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Who will win the special Mayoral election today? King Willie Herenton is out after a 17 year reign and the candidates have all made their case to take his place. Who will it be? A C Wharton (who ran two of Willie Herenton's campaigns and seems to dodge questions posed during debates, Carol Chumney, Mayor Pro tem Myron Lowrey, Charles Carpenter, Jerry "The King" Lawler or one of the other 25 on the ballot?

The gay and lesbian community is calling for an investigation into a billboard that was destroyed. The billboard is just one of 5 put up for National Coming Out Day and features a gay Marine. The billboards were paid for by the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center. "We had the idea to celebrate National Coming Out Day which is October 11th. It's a time that around the nation people say I'm proud to be gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender," said Heidi Williams, Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center. The MGLCC wanted to get Memphis' attention but they didn't expect...

MEMPHIS — A Congressional race in Tennessee has become freighted with racial overtones almost a year before the election, with a prominent black politician saying the white incumbent cannot properly represent black voters. The black candidate, former Mayor Willie W. Herenton of Memphis, has argued that Tennessee needs a black voice in its currently all-white delegation. He is running a blistering campaign against Representative Steve Cohen, a fellow Democrat with a precarious hold on the majority black district. “To know Steve Cohen is to know that he really does not think very much of African-Americans,” Mr. Herenton said in a...

Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of drastic "shrink to survive" proposals being considered by the Obama administration to tackle economic decline... Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country. Mr Kildee said he will concentrate on 50 cities, identified in a recent study by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, as potentially needing to shrink substantially to cope with their...

Woo hoo!! The Tea Party Express has a busy schedule today: 11:00 AM – Rally in Dallas, TX – Cape Buffalo Grille, 17717 Addison Rd, Dallas, TX 75287 2:45 PM – The Whistle Stop – Mile Marker 143; 1 hour and 45 minutes east of Dallas, TX; 170 miles east on Interstate 30; 4 miles west of Mt. Vernon, Franklin County, TX 6:00 PM – Rally in Little Rock, AR – State Capitol (North Grounds Near Liberty Bell) Woodlane & Capitol Ave, Little Rock, AR 72201 10:00 PM – Rally in Memphis, TN – Draper’s Catering (Parking Lot) 6116 Macon...

Hundreds of people crowded into the BRIDGES building in Downtown Memphis on Saturday for a congressional town hall meeting that quickly deviated into a raucous shouting free-for-all, requiring extra law enforcement officers to watch over the scene. The meeting, hosted by U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, was scheduled to address constituents' concerns about Social Security and veterans' benefits, but the real topic of the day was health care reform legislation being crafted by Congress. Most people in the crowd of close to 500 were in loud opposition, although Cohen supporters held their own, waving signs that read "Health Care Now."...

Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton is still leaving office next week, but not without taking some powerful shots at his critics. Wearing a “Herenton 2010” shirt and blue jeans, the mayor said this morning that his critics on the City Council and Shelby County Election Commission - who he feels are trying to push him out of office - are “perverted” and racist. “I’ve never seen this type of insanity,” said Herenton. “It’s a perversion. It’s perverted behavior. It’s racism. It’s small time thinking. It’s all of that.” Despite Herenton’s wishes, the City Council on Tuesday finalized approval of a resolution...

The Second Amendment refers to the right of citizens to keep and bear arms as part of a “well regulated Militia”. As gun dealer Cliff Hunter pointed out to me today, the Bill of Rights doesn’t mention the use of guns for self defence. But it’s surely hard for anyone not to cheer when they hear the tale of a legally armed American taking out two armed robbers. That’s what happened here in Memphis on Wednesday afternoon when a travelling jewellery salesman (sounds like a hazardous occupation to me), with a legal concealed carry permit from Alabama, was approached by...

Commercial Real Estate Takes a Beating Tuesday, June 30, 2009, Vol. 124, No. 126 ERIC SMITH | The Daily News SILVER LINING: The Wesley Highland Manor senior nursing facility at 3549 Norriswood Ave. near the University of Memphis sold for $7.3 million in May and was by far the top commercial deal for the month. -- PHOTO BY ERIC SMITH Commercial real estate suffered a sharp decline in May, with sales falling dramatically from the same month a year ago and the previous month. Shelby County saw just 35 commercial sales in May, marking a 49 percent dropoff from 69...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - Steve Cohen, a two-term white congressman from a mostly black House district, faces a bruising Democratic primary next year and race again will likely be at the center of the campaign. Willie Herenton, the first elected black mayor of Memphis, recently filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for Cohen's 9th District House seat. Cohen has shrugged off black challengers before, but none with the political savvy and combative style of the 6-foot-6 mayor—a former Golden Gloves boxer who doesn't shrink easily from a fight. -snip-

Shooter identified himself as a muslim, Mr. Abdul Mohammad, formerly Mr. Bledsoe. previously of Memphis and Nashville. Recently converted to Islam while in Prison.Breaking live on LRPD press conference.

In March 2008, Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with eight felonies, including perjury and obstruction of justice. In August, he violated his bail agreement and was thrown in jail. His actions were deplorable for anybody, but Kilpatrick was no Average Joe--he was the mayor of Detroit. Unfortunately for the Motor City, Kilpatrick, 38, is just one ripple in the area's sea of crime. Detroit is the worst offender on our list of America's most dangerous cities, thanks to a staggering rate of 1,220 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people. "Detroit has, historically, been one of the more violent cities in the...

Instead of arresting the women on prostitution charges, four officers or former officers are accused of kidnapping and raping them. In announcing the indictments by a Shelby County grand jury on Monday, Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin stated that corrupt officers "are no different from any other thugs," and vowed to go after any crooked cops. Three of the officers have resigned. Charges include aggravated kidnapping, aggravated rape, official misconduct, official oppression, sexual battery by an authority figure, official misconduct and official oppression. Three were assigned to the Mt. Moriah Station in East Memphis and one was part of the...

CNN interviews Life magazine photographer who had exclusive access to Martin Luther King, Jr April 4th, 1968 in Memphis. See all photos at Life.com. On April 4, 1968, LIFE photographer Henry Groskinsky and writer Mike Silva, on assignment in Alabama, learned that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. They raced to the scene and there, incredibly, had unfettered access to the hotel grounds, Dr. King's room, and the surrounding area. For reasons that have been lost in the intervening years, the photographs taken that night and the next day were never published....

Here is a report on photos taken in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that are just now being published. A Life Magazine photographer rushed to the scene on April 4, 1968 after King was shot and killed at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The report shows several of the photos he took at the motel after King was killed. . . . . . . (Watch Video Report)

On April 4, 1968, LIFE photographer Henry Groskinsky and writer Mike Silva, on assignment in Alabama, learned that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. They raced to the scene and there, incredibly, had unfettered access to the hotel grounds, Dr. King's room, and the surrounding area. For reasons that have been lost in the intervening years, the photographs taken that night and the next day were never published. Until now.

Here is video from yesterday of John Calipari being named the new Men's Basketball Coach at the University of Kentucky . . . . . . (Watch Video)

Memphis coach John Calipari appears to be very close to completing an agreement to become the next coach at the University of Kentucky, according to four sources with knowledge of the situation, reports SI.com's Seth Davis. While one source says it is a "done deal", the second cautioned that the deal was not completed but is "moving in that direction." A press conference could be held at the school as early as tomorrow.

Here are highlights from the Missouri Tigers 102-91 victory over the Memphis Tigers last night, advancing Missouri into the Elite Eight of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Missouri shocked Memphis with tenacious defense and by putting on an offensive clinic as they rolled over a Memphis defense which had only given up an average of 57 points per game. But many of those games were not against the caliber of team they faced in Missouri. Missouri will face Connecticut tomorrow as they try and win the school's first ever trip to the Final Four. . . . . (Watch Video...

The Hijacking Of A Cause Filed under: BCR, Tea Party — BCR at 11:47 pm on Saturday, March 21, 2009 A few weeks ago, a wonderful grassroots movement began when regular citizens began to band together to form local tea party protests. It was government activism in its truest form, and I for one had great hopes for true reform from the grassroots level. When the call went out for a national tea party in July in Chicago, I was excited and launched a website devoted to the cause locally. I started getting emails from folks excited and wanting to...

CA's latest swipe at the right to carry.

Unsettled closure: Judge scolds jury on reduced verdict for Jeffrey Scott; victim's family not satisfiedSecond-degree murder conviction, 25-year sentence draw emotional reactionsIt was a case that can -- and did -- make a grown man cry. Jimmy Wayne Pittman wanted a life sentence for Jeffrey Scott, the man who beat to death the daughter he adopted as a small child in Bossier City, La. "This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me, physically and mentally," said Pittman as tears rolled down his cheeks and into his white beard. "This is always going to be hard. I loved...

At the bottom of this page along with Tennessee Felony Convictions and Hate Crimes, the Memphis Commercial Appeal list address and personal information of Holders of Handgun Permits in the Volunteer State. http://www.commercialappeal.com/data/

A man who police say pretends to be a Downtown parking attendant as he dupes visitors out of their money has been charged with criminal impersonation. Officers responded to a complaint Sunday just before 8 p.m. that Anthony Merriweather, 50, had stationed himself at a parking lot at Peabody Place and Rufus Thomas and was charging people $5 to park. When police arrived, Merriweather began walking away, but a victim came forward and told them he’d been conned out of $5 by the parking-lot poser. Merriweather has been run off numerous times, and also arrested, according to a police affidavit,...

West Memphis, AR - Police are on the scene of a car explosion in West Memphis, AR. It happened this morning near Avalon and Cooper. We're told a prominent doctor got into his car when it exploded. He was airlifted to The MED for treatment in extreme critical condition.

Barack Obama loves Chicago music, and it shows: In his speeches, he echoes the ideals — hope, tolerance, determination — heard in the songs of such local greats as Sam Cooke, the Staple Singers and Curtis Mayfield President-elect Barack Obama paid homage to Chicago soul in his Grant Park acceptance speech. He riffed on Wendell Phillips High graduate Sam Cooke by saying, “It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, at this defining moment, change has come to America.” This clearly expands on Cooke’s 1963 hit “A Change Is Gonna Come.” But...

City Council members on Tuesday approved a resolution authorizing the city to file suit against national lenders who they say created a foreclosure crisis in Memphis and Shelby County that disproportionately affected African-Americans. The resolution alleges lenders engaged in "deceptive" and "discriminatory" lending practices targeted at the black community and "other select groups" that caused "substantial" and "irreparable" harm to neighborhoods and the governments. The Shelby County Commission recently approved a similar resolution, claiming the foreclosure epidemic has devastated neighborhoods, slashed property values, eroded the tax base and drained local government coffers because of a host of direct and indirect...

Connie Mathews has been fired from her job at the Memphis Public Library, city officials said today. Mathews, mother of two children by former state senator John Ford, falsified information on her application, according to an official statement from city spokesman Toni Holmon-Turner. “It has come to the attention of the City of Memphis administration that Ms. Connie Mathews falsified information contained in her employment application for the Memphis Public Library. Therefore, Ms. Mathews’ employment with the City of Memphis will cease immediately.” Mathews was hired as an assistant library cataloger at the Memphis Public Library and Information Center. She...

The girlfriend of former State Senator and convicted felon John Ford is working for the city. Connie Mathews, who has two children by Ford, is an assistant library cataloger at the Memphis Public Library and Information Center. Mathews, who began her job Nov. 10, works at the Central Library on Poplar and has an annual salary of $28,580. Mathews, who has a background in banking and finance, is known locally for her run-ins with Ford’s ex-wife, Tamara Mitchell Ford. In 2001, Mitchell-Ford drove her silver Jaguar into the Collierville home Mathews shared with Ford. Ford was the marquee defendant in...

From her perch on a downtown planter, Martha Murphy Rhodes recently opened up during an interview with Action News 5. Rhodes, who has lived on the streets for nearly 10 years, said she's seen and heard a lot - including a lot of bad language. "Everything," she said, "and I'm not a cusser, so I don't speak such words." Those who do may find themselves off the streets and behind bars. Willie Norfleet - recently sited for aggressive panhandling, public intoxication, an open container violation, and fighting - is the poster child for the new crack-down on bad behavior in...

Homicide won't derail planned lawsuit, attorney says --The shooting death of a transgendered woman won't stop a planned lawsuit over her February beating at the hands of police, one of her attorneys said Monday. Duanna Johnson, 43, was shot in the head at Hollywood and Staten in North Memphis late Sunday. She died at the scene. Although the Memphis Police Department identified the victim as Dwayne Johnson, attorney Murray Wells said the victim was the person he knew as Duanna. "I have what I consider to be extremely reliable information that it's her," he said. Johnson was beaten in February...

State told to take care of legal fees from suit NASHVILLE -- A federal judge in Memphis has ordered the state to pay $117,263 in attorneys fees to the lawyers who represented state Sen. Ophelia Ford when the Senate voided her 2005 special election. That was $12,575 less than the attorneys sought. U.S. Dist. Judge Bernice Donald ordered the reduction on the grounds the state was not responsible for costs incurred by Ford in the early days of the proceeding, before the state Senate began its own proceedings to vacate the election. Prior to that, Ford was fighting an effort...

Excerpt - NASHVILLE — Former Tennessee state Sen. John Ford has been sentenced to 14 years in prison on federal charges of wire fraud and failing to report more than $800,000 in payments from state contractors. ~ snip ~

A new generation of shakedown artists hampers America’s urban revival.___ Barbara Bradley, an editor with the Memphis Commercial Appeal, moved into the River City’s reviving downtown about a year and a half ago, loving its “energy and enthusiasm.” But a horde of invading panhandlers has cooled her enjoyment of city life. Earlier this year, she recalled in a recent column, as she showed some visitors around the neighborhood, “a big panhandler blocked the entrance to our parking area and demanded his toll.” Now a nervous Bradley avoids certain downtown areas, locks her car when fueling up at local gas stations,...

NASHVILLE -- State Sen. Ophelia Ford -- already a YouTube star for her snarling "what you're saying ain't hittin' on nothin' with me" speech last year -- was back at it last week, berating regulators about new state fees on the funeral industry. Acknowledging that she's a licensed funeral director, Ford complained in a legislative hearing Aug. 13 that fees are going to "eat us up and put us out of business." She demanded regulators disclose who imposed a new $150 biannual registration fee on preneed funeral sales agents and what it's for. Turns out that Ford and her legislative...

As fans from all over the world converge on Memphis, Tennessee to celebrate "Elvis Week" it's a good time to remember and reflect. Photo of Graceland at Twilight taken by Aleksandra Rebic August 2007 I first went inside when they had just opened the house on the hill in Memphis. It was the summer of 1982. What had once been just a man and his talent had long since been elevated to legend, and legend had become a full-blown phenomenon. I never met him, never knew him, but there we were, my family and I, going to his house, not...

A racially charged Democratic primary campaign ended Thursday with an incumbent congressman trouncing the opponent who ran an ad linking him to the Ku Klux Klan. Early, unofficial results showed Democrat Steve Cohen with 79 percent of the vote to 19 percent for Nikki Tinker, a black corporate lawyer who was his chief opponent in the district that covers Memphis.

When polls opened at 7 a.m. in precincts throughout Shelby County, coverage of the State and Federal Primary and County General Election had extended to national newspapers and websites closely following Greater Memphis's two contested Congressional elections. Much of the coverage focused on the 9th Congressional District Democratic Primary, where incumbent Steve Cohen was in a rematch of sorts with corporate lawyer Nikki Tinker in a heated campaign that pushed to a boil in the hours before polls opened. State Rep. Joe Towns Jr. is also on the ballot, as are two others. The New York Times ran a 700-word...

The staff of Congressman Steve Cohen called police to his home today after an argument with an Armenian-American activist in town from California ended with Cohen physically pushing him out the side door. Peter Musurlian, a documentary producer for Globalist Films in Glendale, Calif., followed a reporter from The Commercial Appeal into Cohen’s Overton Park home, where the Congressman had invited local media to respond to a commercial from Nikki Tinker, his 9th Congressional District opponent in Thursday’s Democratic Primary, that Cohen called “more mudslinging.” When members of Cohen’s staff realized who the cameraman was – Cohen said Musurlian followed...

A suspect in a car break-in was socked in the face and held for police after the car’s owner and a neighbor interrupted his work. Walter Elliott, 41, is being held in the Shelby County Jail on $25,000 bond. According to a police affidavit, a neighbor called Rubin Whittaker of the 1300 block of Hemlock at 5 a.m. Tuesday and told him somebody was rummaging through his van. Whittaker and another neighbor, Anthony Williams, went to the van and told the man to get out. The suspect began to run, but the escape attempt was aborted when he was struck...

Former Shelby County Commissioner Walter Bailey said Monday that the Nikki Tinker ad featuring pictures of a Ku Klux Klan rally and denunciations of incumbent Congressman Steve Cohen's vote not to remove the statue and remains of Nathan Bedford Forrest from a Memphis park "has nothing to do with race." Asked if injecting the incendiary television images into Thursday's 9th Congressional District Democratic Primary contest would be seen as racially divisive, Bailey said: "That may be an ancillary side of it, but that's not the main focus, and it's not the intended focus." Cohen's campaign pushed back vigorously on the...

In his two most recent campaign commercials, 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen spends valuable seconds of airtime explaining a most mundane electoral process. "You need to ask for a Democratic ballot on Thursday to vote for me," he says in the latest, created especially to run on Comedy Central's satirical late-night show, "The Colbert Report." He said the same thing in another spot, "Greatest Honor," and Memphis radio listeners have heard Cohen provide instructions in even greater detail. In his attempt to run up votes in the Democratic primary contest against Nikki Tinker, Joe Towns Jr. and two other candidates,...

While first-term U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen was on the floor of the House on Tuesday, guiding passage of a historic resolution apologizing to African-American citizens for slavery and Jim Crow laws, his most prominent and well-funded Democratic primary opponent was out in the Memphis heat trying to win voters. Nikki Tinker likes to wear a baseball cap and athletic shoes to go with a skirt, giving her the look of a woman hard at work, and she would often show voters the tan line on her arms as evidence of it. She said she worked outside at the early-voting sites...

Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin and the city of Memphis have filed a lawsuit to learn who operates a blog harshly critical of Godwin and his department. The lawsuit asks AOL to produce all information related to the identity of an e-mail address linked to MPD Enforcer 2.0, a blog popular with police officers that has been extremely critical of police leadership at 201 Poplar. "In what could be a landmark case of privacy and the 1st Amendment," the anonymous bloggers write on the site, "Godwin has illegally used his position and the City of Memphis as a ram to...

NASHVILLE -- A federal court jury convicted former state senator John Ford of all six charges in connection with his $850,000 in consulting work for two major TennCare contractors. Ford, 66, is already serving a 5 1/2 year sentence for a separate conviction on federal bribery charges in Memphis. He faces up to 20 years in the Nashville case but sentencing will not occur for several weeks, possibly months. The middle Tennessee jury deliberated a total of eight hours -- six on Thursday -- before returning to the courtroom where it sat since the trial began on July 1. The...

It didn't take long for Sunday night's Congressional debate to turn to race. In a televised debate on WREG-TV Channel 3, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen and challengers Nikki Tinker and Joe Towns Jr. began by telling viewers why each should be elected to represent Tennessee's Ninth Congressional District. But minutes into the debate, the conversation turned to race, a theme that has been a near-constant in this campaign. Some believe the incumbent Cohen isn't qualified to represent the majority black district because he's white; Tinker and Towns are black. For others, what matters is merit, not pigment. "I have never...

Tenn. won't reinstate Ophelia Ford's expired funeral permit

NASHVILLE -- Then-state senator John Ford filed state-required financial interest disclosure forms yearly for 2001 through 2004 without listing any consulting work or income -- and then sought to amend them in 2005 after media reports began surfacing about his consulting income and a formal ethics complaint had been lodged against him, according to testimony today in his federal court trial here. Earlier testimony has indicated that the consulting firm in which Ford was a 40 percent partner received about $1.2 million from a TennCare dental services provider during that time. But under questioning by prosecutors, Senate Chief Clerk Russell...

The U.S. Attorney’s Office this afternoon announced that it is dismissing bribery and extortion charges against former Memphis city councilman Edmund Ford Sr. and Joseph Lee, former head of Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division. “The Government has re-evaluated the case and stated to the Court that a dismissal is warranted in the interest of justice,” the one-paragraph statement said.