Heeding a call from President Trump to give Republicans more seats in Congress, Tennessee’s GOP-led statehouse voted to carve Memphis into three reliably red districts.
Democrats and protesters have criticized the redistricting plan, which struck down state law against mid-decade redistricting and did in three days what usually takes months.
Republicans say the new maps will represent the state’s GOP majority by sending all Republicans to the U.S. House.
Democrats in both chambers staged walkouts as the measure passed. Three protesters from Memphis were arrested for refusing to clear the House gallery, including the brother of Rep. Justin J. Pearson, D-Memphis, who had been running for congress in Memphis’s former 9th Congressional District.
Follow for more from reporter Marianna Bacallao and tap link in the bio for the full story.
Photos: Marianna Bacallao / WPLN, George Walker IV / AP
What would it take to bury electrical lines in Nashville?
When Winter Storm Fern devastated Nashville this year, it left hundreds of thousands of Nashvillians without power in frigid temperatures. And many people turned to Curious Nashville with some form of the question about burying our lines.
Curious Nashville reached out to a utility expert who could help answer this question. Wade Sexton, a Knoxville-based member of the National Utility Contractor’s Association told WPLN that retrofitting an entire city with underground lines would require two main things: total buy-in from customers and a LOT of money. Like double digit billions of dollars kind of money.
Tap link in the bio for the full story or listen to Curious Nashville wherever you get your podcasts.
Photos: John Amis / AP Photo, George Walker IV AP Photo
With outdoor concert season here, bikers and pedestrians passing by Ascend Amphitheater may notice an improvement to solve an annoying issue that had persisted for years.
The problem? There was no way through the park during shows.
Since part of the downtown greenway is technically on the grounds of Ascend, you’d need a ticket to be there. LiveNation, which ran the amphitheater for the past ten years, simply closed that section of the park during events, so pedestrians and bikers had to go all the way around.
Opry Entertainment Group promised to do something about that when they won the bid to run the Amphitheater for the next decade. The organization spent $1 million building a new wooden bridge over the land, and it will be open during concerts. If you’re thinking that sounds like a great spot to see a show for free, you’re not wrong, but you will be stopped. Metro owns the land and leases it to Opry, so officers will be patrolling during shows.
Tap link in bio for full story, and follow along for more from Justin Barney, Music and Culture Reporter.
Photos/video: Justin Barney WPLN, press release photos from Opry Entertainment group
In a newly proposed map, Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, which has historically represented Memphis in the U.S. House, would now stretch from the bottom of the city to the edge of Nashville — a distance spanning nearly 300 miles.
Since a recent U.S. Supreme Court weakened a section of the Voting Rights Act, President Donald Trump has called on states to redistrict areas they previously couldn’t touch.
The Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators decried the court’s decision. “There`s no way to sugarcoat eliminating a district that is 61% Black,” said Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis. “You are deliberately trying to silence the voices of a community.”
In unveiling the new maps, Republican leadership said the move will “modernize” Tennessee’s redistricting process by taking racial data out of consideration. The GOP has rejected calls to involve public feedback in the process.
Follow for more from reporter Marianna Bacallao and tap link in the bio for ongoing coverage of this special session.
Map: Tennessee General Assembly
Hundreds of protesters gathered at Tennessee’s capitol Tuesday as lawmakers began a special session to consider splitting Memphis’s Democratic stronghold into reliably red districts.
Tennessee’s Republican supermajority is heeding a call from President Donald Trump to give the GOP more seats in Congress. Republican Gov. Bill Lee, initially hesitant about the timeline of new maps, called the special session after a phone call with Trump.
Lawmakers will likely only have three days to redistrict, a process that usually takes months.
So far, Republicans have struck down Democratic proposals to give the public more feedback in the redistricting process. In a House committee Tuesday morning, GOP leadership quashed efforts to hold public feedback meetings or to release the proposed maps publicly 72 hours before a final vote. The House Ad Hoc Committee also voted to ban disruptive observers from the entirety of the special session.
Follow for more from reporter Marianna Bacallao. Tap link in the bio for ongoing coverage of this special session.
Photos: Marianna Bacallao / WPLN
“Haters are gonna say that that bull is AI, but it is definitely not.”
Kacey Musgraves is a true auteur who not only co-writes and co-produces all of her music, but also shapes an entire visual world around it.
Kacey goes to great lengths to pursue her vision, including a guerilla-style photo shoot which included releasing a bull in the streets of Dallas with her photographer sister. This clip is from an interview by Senior Music Writer Jewly Hight.
Kacey Musgraves is a WNXP May Artist of the Month and an NPR New Music Friday release last week.
Follow along for more from Jewly Hight and tap link in the bio for more stories.
Ever wonder what happens to paychecks, bank accounts, refunds that get lost? Or never delivered to the owner? In Tennessee, it likely turned over to the state Treasury Department Unclaimed Property Division.
Currently, the department has millions of dollars of unclaimed property ranging from money to military medals. So they’re on the road this summer to try and reunite residents with their abandoned or unclaimed money at fairs and festivals.
“The first thing people would say is: `I`m not missing any land,` Shelli King says. She is the director of communication at the Tennessee Department of Treasury. “So we always have to explain to them it is not land. In this instance, property is something that belongs to you, and its predominantly money.”
Over the past year, the division received over 168,000 claims and returned $125 million to the owners, ranging from just a few bucks to thousands of dollars in unclaimed money. Sometimes, the claims are for property like military medals or safe deposit boxes.
“Sometimes they don`t have anything. Sometimes, we`ve had people with a couple thousand dollars they didn`t know they had,” King said.
The Unclaimed Property booth will appear festivals until December, with the hopes that residents can claim what’s rightfully theirs.
Follow along for more and tap link in bio to sign up for the NashVillager newsletter — local and national coverage delivered to your inbox 5 days a week.
Country music used to have a sense of humor.
The fact that the Country Music Association gave southern standup Leanne Morgan a prime spot on its awards show last year might suggest that country music is ready to prioritize punchlines again.
There are three artists — Shane McAnally, Danae Hays and Pooja Reddy — who I`ve gotten to see in action. These performers share the impulse that’s inspired country comedy over generations: brushing off condescension toward country culture and celebrating its eccentricities. They’re also helping broaden its perspectives.
Tap link in bio and head to YouTube or our site for the full episode of Key Changes. Follow along for more from our Senior Music Writer, Jewly Hight.
Photos: Wikipedia, Hee Haw, Wikipedia, Jewly Hight
Curious Nashville Returns!
Back by popular demand, the WPLN fan favorite series Curious Nashville is here to investigate oddities, share local history, tell stories of interesting people, and explain how local institutions operate.
You ask the questions, and we answer.
More Headlines
Southern Baptist Convention continues membership slide but grows in attendance, baptisms
NAACP goes to court over Tennessee redistricting
Democrats walk out of redistricting hearing; protesters arrested
Tennessee strikes down decades-old law against redistricting
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Justice Department agrees to return Rep. Andy Ogles’ phone, signaling end of campaign finance probe
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