VOL. 38 | NO. 52 | Friday, December 26, 2014
From country to rock to Gershwin, Music City has it
Cynics and service industry folks might call it “amateur night.” And one can hardly blame them as New Year’s Eve can turn even the most unassuming guest into a rowdy reveler for a night.
About 45 percent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions – or so says the Journal of Clinical Psychology. And one of the best ways to ensure they stick? Make them public.
To know where we’re headed, as the adage goes, we must first understand where we’ve been. And in Nashville, where we’ve been is eating at restaurants. Many, apparently.
REALTY CHECK
As 2014 comes to a close, the “Where does it end?” question is becoming more and more a part of the conversation.
TENNESSEE TITANS
For Derrick Morgan, Sunday’s season finale against the Indianapolis Colts could well be the end of his five-year run with the Tennessee Titans.
UT SPORTS
KNOXVILLE – Christmas break has come and gone for the University of Tennessee’s football team. Now it’s back to business.
NEWSMAKERS
Nashville School of Law has appointed noted author and scholar David Hudson as director of academic affairs and legal writing and as a faculty member.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
After a 19-year absence, Italian carmaker Alfa Romeo is back in the United States and wowing Alfa enthusiasts with the sexy, fun-to-drive 2015 4C two-seater.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
Much like the old adage that we only use 10 percent of our brains, you may fall into the camp of LinkedIn users leveraging less than a tenth of what this robust business-networking platform has to offer.
THE WORLDLY INVESTOR
As if we needed further evidence that investment markets price off of central bank soliloquies, markets worldwide rallied 4.5 percent last week in reaction to a short press release from the U.S. Fed.
CAREER CORNER
In less than three weeks, the race will be on. Are you ready? You may wonder what race I’m talking about. It’s time for one of the most important races of your life. The race to your dream job.
I SWEAR
“Dear Judge Vic, I am writing about the U.S. Postal Service. My wife and me send several things each month to the same address in a major city in another state. To the home of our kids. A house we’ve stayed at. A place with a porch, where the mail guy leaves packages. A few weeks ago, we sent a box with some presents in it.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - A new Tennessee law will allow trained school personnel to administer insulin. It's just one of many new laws taking effect on Thursday.
AUTO INDUSTRY
NEW YORK (AP) — The Volkswagen Group of America is recalling about 38,000 cars because a fuel leak in the engine may cause a fire.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — New episodes in the nation's long-running political drama over health care are coming via your news feed in 2015.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average U.S. mortgage rates rose slightly this week, but the benchmark 30-year rate stayed near a 19-month low.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans signing contracts to buy homes rose modestly in November as a strengthening economy helped nudge some would-be homebuyers.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks delivered again in 2014. Even after a poor start in January and wobbles in October and December, the U.S. market has climbed 13 percent and is ending the year close to record levels.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More Americans sought unemployment benefits last week, but the number of applications continues to be at historically low levels that suggest solid economic growth will continue.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks were flat on the final trading day of 2014 on Wednesday, keeping the market on pace for its sixth consecutive year of gains.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than half of Americans say they already have enough information at restaurants to decide whether they are making a healthy purchase. But they want even more.
NEW YORK (AP) — New Year's Eve: the day to overpay for everything from that glass of flat Champagne to the impossibly-high heels you'll wear just once, to, once again, that ride home from Uber.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Highway Patrol will conduct a "no refusal" traffic safety enforcement campaign over the New Year's holiday period.
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Tennessee Board of Regents wants its students to start declaring majors right away.
HEALTH CARE
The first 50-state report on the latest sign-up season under President Barack Obama's health care law shows that more than 4 million people registered for the first time or re-enrolled in what the administration called "an encouraging start."
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices rose in October at a slightly slower pace, as real estate sales have fallen and affordability has increasingly become a challenge for potential buyers.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Impressed with an improving economy, American consumers are feeling more confident, a private survey showed.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. and global stocks fell Tuesday as investors closed their positions ahead of the New Year and amid concern over political uncertainty in Greece.
MADRID (AP) — The resplendent Christmas display of dolls and teddy bears in the window of the Asi toy store is a hallmark of the holiday season on Madrid's Gran Via, one of the Spanish capital's busiest shopping streets.
YORK, England (AP) — Professors from three leading British universities say International Monetary Fund policies favoring international debt repayment over social spending contributed to the Ebola crisis by hampering health care in the three worst-hit West African countries.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 29
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee's Democratic Party chairman is recovering from a heart attack.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — Grand Ole Opry legend Little Jimmy Dickens has been hospitalized with an undisclosed illness.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Being uninsured in America will cost you more in 2015.
AUTO INDUSTRY
NEW YORK (AP) — Fiat Chrysler is recalling about 67,000 model year 2006 and 2007 pickups because of a problem that could allow the trucks to be started without the clutch being depressed. Chrysler said one death is associated with the problem.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is back, and ready to drive global growth in 2015.
WASHINGTON (AP) — At the RV Park he owns in a remote corner of southwestern Kansas, Jan Leonard is seeing the benefits of one of the federal government's most contentious programs.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S stocks inched mostly higher in light trading on Monday as investors shrugged off falling energy prices, a plunging Russian ruble and fears that Greece could renege on its bailout.
Sony says its PlayStation Network is back online after three days of disruptions that began on Christmas.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is on the verge of proposing long-awaited rules for commercial drone operations in U.S. skies, but key decisions on how much access to grant drones are likely to come from Congress next year.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee State Parks will kick off New Year's Day with free hikes.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy flexed its old muscles in 2014.
Wall Street's "Santa Claus" rally kept delivering gifts a day after Christmas.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Sony's PlayStation network remained offline Friday on the second day of an outage that began roiling the online world just as eager video game players were unwrapping new consoles on Christmas morning.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — "The Interview" was never supposed to be a paradigm-shifting film. But unusual doesn't even begin to describe the series of events that transpired over the past few weeks, culminating in the truly unprecedented move by a major studio to release a film in theaters and on digital platforms simultaneously.
NEW YORK (AP) — Critics and early viewers agree that "The Interview" is less than a masterpiece. But thanks to threats from hackers that nearly derailed its release, it has become an event.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Major U.S. stock indexes ended mostly higher on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones industrial average adding modestly to its gains a day after closing above 18,000 for the first time.
MF Global Holdings Ltd. must pay $1.21 billion to reimburse customers for losses sustained when the brokerage firm failed in 2011.