• Mayor John Cooper’s staff told the Metropolitan Housing Trust Fund Commission that their budget was slashed from $9.5 million to $5 million about an  hour before it was set to meet to discuss grant awarding plans for affordable housing, citing the city’s ongoing budget woes. The mayor did say they hope to restore the $4.5 million some time next spring.
• A Nashville judge says that security inadequacies at the courthouse and juvenile detention center lead to the escape of four teenagers. Two of the four have been apprehended.
• Vanderbilt University named Dr. Daniel Diermeier as its ninth chancellor in the school’s history Wednesday to begin work on July 1, 2020. Diermeier is currently the provost at the University of Chicago.
• Metro Police are investigating the murder of a counselor in Madison after her husband reported that she did not come home after an evening session. They have not yet named any suspects in the case.
• The Metro Council unanimously approved water and sewer rate increases in the new year, mostly because the State Comptroller warned if they didn’t, the state would intervene to do so anyway.
• Activists took to protesting outside the Metro Council meeting Tuesday about the lack of progress on the city’s body camera program for police. The rollout has seen missed deadlines and ballooning costs.
• The fireworks and revving engines probably told you that NASCAR is in town this week. ?
• Curious Nashville reveals that there are 500 historical graveyards around Davidson County, and those sometimes are at odds with developers looking to cash in on the construction boom.
• Radio conglomerate iHeartMedia announced that it is opening a second corporate headquarters in Nashville to join its operations in Austin, Texas. The company had filed for bankruptcy protection last year.
• Some guy from Michigan was named the Grand Marshall of the Leiper’s Fork (population 650) Christmas Parade set for December 14 after insulting two television personalities. Dreams do come true, we guess.
• Al Ross, co-owner of numerous downtown bars with Steve Smith including Tootsie’s and Honky Tong Central, died Sunday. Ross was 83.
• The Nashville Predators (12-10-5) dropped their Tuesday night game against the Tampa Bay Lightning (13-9-3) in overtime 3-2. They will host former Predator PK Subban and the New Jersey Devils (9-14-4) Saturday night.
• VUMC and the Nashville Fire Department are pilot testing a high tech hand-off process for first responders to medical professionals, using lessons learned from war zone hospitals. ?
• WPLN’s Blake Farmer has a feature piece on Dr. Amber Edwards, a heart surgeon at St. Thomas Midtown that highlights the difficulty of being a woman in the male-dominated field.
• A restaurant called Joyland from local restaurateur Sean Brock will take over the shuttered Stay Golden space in East Nashville.

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