Good morning, Nashville. If you’re reading this from work this morning, you’re pretty lucky. The Tennessee unemployment rate hit 9.6% last month and economists predict it won’t be getting better anytime soon. Consequently, more than 7,0000 Tennesseans are reaching the end of their 59 weeks of Federal unemployment benefits. If we continue losing our jobs at this rate, the state’s Labor Department predicts that as many as 57,000 more Tennesseans could exhaust their benefits by July 4. Though Congress already tacked on 33 weeks of benefits last year, there’s talk of using some of the stimulus funding to add another 20 weeks.
- Seriously? Seriously!? A Murfreesboro man was caught stealing stuff from the leveled home of tornado victim John Bryant, who lost his wife and daughter in last week’s twister. The thief was spotted taking chains off of the family’s swingset and stealing some other scrap metal.
- What a creeper. Metro Police picked up a registered sex offender at the Downtown branch of the Nashville Public Library after he was creeping around the library and using their computers to look at kiddie porn.
- Bits & pieces. We finally unearthed the instructions for texting anonymous crime tips to Metro and they’re sort of complicated … BNA’s most popular airline Southwest posted a first quarter loss of $91M and has started offering buyouts to employees … We can’t have wine in grocery stores, but darn it, we will have guns in our bars … Tennessee Board of Regents aren’t anticipating much of a tuition increase for any of their schools.
Photo by softarchitecture.