VOL. 40 | NO. 51 | Friday, December 16, 2016
SAM STOCKARD: VIEW FROM THE HILL
By just about any measure, state Rep. Jeremy Faison is a hard-core conservative. But when it comes to the cannabis plant, the East Tennessee legislator is ready to fire up the General Assembly with a move to liberalize the state’s pot law.
TIM GHIANNI: STREET LEVEL
“Dum-dum-dum-dumdy-doo-wah ….” Probably not a pretty sound, but that’s what I was singing – “Only the Lonely” – when I pulled my ancient Saab into a visitor’s spot in the parking lot outside the building named for Nashville’s most-celebrated rock star, a kind man with a voice that soared from baritone to tenor as he sang of heartache, loss and, very seldom, life’s triumphs.
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
With the imminent rise in the mortgage interest rates looming on the horizon, Nashville area buyers rushed into the ever-shrinking inventory of houses and condominiums in October and purchased thousands of homes.
REAL ESTATE
Top residential real estate sales, November 2016, for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
DAVID CLIMER: OUT OF LEFT FIELD
When it comes to college football, I tend to be a traditionalist. That doesn’t mean I yearn for the days of leather helmets and quick kicks.
TERRY McCORMICK: TENNESSEE TITANS
The Titans had been riding the gifted right arm of Marcus Mariota for about two months.
First down: Different game, same plan. The Titans’ run-first plan on offense worked against the Broncos, and it could be their M.O., again this week against the Chiefs, who have a talented defense just like the Broncos but can be vulnerable against the run. The Titans will, however, need more from Marcus Mariota than they got against Denver.
NEWSMAKERS
Scott McCarver, associate operating office for Vanderbilt University Adult Hospital and Clinics, has been named chief operating officer for the Vanderbilt University Adult Hospital.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Nissan’s luxury brand Infiniti adds a third SUV this year with the compact QX30, which rides and looks more like a small hatchback.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
The primary reason most advertising fails is that the message sounds remarkably similar to other competitors in the marketplace.
CAREER CORNER
One of the first things every job seeker considers is what city to live in next, and a list of questions comes up when evaluating options:
I SWEAR
In the mid-1970s, Susan and I went into a fast food restaurant. We sat down, and the chair that she sat in, one of those glued-to-the-floor models that was prevalent at that time, just sorta slowly came loose from the floor and fell over.
AUTO INDUSTRY
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California has put the brakes on Uber's weeklong experiment with using self-driving cars on the streets of San Francisco.
DETROIT (AP) — Honda is in talks with Google to install the tech company's self-driving technology in Honda vehicles.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy grew at a 3.5 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, the fastest pace in two years and more than the government had previously estimated. But the growth spurt isn't expected to last.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are lower Thursday morning as retailers slide. Bed Bath & Beyond is down after posting weak sales, while e-commerce company Alibaba is down after regulators again sanctioned the company for sales of counterfeit goods. Without a lot of major news before the holidays, investors are scrutinizing a handful of company earnings. Software company Red Hat is falling after reporting weak results.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. businesses stepped up their spending on industrial machinery, steel, and other big-ticket items last month, a sign that one of the economy's weak spots may be improving.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More Americans sought unemployment aid last week, but the number of applications remains at a low level that suggests companies are still hiring.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — In another sign that he intends to shake up relations with China, President-elect Donald Trump named economist Peter Navarro to lead a newly created White House council on trade.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Gov. Bill Haslam is recommending Chattanooga State Community College President Flora Tydings as the next chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents system.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - M. Lee Smith, an influential political adviser and newsletter publisher who once broke the news that a Tennessee governor had hired a convicted double-murderer as a state photographer, has died. He was 74.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — While Gov. Bill Haslam says he's ready to unveil his plan to boost road funding in Tennessee, he says he's putting off making any proposal public until fellow Republicans in the Legislature have time to explore their own funding ideas.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans bought homes in November in the fastest pace in nearly a decade. But rising mortgage rates, a deepening shortage of houses and higher prices are likely to weigh on the market next year.
AUTO INDUSTRY
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Volkswagen reached a deal that will give at least some owners of the remaining 80,000 diesel vehicles caught in the company's emissions cheating scandal the option of a buyback and provide compensation to all of them on top of any repurchase or repairs, U.S. regulators and a federal judge said Tuesday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks finished slightly lower Wednesday as health care companies continued to struggle. Energy companies rose as the price of natural gas surged on the first day of winter.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Goldman Sachs has been ordered to pay $120 million to settle federal regulators' charges that it deliberately manipulated a global benchmark for interest-rate swaps to its advantage.
NEW YORK (AP) — A former top official at the country's third-largest pension fund and two broker-dealers were charged Wednesday in what a federal prosecutor described as a classic bribery scheme that steered $2 billion in trades in exchange for drugs, prostitutes, vacations and U.S. Open tennis tickets.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13
MIDSTATE
MURFREESBORO (AP) - Six of the 10 officers involved in arresting elementary students at a school in Tennessee violated their department's policies, an internal police investigation determined.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Census estimates show Tennessee's population has grown in the past year by about 56,000 people.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture has designated nearly half of Tennessee's counties as primary natural disaster areas because of damage and losses caused by drought conditions.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee State University plans to enhance student career development initiatives with a $2 million grant that is part of the United Negro College Fund Career Pathways Initiative.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence for a man convicted of murdering a young couple.
AUTO INDUSTRY
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Volkswagen reached a deal with U.S. regulators and attorneys for car owners for the remaining 80,000 diesel vehicles caught in the company's emissions cheating scandal, a federal judge announced Tuesday.
HEALTH CARE
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Drug wholesalers shipped 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to West Virginia in just six years, a period when 1,728 people fatally overdosed on these two painkillers, according to an investigation by the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks set new records Tuesday as big gains by banks and travel companies propelled the Dow Jones industrial average ever closer to the symbolic 20,000 level, which remained just out of reach.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Disney and Aeropostale are among six retailers that have agreed to stop using on-call shift scheduling following an inquiry by a coalition of nine attorneys general.
Walgreens and Rite Aid will sell 865 stores to rival retailer Fred's for $950 million, potentially removing the final roadblock thwarting a tie up between the nation's largest and third-largest drugstore chains.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 19
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Tennessee's 11 presidential electors on Monday cast their ballots for Republican Donald Trump amid protesters demanding they stray from their legal obligation to support the candidate who carried the state.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — General Motors will temporarily close five factories next month as it tries to reduce a growing inventory of cars on dealer lots.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Volkswagen faced a Monday deadline to tell a federal judge whether it had reached a deal with U.S. regulators and attorneys for car owners on the remaining 80,000 diesel vehicles that cheated on emissions tests.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — You pay less for outpatient treatment than for a hospital admission, right? Not necessarily in the topsy-turvy world of Medicare billing, according to a government report.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — With the Christmas holiday and the end of 2016 coming into view, U.S. stocks edged higher Monday as bond yields dropped and investors who sought income moved money into phone company and real estate stocks.
NEW YORK (AP) — Hedge fund executives were charged Monday in a $1 billion fraud case linked to an oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that killed three workers and injured several others.
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Poker pro Phil Ivey and a companion must return more than $10 million they won from an Atlantic City casino while playing cards that were arranged in a certain way to give the players an edge.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" soared to the top of the weekend box office as expected, scoring the second-best December opening ever with $155 million in estimated ticket sales.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed witnesses to testify before a grand jury looking into possible charges against former state Rep. Jeremy Durham.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - A flood of emails, phone calls and letters isn't expected to influence the decisions of Tennessee's 11 members of the Electoral College when they cast their ballots Monday at the state Capitol.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's efforts to require more online retailers to collect Tennessee sales taxes has cleared its first major hurdle in the Legislature.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The University of Tennessee's Board of Trustees on Thursday unanimously approved the appointment of Beverly Davenport as the first female chancellor of the public university system's flagship campus in Knoxville.
AUTO INDUSTRY
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Volkswagen's sales just keep going up despite its scandal over cars that cheated on diesel emissions tests.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Friday planned to hear whether Volkswagen, U.S. regulators and attorneys for vehicle owners had reached a deal for the remaining 80,000 cars caught up in the company's emissions cheating scandal.
Negotiations over whether Uber must stop its newly launched self-driving car service in San Francisco have concluded without a clear resolution, according to California transportation regulators.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Builders pulled back on constructing homes in November, after ground breakings surged in October to the strongest pace in more than nine years.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mortgage rates are still surging five weeks after Donald Trump's election victory. Will higher rates weaken prospective buyers' confidence next year and dampen home sales?
U.S. homebuilders' confidence soared this month to the highest level in 11 years, reflecting heightened expectations of better sales now and well into 2017.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Long-term U.S. mortgage rates climbed for the seventh straight week following Donald Trump's election victory, again marking new highs for the year.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook is taking new measures to curb the spread of fake news on its huge and influential social network, focusing on the "worst of the worst" offenders and partnering with outside fact-checkers to sort honest news reports from made-up stories that play to people's passions and preconceived notions.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yahoo has become the worst-case example of an unnerving but increasingly common phenomenon — massive hacks that steal secrets and other potentially revealing information from our personal digital accounts, or from big organizations that hold sensitive data on our behalf.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Falling technology and financial stocks pulled U.S. indexes back from the edge of record highs on Friday. Bond yields gave up some of their big gains from the last few days, and the dollar downshifted from its sharp climb against other currencies.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stores are pushing deals and incentives like free shipping for the final week of the holiday shopping season, as new numbers show people are so far spending at a bit of a slower pace than last year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The eight biggest U.S. banks will be required to build new cushions against losses that would shift the burden to investors. The action by the Federal Reserve was the latest bid by regulators to reduce the chances of future taxpayer bailouts.
NATIONAL POLITICS
NEW YORK (AP) — The head of the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates broadcasters, phone and cable companies, says he will step down in January as President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has officially chosen Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke to serve as his interior secretary.
CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — The average price of regular-grade gasoline has jumped 6 cents nationally over the past two weeks, to $2.26 a gallon.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Monday that college graduates are entering the strongest job market the country has seen in nearly a decade, and their degree is more important than ever.