VOL. 41 | NO. 42 | Friday, October 20, 2017
REAL ESTATE
Top residential real estate sales, September 2017, for Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports. Due to technical issues, Davidson County sales are unavailable for September.
Top residential real estate sales, September 2017, for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports. Due to technical issues, Davidson County sales are unavailable for September.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Long-term U.S. rates slipped this week, reversing two straight weekly increases.
DAVID CLIMER: OUT OF LEFT FIELD
When he was hired as Tennessee’s football coach in December 2012, Butch Jones used the term “infallible” to describe the system he was bringing to Knoxville.
DAVE LINK: UT SPORTS
Tennessee’s football team will make history Saturday against No. 1-ranked Alabama (7-0, 4-0 SEC), no matter what happens with the game.
TERRY McCORMICK: TENNESSEE TITANS
The art of kicking a football is often taken for granted. It’s a little bit like driving in that good driving is rarely noticed, unless maybe it’s done by NASCAR drivers. Bad driving always brings unwanted attention.
Rishard Matthews vs. Jason McCourty. The long-time Titans cornerback landed in Cleveland after being a cap cut by the Titans this spring. Matthews has been one of the Titans most consistent receivers this season, and it will be interesting to see how he works against a guy who was his teammate last year and should know him well.
NEWSMAKERS
President Donald Trump has appointed Clint Gwin, president of Pathway Lending, to serve as a member of the Community Development Advisory Board, which advises the U.S. Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institution’s Fund on policies and activities. Gwin will serve a term of four years on the board.
BRIEFS
Hotel Preston (No. 8), Thompson Nashville (No. 9), Hotel Indigo (No. 13), 21C Museum Hotel (No. 15) and Hutton Hotel (No. 19) are among the top 40 hotels in the South, according to Condé Nast Traveler’s 30th annual Readers’ Choice Awards.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
The Honda Accord and Toyota Camry have long been household names, but these stalwarts are shaking things up for 2018.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
Sales greats have the ability to adapt based on their audience, are able to embrace rejection as an express pass to their next “yes” and generally have a high degree of emotional intelligence.
STATEWIDE
BRENTWOOD (AP) — Republican U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn has named southwestern Tennessee state Rep. Ron Gant as campaign treasurer for her bid for the Senate.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people who signed contracts to buy homes was flat in September, reflecting an ongoing nationwide shortage of homes being listed for sale.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The costs of borrowing to buy a home increased slightly this week, but U.S. mortgage rates are still near relative lows.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — Comcast's video upswing could be sputtering out. The cable company added TV customers last year for the first time in a decade. But on Thursday it posted its biggest quarterly cable-customer loss since 2014.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has settled lawsuits with tea party groups that received extra, often burdensome scrutiny when applying for tax-exempt status, ending another chapter in a political scandal that dogged the Obama administration and remains a source of outrage for Republicans.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are trading higher on Wall Street led by technology companies and banks as the market regains some of the previous day's losses.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week. But the increase was modest and came after applications fell to the lowest level in 44 years the previous week.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The European Central Bank will ease the pace of its bond-buying stimulus program — dialing back a measure that has supported the eurozone economy's recovery from a debt crisis that threatened to break up the currency union.
NATIONAL POLITICS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Taking on a crowd of jeering union workers, standing up to a charismatic Democratic opponent on the man's home turf or lecturing upper management of one of the world's largest corporations, Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker has rarely backed down from a fight.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders Thursday scrambled to overcome pockets of resistance in order to muscle through a GOP budget plan that would pave the way for a 10-year, $1.5 trillion tax cut measure that's now the highest priority of President Donald Trump and his GOP allies.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is poised to deliver a major speech Thursday on fighting the opioid epidemic, the deadliest drug crisis in U.S. history.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam's chief lobbyist is leaving for a job with an insurance company.
SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Pilot Flying J founder Jim Haslam is the latest recipient of the Pat Summitt Lifetime Achievement Award.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A bad bounce for Nashville turned the game in Calgary's favor.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — As online window shopping on HealthCare.gov went live Wednesday, an independent analysis found that premiums for the most popular health plans under the Affordable Care Act are rising by an average 34 percent next year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional budget analysts say a bipartisan health care bill would save the government money and it isn't likely to have much impact — either way — on the number of people with coverage.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration says consumers can start previewing plans and premiums online Wednesday for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act in 2018. Open enrollment starts Nov. 1.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new U.S. homes jumped last month to the highest level since October 2007, a sign that Americans — unable to find existing homes — are turning to new construction. Damage from last month's hurricanes may have also inflated the data.
TECHNOLOGY
WAKEFIELD, Neb. (AP) — Facebook is partnering with a developer to build a wind power farm in northeast Nebraska that will supply energy for the company's planned data center.
AUTO INDUSTRY
TOKYO (AP) — Nissan Executive Vice President Daniele Schillaci bowed deeply for several seconds in a Japanese-style apology Wednesday, expressing his remorse for widespread illegal inspections at the automaker.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Rising bond yields and a string of weak company reports and forecasts pushed stocks lower Wednesday as major indexes retreated from their recent record highs. Industrial and technology companies and banks fared the worst.
TOANO, Va. (AP) — Lumber Liquidators has agreed to a $36 million settlement to resolve claims brought by people who bought Chinese-manufactured laminate flooring reported to contain unsafe levels of formaldehyde.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders for long-lasting manufactured goods rose 2.2 percent in September, the biggest gain in three months, led by a big increase in orders for commercial aircraft. A key category that tracks business investment posted a third straight solid monthly gain.
NEW YORK (AP) — Would you let a stranger in your house to drop off a package? Amazon hopes so.
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — The NAACP is warning African-Americans that if they fly on American Airlines they could be subject to discrimination or even unsafe conditions.
PARIS (AP) — Sometime in 2014, a group of analysts walked into the office of Eugene Kaspersky, the ebullient founder of Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, to deliver some sobering news.
NATIONAL POLITICS
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania election officials say noncitizen immigrants may have cast 544 ballots illegally out of more than 93 million ballots in elections spanning 18 years in the state.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Republicans showed scant signs Wednesday of turning on Donald Trump, rallying instead behind their party's tax-cutting plans a day after a pair of prominent GOP senators denounced the president in scathing terms.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The congressman who heads the House tax-writing panel isn't ruling out changes to the 401(k) retirement program to raise revenue for tax cuts, despite President Donald Trump's fresh promise that the savings plan used by tens of millions of Americans will be untouched.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Senate committee voted along party lines Wednesday to advance President Donald Trump's picks for key posts at the Environmental Protection Agency over the objections of Democrats who pointed to the nominees' past work for corporate clients they would now regulate.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Jeff Flake says he has no regrets about saying President Donald Trump has debased politics with his roughshod style and social media broadsides.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most Americans say President Donald Trump's tax plan would benefit the wealthy and corporations, and less than half believe his message that "massive tax cuts" would help middle-class workers, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Can the traditional Republican Party survive the presidency of Donald Trump?
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and Republican Sen. Bob Corker are lobbing insults at each other again. The slings and arrows are largely a matter of opinion — is Trump "debasing" the nation as Corker says? Is the senator "incompetent" and a "lightweight," as the president tweeted?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund political research into President Donald Trump that ultimately produced a dossier of allegations about his ties to Russia, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday night.
NEW YORK (AP) — Call it a win for "the swamp." President Trump and Republicans in Congress handed Wall Street banks a big victory by effectively killing off a politically popular rule that would have allowed consumers to band together to sue their banks.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville police say they have begun testing officer body cameras.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Officials say four industrial sites in Tennessee will receive help from the state to make them more attractive to companies looking to expand or relocate.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two top Republicans announced a bill Tuesday restoring federal subsidies to insurers that includes tough conditions sought by the White House. Senate Democrats have enough votes to kill it, but the measure underscores the changes the Trump administration and congressional conservatives say they want in exchange for resuming the payments.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin touted an overhaul plan Tuesday to give veterans even wider access to outside doctors than under its troubled Choice health care program, stressing ties with the private sector even while acknowledging key questions of rising cost and sharing of medical records were still unresolved.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Shares of General Motors hit an all-time high Tuesday as investors focused on a $2.5 billion third-quarter pretax profit and ignored a big accounting loss.
MILAN (AP) — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles on Tuesday reported a 50 percent increase in third quarter net earnings, with all markets contributing to growth even as sales were flat globally.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Construction and mining equipment maker Caterpillar and Post-it note maker 3M led a rally in industrial companies Tuesday after they made strong third-quarter reports. Other U.S. stocks finished the day with smaller gains.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Interior Department said Tuesday it will propose the largest oil and gas lease sale ever held in the United States — nearly 77 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
NEW YORK (AP) — Caterpillar Inc.'s third-quarter profit surged on demand for construction equipment, topping Wall Street expectations.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A non-partisan federal watchdog says climate change is already costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars each year, with those costs expected to rise as devastating storms, floods, wildfires and droughts become more frequent in the coming decades.
NEW YORK (AP) — Sears will no longer sell Whirlpool appliances, ending a business relationship that dates make more than 100 years.
NATIONAL POLITICS
DETROIT (AP) — Kid Rock says he's not running for U.S. Senate in Michigan.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a startling verbal assault on the president of his own party, Republican Sen. Bob Corker charged Tuesday that Donald Trump "debases our nation" with constant untruths, name calling and bullying, and will leave behind a sad legacy of damaging division.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 23
MUSIC INDUSTRY
GRAMMY-winner Keith Urban will headline Jack Daniel’s Music City Midnight: New Year’s Eve in Nashville for a second consecutive year.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Country star Alan Jackson, the late guitarist and singer Jerry Reed and songwriter Don Schlitz were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame on Sunday.
Justin Timberlake has finally been invited back to the Super Bowl halftime show, 14 years after the "wardrobe malfunction" with Janet Jackson caused a national controversy.
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Tennessee offensive guard Jack Jones is ending his playing career due to neck and shoulder injuries.
SPORTS
CLEVELAND (AP) — When all else fails, the Tennessee Titans know they can turn to Ryan Succop.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Stephen Fincher is joining the race to succeed Republican Bob Corker in the Senate.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Federal and state officials have approved a fix for 38,000 Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche sport utility vehicles with diesel engines that were cheating on emissions tests.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Industrial and technology companies and retailers all stumbled Monday as U.S. stocks began the week with losses. General Electric suffered its worst one-day loss in six years following downgrades from analysts.
NEW YORK (AP) — Target says customers want it to pause the "Christmas creep." It says it wants to be more in tune with customers' mindset, so it plans to ease in holiday promotions this year while better recognizing Thanksgiving.
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon said Monday that it received 238 proposals from cities and regions in the United States, Canada and Mexico hoping to be the home of the company's second headquarters.
NEW YORK (AP) — Megyn Kelly took on her former Fox News Channel colleague Bill O'Reilly in blunt terms on Monday, revealing she had gone to her bosses to complain about O'Reilly's behavior and saying the size of a newly revealed $32 million settlement of harassment charges made by a Fox analyst was "jaw-dropping."
Aetna, the nation's third-largest health insurer, is selling its domestic group life and disability businesses for $1.45 billion to Hartford Life and Accident Insurance Co.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is sounding an off-key note on his economic performance and perhaps overstating how much the public wants his tax package.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump promised Monday there will be "no change" to tax incentives for the popular 401(k) retirement programs.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20
MIDSTATE
GLADEVILLE (AP) — Developers are seeking approval for adjustments to plans to upgrade the site of the Nashville Superspeedway.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A bid to outsource facilities management at Tennessee colleges and universities would cost the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga a quarter-million dollars more than its current expenses in-house.
WASHINGTON (AP) — GOP frustration burst into the open Thursday over President Donald Trump's erratic response to a bipartisan health deal, even as the agreement's authors announced a list of co-sponsors in an attempt to win over the president and Senate GOP leaders.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of U.S. adults without health insurance is up nearly 3.5 million this year, as rising premiums and political turmoil over "Obamacare" undermine coverage gains that drove the nation's uninsured rate to a historic low.
WASHINGTON (AP) — If President Donald Trump prevails in shutting down a major "Obamacare" health insurance subsidy, it would have the unintended consequence of making free basic coverage available to more people, and making upper-tier plans more affordable.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Toyota Motor Co. is continuing its reign at the top of Consumer Reports' reliability rankings, a reward for its conservative approach to new technology.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home sales rose slightly last month as the Houston housing market quickly recovered from Hurricane Harvey. Still, a shortage of available homes is thwarting many would-be buyers and limiting sales.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Wall Street capped a week with no shortage of milestones with a few more Friday.
GENEVA (AP) — Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, as well as two recent earthquakes in Mexico likely cost the insurance industry about $95 billion, said Swiss Re, one of the world's biggest reinsurers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal budget deficit rose to $666 billion in the just-completed fiscal year, a spike that comes as Republicans are moving to draft a tax code rewrite that promises to add up to $1.5 trillion to the national debt over the coming decade.
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders weighed on Friday the meager progress in Brexit negotiations as they searched for new ways to speed up the highly complex talks some 18 months before Britain is due to leave.
Your golden years are supposed to be the time when you live off your retirement savings, see more of your family and dive fully into leisurely pursuits. Unfortunately, they're also the years when you'll be a prime target of financial scams.
NEW YORK (AP) — The selfie is everywhere — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter — and soon your bank could be asking for one in order to approve your purchase or credit card application.
NEW YORK (AP) — JetBlue will stop selling tickets on a dozen discount travel websites in hopes of driving customers to the airline's site and reducing the company's costs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level since Richard Nixon was president.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump promised tax cuts Friday "which will be the biggest in the history of our country" following Senate passage of a $4 trillion budget that lays the groundwork for Republicans' promised tax legislation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Paul Ryan says the tax plan pushed by President Donald Trump and Republican leaders will add a fourth tax bracket for high-income people to the three originally proposed.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is proving to be an erratic negotiating partner as he punts policy issues to Congress and then sends conflicting signals about what he really wants.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators are criticizing the Trump White House for not allowing its senior cybersecurity adviser to testify before the Armed Services Committee.
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump's chief envoy to the United Nations is describing Russian interference in the 2016 election as "warfare."
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google's parent company is throwing its financial support behind ride-hailing service Lyft, deepening its rift with market leader Uber.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — House Republicans, with the urging of President Donald Trump, will strive to pass a budget this week so they can turn their attention to tax reform. Trump warned that action on tax reform is crucial to avoiding political failure in 2018.
STATE LEGISLATURE
FRANKLIN (AP) — Republican state Rep. Charles Sargent, the chairman of the powerful House Finance Committee, says he won't seek another term in the Tennessee General Assembly.