VOL. 37 | NO. 44 | Friday, November 1, 2013
REALTY CHECK
Highly regarded real estate closing attorney Jerry Patterson of the venerable First Title and Escrow had agreed to speak to a group of Realtors and the muse had not visited in the days leading up to his speech.
TERRY McCORMICK
This date – Nov. 3, 2013 - has been circled on the Tennessee Titans calendar for awhile.
NEWSMAKERS
Centerstone, one of the nation’s leading not-for-profit providers of community-based mental health and addiction services, has promoted Jeney Slusser to director of advancement in Tennessee.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
For the majority of industries, social media is an essential arrow in a company’s quiver of marketing tools.In fact, more than half of businesses using social media marketing for more than three years report an increase in sales over that period, according to the 2012 Social Media Industry Report.
THE WORLDLY INVESTOR
Markets continued their record march this week as a tepid jobs report reinforced expectations for further Fed stimulus.
I SWEAR
A while back, I cited a sports item in which two coaches were, respectively, if not respectfully, cited as having said that a matter was “between he and I” and “between me and him.”
KAY'S COOKING CORNER
This past week, Don and I dined at one of our favorite restaurants. In honor of autumn, I had to have a “fall food” dish and chose butternut squash cannelloni in saffron cream sauce. I made an excellent choice.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — The entertainer of the year trophy at the Country Music Association Awards is one of the most coveted honors in the genre, but sometimes it's OK to lose — like, say, when George Strait is a nominee.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The U.S. Army has agreed to put off the planned closure of Reserve Officers Training Corps programs at three Tennessee universities.
MIDSTATE
General Electric is selling its Kansas-based air filtration business to Clarcor Inc. of Franklin for $265 million.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy expanded at a 2.8 percent annual rate from July through September, a surprising acceleration ahead of the 16-day partial government shutdown. But much of the strength came from a buildup in company stockpiling.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits fell 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 336,000 last week, bringing applications to pre-recession levels.
NEW YORK (AP) — The stock market retreated from record levels Thursday as investors interpreted faster growth in the U.S. economy as a sign the Federal Reserve could soon slow its stimulus program.
The price of oil fell to near $94 a barrel Thursday, as an unexpected rate cut by the European Central Bank strengthened the dollar and an OPEC report depicted abundant global supplies.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of poor people in America is 3 million higher than the official count, encompassing 1 in 6 residents due to out-of-pocket medical costs and work-related expenses, according to a revised census measure released Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average U.S. rates on fixed mortgages rose slightly last week but remained near historically low levels.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac posted strong earnings for the July-September period as the housing market continued to recover. The gains will enable the mortgage giants to finish repaying their taxpayer aid or come close to doing so five years after they were rescued by the government.
NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter's public stock debut, set for Thursday morning on the New York Stock Exchange, has been carefully orchestrated to avoid the glitches and eventual letdown that surrounded Facebook's initial public offering 18 months ago.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — Songwriter Dean Dillon penned hits for George Strait, George Jones, Kenny Chesney and more in his prolific career in Nashville and several of those artists honored him as the newest BMI Icon at Tuesday's BMI Country Awards.
AUTO INDUSTRY
Electric car maker Tesla Motors has a battery problem. It doesn't have enough of them.
TOKYO (AP) — Toyota's quarterly profit soared 70 percent, and the world's top-selling automaker raised its earnings forecast, as cost cuts and the weaker Japanese yen compensated for slightly weaker vehicle sales.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama met Wednesday with Senate Democrats facing re-election next year to discuss the problem-plagued health care rollout that could affect their races.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans blistered Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday over the nation's controversial health care law, bluntly challenging her honesty, pushing for her resignation and demanding unsuccessfully she concede that President Barack Obama deliberately misled the public about his signature domestic program.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Beset by hard-to-keep promises and a massive website failure, President Barack Obama is promoting his embattled health care law in the state with the highest rate of uninsured Americans, which has also been politically hostile to the signature initiative of his presidency.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — The Dow Jones industrial average is closing at another record high.
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil rose 1.5 percent Wednesday as the U.S. government reported a strong increase in demand for gasoline last week.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The jobs report for October due out Friday may be bleak. It might even be scary. The unemployment rate could jump by the most in three years. Hiring may slow from an already weak pace.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A gauge of the U.S. economy's future health rose solidly in September, suggesting the economy was making gains before the government shut down for 16 days.
NEW YORK (AP) — Critics dismiss it as a fad. It's tiny next to some rivals. And it loses money.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The final curtain is falling on the remaining Blockbuster video-rental stores that Dish Network Corp. runs in the U.S.
NATIONAL POLITICS
ASBURY PARK, N.J. (AP) — The 2016 overtones were clear in this year's two most high-profile elections.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — George Strait's trophy closet keeps getting more crowded. This time it was the performing rights organization ASCAP doing the honoring, giving Strait its Founder's Award.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Parents claiming that some textbooks being used in state schools are biased say they're open to a stronger public review process, which state education officials acknowledge is needed to improve the current process for choosing books.
NASHVILLE (AP) - State Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey says he would be against an effort to expand Medicaid even if fellow Republican Gov. Bill Haslam successfully negotiated a special deal for Tennessee.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - According to a preliminary report, the pilot of a small, private plane that crashed and burned at Nashville International Airport last week had filed a flight plan for a short trip within Canada and was not in touch with air traffic control.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee State University's College of Engineering has received a nearly $2 million grant from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to study strategic initiatives.
AUTO INDUSTRY
TOKYO (AP) — The Renault-Nissan alliance and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said Tuesday they will expand cooperation in developing new vehicles, including small cars and full-size sedans.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior government official declined to say Tuesday if the administration will support legislation to fulfill President Barack Obama's oft-stated promise that anyone who likes their health care plan will be able to keep it under the nation's new law.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Weak earnings reports from a handful of U.S. companies are tugging stock indexes slightly lower.
The price of oil dropped another 1 percent Tuesday to below $94 per barrel, extending a month-long slide due to expectations of rising supplies.
NEW YORK (AP) — It can help overthrow dictators. But can it make money?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Activity at U.S. service firms accelerated in October behind a jump in sales and more hiring, suggesting businesses largely shrugged off the partial government shutdown.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A measure of U.S. home prices rose only slightly in September from August, a sign that prices are leveling off after big gains earlier this year.
San Francisco's mayor says he doesn't know what it is. Police say it's not their jurisdiction. And government inspectors are sworn to secrecy.
IPO fever is back.Five years after the financial crisis dampened enthusiasm for initial public offerings, investors are again eager to buy shares when companies start trading.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The financial crisis of the past few years has severely sapped confidence in government around the globe, a think-tank representing the world's wealthiest economies said Tuesday.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says U.S. businesses are looking for quick passage of immigration reform as he pushes Congress to act by the end of the year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is moving forward on the first major bill barring workplace discrimination against gays in nearly two decades as Americans' shifting views about homosexuality have significantly changed the political dynamic.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Country Music Association Awards aren't until Wednesday, but Taylor Swift's already a winner.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee lawmakers are holding hearings this week to review the state's textbook selection process.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Army is discontinuing ROTC programs at three Tennessee universities.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will leave in place an Oklahoma court ruling that struck down a state law limiting drug-induced abortions.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court, which asks for God's protection before every public session, will settle a dispute over prayer in the halls of government.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Now is when Americans start figuring out that President Barack Obama's health care law goes beyond political talk, and really does affect them and people they know.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A moderate Republican senator is calling for a "time out" in the implementation of President Barack Obama's new health care program.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stock indexes are ending with slight gains as investors found plenty to like in housing, steel and transportation stocks.
NEW YORK (AP) — The price of oil barely budged Monday after falling sharply last week on ample supplies and muted demand.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The United States and the European Union will resume free trade negotiations next week despite heightened tension between the two over the alleged spying activities of the U.S. National Security Agency.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories rose in September on a big jump in commercial aircraft demand. But businesses cut back sharply on machinery and other goods that signal their confidence to expand, signs of slower economic growth.
TORONTO (AP) — BlackBerry abandoned its bid to sell itself on Monday, and announced it will replace its chief executive.
NEW YORK (AP) — SAC Capital Advisors will plead guilty to criminal fraud charges, stop investing money for others and pay $1.8 billion — the largest financial penalty in history for insider trading — to resolve criminal and civil claims against the hedge fund giant, the government announced Monday.
NEW YORK (AP) — Men's Wearhouse said Monday that it won't give rival Jos. A Bank access to nonpublic information that it could use to assess whether to potentially raise its $2.3 billion buyout offer.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter has built a digital town square that's teeming with activity but riddled with financial potholes. Seven years after co-founder Jack Dorsey sent the first tweet through the online messaging service, more than 500 million posts are shared each day by everyone from the Dalai Lama to Justin Bieber.
NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter faces skepticism from potential investors and the broader public ahead of its initial public offering, according to an Associated Press-CNBC poll released Monday.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House and the leaders of the congressional intelligence committees are rejecting former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden's plea for clemency.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) - Just five candidates have submitted applications to fill an upcoming West Tennessee vacancy on the state's highest court.
STATEWIDE
KNOXVILLE (AP) — The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has extended its application deadlines for the fall 2014 semester.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — The government shutdown dampened — but didn't stall — Americans' demand for new cars and trucks.
DETROIT (AP) — Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Nissan and Toyota all posted October sales increases as the U.S. auto industry rebounded from a lackluster September.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — The stock market started November on a strong note as investors reacted to an expansion in U.S. manufacturing last month.
NEW YORK (AP) — The price of oil fell to the lowest level in more than four months Friday as concerns over high supplies continued to discourage investors.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Nasdaq shut down trading on one of its options markets Friday, the latest technical problem to hit the exchange.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. factory activity expanded in October at the fastest pace in 2½ years, suggesting that the 16-day partial shutdown of the government had little effect on manufacturers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama wants to step up government efforts to draw foreign companies to the U.S.
NEW YORK (AP) — Concerns about Facebook's ability to keep young teens coming back every day spooked some investors, even though the company's latest quarterly results showed continued strength in mobile advertising and beat Wall Street's expectations on all counts.
CHICAGO (AP) — William C. Lowe had a bold idea: IBM should develop a personal computer that could be mass marketed, expanding the company's reach beyond businesses and into people's homes.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Airline passengers won't have to "turn off all electronic devices" anymore — they'll be able to read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music from gate to gate under new guidelines from the Federal Aviation Administration. But they still can't talk on their cellphones through the flight.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration announced a new proposal Thursday to try and head off more shortages of crucial medications that have disrupted care at hospitals and clinics nationwide.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans blocked President Barack Obama's nominees to lead an influential federal court and a housing agency on Thursday, despite Democratic warnings of a return to last summer's partisan brawl over who wields power in the Senate.
WASHINGTON (AP) — To hear Rep. Paul Ryan tell it, a bipartisan group of congressional negotiators has the chance to take the first steps toward fixing a serious problem: a debt-ridden federal government facing an onslaught of retiring baby boomers draining entitlement programs.