On the 50-mile drive over to Brownsville, Marsha Thompson told us a story.

The 10 women honored with Luminary Award medals this year represent the diversity, racially and otherwise, that makes Memphis a cool place in which to live.

Over the past two centuries, presidents almost always have become more effective and less influential during their first two years in office. President Donald Trump has defied these patterns.

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris calls on the University of Memphis and Shelby County Schools to lead the way on higher minimum wages. 

Who exactly is driving the opaque process by which the Office of Planning and Development amends the UDC, and what does it mean for a city struggling to attract and retain people and businesses?

Historian Jimmy Ogle has an encyclopedic knowledge of Memphis – and he generously shares it with anyone he thinks might want to know. As he prepares to move closer to family, he's leaving us with what he calls his "bicentennial gift": a farewell storytelling series.

"Big Mo" – as in Momentum – is a nickname that just might stick. And as Mayor Jim Strickland makes his re-election bid, he would be wise to embrace it.

Legalizing sports betting could ultimately mean more buses, more drivers, more frequent service, more routes and more shelters for waiting passengers in Memphis and Shelby County.

Mike Lupfer wore many hats: University of Memphis professor, leader, world traveler – and most of all, friend.

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee reflects on the significance of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Mentors can have powerful and lasting positive effects on children, showing them what hope looks like before they turn to a life of violent crime.

Gov. Bill Haslam's highly-publicized and celebrated decision granting full clemency to Cyntoia Brown is indicative of how he has governed during his two terms: a compassionate conservative moved simply by the desire to do the right thing.

“In the entire history of girls’ high school basketball in Tennessee, no one had ever seen a uterus lying on a basketball court.”

CLAIMING OUR ISLAND. I said I’d start the year with a couple of ideas.

Ernest Withers aimed his camera through a bramble of twisting oak limbs, sharpening his focus on a home atop a small hill.

First, let me say I’m pretty much all for development, especially in the Memphis city core, but I think the massive Union Row project demonstrates an inequity in the development process that we need to examine. The beauty of this problem, however, is the solution would have a positive impact, helping create new small “infill” development across Memphis in neighborhoods that might otherwise be ignored.

Michael Nelson offers his take on sports betting in Tennessee; the Mississippi governor's race; and why Lamar Alexander and Marsha Blackburn face some interesting times in Washington.

After putting the kibosh on rumors about his political future, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen is making a rather bold prediction of his own.

Again and again, prior to the launch of The Daily Memphian, people would say to me, “You’ve got to have obituaries.”

Memphis has plans: Plans for development, redevelopment and revitalization, from Downtown to the neighborhoods surrounding the central city.

A steady flow of mostly positive economic news for Memphis and Shelby County – coupled with the solemn and tasteful commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination – was overshadowed at times by political bickering and grandstanding in 2018.

Whether in Memphis, Mississippi, Tennessee or Washington, politics in 2019 promises to be more interesting than usual in an odd-numbered year.

Memphis has plans: Plans for development, redevelopment and revitalization, from Downtown to the neighborhoods surrounding the central city.

Go figure: a Christmas week movie called “Vice.”

The statement contained a total of 102 words. But for a man who has served his state and country as long as Lamar Alexander has, it was remarkable for its brevity.