VOL. 39 | NO. 40 | Friday, October 2, 2015
REAL ESTATE
Top commercial real estate transactions, August 2015, for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates eased slightly this week, continuing at low levels that could entice potential homebuyers.
BEYOND BELIEF
The first time I thought about what it takes to be a church pastor was when mine took a three-month sabbatical after a decade in Downtown Presbyterian’s pulpit.
TENNESSEE TITANS
At some point, the Tennessee Titans have to grow up. After blowing an opportunity to take the early lead in the AFC South by letting it slip away against the Indianapolis Colts last Sunday, the Titans now head into their bye week on a downturn with two consecutive losses.
UT SPORTS
It’s been a long week for Tennessee football coach Butch Jones. Kickoff can’t come soon enough for Jones and his staff Saturday night when the Vols (2-2, 0-1 SEC) play host to Arkansas (1-3, 0-1) at Neyland Stadium.
NEWSMAKERS
Mayor Megan Barry has announced key hires in the positions of law director, executive assistant, senior advisor, and press secretary within her administration.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
At the age of 50, the Ford Mustang has accomplished the ultimate goal: To be current and ageless, and appealing to young and old alike.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
Now more than ever, the line between the marketing department and the sales team has been blurred.
CAREER CORNER
There’s something you may be doing every day that’s making you look old. And you probably have no idea what it is. It’s not your clothes, your hairstyle or the AOL email address you’re using (although those aren’t helping either).
FAMILY TRAVEL
Fall is a beautiful time of year, and a great season for travel. Not only is the weather conducive, the prices associated with shoulder season are, too. And as a traveling parent, I’m thankful for a weeklong fall break, giving us the chance to travel as a family during October.
I SWEAR
Nothing. That’s what I’ve got today. It happens.
STATEWIDE
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Gannett Co. has reached an agreement to acquire newspaper company Journal Media Group for $280 million, giving the media giant control of publications in more than 100 local markets in the U.S., company officials announced Wednesday evening.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee AFL-CIO Labor Council has a new president.
NASHVILLE (AP) — An audit of Tennessee prisons is recommending the Correction Department change the way it classifies assaults.
MIDSTATE
MURFREESBORO (AP) — Rutherford County Chief Administrative Officer Joe Russell has been suspended for 10 days without pay after records showed he used his work email to conduct business unrelated to his job.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville Metro Parks & Recreation Director Tommy Lynch says his department is recommending the demolition of a 1970s-era, city-owned, former minor league baseball stadium.
AUTO INDUSTRY
CHATTANOOGA (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam said he visited Volkswagen's Chattanooga plant on Wednesday to let its workers know the state is on their side amid an emissions cheating scandal involving the German automaker that he says has nothing to do with them.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's vice chancellor traveled to Volkswagen's hometown on Thursday to send a message of support to the automaker's employees, and urged the company to be pro-active in its efforts to clear up its emissions-rigging scandal.
DETROIT (AP) — Fiat Chrysler has avoided an expensive strike at its U.S. plants after reaching a tentative labor agreement with the United Auto Workers union.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — You don't need to be a wizard to see the "Harry Potter" books come to life.
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon is launching its site for handcrafted goods called Handmade at Amazon on Thursday, hoping to capitalize on shoppers' appetite for homemade goods ahead of the holiday season.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates fell sharply this week amid concern over a labor market that has shown recent signs of weakness.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Americans are expected to spend at a slower pace than last year during the crucial winter holidays, weighed down by sluggish wage growth and other factors, according to the nation's largest retail industry trade group.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer Americans sought unemployment benefits last week, as employers hold onto workers despite a recent slowdown in hiring because of global pressures weighing on the U.S. economy.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock are slightly lower in early trading Thursday as investors wait for the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve's latest meeting.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Divided House Republicans are meeting to vote on a new speaker as the front-runner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, faces a fresh challenge from the hard-line conservatives who forced outgoing Speaker John Boehner to resign.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton has joined her Democratic presidential rivals in opposing President Barack Obama's Pacific trade deal, delivering a major blow to a Democratic president as she works to court her party's liberal base.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - A new advertising campaign in Nashville aims to cut down the number of illegal firearms purchases.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) - A Nashville personal injury attorney has been accused of stealing more than $280,000 from his clients' settlement checks.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A recently retired Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals judge has been appointed to the faculty of Belmont University College of Law in Nashville.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee State Board of Education Chair B. Fielding Rolston has been reappointed to serve a second four-year term on the National Assessment Governing Board.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NEW YORK (AP) — Streaming music company Pandora says it will buy Ticketfly for $450 million in a move that takes the company into ticket sales and event marketing.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Country stars Miranda Lambert and the late Johnny Cash, along with famed blues musician Steve Cropper, were honored Tuesday for helping to build Music City's reputation as a home for artists of any genre.
AUTO INDUSTRY
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Finance Committee opened a probe Tuesday into Volkswagen's use of a federal tax credit intended for fuel-efficient cars as the company's emissions-rigging scandal widened.
WASHINGTON (AP) — When Volkswagen's top American executive heads to Capitol Hill this week, he probably won't be able to count on longtime allies among the lawmakers investigating the company's emissions cheating scandal.
WOLFSBURG, Germany (AP) — Volkswagen said a recall of cars with software that can be used to evade emissions tests could start in Germany in January and last until the end of next year.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government's health insurance website is getting long-awaited upgrades that should help consumers find out whether their doctors and medications are covered, and get a better estimate of costs.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks posted solid gains in a quiet session Wednesday, helped by advances in health-care and industrial companies.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer borrowing advanced at a solid pace in August, as Americans took out more auto and student loans.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Anheuser-Busch InBev sweetened its offer for SABMiller to more than 68 billion pounds ($104 billion) on Wednesday as the Belgium-based brewer seeks to create a global beer behemoth.
HONG KONG (AP) — An ambitious Pacific Rim trade deal anchored by the U.S. promises to boost the economies of its 12 participating countries by opening their markets to one another, but not all the gains will be spread evenly.
NEW YORK (AP) — JetBlue Airways is trying to bring a little bit of country to the city — opening its own "farm" at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee lawmakers are set to vote on loosening vehicle emissions testing requirements as soon as they return in January, undeterred by Volkswagen's recent admission that it had been gaming the tests already in place.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — A judge has ruled that Nashville Metro's director of schools has the power to dismiss non-teaching employees without giving them an appeals hearing.
MIDSTATE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A federal judge has issued a restraining order preventing two Rutherford County men from being arrested because they cannot pay court fines.
STATEWIDE
MURFREESBORO (AP) - Gov. Bill Haslam says a long-term revenue plan is needed to address Tennessee's growing list of unfunded road projects.
NASHVILLE (AP) — There's less than a month left for high school seniors to apply for Tennessee promise, the governor's free tuition program.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — The United Auto Workers union is threatening to go on strike against Fiat Chrysler after its membership rejected a tentative contract deal with the company.
WOLFSBURG, Germany (AP) — Volkswagen's new CEO has told more than 20,000 workers that overcoming its emissions-rigging scandal will "not happen without pain" and that the company will have to review its investment plans.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — For Volkswagen, the cost of its cheating on emissions tests in the U.S. is likely to run into the tens of billions of dollars and prematurely end its long-sought status as the world's biggest carmaker.
TOKYO (AP) — Toyota unveiled its vision for self-driving cars in a challenge to other automakers as well as industry newcomer Google Inc., promising to start selling such vehicles in Japan by 2020.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — Cybercrime costs are climbing for companies both in the U.S. and overseas amid a slew of high-profile breaches, according to research released Tuesday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The securities industry in New York City tallied $11.3 billion in profits during the first half of 2015, higher than in the past three years, while also adding jobs last year for the first time since 2011, the state comptroller reported Tuesday.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks paused Tuesday, closing moderately lower after five straight days of gains. DuPont and energy companies rose sharply, but the overall market was weighed down by health-care stocks, especially biotechnology companies.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday proposed a record $1.9 million fine against an aerial photography company for flying drones in crowded New York and Chicago airspace without permission.
LUXEMBOURG (AP) — Europe's top court ruled Tuesday that data stored on U.S. servers isn't safe because of government spying, a giant blow to companies such as Facebook that might need to change the way they handle private data from Europe.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit jumped sharply in August as exports fell to the lowest level in nearly three years while imports increased, led by a surge in shipments of cellphones from China.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Negotiations over the complex trade deal took more than five years. On Tuesday, President Barack Obama began what may be a similarly difficult task — selling the Trans-Pacific Partnership to Congress and the American public.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 5
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — A recently released report says that if predictions of population and job growth for Middle Tennessee are accurate, the region's current transportation network is lagging far behind the increasing demand for services.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it won't hear the Obama administration's appeal of a lower court ruling that made it tougher to prosecute people for trading on leaked inside information.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court's new term began Monday with no cross words between the justices, although a steady stream of divisive social issues awaits them in the coming months.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Supreme Court has selected a former northwest Tennessee Circuit Court judge to serve as a new senior judge, presiding over cases across the state.
AUTO INDUSTRY
BERLIN (AP) — As the U.S. Congress prepares to question Volkswagen officials in Washington over its manipulation of American emissions tests, German media are reporting the company itself is focusing on three development managers who have been suspended.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Volkswagen's pollution-control chicanery has not just been victimless tinkering, killing between five and 20 people in the United States annually in recent years, according to an Associated Press statistical and computer analysis.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
PARIS (AP) — Dozens of world economies are close to adopting sweeping changes to international tax rules that could end tax-dodging by powerful multinationals — practices believed to deprive governments of up to $240 billion every year.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rallied in the U.S. and overseas Monday after last week's gloomy jobs report led investors to expect that the Federal Reserve will wait even longer before making its first interest rate increase since the financial crisis.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department and five states on Monday announced a $20 billion final settlement of claims arising from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Having hammered out an ambitious trade deal with 11 Pacific Rim countries, the Obama administration now faces a potentially tougher task: selling the deal to a skeptical Congress.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Growth in the U.S. services sector slowed in September as sales fell and new orders plunged, evidence that stock market volatility may have hit consumer confidence and limited spending.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A college degree practically stamped Andres Aguirre's ticket to the middle class. Yet at age 40, he's still paying the price of admission.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says some Wall Street executives should have gone to jail for their roles in the financial crisis that gripped the country in 2008 and triggered the Great Recession.
NEW YORK (AP) — American Apparel has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection almost a year after ousting founder Dov Charney, who is now locked in a contentious a legal fight with the retailer.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are in upheaval as their front-runner for speaker faces fresh opposition and conservatives push to postpone leadership elections.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Tennessee's lieutenant governor said in a Facebook posting on Friday that his "fellow Christians" should consider getting a handgun carry permit after a gunman killed nine people at a local community college in southern Oregon.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Metro Homelessness Commission is accepting public input on the future of homeless encampments in Nashville.
MIDSTATE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Six Tennessee schools have been recognized nationally for exceptional student performance.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - The U.S. Army has agreed to a July 2020 deadline for reducing pollution from a Kingsport ammunition plant to safe levels.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Gov. Bill Haslam agrees with fellow Republicans' criticism of the Hall income tax on earnings from stocks and bonds in Tennessee, but argues that the state must balance efforts to do away with the levy with other funding needs in areas like education, roads and health care.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Christian-based advocacy group says several Tennessee school districts haven't complied with its open records request about Islam curriculum being taught in public schools.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — America's health care debate has been called an unhealthy political obsession. But if the 2016 presidential hopefuls have any say, it's about to get bigger.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Nearly two thirds of United Auto Workers at Fiat Chrysler voted to reject a proposed contract agreement with the company.
BERLIN (AP) — Volkswagen subsidiary Audi says customers in Germany can now go to its website to see if their vehicles are among those installed with software that the company says was used to manipulate U.S. emissions testing.
CHICAGO (AP) — More than a decade ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency helped develop a technology that ultimately was used by an independent laboratory to catch Volkswagen's elaborate cheating on car emissions tests. But EPA used the technology primarily to test trucks rather than passenger cars because such heavy equipment was a much bigger polluter.
MILFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Move that tiny self-driving pod out of the way.
DETROIT (AP) — Just about everything broke right for the U.S. auto industry in September, as strong consumer demand, easy credit and generous incentives combined for double-digit sales gains at most major automakers.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Volkswagen has confirmed chief financial officer Hans Dieter Poetsch will become board chairman as the automaker faces a scandal over cars that were equipped to cheat on U.S. government emissions tests.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Los Angeles-based auto lender Westlake Services faces $48.35 million in cash relief and penalties for deceiving customers and falsely threatening criminal prosecution, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — News of slower hiring last month jolted markets early Friday, driving government bonds up and the dollar down. The stock market, after slumping in early trading, finished the day with a solid gain.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories fell in August by the largest amount in eight months, led by a drop in demand for commercial airplanes and weakness in a key category that tracks business investment spending.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A sagging global economy has finally caught up with the United States.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart laid off 450 workers at its headquarters Friday as the world's largest retailer attempts to become more nimble so that it can better compete with the likes of Amazon.com.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. unemployment rate — now just 5.1 percent — grabs a lot of the attention each month when the government issues its jobs data. Yet the rate doesn't come close to sketching a full picture of the job market.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ben Bernanke recalls the September weekend in 2008 when regulators sought desperately but in vain to save the investment bank Lehman Brothers as a "terrible, surreal moment."
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says he won't sign another temporary government funding bill after the current one expires on Dec. 11.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has set a new national ozone standard, tightening limits on the smog-forming pollution linked to asthma and respiratory illness.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-led House has passed a multibillion-dollar defense policy bill that faces a veto threat from President Barack Obama.
AUTO INDUSTRY