VOL. 39 | NO. 2 | Friday, January 9, 2015
UT SPORTS
KNOXVILLE – There’s nothing like going into the offseason on a high note. The Vols will be riding the momentum from the resounding 45-28 victory against Iowa in the Jan. 2 TaxSlayer Bowl through the end of recruiting season, winter workouts, spring practices and into the summer months.
NEWSMAKERS
Roger Osborne has joined Pinnacle Financial Partners as a senior vice president and managing director of the newly formed PNFP Capital Markets Inc.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Want some attention and excitement in the new year? Try the newest Dodge Challenger - the one with a 707-horsepower, supercharged Hemi V-8 under the hood.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
2015 marketing trend reports are a dime a dozen this time of year, though in reality many focus on fads, which by definition have fleeting popularity.
CAREER CORNER
Happy New Year! The holidays flew by this season. If you’re in disbelief that we’re starting a new year, you’re not alone. Just learning to say “2015” may take a little time.
I SWEAR
“Dear Judge Vic, In last week’s column, you wrote, ‘A repeating scene in “Breaking Bad,” which I’ve now watched twice, involves the protagonist’s birthday.’ This was a sly segue into talking about your birthday. (Happy birthday, BTW, belatedly!)
KAY'S COOKING CORNER
The phrase “making lemonade” expresses entrepreneurial abilities and triumph over adversity. In this week’s article, though, it means just what it says.
NASHVILLE AREA
GOODLETTSVILLE (AP) - Dollar General said Thursday that it still believes it should not have to divest more than 1,500 stores to complete a deal with Family Dollar.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville International Airport had more than 11 million passengers in 2014, a record in the facility's 77-year history.
NASHVILLE (AP) — State Reps. Brenda Gilmore of Nashville and Raumesh Akbari of Memphis have been elected to leadership roles with the national organization Women in Government.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Two political action committees have been fined by Tennessee officials who say the organizations didn't properly disclose information including donors and expenditures before elections last year.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Emma and William reprised their roles in 2014 as the most popular baby names in Tennessee, according to provisional figures from the state Health Department.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Officials say the Tennessee State Library and Archives is digitizing original historical maps and making them available to a wider public.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Not only do more Americans have health insurance, but the number struggling with medical costs has dropped since President Barack Obama's health care law expanded coverage, according to a study released Thursday.
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — It's like OpenTable for medical appointments.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates fell for the third straight week, with the benchmark 30-year rate again marking its lowest level since May 2013. The average for a 15-year mortgage, a popular choice for people who are refinancing, dipped below 3 percent for the first time since then.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A healthier U.S. housing market and economy helped to winnow foreclosures in 2014 to levels not seen since before the housing bust.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The end of the holiday shopping season led to more Americans seeking unemployment benefits last week, raising the number of applications to an 18-week high. Still, the number remains near historically low levels.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. wholesale prices fell in December by the largest amount in more than three years, reflecting the biggest monthly decline in the cost of gasoline in six years.
NEW YORK (AP) — Disappointing results from Bank of America, Citigroup and other companies nudged the stock market lower Thursday. Target rose after the retailer announced plans to close down its stores in Canada.
NEW YORK (AP) — Bank of America reported an 11 percent drop in fourth-quarter earnings Thursday, caused partly by the slowdown in trading revenue that has hit Wall Street.
LONDON (AP) — BP has announced it will cut an estimated 200 staff jobs and another 100 contracting jobs in light of falling oil prices.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Renewing a push for paid leave for workers, President Barack Obama on Thursday will call on Congress, states and cities to pass measures to allow tens of millions of workers to earn up to a week of paid sick time a year, the White House said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is putting a large dent in the U.S. embargo against Cuba as of Friday, significantly loosening restrictions on American trade and investment.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The new Republican-controlled Congress is facing an old problem: where to find the money for highway and transit programs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Disputing the conclusions of the CIA's independent watchdog, an independent board has asserted that CIA officers acted reasonably when they secretly searched Senate computers last year after learning that Senate aides had removed certain classified documents related to the torture investigation.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam's plan to offer health coverage to more than 200,000 low-income Tennesseans is getting a tepid response from fellow Republicans in the Legislature - so much so, that he has yet to find a Senate sponsor for his proposal.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A top Republican in the Tennessee General Assembly expects his colleagues to approve the state share of a $300 million incentive package for Volkswagen despite misgivings over a "secret deal" for the United Auto Workers union at the German automaker's plant in Chattanooga.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A joint session of the Tennessee House and Senate is scheduled to vote Wednesday on new terms for two of the state's constitutional officers.
NASHVILLE AREA
MATTHEWS, N.C. (AP) — Family Dollar Stores Inc. said Wednesday that a proxy advisory firm recommends shareholders vote for a buyout offer from Dollar Tree Inc.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Wednesday announced revised guidelines for obtaining records from the news media during leak investigations, removing language that news organizations said was ambiguous and requiring additional consultation before a journalist can be subpoenaed.
REAL ESTATE
Uncle Sam wants to make it more affordable for Americans to buy their first home.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — General Motors says it expects pretax earnings and profit margins to increase this year over last, after adjusting last year for recall costs.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Officials expect a Michigan testing site for connected and driverless cars that will simulate a cityscape to be operational this spring.
TECHNOLOGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is once again challenging major cable and telephone companies by encouraging the Federal Communications Commission to pre-empt state laws that stifle competition for high-speed Internet service.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) – A dismal report on retail spending in the U.S. and signs of slowing global growth drove stocks lower and sent yields on government bonds plunging as investors sought safety.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday that U.S. efforts to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba and ease curbs on trade presents American companies with "extraordinary opportunities" to boost business by selling everything from cars to computers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy was growing at a moderate pace in December and early January, helped by gains in sales of autos and other consumer products, increased factory production and a pickup in tourism in various parts of the country, the Federal Reserve reported Wednesday.
NEW YORK (AP) — A barometer of Wall Street's anxiety flashed red on Wednesday, when traders rushed to the safety of U.S. government bonds.
WASHINGTON (AP) — With the job market on a roll and gas prices falling, consumers are spending away, right?
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican U.S. House voted Wednesday to overturn President Barack Obama's key immigration policies, approving legislation that would eliminate new deportation protections for millions and expose hundreds of thousands of younger immigrants to expulsion.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS is cutting taxpayer services to historically low levels just as President Barack Obama's health law will make filing a federal tax return more complicated for millions of families.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Propelled by its enlarged Republican majority, the House has moved to ease a landmark law reining in banks and Wall Street, more than six years after a financial crisis brought on the Great Recession.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Wednesday it will issue the first regulations to cut down on methane emissions from new natural gas wells, aiming to curb the discharge of a potent greenhouse gas by roughly half.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 13
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Tennessee lawmakers convened the 109th General Assembly on Tuesday amid abortion rights protests inside the state Capitol.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - TennCare says it is ending its contract with computer vendor Northrop Grumman Corp. and will find another company to develop a computer system to determine Medicaid eligibility.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Belmont University is applying to host another presidential debate.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Dozens of abortion rights supporters have held a protest near the state Capitol in Nashville to decry legislative efforts to enact new restrictions.
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — Wallace O. Westfeldt, whose half-century journalism career started in print and led to network and public broadcasting, died Sunday at the age of 91.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam has named the members of an 11-person council to recommend candidates to fill judicial vacancies in Tennessee.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that home buyers don't need to file a lawsuit, but may simply write a letter if they want to back out of a mortgage because they claim their lender violated the federal Truth in Lending Act.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Inside the auto show here, automakers are showing off electric and other vehicles designed to cut our dependence on fossil fuels. Outside, car buyers are paying the lowest prices in years for carbon-based fuels.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The World Bank, citing stagnation in Europe and Japan and a slowdown in China, downgraded its forecast for the global economy this year. It also reported that world economic growth came in below expectations in 2014.
NEW YORK (AP) â?? Stocks swung from gains to losses and almost back again on Tuesday.
NEW YORK (AP) — As oil's long slide continued, the Energy Department forecast Tuesday that production from U.S. shale operators will begin to tail off in the second half of the year.
WASHINGTON (AP) â?? The rapid hiring that made 2014 a stellar year for job gains is showing no sign of slowing down.
NEW YORK (AP) — MetLife is challenging its U.S. designation as a company that is "too big to fail," a tag given to corporations that the government believes could pose a risk to the economy in the event of a collapse.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Just over two decades after lobbying unsuccessfully against the North American Free Trade Agreement, U.S. labor unions are again voicing strong reservations to a proposed major trade-liberalization deal.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats hoped to use Senate consideration of the Keystone XL oil pipeline to get Republicans on the record about climate change and to resurrect parts of a bipartisan energy efficiency bill doomed by pipeline politics last year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The newly bulked-up Republican majority in the House is aiming to soften the bite of legislation that grew out of the 2008 financial crisis and put banks and Wall Street under the most sweeping rules since the Great Depression.
MONDAY, JANUARY 12
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - Fresh off their successful effort to prevent the demolition of a Nashville studio that once recorded the likes of Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, advocates want to include all of the city's Music Row area in their preservation efforts.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - A University of Tennessee economic study commissioned by advocates for expanding Medicaid says Gov. Bill Haslam's Insure Tennessee could create 15,000 jobs and bring $1.14 billion in new spending to the state.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Democrats hoping to improve their bleak prospects in the state have elected activist Mary Mancini as their next chairwoman.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — With the introduction of an affordable electric car that can go 200 miles on a single charge, General Motors is setting up a showdown with Tesla to sell an electric vehicle to the masses. It may also upstage a car of its own.
BEIJING (AP) — Volvo Cars, the Chinese-owned Swedish automaker, said Monday it will export cars made in China to the United States, a step forward for Beijing's ambitions to extend the global reach of its auto manufacturing industry.
DETROIT (AP) — Ford's big move to aluminum for the body of its flagship F-150 truck has helped it garner some additional material: The hardware that comes with the North American Truck of the Year Award.
DETROIT (AP) — The North American International Auto Show begins this week in Detroit with media and industry previews. It opens to the public Jan. 17.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — This isn't explained in Econ 101. Month after month, U.S. hiring keeps rising, and unemployment keeps falling. Eventually, pay and inflation are supposed to start surging in response.
NEW YORK (AP) — Energy companies are leading a decline on the stock market as crude oil continues to tumble.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled Senate is moving ahead on a bill to construct the Keystone XL pipeline despite President Barack Obama's veto threat.
WASHINGTON (AP) — For most of last year, President Barack Obama tempered his pitch on the economy: It may be improving, he would say, but millions of Americans had yet to benefit from the rebound.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama wants Congress to pass legislation requiring companies to inform customers within 30 days if their data has been hacked, a move that follows high-profile breaches at retailers including Target, Home Depot and Neiman Marcus.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 9
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee said it provided employment services and job training to 28,159 people and helped 9,558 land jobs in 2014, far exceeding its goals for the year.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Sports Illustrated is celebrating its 2015 swimsuit launch in a two-day event in Nashville next month.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) - Little Jimmy Dickens was remembered on Thursday for his humor and warmth at a funeral on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, where he performed regularly for decades until shortly before his death at age 94.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Republican Gov. Bill Haslam on Thursday issued a call for a special legislative session to take up his proposal to offer medical coverage to more than 200,000 low-income Tennesseans.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Republican Gov. Bill Haslam has made a habit of being elsewhere the last three times President Barack Obama has visited Tennessee. But on Friday, just as Haslam prepares for a tough sell to the GOP-controlled Legislature on Medicaid expansion, the governor plans to be front and center with the Democratic president when he visits Knoxville.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The bitterly cold temperatures have led several school districts in Tennessee to cancel or delay classes.
AUTO INDUSTRY
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese automaker Nissan and NASA are teaming up to advance the technology behind cars that drive autonomously.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Germany's luxury carmakers had a record year in 2014 thanks to expanding sales in the United States and China.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Self-driving cars garner much of the attention, but in reality, we're years away from tooling around in something like Knight Rider's KITT. Coming sooner to a car near you: smartphone apps on dash displays, cruise control that adapts to cars around it, remote engine starting and more.
DETROIT (AP) — Mary Barra says her first year as CEO of General Motors contained both disappointment and progress, as the company recalled a record number of cars and trucks but also improved its handling of safety problems.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany automaker Daimler says it is expanding its car sharing service to China.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Thursday it is fining Honda $70 million — the largest civil penalty levied against an automaker — for not reporting to regulators some 1,729 complaints that its vehicles caused deaths and injuries, and for not reporting warranty claims.
COURTS
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska's highest court threw out a challenge Friday to a proposed route for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, even though a majority of judges agreed the landowners who sued should have won their case. The decision removes a major roadblock for the $7 billion cross-continental project Republicans have vowed to make a key part of their 2015 agenda in Congress.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average U.S. mortgage rates started the year by dipping to new lows, with the benchmark 30-year rate marking its lowest level since May 2013.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) â?? U.S. employers are showing more confidence than they have since the Great Recession began and will probably propel the economy in 2015 to its fastest growth in a decade.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are ending lower after investors were discouraged by weak U.S. wage growth and another drop in the price of oil.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In June, when oil cost $107 a barrel, U.S. employers added a healthy number of jobs — 267,000. Now, with oil below $50, hopes are rising that hiring in the United States is poised to intensify.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The network was crippled. Days before Thanksgiving, Sony Pictures employees had logged onto computers that flashed a grim message from a hacker group calling itself Guardians of Peace. Soon personal information for tens of thousands of current and former workers was dumped online, including Social Security numbers and the purported salaries of top executives. Five Sony-produced movies, including the unreleased "Annie," appeared on file-sharing websites. Thousands of private, and sometimes embarrassing, emails hit the Internet.
NEW YORK (AP) — J.C. Penney Co. said that it will close about 40 stores this year and cut approximately 2,250 jobs, as it tries to improve its profitability.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City will move to the forefront of a growing environmental trend by banning food establishments from using plastic foam containers starting this summer, Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration announced Thursday.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a double blow, the newly empowered Republican-led Congress and the Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday undercut President Barack Obama's opposition to the long Keystone XL oil pipeline.