VOL. 35 | NO. 7 | Friday, February 18, 2011
Asurion deal marks shift in how Midstate, Metro compete for businesses
It’s on. The competition between Nashville and its suburban counties for jobs and business investment came out of the closet this month when Mayor Karl Dean promised Asurion Corp. $2.4 million in return for keeping its headquarters in the city and hiring 600 new workers.
Despite snow, rising interest rates and stubbornly high unemployment, more Middle Tennesseans bought homes last month than in January 2010, giving new hope that the housing market may be recovering from the recession.
Despite the down economy, the Nashville area is continuing to experience new hotel construction, including a couple of extended-stay hotels going up in the same vicinity on Elm Hill Pike.
GREEN BUSINESS
The Rev. Canon Sally Bingham has always felt connected to nature, years before she founded a movement committed to help saving it. The Episcopal pastor grew up in the country and watched as the land around her was destroyed and developed.
GET A JOB!
How do you turn a job into a lasting career? First, understand the difference. A job is defined as a paid occupation, while a career is defined as progressive achievement in professional or business life usually involving a series of jobs during a lifetime.
NEWSMAKERS
Officers are Mary Brockman, Williamson County commissioner, chairwoman; Connally Penley, volunteer, vice chairwoman; Margaret Howell, volunteer, secretary; Roger Shirley, editorial director at McNeely Pigott & Fox Public Relations, treasurer.
BOOK REVIEW
You can’t survive without them, but there are times when your clients just make you shake your head.
I SWEAR
I’m grateful to Martha Neil for her Jan. 10, 2011, post at the ABA Journal’s “Law News Now.”
KAY'S COOKING CORNER
This winter has been such a snowy one! Sometimes I look out of our windows at the expanse of grass behind our house and can almost put myself back in Colorado where I was raised.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Court of Appeals has rebuked a Nashville judge for the appearance of bias in a medical malpractice case involving a dead child.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Republican-controlled Senate passed a measure Wednesday that would allow Tennesseans to opt out of the federal health care law despite opposition from some who say the proposal is unnecessary and pure politics.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Union supporters have rallied at the state Capitol to denounce legislative efforts to dismantle labor laws in Tennessee.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The TennCare Standard Spend Down program filled its 2,500 slots for new applicants in just 64 minutes.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A federal judge has pledged a speedy resolution in a 13-year-old class-action lawsuit over care for the 750,000 children on TennCare.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A new study found Tennesseans bore the fourth-lowest tax burden among states in fiscal year 2009.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A study has found that women remain underrepresented in corporate leadership posts at publicly traded companies in Tennessee.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices rose again Thursday as the rebellion in Libya appeared to have shut down even more oil production than previously estimated.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The gap between the average sale price of a foreclosed home and that of other properties grew wider last year, giving homebuyers who snapped up bank-owned homes big discounts.
DETROIT (AP) — General Motors says it earned $510 million in the fourth quarter and $4.7 billion last year as it continued an impressive comeback from bankruptcy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Home sales are starting to tick up after the worst year in more than a decade. But the momentum is coming from cash-rich investors who are scooping up foreclosed properties at bargain prices, not first-time home-buyers who are critical for a housing recovery.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Target Corp. is reporting a 10 percent gain in fourth-quarter profits, boosted by an improving credit card business and solid holiday sales.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee plans to write legislation next week to end the Obama administration's flagship program for helping struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department wants the largest cigarette manufacturers to admit that they lied to the public about the dangers of smoking, forcing the industry to set up and pay for an advertising campaign of self-criticism for past behavior.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Wisconsin state Sen. Chris Larson packed just his toothbrush and one extra shirt when he and 13 fellow Democrats fled the state last week, to avoid near-certain passage of the Republican governor's plan to strip public workers of their collective bargaining rights.
WASHINGTON (AP) — One way for President Barack Obama to win the future, it seems, is to have his administration stop defending a federal law that bans recognition of same-sex marriage.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Wednesday that potential White House rival Mitt Romney should offer an apology for the health care overhaul he oversaw as Massachusetts governor.