VOL. 40 | NO. 2 | Friday, January 8, 2016
Tennessee Board of Regents Chancellor John Morgan is retiring at the end of January rather than go through a restructuring of the state’s higher education system he believes will be “unworkable” and “impair” accountability.
STREET LEVEL
End of 93-year-old family business
The sidewalk in front of Ward-Potts Jewelers on Bandywood Drive isn’t as clean today as it was a week or so ago.
REALTY CHECK
The Tennessee Titans have completed the season with a 3-13 record and have guaranteed themselves the No. 1 pick in the upcoming NFL draft.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates were mixed this week, with the key 30-year rate slipping back under the 4 percent mark.
TENNESSEE TITANS
The Tennessee Titans shook off the doldrums created by a season of three wins and very little entertainment on Monday as ownership rocked the franchise to its very foundation.
NEWSMAKERS
The Nashville Technology Council has announced nominees in 13 categories for its seventh annual awards.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Toyota’s mid-size Highlander sport utility vehicle strikes a fine balance of value, fuel economy, function and convenience.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that digital media ad revenue (including social, video and search) will surpass television ad spending in 2016 – a full year earlier than projected.
I SWEAR
I’m a word fanatic. Always have been. And the first of the year is never a bad time to reflect on what’s going on in the world of dictionarization. To set the stage, let’s first look at a progression of new dictionary entries – decade by decade – over the past 75 years.
CAREER CORNER
As we enter into a new year, there’s quite a bit of talk about setting new goals. They may be related to career, family, fitness or other personal pursuits.
AUTO INDUSTRY
WASHINGTON (AP) — Officials at Volkswagen and the nation's environmental watchdog are keeping mum about whether any progress was made during a closed-door meeting on the German automaker's emissions cheating scandal.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates fell this week amid continued turbulence in global stock markets.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The income gap afflicting major U.S. cities goes beyond the problem of rising paychecks for those at the top: Pay has plummeted for those at the bottom.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, but the level remains near historic lows that point to a healthy job market.
U.S. stocks bounced back from an early slide Thursday, recouping some ground a day after their worst drop since September. Energy stocks led the rally as the price of crude oil climbed more than 2 percent. Exxon Mobil and Chevron jumped 4 percent, by far the largest gains in the Dow Jones industrial average. Investors also had their eye on the latest company earnings and outlooks.
A dismal start for the stock market this year has pushed its major indexes into what is known as a "correction," or decline of 10 percent or more from a recent peak. Here are some common questions asked about corrections and what they mean to investors:
LONDON (AP) — The World Economic Forum, which organizes the annual gathering of political and business leaders in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, says a failure to deal with and prepare for climate change is the potentially most costly risk facing the global economy over the next ten years.
NEW YORK (AP) — Best Buy's shares sank Thursday after the nation's largest consumer electronics chain reduced its sales outlook for the fourth-quarter as it reported weak holiday business in mobile phones and personal devices.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - The secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development visited a Nashville high school on Wednesday to tout President Barack Obama's initiative to bring broadband Internet access to students living in public housing.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Republican state Rep. David Hawk of Greeneville is seeking support for a proposal to have Tennessee lawmakers add a September session every other year.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Thirteen community colleges and 27 colleges of applied technology have been removed from Gov. Bill Haslam's plan for the massive privatization of the management and operation of nearly all state-owned buildings, including college campuses.
AUTO INDUSTRY
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Futuristic self-driving cars traveling along California roads have needed plenty of old-fashioned human intervention to stay safe.
DETROIT (AP) — General Motors says it will add $4 billion to its stock buyback program and raise its quarterly dividend 6 percent to 38 cents per share.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve says the economy expanded across most of the United States in December and early January.
A bad start to 2016 for the stock market got even worse.
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — The Al Jazeera America cable news network said Wednesday it will shut down two and a half years after its launch, a victim of a rough business environment and political headwinds it could not conquer.
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — General Electric, one of the best known companies in corporate America, is moving its headquarters from suburban Connecticut to Boston, the company announced Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Treasury Department will begin tracking sales of high-end real estate in two of the country's most expensive markets — Miami and Manhattan — to try to crack down on money laundering.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — CSX Corp. expects lower profits in 2016 as weak demand for coal and crude oil persists and the strong U.S. dollar continues to limit exports.
GENEVA (AP) — Organizers of the World Economic Forum in Davos say they have revoked an invitation to a delegation from North Korea, in what appears to be an international rebuke over the secretive Communist country's nuclear test this month.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — With Americans soon to begin choosing his successor, President Barack Obama is casting his seven divisive years as a time of positive change, implicitly asking voters to replace him with a Democrat who would continue his hard-won policies on health care, climate change and Iran.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama opened his State of the Union speech saying he'd keep it short, in what must have seemed music to the ears of some in the chamber antsy to get to Iowa to campaign for president.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 12
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Protesters supporting the passage of Gov. Bill Haslam's Medicaid expansion proposal packed the state Capitol on Tuesday, singing, chanting and waving signs as lawmakers who defeated the measure last year returned for the first day of the legislative session.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Tennessee Rep. Jeremy Durham survived an effort to oust him from his leadership role among state House Republicans over a series of revelations, including a letter he wrote on behalf of a sex offender and a drug task force investigation that led prosecutors to seek fraud charges against the lawmaker.
Bill Freeman, who spent $3.5 million on his failed 2015 Nashville mayoral campaign, has pledged $100,000 to the House Democratic Caucus.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Protesters advocating for the passage of Gov. Bill Haslam's Insure Tennessee proposal lined the hallways, sang and chanted as lawmakers who defeated the measure last year returned for the first day of the legislative session.
MIDSTATE
NASHVILLE (AP) — State officials have dedicated a new state veterans home in Clarksville.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders plans to bring his "Feel the Bern" tour of historically black colleges to Tennessee State University in Nashville.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A man who climbed atop a road sign along a major Nashville highway and stayed there for two hours, bringing traffic to a halt as he dangled his feet, has been sentenced to 20 days in jail.
AUTO INDUSTRY
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California regulators on Tuesday rejected Volkswagen's recall plan for some of the German automaker's most popular diesel models that used software to intentionally deceive government emissions tests, including the Beetle, Jetta, Golf and Passat.
DETROIT (AP) — The Lincoln Continental has a storied past. Now it has a future.
NEW YORK (AP) — Opening statements are ready to begin in the first trial to result from hundreds of federal lawsuits brought against General Motors after faulty ignition switches led to massive recalls.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
A volatile day on Wall Street ended in upbeat fashion Tuesday as a late-afternoon rally led by technology stocks pushed the market to a modest gain.
DALLAS (AP) — The price of oil keeps falling. And falling. And falling. It has to stop somewhere, right?
LONDON (AP) — The world's biggest oil companies are slashing jobs and backing off major investments as the price of crude falls to new lows — and there may be more pain to come.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers advertised slightly more jobs in November as overall hiring edged up and more Americans quit their jobs in signs of a healthier environment for workers.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com has turned over the media company to a nonprofit institute in the hope that a new business model will help them survive the digital age and stanch years of layoffs and losses.
LONDON (AP) — Oil company BP is cutting some 4,000 jobs in exploration and production over the next two years amid sharp drops in the price of crude.
BEIJING (AP) — Wanda Group said Tuesday it is buying Hollywood's Legendary Entertainment, the maker of films such as "Batman," for $3.5 billion in the first Chinese acquisition of a major U.S. film company.
MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Bahrain and Oman are reducing government subsidies on gasoline, becoming the latest Gulf Arab countries to try to cut back on spending and offset the effect of oil prices, which have fallen to their lowest level since 2003.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Senate panel has voted to approve Dr. Robert Califf to be commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, but the nomination may face trouble on the Senate floor.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama delivers his final State of the Union address on Tuesday night to a nation whose economy is far sturdier than it was when he took office in 2009.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will deliver a final State of the Union address Tuesday brimming with optimism — far more than most Americans possess.
MONDAY, JANUARY 11
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - When Republican members of the Tennessee House gather Tuesday to decide whether to oust embattled Rep. Jeremy Durham from his leadership post, it won't be the first time that two-term lawmaker has had to answer for questionable behavior.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials are working to recruit more foreign businesses to the state.
AUTO INDUSTRY
NEW YORK (AP) — A civil trial has begun in New York to test the boundaries of hundreds of claims remaining against General Motors over faulty ignition switches.
DETROIT (AP) — Volkswagen's new chief executive plans to present remedies for fixing diesel engines that cheat on emissions tests when he meets with the top U.S. environmental regulator this week.
DETROIT (AP) — The Honda Civic has been named North American Car of the Year. The truck of the year is the Volvo XC90.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday appeared ready to deal a major blow to the power and clout of organized labor as it considers the free speech rights of government workers who say they shouldn't be forced to pay fees to public-sector unions.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a pro-Israel group that wants to put ads on Boston-area mass transit that authorities rejected as inflammatory.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
U.S. stocks struggled to end mostly higher, but oil and gas companies were hit by another plunge in the price of crude.
NEW YORK (AP) — Tumult in China triggered the worst opening week for U.S. stocks in history, and this week investors could get plenty more to worry about.
NEW YORK (AP) — AT&T is once again experimenting with offering unlimited data plans to smartphone customers while promoting its DirecTV service, signaling a potential reversal of industry trends toward data caps and charges for big video watchers.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House moved forward on legislation that would make it easier to obtain government records, as a new congressional report concluded that the freedom of information process under the Obama administration is broken and in need of serious change.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 8
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Department of Tourist Development is highlighting several destinations in the upcoming year.
MIDSTATE
MURFREESBORO (AP) — Middle Tennessee State University has confirmed that schools officials are investigating accusations of sexual discrimination within the university's athletics department.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Tennessee lawmakers return Tuesday for the second session of the 109th General Assembly with an eye toward quickly disposing of their business and heading home for election season.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) - Republican Gov. Bill Haslam on Thursday named Appeals Judge Roger A. Page to fill a vacancy on the Tennessee Supreme Court.
AUTO INDUSTRY
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — German automaker Volkswagen says its global sales fell 2 percent last year as it struggled with a scandal over cars it had rigged to evade diesel emissions tests in the U.S.
NEW YORK (AP) — Ford reported record sales of about 1.1 million vehicles in China last year.
SUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP) — The Renault-Nissan Alliance is entering the race to build autonomous cars with a plan to introduce 10 models capable of temporarily relieving humans of their driving duties on highways and city streets.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Volkswagen's top executive is traveling to Washington next week to meet face to face with the nation's head environmental regulator.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy is motoring ahead despite slowing global growth that caused upheavals in financial markets around the world this week.
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market closed out its worst week since 2011, rattled by concerns over a slowdown in China's economy and plunging oil prices.
HONG KONG (AP) — Calm returned Friday to China's stock markets after a torrid week but underlying reasons for the turmoil remain: a weakening yuan and perceptions China's leaders are bungling their handling of the economy.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fliers who don't have the latest driver's licenses will have a two-year reprieve before their IDs are rejected at airport security checkpoints.
NEW YORK (AP) — Toys R Us reported stronger holiday sales despite intense competition from online retailers such as Amazon.com.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The recent arrests in Utah of three people accused of stealing thousands of dollars' worth of baby formula is the latest example of a problem that officials say is vexing stores and police nationwide as thieves systematically swipe the mixture from shelves and resell it to unsuspecting parents.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Protecting his signature domestic achievement, President Barack Obama on Friday vetoed Republican-inspired legislation to repeal his health care law, saying to do so "would reverse the significant progress we have made in improving health care in America."