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5 days ago | nashvillebanner.com | Steve Cavendish

At the end of the 2024 legislative session, the General Assembly slashed the state’s franchise tax for businesses, effectively eliminating the property tax portion of the levy at a cost to the state of $405 million per year. Steered by the Republican leadership in both chambers, who said they feared litigation over the two-pronged tax, the legislature also opened a window for companies to apply for a rebate of the last three years’ worth of their franchise taxes, or $1.55 billion in refunds.

6 days ago | nashvillebanner.com | Demetria Kalodimos |Steve Haruch

Music historian Don Cusic has played many roles — songwriter, producer, novelist, professor. (Not to mention putting in a stint at a newspaper in Cookeville many years ago.) Decades ago, he pulled into Nashville in an old VW bus that doubled as his home until he found his footing writing about music. Since then, Don has written 28 books, ranging from a biography of Roger Miller to an encyclopedia of cowboys. His latest delves into the life of one of Nashville’s most influential figures.

1 week ago | nashvillebanner.com | Steve Cavendish

Want a fight? You need a villain. When U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles stepped to the podium Monday, the bad guy in his narrative about the supposedly lawless streets of Nashville was Mayor Freddie O’Connell, who had the temerity to say that ICE raids don’t make Nashville safer and that they actually make it harder for Metro Police to do their job, you know,  making Nashville safer. In Ogles’ mind, O’Connell has been “aiding and abetting illegal immigration” and protecting violent criminals.

1 week ago | nashvillebanner.com | Steven Hale

If Metro Council approval for the deployment of license plate readers around Nashville already looked like a long shot, it’s only more so now after a member of the body invoked the technology while defending recent immigration sweeps alongside a Donald Trump ally. The Memorial Day press conference headlined by U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles primarily served as a stage for the Republican congressman to train his ire on Mayor Freddie O’Connell.

1 week ago | nashvillebanner.com | Connor Daryani

Davidson County is on track to have one of the rainiest years so far this century. With a few days of rainy forecasts left in the month, this May already has beaten out all but two other Mays of the last 25 years as the rainiest. And while May of 2009 and 2010 may have had more rain, cumulatively, 2025 has been the rainiest of the last 25 years in Nashville so far, with 31 inches of rain. The average rainfall at this point in the year is 23.8 inches.