VOL. 42 | NO. 51 | Friday, December 21, 2018
REAL ESTATE
Top commercial real estate sales, November 2018, for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
The number of units recorded in Nashville and Davidson County were down slightly in November while average home sales prices leveled out.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. long-term mortgage rates slipped this week, reflecting the stock market decline and rush by investors to Treasury notes.
VANDERBILT SPORTS
Vanderbilt’s football success this season forced running back Ke’Shawn Vaughn to clear his calendar after the regular season.
TENNESSEE TITANS
We interrupt this football season for Christmas. Or maybe it is the other way around.
1. Derrick Henry. Lots of Derrick Henry. Now that the season is in the final weeks, the running game is front and center. And no running back has been more effective the past couple of weeks than Henry, who has nearly doubled his season output in just two games.
NEWSMAKERS
The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc., a nonprofit educational organization honoring the achievements of outstanding individuals and encouraging youth to pursue their dreams through higher education, has selected James W. Ayers, executive chairman of the board, FirstBank, as a recipient of its 2019 award.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Buying a used car instead of a new one has long been a surefire way to save money. Someone else takes the initial depreciation hit – between 25 to 30 percent on average for the first year – so you pay a lot less for the car and finance a smaller amount.
CAREER CORNER
As we approach the New Year, the conversation will inevitably turn to setting goals. They might be related to career, family, fitness or other personal pursuits. It’s interesting to think about what goals will be achieved and which will eventually be shelved.
PERSONAL FINANCE
We’re told experiences are supposed to make us happier than stuff — turns out that might apply mostly to the affluent.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
Smart home voice assistant usage is on the rise. According to Nielsen, 24 percent of U.S. households use such a device and that number is expected to double in 2019. As marketers try to optimize for the impact such devices have on search, Amazon has just rolled out a new Alexa feature for their Echo devices that will also impact email marketing.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. long-term mortgage rates fell this week, offering a slight degree of relief to would-be homebuyers after the stock market has tumbled.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Wall Street's wild Christmas week rolls on. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped about 300 points early Thursday, a day after notching its biggest-ever point gain, as the market endures a bout of volatility to end what has been a topsy-turvy year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer confidence tumbled this month as Americans began to worry that economic growth will moderate next year. But consumer spirits are still high by historic standards.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The last year was a 12-month champagne toast for the legal marijuana industry as the global market exploded and cannabis pushed its way further into the financial and cultural mainstream.
BEIJING (AP) — China's government said Thursday it has made plans with Washington for talks in January aimed at ending a tariff battle that threatens to depress global trade.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chances look slim for ending the partial government shutdown any time soon.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The mayor of Washington, D.C., has written a letter to President Donald Trump asking him to end the partial federal government shutdown.
Go west, 2020 presidential candidates? Early voting in California's primary will overlap with the traditional early nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mr. Trump went to Washington. And he changed it.
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 26
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota said he is doing "everything in my power" to be available Sunday night against Indianapolis with a playoff berth on the line.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home price growth slowed in October, a likely consequence of higher mortgage rates having worsened affordability and causing sales to fall.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court says Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been discharged from the hospital after cancer surgery.
HEALTH CARE
DEER LODGE (AP) — A little after 10 a.m. a recent Friday, Dr. Tom Kim affectionately smacked a side door of the Abner Ross Memorial Building in Deer Lodge, Tennessee.
AUTO INDUSTRY
TOKYO (AP) — Nissan Motor Co. executive Greg Kelly was released from detention in Japan on Tuesday after being granted bail over the alleged underreporting of his boss Carlos Ghosn's pay.
ENVIRONMENT
TOKYO (AP) — Japan announced Wednesday that it is leaving the International Whaling Commission to resume commercial hunts for the animals for the first time in 30 years, but said it would no longer go to the Antarctic for its much-criticized annual killings.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Wall Street notched its best day in 10 years as stocks rallied back Wednesday, giving some post-Christmas hope to a market that has otherwise been battered this December.
NEW YORK (AP) — Americans buoyed by a strong economy pushed holiday sales growth to a six-year high.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A shutdown affecting parts of the federal government appeared no closer to resolution Wednesday, with President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats locked in a hardening standoff over border wall funding that threatens to carry over into January.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump made an unannounced trip to Iraq on Wednesday to meet U.S. troops. It's the sixth time that a U.S. president has visited Iraq.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Christmas has come and gone but the partial government shutdown is just getting started.
HOUSTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's claims over Christmas that he had awarded 115 miles of new border wall construction in Texas appear to confuse work that's already funded and underway.
NEW YORK (AP) — The drumbeat of bad news for President Donald Trump hasn't been good for his most prominent backer in the media.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 24
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov.-elect Bill Lee has released his schedule of events leading up to inauguration on Jan. 19.
TENNESSEE TITANS
NEW YORK (AP) — The NFL has moved next week's Titans-Colts game into prime time on NBC.
EDUCATION
Amid fierce debate over whether charter schools are good for black students, the heirs to the Walmart company fortune have been working to make inroads with advocates and influential leaders in the black community.
AUTO INDUSTRY
TOKYO (AP) — Since his arrest on suspicion of falsifying financial reports, Nissan's former Chairman Carlos Ghosn has been sitting in a humble cell for more than a month, interrogated day in and day out, without a lawyer present.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is up and working as she recuperates from cancer surgery.
TECHNOLOGY
We may remember 2018 as the year when technology's dystopian potential became clear, from Facebook's role enabling the harvesting of our personal data for election interference to a seemingly unending series of revelations about the dark side of Silicon Valley's connect-everything ethos.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
President Donald Trump's attack on the Federal Reserve spooked financial markets on Christmas Eve, raising fears about an uncertain future should the White House try to undermine or remove the head of the U.S. central bank.
President Donald Trump lashed out at the Federal Reserve on Monday after administration officials spent the weekend trying to assure the public and financial markets that Jerome Powell's job as Fed chairman was safe.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called the CEOs of six major banks Sunday in an apparent attempt to reassure jittery financial markets coming off a turbulent week in the stock market that is now bracing for potential repercussions from a partial shutdown of the U.S. government.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Both sides in the long-running fight over funding President Donald Trump's U.S.-Mexico border wall appear to have moved toward each other, but a shutdown of one-fourth of the federal government entered Christmas without a clear resolution in sight.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The sooner-than-expected departure of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis shifts the focus to President Donald Trump's appointment of an acting Pentagon chief and plans for a permanent replacement.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Last year, during one particularly frenetic stretch in Donald Trump's presidency, a top Republican senator said there were three men guarding the country from chaos: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, White House chief of staff John Kelly and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. (AP) — Jill Mott doesn't like the tweets. The hard line on the border is too hard. And when asked whether she will vote for President Donald Trump a second time, she lets out a long, deep sigh.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is garbling his story about what's going on with the Islamic State group. Has it been defeated or is it still a fighting force? He had it both ways over the course of several days.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam says the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has dropped by 0.1 percentage points in November to 3.6 percent.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam has granted executive clemency to 11 people as he inches closer to the end of his final term in office.
PREDATORS
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The kid has lived up to the hype so far.
EDUCATION
NASHVILLE (AP) — A state audit says a Tennessee public school district placed teachers in classrooms without proper licensing or endorsements.
KNOXVILLE (AP) — A University of Tennessee, Knoxville, academic adviser accused of sexually harassing students at his previous university has been placed on paid administrative leave.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court won't let the Trump administration begin enforcing a ban on asylum for any immigrants who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery Friday to remove two malignant growths in her left lung, the third time the Supreme Court's oldest justice has been treated for cancer since 1999.
CHATTANOOGA (AP) — Three more former executives of the largest U.S. fuel retailer have been sentenced to prison in a plot to cheat trucking companies out of millions of dollars.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials say two Chinese citizens acting on behalf of their country's main intelligence agency carried out an extensive hacking campaign to steal data from military service members, government agencies and private companies in the United States and nearly a dozen other nations. It was the latest in a series of Justice Department indictments targeting cyberespionage from Beijing.
MADRID (AP) — Spain's Supreme Court has ruled that the captain and the insurer of the Prestige oil tanker must pay more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) in compensation for Spain's biggest environmental disaster, when the vessel sank in 2002.
AUTO INDUSTRY
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese prosecutors added a new allegation of breach of trust against Nissan's former chairman Carlos Ghosn on Friday, dashing his hopes for posting bail quickly.
TOKYO (AP) — Nissan Motor Co. former chairman Carlos Ghosn, charged with financial improprieties and detained in Tokyo for more than a month, has also been accused of a breach of trust that caused a multimillion-dollar financial loss for Nissan.
LONDON (AP) — Britain's main lobby group for the automotive industry has warned of a "catastrophe" if the country crashes out of the European Union without a deal.
TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese court denied prosecutors' request Thursday to extend the detention of former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn, who has been charged with underreporting his pay.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — A group gaining influence in Washington as a champion for Medicare beneficiaries is bankrolled by major health insurance companies that are trying to cash in on private coverage offered through the federal health insurance program.
TECHNOLOGY
BERLIN (AP) — Apple is pulling older models of its iPhone from German stores after losing two patent cases brought by chipmaker Qualcomm, the company said Thursday.
ENVIRONMENT
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration moved closer on Thursday to opening thousands of miles within Alaska's pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing, issuing a draft report that concluded the polar bears, caribou and other wildlife could safely share their untouched wilderness with oil and gas producers.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — After almost 10 years, Wall Street's rally looks like it's ending. Another day of big losses Friday left the U.S. market with its worst week in more than seven years. All of the major indexes have lost 16 to 26 percent from their highs this summer and fall. Barring huge gains during the upcoming holiday period, this will be the worst December for stocks since 1931.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans lifted their spending 0.4 percent in November from the previous month, a moderate gain that should sustain steady economic growth.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy expanded at a solid 3.4 percent annual rate in the third quarter, slightly slower than the previous estimate as consumer spending and exports were revised lower. The economy is expected to slow further in the current quarter.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories for long-lasting goods rose at a modest pace last month, but the gain was driven entirely by demand for military aircraft. Excluding transportation equipment, orders fell.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that the negative market reaction following the Federal Reserve's rate hike this week was "completely overblown."
NEW YORK (AP) — In the run-up to Christmas, online shopping continues to be strong.
NEW YORK (AP) — A report on Twitter by the human rights group Amnesty International is gaining traction and the company's shares were punished Thursday, suffering one of their worst declines this year.
Altria, one of the world's biggest tobacco companies, is spending nearly $13 billion to buy a huge stake in the vape company Juul as cigarette use continues to decline.
LONDON (AP) — Brexit uncertainties have "intensified considerably" since early November, the Bank of England said Thursday, as a leading automotive industry group warned of the possible loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs if the country crashes out of the European Union without a deal.
LONDON (AP) — Flights resumed at London's Gatwick Airport on Friday after drones sparked about 36 hours of travel chaos including the shutdown of the airfield, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded or delayed during the busy holiday season.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Jerome Powell sounded a note of humility Wednesday. The question for the Federal Reserve chairman is whether humility plays well with the financial markets.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Racing toward a partial government shutdown, President Donald Trump's top envoys were dispatched to Capitol Hill as he dug in Friday in a standoff over his demand for billions of dollars in U.S.-Mexico border wall money.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Donald Trump and Congress bicker over Trump's call for $5 billion to build a border wall with Mexico, government agencies are preparing for a partial government shutdown set to begin at midnight Friday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is developing plans to withdraw up to half of the 14,000 American troops serving in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Thursday, marking a sharp change in the Trump administration's policy aimed at forcing the Taliban to the peace table after more than 17 years of war.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned after clashing with President Donald Trump over the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria and after two years of deep disagreements over America's role in the world.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Last year, during one particularly frenetic stretch in Donald Trump's presidency, a top Republican senator said there were three men guarding the country from chaos: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, White House chief of staff John Kelly and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A majority of Americans say they believe President Donald Trump has tried to obstruct the investigation into his campaign's ties to Russia, though the public is divided on whether he should be removed from office if he's found to have stymied the probe, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed a wide-ranging criminal justice bill on Thursday that will reduce some of the harshest sentences for federal drug offenders and boost prison rehabilitation programs, handing President Donald Trump a legislative victory amid the turmoil over how to avoid a partial government shutdown.
NASHVILLE (AP) — U.S. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who has delivered some of the most stinging criticism of President Donald Trump from within his own party, says he'll jump in his car next month once his term is over and drive home from Washington.
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration miscalculated the potential benefits of putting better brakes on trains that haul explosive fuels when it scrapped an Obama-era rule over cost concerns, The Associated Press has found.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House intelligence committee voted Thursday to release a transcript of Roger Stone's closed-door interview with the committee last year after special counsel Robert Mueller requested it, according to two people familiar with the vote.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is facing scathing criticism from conservative supporters after backing away from his threat to shut down the government over border wall funding, with some aggressively lobbying the president against signing a short-term deal with no wall dollars.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Migrants heading to the southwest border to seek asylum in the United States will have to wait in Mexico until their claims are processed, under an agreement between the two countries announced on Thursday that will affect tens of thousands of people each month.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker chose not to recuse himself from the Russia investigation even though a top Justice Department ethics official advised him to step aside out of an "abundance of caution," a senior official said Thursday.