VOL. 42 | NO. 52 | Friday, December 28, 2018
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.
TENNESSEE TITANS
The Tennessee Titans are alive in the NFL playoff chase – they’re in with a win against the Colts on Sunday – thanks to some unlikely sources.
1. Lots of Luck. Andrew Luck has owned the Titans, something that is well documented in these parts. Luck is 10-0 all-time against Tennessee and has been even more dominant against the Titans than his predecessor, Peyton Manning. The Titans defense didn’t touch Luck in the first meeting in Indianapolis in November, but they must find some way to get pressure on him, a job made much harder by the likelihood that Jurrell Casey could miss the game with a knee injury.
UT SPORTS
Jeremy Pruitt recruited with a purpose this year, selecting players with more knowledge of the environment and certainty of what Tennessee’s football program truly needed.
NEWSMAKERS
Becky Stoll, vice president for crisis and disaster management at Centerstone, has won the 2018 Dorothea Dix Community Service Award presented by the Tennessee Association of Mental Health Organizations.
BRIEFS
LKQ Corporation has opened its North American headquarters in Antioch.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
What’s America’s favorite family vehicle? The SUV? The minivan? These days, it could very well be the pickup truck.
PERSONAL FINANCE
People on Social Security need a tax break. The rest of us need to make sure they get it – for everyone’s sake.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
Point taken. When you were a baby, that’s all you had to do to get what you wanted. Point at food, you ate. Point at your bottle, you drank. Oh, if only it was that easy to reach your goals, huh? Nope, not a chance, which is why you need “Everything Is Negotiable” by Meg Myers Morgan, PhD.
CAREER CORNER
Finding a work-from-home or remote job can seem to be an impossible proposition. It’s like finding a unicorn. You’ve heard they exist, but you’ve never actually seen one.
REGION
NASHVILLE (AP) — A federal utility that serves parts of seven southeastern states says 2018 was the wettest year on record in the Tennessee Valley.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. long-term mortgage rates fell this week, starting the year with an inducement to prospective homebuyers.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — General Motors has promoted product development chief Mark Reuss (Royce) to company president.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks went into a steep slide Thursday morning after Apple reported a slowdown in iPhone sales over the holidays in China, a hugely important market for the company.
WASHINGTON (AP) — American factories grew last month at the slowest pace in more than two years.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. businesses added a robust 271,000 jobs in December. Payroll processor ADP said Thursday that last month's job gains marked a sharp upturn from November's gain of 157,000. The gains, if backed up by government numbers due Friday, could be strong enough to reduce the unemployment rate.
BEIJING (AP) — Apple Inc.'s $1,000 iPhone is a tough sell to consumers in China unnerved by an economic slump and the trade war with the U.S.
NEW YORK (AP) — Blake Nordstrom, who led the upscale department store chain Nordstrom as co-president with his brothers Erik and Peter, has died. He was 58.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — No one budged at President Donald Trump's closed-door meeting with congressional leaders, so the partial government shutdown persisted over his demand for billions of dollars to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. They'll all try again Friday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi (puh-LOH'-see) says "there's no amount of persuasion" President Donald Trump can use to get her to fund his promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nancy Pelosi knew this moment would come, even if others had their doubts — or worked to stop her.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Viktor Arvidsson's thumb and Juuse Saros' goalkeeping appear to be just fine for the Nashville Predators.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Shares of electric car and solar panel maker Tesla Inc. tumbled Wednesday morning after the company cut vehicle prices by $2,000 and announced fourth-quarter sales figures that fell short of Wall Street estimates.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — The roller-coaster ride on Wall Street resumed on Wednesday, the first trading day of the new year, as stocks plunged early on, then slowly recovered and finished with a slight gain.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration and China are facing growing pressure to blink in their six-month stare-down over trade because of jittery markets and portents of economic weakness.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is, at once, demanding billions of dollars from the U.S. treasury for a border wall and insisting the wall won't really cost America anything.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he's ready to meet again with Kim Jong Un to discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic and Republican congressional leaders are expected to attend a briefing on border security at the White House as the government remains partially shut down and President Donald Trump asks in a tweet, "Let's make a deal?"
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats are sweeping into power this week on a campaign promise of improving government for ordinary Americans. But first, they'll have to get government reopened from the partial shutdown.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee and incoming Utah senator, has quickly set himself apart from other Republicans in the new Congress with a blistering attack on President Donald Trump's leadership and character, triggering what could become a new rivalry in the GOP ranks.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Days away from joining the Senate's Republican majority, Sen.-elect Mitt Romney broadly criticized President Donald Trump's policies and character and argued that the president "has not risen to the mantle of the office."
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's most prominent GOP critics on Capitol Hill are close to completing their Senate careers, raising the question of who — if anyone — will take their place as willing to publicly criticize a president who remains popular with nearly 9 in 10 Republican voters.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 31
PREDATORS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Nashville Predators entered the final game of 2018 with their longest losing streak in more than five years.
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans' quest for a second straight postseason ended with injured quarterback Marcus Mariota watching from the sideline .
NASHVILLE (AP) — Titans linebacker Brian Orakpo says he's retiring after 10 NFL seasons, wanting to walk away from football on his own terms.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans had everything they needed to cap coach Mike Vrabel's debut season with a second straight playoff berth.
ENVIRONMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Agriculture Department is advising soybean and cotton farmers to follow new federal guidelines when applying a weed killer blamed for drifting and damaging crops in neighboring fields.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge in Texas who recently declared the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional has stayed his ruling to allow for appeals.
AUTO INDUSTRY
TOKYO (AP) — Former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn will be detained at least through Jan. 11, the Tokyo District Court said Monday, as the once revered auto industry figure faces allegations that have marked a stunning downfall.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Wall Street closed out a dismal, turbulent year for stocks on a bright note Monday, but still finished 2018 with the worst showing in a decade.
LONDON (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to Britain has cast doubts on whether a major bilateral trade deal can be reached if Parliament approves the Brexit proposal from Prime Minister Theresa May.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats unveiled a package of bills Monday that would re-open the federal government without approving funding for President Donald Trump's border wall with Mexico, establishing an early confrontation that will test the new power dynamic in Washington.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, William Barr, once questioned the value of a wall along the Mexican border similar to the one the president has advocated, describing the idea as "overkill."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday took the first major step toward launching a widely anticipated campaign for the presidency, hoping her reputation as a populist fighter can help her navigate a Democratic field that could include nearly two dozen candidates.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nancy Pelosi often quotes Abraham Lincoln saying public sentiment is everything. It's a theory that will be put to the test when the new House Democratic majority gavels in this week and votes to end the government shutdown without money for President Donald Trump's border wall with Mexico.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite public equivocations by three confidants, President Donald Trump is insisting he wants to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump twisted circumstances behind the deaths of two migrant Guatemalan children to insulate his administration from any blame, contending without justification that they were in dire health before they reached the border.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 6 in 10 military veterans voted for Republican candidates in the November midterm elections, and a similar majority had positive views of President Donald Trump's leadership. But women, the fastest growing demographic group in the military, are defying that vote trend.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — There's something to "cheers" about in the latest round of new Tennessee laws going into effect at the beginning of the new year.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped from 3.7 percent to 3.6 percent in November.
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — After a turbulent trip to Nashville, the Dallas Stars were settled down by their goaltender once they got on the ice.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Governor-elect Bill Lee announced two cabinet appointments Thursday.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most Americans say it would be OK to use gene-editing technology to create babies protected against a variety of diseases — but a new poll shows they'd draw the line at changing DNA so children are born smarter, faster or taller.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A revamp of billing rules for Tennessee's TennCare program has left some rural health care clinics struggling to stay open.
NASHVILLE (AP) — National and state health care organizations are calling on TennCare officials to immediately end a moratorium on special payments to rural clinics that is putting some in imminent danger of closing,
COURTS
MURFREESBORO (AP) — A lawsuit says authorities targeted Tennessee stores with owners of Egyptian heritage in the "Operation Candy Crush" sting focusing on candy and other products containing cannabidiol.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer Americans signed contracts to buy homes in November as higher mortgage rates and prices continued to squeeze would-be buyers out of the market.
AUTO INDUSTRY
NEW YORK (AP) — Tesla is naming Oracle's Larry Ellison and an executive from Walgreens to its board as part of a settlement with U.S. regulators who demanded more oversight of CEO Elon Musk.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Sears is closing 80 more stores as it teeters on the brink of liquidation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The end of 2018 seemed to signal good things to come for America's farmers. Fresh off the passage of the farm bill, which reauthorized agriculture, conservation and safety net programs, the USDA last week announced a second round of direct payments to growers hardest hit by President Donald Trump's trade war with China.
Wall Street capped a week of volatile trading Friday with an uneven finish and the market's first weekly gain since November.
2018 was a big year in business news. A trade war heated up between the U.S. and China, Facebook's stock took a face-plant, and two big tech companies reached $1 trillion in value, although that was before this fall's stock market rout. Test your knowledge of this year's notable events in business news with this end-of-year quiz.
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.
GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — They followed a call script for reassuring investors: A broker boasted of winning up to 95 percent of his trades. Sales representatives promised a client she would be a millionaire within a year if she didn't withdraw her five-figure investment.
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) — The partial government shutdown will almost certainly be handed off to a divided government to solve in the new year, as President Donald Trump sought to raise the stakes Friday and both parties traded blame in the weeklong impasse.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is threatening to close the U.S. border with Mexico if Democrats in Congress don't agree to fund the construction of a border wall.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In his first visit to U.S. troops in a conflict zone, President Donald Trump drew cheers when he told troops he won them their first raise in 10 years and suggested it was a whopping one. Neither is true.
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.