VOL. 42 | NO. 42 | Friday, October 19, 2018
TIM GHIANNI: STREET LEVEL
Leaving the new Tennessee State Museum in the rearview mirror for a few minutes, I decide to dodge off Jefferson Street and try to catch up with the pedestrian who I later discover is a retired chief petty officer. “We ran the Navy,” he tells me, proudly.
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
Year-to-date home sales in the greater Nashville region decreased by a staggering 8 percent through the end of September, statistics compiled by the Greater Nashville Realtors reveal.
REAL ESTATE
Top commercial real estate sales, September 2018, for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Long-term U.S. mortgage rates dipped slightly this week, taking a pause after weeks of steady increases stoked by rising interest rates.
TENNESSEE TITANS
Six games into the 2018 season, and one trip across the pond before the bye week, a major question comes to mind concerning the Tennessee Titans’ offense.
1. Find the running game. The Titans’ offensive woes start with the line, which was embarrassed by Baltimore and has not been able to get the run game going all season. The Titans may have to go back to the basics and do something to re-establish the run.
UT SPORTS
Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt took a swig of water as he stood behind the podium, trying to choke back his emotions.
NEWSMAKERS
Bass, Berry & Sims PLC has hired three attorneys for its Nashville office:
BRIEFS
The local organizing committee for the 2019 NFL Draft includes 35 Nashville business and community leaders, including country artist Tim McGraw and Eddie George, formerly of the Tennessee Titans, and is led by honorary co-chairs Amy Adams Strunk, Tennessee Titans owner, and Mayor David Briley. Serving as co-chairs are Steve Underwood, CEO and president of the Tennessee Titans, and Dan Mohnke, senior vice president, sales & marketing and operations, Nissan North America.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Automakers are continually making changes in vehicles. These can be technological breakthroughs, such as the automatic emergency braking systems that are increasingly becoming standard on new cars. Some are mandated changes, such as a federal requirement that all vehicles have backup cameras, which went into effect in May.
CAREER CORNER
Have you ever had someone tell you that it’s a good idea to get your foot in the door at a company? The theory is that if get your foot in the door and work your way up over time.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
Google’s latest two algorithm updates, Medic and Birthday, each had a significant impact on where affected websites found themselves ranking within the search engine results pages (SERPs).
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pending home sales rose slightly in September, but contract signings are depressed from a year ago as affordability has become a greater challenge for would-be buyers.
Long-term U.S. mortgage rates edged slightly higher this week amid continued anxiety in financial markets as interest rates rise.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter's stock is surging before the opening bell as investors overlook a huge drop in monthly user numbers, and focus instead on stronger-than-expected profit and revenue in the third quarter.
BERLIN (AP) — Google is abandoning plans to establish a campus for tech startups in Berlin after protests from residents worried about gentrification.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Strong results from major companies including Microsoft, Visa and Comcast are sending U.S. stocks higher Thursday morning as the market found its footing after three weeks of steep declines.
NEW YORK (AP) — If you're an investor who was lulled to sleep by the stock market's calm, steady gains this summer, you're wide awake by now.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods slowed significantly in September, while a key category that tracks business investment fell for a second straight month.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The European Central Bank said Thursday it is staying on course to wrap up its 2.5 trillion euro ($2.85 trillion) stimulus program at the end of the year, even as risks from trade protectionism, Italian populist policies, and Brexit loom ever larger.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Police recovered a suspicious package addressed to actor Robert DeNiro on Thursday, which investigators said was similar to crude pipe bombs sent to prominent Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and to CNN.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Investigators examining the explosive devices sent to high-profile targets in Washington and New York will be working to glean forensic clues to help identify who sent them, gathering fingerprints and DNA evidence while tracking the origin of the packages and the components used to make the bombs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — With just two weeks to go until the critical midterm elections, an overwhelming majority of Americans say the United States is greatly divided, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll. Few Americans believe those stark divisions will get better anytime soon.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24
STATEWIDE
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has forcibly removed the bishop of Memphis, Tennessee, Monsignor Martin Holley, following a Vatican investigation into the diocese.
STATE GOVERNMENT
MEMPHIS (AP) — Tennessee Democrats know something about disappointment. The last time voters chose a governor, the party pinned its hopes on a longshot punchline named Charlie Brown, who was trounced by 30 percentage points.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — FedEx has announced it will add 7,100 seasonal positions to help make deliveries during this year's holiday season.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Famed guitar maker Gibson is changing its corporate leaders as the company plans to emerge from bankruptcy protection on Nov. 1.
UT SPORTS
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Tennessee is entering unfamiliar territory.
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The San Jose Sharks cooled off the NHL's hottest team, ending the Nashville Predators' five-game winning streak.
EDUCATION
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam on Wednesday unveiled new changes to improve the state's problem-plagued elementary and secondary school online testing process.
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Tennessee says it will begin a national search for its next chancellor in January.
HEALTH CARE
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — U.S. health regulators have approved the first new type of flu drug in two decades.
COURTS
NEW YORK (AP) — New York's attorney general on Wednesday sued Exxon Mobil, saying the Texas energy giant has misled investors about the risks that climate change poses to its operations.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new U.S. homes plunged 5.5 percent in September, the fourth straight monthly drop as the housing market cools with mortgage rates rising.
AUTO INDUSTRY
BERLIN (AP) — The German government is putting pressure on the country's automakers to fix diesel cars with excessive emissions, in a bid to placate drivers angered by the prospect of diesel driving bans in major cities.
DETROIT (AP) — U.S. auto companies such as General Motors, Tesla and Ford faltered this year in Consumer Reports' reliability rankings as readers reported more mechanical trouble and fewer problems with infotainment systems.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — A court in Germany has ruled that Volkswagen's main stakeholder must pay 47 million euros ($54 million) in damages to investors for not making a timely disclosure of its scandal over cars rigged to cheat on diesel emissions tests.
Tesla is showing some promising signs that it will make money as advertised in the third quarter, but Wall Street isn't buying it.
TECHNOLOGY
BRUSSELS (AP) — The head of Apple on Wednesday endorsed tough privacy laws for both Europe and the U.S. and renewed the technology giant's commitment to protecting personal data, which he warned was being "weaponized" against users.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Large majorities of young Americans want to see an expansion of government services, including a single-payer health care program, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MTV.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Another torrent of selling gripped Wall Street Wednesday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting more than 600 points and extending a losing streak for the benchmark S&P 500 index to a sixth day.
BEIJING (AP) — The U.S. will not send a high-ranking official to attend a major investment fair in China next month, an embassy official said Wednesday, in a move underscoring worsening trade friction between the world's two largest economies.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Lottery officials say someone bought a ticket in South Carolina to win the Mega Millions jackpot with a final total of $1.537 billion, just shy of the all-time world record.
CHICAGO (AP) — Boeing is topping expectations for the third quarter and raising its outlook for the year on burgeoning defense spending.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mob rule. A socialist takeover. Terrorists marching on the U.S. border.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal immigration and health officials were blindsided by President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" policy on migrants crossing the southwest border, triggering a cascade of problems as agencies struggled with the fallout from family separations, congressional investigators said in a critical report issued Wednesday.
NEW YORK (AP) — In the closing stretch of the 2018 campaign, the question is no longer the size of the Democratic wave. It's whether there will be a wave at all.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23
ELECTION 2018
NASHVILLE (AP) — Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is bringing his midterm campaign trail tour to Tennessee, where he will rally support for GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn's Senate bid.
MUNFORD (AP) — Eric Trump has hit the campaign trail in western Tennessee for Republican U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn's bid for Senate.
EDUCATION
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has appointed two new members to University of Tennessee's Board of Trustees.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, announced Tuesday that she has the beginning stages of dementia, "probably Alzheimer's disease."
CHATTANOOGA (AP) — The former president of the largest U.S. fuel retailer wants to spend the winter holidays at home before reporting to prison for his role in a scheme to defraud trucking companies.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Attorneys for a Tennessee death row prisoner were trying to spare him from lethal injection and they succeeded — but not the way they hoped.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump overreached Monday night when he boasted that he's seated more federal judges than any president except George Washington. By various measures, he trails others.
AUTO INDUSTRY
LONDON (AP) — Dyson, the British company best known for vacuum cleaners and prized hair dryers, said Tuesday it will build its new electric car in Singapore as it joins the increasingly crowded race to create the next generation of clean vehicles.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Automaker BMW says it is expanding a recall to cover 1.6 million vehicles worldwide due to possible fluid leaks that could result in a fire.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is rolling out new options for small employers to use tax-free accounts for providing health coverage to workers, officials said Monday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
A turbulent day on Wall Street ended Tuesday with stocks climbing nearly all the way out of a steep, broad sell-off that at one point erased more than 500 points from the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
NEW YORK (AP) — The number of Americans who do not have a bank account fell to a record low last year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Tuesday, a sign that the economic fortunes of the country's most vulnerable people continues to improve.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yahoo has agreed to pay $50 million in damages and provide two years of free credit-monitoring services to about 200 million people in the U.S. and Israel whose email addresses and other personal information were stolen as part of the biggest security breach in history.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A high-profile economic forum in Saudi Arabia began on Tuesday in Riyadh, with the crown prince making a brief public appearance at the kingdom's first major event since the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul earlier this month.
NEW YORK (AP) — MoviePass, the struggling discount movie ticket subscription service, is being spun off by the company that owns it.
NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart says it will work with third-party sellers to make millions of items available for free two-day shipping on orders over $35.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he will nominate a former executive at agribusiness giant Monsanto to head the Fish and Wildlife Service.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says that the United States and six other Middle East countries are taking action to expose and disrupt terrorist activities being conducted by the Taliban and Iran to undermine the government of Afghanistan.
Twitter has removed some accounts thought to be used to circumvent a ban on conspiracy-monger Alex Jones and Infowars, the company said Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says the U.S. will begin cutting aid to three Central American countries he accused of failing to stop thousands of migrants heading for the U.S. border. But across his administration there was no indication of any action in response to what he tweeted was a "National Emergy."
MONDAY, OCTOBER 22
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — Bluegrass and country star Ricky Skaggs, singer Dottie West and fiddler Johnny Gimble are the newest members of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam says the city of Knoxville has been awarded $1.8 million transportation alternative grant to help construct a greenway.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Supreme Court has set a new execution date of Nov. 1 for a death row inmate who has asked for the electric chair rather than lethal injection.
TENNESSEE TITANS
LONDON (AP) — The Los Angeles Chargers' Adrian Phillips believes the Tennessee Titans made the right decision to go for a potential go-ahead 2-pointer with 31 seconds remaining — and not just because it failed.
LONDON (AP) — The Tennessee Titans hated the outcome. But they loved the call.
AUTO INDUSTRY
MILAN (AP) — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has announced the sale of its auto components division to Japanese automotive component supplier Calsoni Kansei Corporation in a deal valued at 6.2 billion euros ($7 billion).
HEALTH CARE
With Republicans and Democrats joining forces again in a bipartisan effort to target the U.S. opioid crisis, an Associated Press analysis of the first wave of emergency money from Congress finds that states are taking very different approaches to spending it.
REAL ESTATE
NEW YORK (AP) — General contractors and other small businesses in the home remodeling industry can expect revenue to slow in 2019, the result of rising mortgage rates and sluggish home sales.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Banks led a broad slide in U.S. stocks Monday as an early rally faded, giving the benchmark S&P 500 index its fourth straight loss.
Credit scores are about to get a tweak that might help those with weaker credit.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Netflix plans to borrow another $2 billion to help pay for the exclusive series and movies that its management credits for helping its video streaming service reel in millions of new subscribers during the past five years.
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May was seeking to scotch a growing rebellion against her Brexit plans Monday, urging lawmakers to back her and saying a divorce deal with the European Union is 95 percent complete.
BERLIN (AP) — The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is warning that the world's consumption of raw materials will rise sharply, putting greater pressure on the environment.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he wants to push a new middle-income tax cut through Congress after the midterm elections.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Win or lose in the race for the majority, House Republicans are at risk of plunging into a messy leadership battle after the November election, with the party lacking a clear heir apparent to take the place of House Speaker Paul Ryan.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has demanded that Pentagon create a new military service, a Space Force to assure "American dominance in space." And with that demand, Trump has injected urgency into the debate over the best way to protect U.S. interests in space, both military and commercial.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump inflated the projected benefits of an arms deal with the Saudis as he defended his wait-and-see attitude about Saudi complicity in the disappearance of a journalist whose apparent murder has sparked world outrage.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19
STATE GOVERNMENT
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — If it seems like lottery jackpots are getting larger and larger, it's because they are getting larger and larger.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials say tax revenues for the second month of the state's fiscal year came in nearly 4 percent higher, or $53.3 million more than originally projected.
ELECTION 2018
NASHVILLE (AP) — The gas station chain founded by Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's family has donated $1 million to a political committee supporting Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn's Senate bid.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Weeks before the 2016 election, federal officials started making mysterious calls to the head of elections in Inyo County, California. They asked her to contact them if she noticed anything unusual. But they wouldn't elaborate.
NASHVILLE (AP) — If Republican Marsha Blackburn were to win in November, the congresswoman would become the first female U.S. senator in Tennessee history. And yet women have been slow to embrace her campaign.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper says receiving Taylor Swift's endorsement was like "manna from heaven," calling it "the least expected thing that's ever happened" to him and "one of the great honors" in his life.
EDUCATION
The flood of education-related tax advice that seems to crest during back-to-school season often centers on students or their parents. But teachers can score a few tax breaks, too — if they do their homework. Three tax pros share their own lesson plans for cutting teachers' tax bills.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam says the state is prepared to execute death row inmate Edmund Zagorski using the electric chair.
NEW YORK (AP) — The company that runs the beleaguered MoviePass discount service for movie tickets is being investigated by the New York Attorney General on allegations that it misled investors.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home sales fell for the sixth straight month in September, a sign that housing has increasingly become a weak spot for the economy.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks gave up an early rally and struggled to another mixed finish as investors continued sell former favorites like retailers.
GENEVA (AP) — No international letters, no international packages: A top official with a 192-country postal union says that's what Americans can expect if the Trump administration goes through with plans to pull of an international postal treaty over concerns about China.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is proposing rules for investors in a new program that it says could have a big impact on economically depressed areas around the country. About 8,700 so-called "opportunity zones" have been set up in all 50 states to lure investors and developers with tax breaks.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Europe and Asia presented a united front Friday in support of free trade based on international rules and cooperation, starkly underscoring their differences with U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" policy.
PARIS (AP) — A global financial body says governments worldwide must establish rules for virtual currencies like bitcoin to stop criminals from using them to launder money or finance terrorism.
BEIJING (AP) — China reported economic growth sank to a post-global crisis low as finance officials launched a media blitz Friday to shore up confidence in its sagging stock market.
NEW YORK (AP) — American Express said its third quarter profits jumped by 22 percent from a year earlier, as the credit card giant benefited from a lower tax rate and increased spending on the company's credit cards.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — StarKist Co. agreed to plead guilty to a felony price fixing charge as part of a broad collusion investigation of the canned tuna industry, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is playing down trans-Atlantic trade tensions after U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross accused the EU of dragging its feet in exploratory trade talks.
BERLIN (AP) — A group of media outlets led by Germany's non-profit Correctiv are reporting traders have manipulated transactions in multiple European countries over years, draining tax coffers of some 55.2 billion euros ($63.5 billion).
NATIONAL POLITICS
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — Eager to bring immigration to the forefront as the midterm elections near, President Donald Trump suggested without evidence that Democrats or their allies are supporting a "caravan" of Central American migrants who are traveling north aiming to enter the United States.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Just 1 in 4 people thinks Brett Kavanaugh was completely honest when as a Supreme Court nominee he gave sworn testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, with Republicans and Democrats holding starkly distinct opinions of his credibility, according to a poll released Friday.
PARIS (AP) — A global financial watchdog Force has given Iran until February to crack down on terrorism funding or risk deeper economic isolation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has acknowledged it "certainly looks" as though missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead, and he threatened "very severe" consequences if the Saudis are found to have murdered him. His warning came as the administration toughened its response to a disappearance that has sparked global outrage.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he will not attend an investment conference in Saudi Arabia.
PARIS (AP) — Senior government officials from the United States, France, Britain and the Netherlands joined a growing list of people cancelling out of an investment conference in Saudi Arabia amid questions over the kingdom's involvement in the disappearance of a dissident writer.
JERUSALEM (AP) — President Donald Trump's pro-Israel positions have not garnered him support from American Jewish voters, according to a new survey.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he told Saudi Arabia's rulers that the U.S. takes "very seriously" the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and will await the outcome of investigations by the kingdom and Turkey before deciding how the U.S. will respond.