Unearthed video footage and a documentary changed our Music and Culture reporter Justin Barney`s mind about Elvis. He asserts now that Elvis` best years are the Las Vegas years.
Baz Luhrmann unearthed new footage of Elvis (from a salt mine) and created "EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert" which captures Elvis as he goes from innovator to icon.
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Minutes after President Donald Trump announced that he was removing her from her position, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivered a keynote speech at a Nashville hotel on Thursday.
WPLN’s Marianna Bacallao (@ba_marianna) reports Noem still touted the president’s mass deportations efforts and rallied against “sanctuary cities” in her address to law enforcement.
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"I know it`s probably mundane, but they are working hard to make it just blend in with nature and yet there are stairs, air ducts and drainage pipe in the stone wall." Sonia Fernandez LeBlanc wanted to know more: What`s up with the grass-covered mound (or building?) at the corner of Thompson Lane and Vultee Boulevard near Nashville`s airport.
She turned to Curious Nashville for answers.
"I have driven this route for decades and just noticed that it was something more than a hill in the past seven or eight years. I can`t be alone in wondering!"
Blake Farmer met her at the myesterious mound and invited a Metro agency to answer her curious question.
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“We treat amnesia as a disease,” Williams said. “The same is true for people, communities, neighborhoods, cities, and states. If we don’t have a memory of past events, then there’s something fundamentally wrong with us. We are not a properly functioning entity.”
Marginalized voices will be amplified by the new official historian of Davidson County. The Metro Council recently named TSU history professor Learotha Williams to the role.
Williams wants to boost the history of the city`s Latino and Muslim communities, and to investigate little-known aspects of local Civil Rights history.
“The role of a historian, first and foremost, is to ask questions, to mine the sources, and then to offer up what this means with the understanding that we sometimes might miss the mark. But also to cultivate an appreciation for the past ... something that is instructive, affirming, inspiring, but also something that challenges us, that critiques us, that pushes us to do better.”
Williams will serve for five years.
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Photo 1: Tony Gonzalez / WPLN
Photo 2: Andrea Tudhope / WPLN
Photo 3: Mack Linebaugh
Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia argue that the government’s case is retaliation after his wrongful deportation to El Salvador gained national attention. In a Nashville courthouse, they asked the judge to drop the human smuggling charges against the Maryland man.
Marianna Bacallao (@ba_marianna) reports that the defense focused their questioning on why the U.S. Justice Department considered a 2 ½ -year-old traffic stop in Tennessee a “top priority.”
The DOJ did not begin investigating Abrego Garcia until after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to return him to the U.S. In court, they testified that the high-profile nature of the case made it a “top priority” within the department.
Although state troopers alerted the FBI that Abrego Garcia was potentially transporting people without legal status during that 2022 traffic stop, top officials testified that they only learned of the stop from media reports after his deportation.
A ruling isn`t expected until April at the earliest.
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Myths about severe weather that could have devastating consequences if you follow them.
Our news room intern, Seth Thorpe, talked to the National Weather Service to learn about how myths make their ways around communities.
“They`re just things that are shared among the town, either verbally, or I heard it from someone,” said Ryan Husted, warning coordination meterologist for the National Weather Service in Nashville.
While myths vary from how likely it is a tornado strikes, to crouching if caught in a lightning storm, they all revolve around flawed ideas about how weather works.
In reality, weather is unpredictable and despite the most reliable effort of meterologists, the best way to survive a severe weather event is to stay prepared.
“Double check your plans, double check your your emergency kit, make your family and your friends are prepared, because severe weather here in Tennessee can strike just about any time,” said Husted.
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The “decadent billionaire class” versus Nashville residents, public school teachers talking about school voucher budget allocation, state troopers’ language and expectations, and the lack of philanthropy for the arts in Nashville.
These are some of the stories we covered (did you see our reel about Varallo’s closing?) in a busy week of news.
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Varallo`s, Nashville’s oldest restaurant, has closed.
As @justinbarney reports, on the door of Varallo’s a white piece of paper hangs. In black sharpie. “Closed. Sorry” is handwritten. The sign has been there all week. A Google search lists the beloved restaurant as permanently closed. In a phone call, current owner Bob Peabody confirmed it.
Varallo’s opened in 1907 and had been at 4th Street for over 100 years. They specialized in chili. Three way chili, with beans and spaghetti served on a tamale. It’s distinctive red triangular pediment and red and white checker tablecloths made the restaurant stand out as part of The Arcade downtown.
Peabody said that Varallo’s could not keep up with rising prices in downtown Nashville:
"The rents have gone up a lot. And then property taxes have gone up a lot. I tried to see if we could get a lease, if we could sell it to new owners and just didn’t see any path forward." Peabody said that rent would go up almost three times if they sold to a new owner.
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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.
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A Curious Nashville question about a persistent puddle leads to a water main fix
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