Good morning, Nashville. Several members of Congress are a little less than pleased with VA officials after yesterday’s testimony in which officials admitted that their hospitals still aren’t following proper procedures for cleaning medical equipment. You may remember that the problems were first uncovered Alvin C. York Medical Center in Murfreesboro in December 2008 and other facilities in January 2009. Six months and dozens of cases of Hepatitis and HIV later, many of the facilities can’t demonstrate that they’ve even trained their staff on how to clean the equipment correctly.

• Budget passed. Metro Council did end up passing the new budget last night, including the nearly $800K extra to salvage 17 jobs. Bad news is, 80 positions were still eliminated.
• Trainspotting. Last year, the Music City Star commuter train (yes, it still exists!) committed a massive Fourth of July fail when they caused hundreds of folks to miss the fireworks downtown because they grossly oversold their train. They’re trying real hard not to do it again this year.
• Bits & pieces. Racism launches Tennessee into the national spotlight, again … Scientology commercials are coming to a teevee near you … If you see a cockatiel flying around town, it probably belongs to WSMV’s Cynthia Williams and she would like it back … It’s going to be hot and gross today, but tomorrow’s heat index is expected to reach 105.

A year ago on Nashvillest: We wondered if shelling out $3 million in tax incentives for the Hannah Montana movie was a good idea, read a silly poem by our favorite weatherman Tim Ross, laughed at a dog driving around in a picture frame, and learned that our tap water probably won’t kill us.

Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins.