🧑‍💼 Staffing shake-up at the mayor’s office

☀️ How Kurdish Refugees Rebuilt Community in Nashville

Nashville is home to the largest Kurdish population in the United States. On today’s City Cast Nashville podcast, we’re chatting with WPLN reporter Rose Gilbert and cultural advisor Dilman Yasin about the strife that led families to flee Iraqi Kurdistan for Nashville, and the endangered systems that brought them to safety. [🎧 City Cast Nashville]

💸 Federal Budget Bill’s Local Impacts

President Trump’s recently passed domestic policy bill makes significant cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which will impact hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans with Affordable Care Act coverage, whose children qualify for free school lunches, and who use TennCare or SNAP. [Nashville Scene]

🏥 LGBTQ+ Medical Program Closes After Layoffs

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has laid off all of its LGBTQ Health Program staff, which has helped people navigate queer-affirming healthcare for more than a decade. In protest, the Metro Council of Nashville’s LGBTQ Caucus published a letter expressing their “deep disappointment” in VUMC. Patients were given no notice. [Tennessee Lookout]

• Related: Why local parents of trans kids decided to stay or leave [🎧 City Cast Nashville]

🧑‍💼 O’Connell Hires New Chief of Staff

Mayor Freddie O’Connell has hired a new chief of staff, attorney Masami Tyson, who previously worked as the global director of foreign direct investment and trade at the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. She replaces Marjorie Pomeroy-Wallace, who is moving into a new role as chief strategy officer and senior adviser to O’Connell. [Axios Nashville]