUD OIG), and the Memphis Safe Task Force.
Read the full story
Embattled Shelby Criminal County Clerk Wanda Halbert last week filed a lawsuit against the Shelby County Election Commission over her narrow primary election loss to State Representative Joe Towns (D-Memphis), with just 126 votes deciding the election.
In her lawsuit, Halbert claims that about 1,700 absentee ballots cast during the May 5 election are “unprocessed, unresolved, uncounted, or otherwise not reflected in the certified election totals.”
Read the full story
Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy on Tuesday filed a lawsuit seeking to block new accountability laws, passed this year by the Tennessee General Assembly and recently signed by Governor Bill Lee, arguing his office is being unfairly targeted.
The lawsuit lays partial blame on top members of the Trump administration, who it claims instructed state lawmakers to “deal with” Mulroy.
Read the full story
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its Tennessee chapter filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a coalition of voters and Memphis-based organizations on Monday challenging Tennessee’s newly enacted congressional redistricting plan, alleging that Republican lawmakers intentionally dismantled the state’s only “black-majority” congressional district in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, the lawsuit accuses the “all-white supermajority” in the Tennessee General Assembly of unlawfully “cracking” Memphis into three separate congressional districts in order to “dilute” the black “voting power” and eliminate black voters’ ability to elect a candidate of their choice to Congress.
Read the full story
Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) said in an exclusive interview Friday that Democratic lawmakers who were involved in disruptions during the congressional redistricting vote “will face the consequences” as House leadership continues investigating the events surrounding the special session.
Read the full story
The Democratic state lawmaker calling for Memphis to secede from the State of Tennessee over the new congressional districts signed into law by Governor Bill Lee previously drew controversy in 2024, when he questioned whether the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump was “staged.”
The call by State Representative Antonio Parkinson (D-Memphis) for the city to secede was first highlighted by a reporter for The Tennessean, and the Democrat later wrote in a post to X, “SECESSION NOW! Enough is enough!”
Read the full story
State Representative Rusty Grills (R-Newbern) strongly defended Tennessee’s newly passed congressional map during an exclusive interview Friday morning, describing the day prior’s protests inside the Tennessee Capitol during proceedings as “mob rule” and accusing Democratic lawmakers and activists of deliberately disrupting legislative business.
On Thursday, the Tennessee General Assembly approved legislation creating a new congressional map that, among other changes, divides the City of Memphis among three congressional districts.
Read the full story
A Tennessee state Democrat is calling for the City of Memphis to secede from Tennessee after the state passed a new congressional map.
The Tennessee General Assembly approved a new map that turns the state’s 9th Congressional District into a district where Republicans are now favored. Previously, the district had been the state’s only majority-black district and a Democratic stronghold.
Read the full story
Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the Claude, announced Wednesday it has signed an agreement to use the full compute capacity of the Colossus 1 supercomputer facility in Memphis.
Read the full story
Shelby County Commissioner Mickell Lowery won the Democratic primary for Shelby County Mayor.
According to unofficial election results, Lowery defeated seven other candidates in the primary, earning 32.03 percent of the vote. Memphis City Council Member JB Smiley, Jr. came in second with 23.80 percent of the vote.
Read the full story
Tennessee Republicans on Wednesday released a proposed new congressional map that would divide Memphis into three districts, reshaping the state’s only Democratic-held seat.
Read the full story
State Representative Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) criticized Tennessee’s efforts to redraw its congressional map.
The Supreme Court ruled in the case of Louisiana v. Callais that the Voting Rights Act does not mandate states to create extra majority-minority congressional districts.
Read the full story
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee ordered state lawmakers to convene next week for a special legislative session to formally review the state’s congressional map in the wake of a high-stakes ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court opening the door for states to redraw racial gerrymandered districts.
In the case of Louisiana v. Callais, the Court ruled Wednesday that Louisiana’s revised congressional map, which was designed to create a second majority-black district, constituted an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
Read the full story
President Donald Trump announced in a Thursday post to his social media website, Truth Social, that Governor Bill Lee confirmed he will work to redraw Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District after the U.S. Supreme Court decision that narrowed how the Voting Rights Act can be applied when drawing congressional districts.
“I had a very good conversation with Governor Bill Lee, of Tennessee, this morning, wherein he stated that he would work hard to correct the unconstitutional flaw in the Congressional Maps of the Great State of Tennessee,” wrote Trump.
Read the full story
U.S. Attorney Michael Dunavant on Friday confirmed prosecutors will review the reports submitted to his office by Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, in compliance with the recently passed Memphis Safe Task Force Accountability Act, to determine whether to bring federal charges against alleged offenders.
Dunavant confirmed his office will review the cases during his Friday appearance on WKNO’s Behind the Headlines, when he said it is “entirely the point” of Tennessee’s legislation, which will require Mulroy’s office to notify the Tennessee Attorney General, speakers of the State House and State Senate, and District Attorneys General Conference, in addition to the federal prosecutor’s office, any time the county enters into a plea agreement, reduces or drops charges, or declines to prosecute a case generated by the task force.
Read the full story
After lawmakers passed the Memphis Safe Task Force Accountability Act, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy described the bill’s requirement for his office to explain decisions to dismiss, modify, or enter into plea agreements for charges brought as a result of the task force as “busy work” during an April 17 interview.
Mulroy shared the interview with the public on Friday, writing in a newsletter that his remarks, “addressed how narratives not rooted in data—or taken out of context—can shift focus away from the core work of reviewing cases, supporting victims, and making decisions based on facts and the law.”
Read the full story
The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy and Lead Reporter Tom Pappert praised Tennessee State Senator Brent Taylor’s (R-Memphis) latest push to advance state intervention in Memphis-Shelby County Schools, highlighting both his legislative efforts and strategic use of social media to build public support.
Read the full story
Elon Musk’s xAI said on Wednesday that it remains committed to building a water recycling plant in Memphis, which the company originally announced last year, but said that it was presently focused on “more immediate projects” related to its Colossus supercomputers, which power artificial intelligence (AI) products including Grok.
The company wrote in a post to X, “xAI is committed to building a state-of-the-art water recycling plant in Memphis,” which they said would eventually, “protect billions of gallons of water each year,” before confirming that it was not at the top of its priority list.
Read the full story
The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) announced last month it selected Cavnue, LLC as its private-sector partner for a major smart freight initiative along Interstate 40, which the department said marks a significant step toward modernizing one of the state’s busiest transportation corridors.
TDOT said the Memphis/West Tennessee Smart Freight Corridor Pilot will focus on improving safety, easing congestion, and advancing freight technology between Memphis and Blue Oval City by testing Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) technologies in real-world conditions.
Read the full story
The Knoxville Police Department (KPD) on Thursday shared that zero murders were reported during the first three months of 2026, a record previously set in 1988, as crime rates fall across Tennessee and the United States under the Trump administration.
Explaining the city typically sees five murders between January and March, the police department announced on Thursday, “From January 1 through March 31, 2026, there were no murders in Knoxville, down from four at the same time in 2025.”
Read the full story
Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said the Memphis police officers placed on administrative leave after arresting protesters at Saturday’s “No Kings” rally will likely be cleared of wrongdoing.
Read the full story
The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) on Monday selected a “Smart Roads” company to test Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) technology in a pilot program and to create a “smart freight corridor” on I-40 in West Tennessee.
TDOT announced that it has partnered with Canvue, LLC, to complete a two-year pilot program aimed at reducing congestion, improving safety, and utilizing emerging freight technology in the Volunteer State.
Read the full story
The Tennessee State Senate last Thursday passed Senate Bill (SB) 712 by State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis), which, as amended, would prohibit school districts from using public funds to sue the state, any of its agencies, or a public official, in order to, “challenge a school or district accountability measure,” established as part of Tennessee’s education laws.
After the amendment to SB 712, which prohibits schools from using taxpayer dollars to launch lawsuits against the state, was added, the bill passed in a 26-6 vote. It will now be considered by the State House, where the Education Committee is expected to review its version of the legislation on Tuesday.
Read the full story
President Donald Trump visited Memphis on Monday, where he participated in a roundtable discussion with local, state, and federal leaders, highlighting what he described as dramatic progress in reducing violent crime through the Memphis Safe Task Force.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and Attorney General Pam Bondi were among those who joined Trump at the event, held at the Tennessee Air National Guard Armory near the Memphis airport.
Read the full story
Jeff Webb, the Tennessee entrepreneur widely credited with transforming competitive cheerleading into a global industry and a prominent conservative media figure, has died at the age of 76 following injuries sustained in an accident.
Read the full story
President Donald Trump will visit Memphis on Monday to highlight the city’s turnaround with regard to crime under the Memphis Safe Task Force, his regional press secretary announced this week.
Read the full story
After the petition returned by Tennessee State Representative G.A. Hardaway (D-Memphis) for his 2026 reelection campaign was determined to have included an insufficient number of signatures, a spokesman reportedly confirmed the 10-term lawmaker intends to challenge the decision, or else begin a write-in campaign in order to keep his seat.
Following the March 10 deadline, the Commercial Appeal reported on Thursday that Hardaway was one valid signature short, leaving no candidates qualified for the District 93 race. The outlet reported that Hardaway would need to launch a write-in campaign for the Democratic Party’s nomination by June 16, or if he decides against running in the party’s primary, to declare his write-in candidacy for the general election by September 14.
Read the full story
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) issued a permit to Elon Musk’s xAI company this week to build a power plant in Southaven.
Southaven, about 15 minutes from Memphis, will help power the Colossus 2 data center, which helps operate Grok.
Read the full story
U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) are demanding answers from Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy after he acknowledged that an unknown number of violent criminal defendants were released back into the community without serving jail time in December 2025.
Read the full story
The Memphis Safe Task Force (MSTF) arrested 48 people last Thursday, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, who reported the arrests in a Friday press release.
The Marshals highlighted three of those arrested, including Allishon Torres, 18, who was charged with first-degree murder, and allegedly found in possession of a handgun with defaced serial numbers.
Read the full story
Tennessee State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) detailed how his focused push to reduce crime and overhaul public education is producing measurable progress in Memphis and advancing his pledge to “make Memphis matter.”
Read the full story
John DeBerry, a longtime Democratic state representative in Tennessee who served Memphis’ House District 90 for about 26 years, plans to enter the race for Shelby County mayor as a Republican, according to reports.
Read the full story
Clint Brewer, Founder and Managing Partner of PR Firm Imperium Public Strategies, said renewed calls for a state takeover of Memphis-Shelby County Schools are rooted in long-standing mismanagement, arguing that audit findings show a system that has failed both teachers and students.
Read the full story
Nearly every Tennessee county has an unemployment rate under 5 percent.
Ninety-one counties in Tennessee had a jobless rate under 5 percent in December 2025.
Read the full story