1. Economy is on the rise.

• The American economy is still going gangbusters. Now even more than people thought.
• It grew at 4.2 percent rate in the 2nd quarter (April-June), which is the best single quarter in four years.
• It is also the strongest year-long growth in over ten years.
• What’s going on? Consumers are spending money again. But more than that, businesses are making big time investments in hires and capital.
• It isn’t slowing down, either. Consumer confidence is at it’s highest point in 18 years. That measures people’s perception that they’ll be able to get/keep a job and buy a big ticket item like a car.
• President Donald Trump predicted this would happen, and all manner of economists predicted he was crazy.
• So, I suppose the president is due a few spike-the-football tweets.

2. Let’s talk about P.E.

• Dodge ball. Kick ball. Duck-Duck-Goose. Red Rover.
• What was grade school without these games?
• Parents around the state are getting highly upset about a supposed Department of Education memo suggesting schools ban these activities during Physical Education class.
• Why ban them? Because they are mean and bad and competitive and single kids out and all the other whiny excuses that are turning future generations into puny little crybabies.
• State Superintendent of Schools Eric Mackey says he discovered the memo yesterday after it went viral on social media and had it taken down.
• Mackey told school leaders gathered in Montgomery that as far as he is concerned the directive no longer exists and said they should ignore it.
• “It is completely up to you which games you play. There is no directive about which games you can and cannot play… Go back, tell your principals to take care of their own P.E. problems, please!”
• Welcome to the education bureaucracy, Dr. Mackey!
• Read more from Andrew Yawn HERE, Trisha Crain HERE, and watch Dr. Mackey’s interview with Reshad Hudson HERE.

3. No schools participating in “Sentry” program yet.

• Most of the talk at this week’s major school safety roundtable focused on mental health offerings.
• That’s not surprising.
• But maybe a little surprising was the fact that proposals to arm educators to respond to violent threats weren’t discussed much, if at all.
• Why is that surprising? Because arming educators was ALL we could talk about around here in the wake of the Parkland, Florida shooting.
• Gov. Kay Ivey put a lot of that debate to rest when she instituted the “Sentry” program that would allow districts without a School Resource Officer to be trained by law enforcement and armed on campus.
• However, no school is taking advantage of the program so far. The state has not had any applicants for the Sentry program.
• That news nugget plus how much it would cost to fund officers in all schools in a new story from ADN’s Caroline Beck.

4. Fed & state cooperation on broadband.

• There will be more state and federal resources to help build up access to broadband internet in rural Alabama.
• Congressman Robert Aderholt yesterday announced that more than $600 million is going in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s budget to help states fund broadband expansion projects.
• He was with Gov. Kay Ivey, Speaker Mac McCutcheon, State Sen. Clay Scofield, USDA Assistant Secretary Anne Hazlett and a host of local officials and corporate leaders for a roundtable on broadband Wednesday.
• The Alabama Legislature this year passed a bill that will help the state be able to leverage those federal dollars. It was championed by Scofield and State Rep. Donnie Chesteen.
• Aderholt, who chairs Ag Appropriations in the House, called this year’s funding a first step.
• “Securing $600 million for rural broadband wasn’t the end of our mission, but just the beginning,” he said.
• Read more from Rocket City News HERE and watch the story from WHNT HERE.

5. Headlines.

Front Pages (images link to newspaper websites, which you should visit and patronize)