• PSA: Voting for the Nashville Scene’s “Best of Nashville” is open now through September 5. We’re not gonna shill for votes (this year), but we are your favorite blog, right? ?
• Internal polling points to a massive lead for John Cooper over incumbent Mayor David Briley, with election day set for September 12. Cooper captured 35 percent of the vote to Briley’s 25 percent, prompting the run-off.
• The Metro Council advanced a bill that would limit non-owner occupied short-term rentals to its third and final reading. The bill would only apply to new permit seekers.
• The council is also considering legislation that would limit the length of its meetings, with several lasting longer than seven hours this term. Under the legislation, unfinished business would be pushed to the next meeting after a fixed point in time. ?
• A separate, non-binding resolution was deferred one meeting that would have asked that demolition stop at the Fairgrounds Nashville pending a revised court decision.
• HCA Healthcare will donate $1 million to Fisk University in a partnership aimed at creating scholarships and internships for the company.
• A study by the Brookings Institution says one in seven people born between 1980 and 1986 in the 37208 zip code in North Nashville has at some point spent time in jail, making it the highest per capita rate in the country for that time period.
• Metro Parks has deferred a decision on what to do with a confederate monument at Centennial Park, leaning towards adding additional context to the monument rather than the lengthy process to get the state’s approval to move it.
• Nashville was named the country’s least pet-friendly city based on a personal finance blog’s analysis of dog parks, dog-friendly restaurants, and and cost of pet healthcare.
• The Metro Nashville Airport Authority has reached a $2 million settlement with its former CEO Rob Wigington, who said he was fired for being sick and has alleged board misconduct. Wigington recently recovered from a liver transplant.
• The non-profit Friends of Metro Animal Care and Control is seeking donations for noise dampening equipment for the shelter, saying that the loud facility is hindering efforts to find homes for the abandoned pets.
• Cyntoia Brown, a woman who served 15 years in prison for killing a man who solicited sex while she was a teenager, walked free early yesterday morning after former Governor Bill Haslam commuted her sentence before leaving office.
• District 5 councilmember-elect Sean Parker is likely the first Democratic Socialist to win in Nashville, but J.R. writes that he is hardly the first attempt.
• The Dive Hotel & Swim Club has opened in East Nashville, offering something very different from your typical hotel experience.
• Crisis call boxes have been added to the Natchez Trace Bridge after more than 30 deaths at the site  in its 25 years since opening. Barriers will be added to by 2023 in an effort to curb suicide attempts at the site.
• Advocacy group Walk Bike Nashville says that 2019 is already the deadliest since the organization was founded in 1998. Watch out for pedestrians, particularly true when driving through school zones. ?
• After being on the books for a little over a month, Metro Nashville Police say they have only issued 46 tickets tied to the new hands-free statewide law that prohibits the use of cell phones while driving.
• A pilot program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center is allowing virtual assistants to narrate the contents of your medical records to doctors in an easy to understand summary (for folks with a medical degree, at least).
• This weekend is the Tomato Art Fest in East Nashville, hence the photo choice for today. ?

Photo by Paul Nicholson. Want to see your photo featured here?