VOL. 44 | NO. 8 | Friday, February 21, 2020
RESTAURANTS
Randy Rayburn has been a fixture in the Nashville restaurant scene for nearly 40 years. He was interviewed for a Nashville restaurant oral history project. A longer version of this interview has been submitted for deposit at Special Collections at the Nashville Public Library.
TIM GHIANNI: STREET LEVEL
Long, brown hair framing her face, the young woman’s smile and green eyes shine as she stands by the stage at Bobby’s Idle Hour.
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
The relationship between home inspectors and Realtors is one of the most misunderstood partnerships in the business world.
REAL ESTATE
Top residential real estate sales, January 2020, for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. mortgage rates rose slightly this week but they remain far below year-ago levels, which has provided a boost to home sales.
UT SPORTS
Her last name fits her perfectly because Tamari Key does her best work in that area on the basketball court.
NEWSMAKERS
J. Thomas Trent Jr., a partner in Bradley Arant Boult Cummings’ Nashville office, is one of two attorneys in Tennessee and the only one in Nashville to win a 2020 Client Choice Award.
BRIEFS
Middle Tennessee State University’s Business and Economic Research Center has released an automobile tariffs study for the state.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Just about every luxury automaker offers a high-performance version of one of its SUVs these days. But not everyone can afford a $70,000 Porsche Cayenne, let alone a $200,000 Lamborghini Urus.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
Click. And with that quiet little sound, an email is sent, a door is unlocked, an alarm is engaged, a recipe is downloaded, a machine is launched.
CAREER CORNER
A reader recently wrote in with what clearly is an issue on the minds of professionals: Social media in the workplace. Specifically, should I be Facebook friends with my boss?
PERSONAL FINANCE
A good rule of thumb when you’re trying to eat healthy is to beware of any food you see advertised. The most beneficial fare – whole grains, fruits, vegetables – tends not to have a marketing budget.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
Blogger Dani Austin of Dallas, Texas, logged into her Southwest Airlines account a few days before the end of 2019.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — U.S. Attorney General William Barr warned a group of Christian broadcasters on Wednesday that the decline of religion in America is undermining liberal democracy.
VANDERBILT SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Vanderbilt interim athletic director Candice Storey Lee knows Commodores' fans want specifics about what the Southeastern Conference's only private university will do to upgrade athletic facilities.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Cuonzo Martin and his assistant coaches hadn't talked about Missouri needing to win a road game in the Southeastern Conference.
NASHVILLE SC
NEW YORK (AP) — Three days ahead of the Major League Soccer's 25th season, owners, executives and players gathered for a day of unbridled optimism and hyperbole.
HEALTH CARE
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook said Wednesday that it is banning ads that make false claims about products tied to the new coronavirus.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump declared that a widespread U.S. outbreak of the new respiratory virus sweeping the globe isn't inevitable even as top health authorities at his side warned Americans that more infections are coming.
Delta Air Lines is reducing flights to South Korea while Hawaiian Airlines will suspend them entirely, as airlines deal with growing concern about the spread of the new virus beyond China.
ENVIRONMENT
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch consortium announced an ambitious plan Thursday to create "green" hydrogen using power from a huge offshore wind farm that has yet to be built.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — There was a 5.2% jump in Americans signing contracts to buy homes in January from the previous month as lower mortgage rates and a solid economy are pushing up demand for housing.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 2.1% in the final quarter of last year, but damage from the spreading coronavirus is likely depressing growth in the current quarter and for 2020 as a whole.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods dipped in January, pulled down by decreased demand for cars, auto parts and military aircraft.
LONDON (AP) — Britain published its opening demands for trade talks with the European Union on Thursday, delivering a blunt threat to walk away from the table if there is no progress within four months.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump faces a critical personal challenge in grappling with the new coronavirus outbreak: asking Americans to believe him after he and some of his top advisers have contradicted federal scientists in playing down the threat.
ELECTION 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans have widespread concerns about the security and integrity of elections, with few saying they have high confidence that votes in the 2020 presidential election will be counted accurately.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Bernie Sanders' ascendancy as Democrats' leading presidential hopeful fueled growing unease as lawmakers openly expressed anxiety that the self-proclaimed democratic socialist could cost them House control and questions abounded over what party leaders should do.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 26
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Schools would be banned from "lunch shaming" students unable to afford school meals, under a bill that was narrowly advanced by a Tennessee House panel on Wednesday.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — U.S. Attorney General William Barr will be a featured speaker Wednesday at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Tennessee. U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Jay Sekulow, one of the attorneys who defended President Donald Trump during his impeachment trial, are also on the schedule.
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Ryan Ellis and Viktor Arvidsson each scored power-play goals in the second period as the Nashville Predators rallied to beat the Ottawa Senators 3-2 on Tuesday night for their second straight win.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump pushed back Wednesday against criticism that his administration isn't doing enough to meet the coronavirus threat, as lawmakers called for giving disease fighters much more money than the $2.5 billion the White House has requested.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists can't tell yet how deadly the new virus that's spreading around the globe really is — and deepening the mystery, the fatality rate differs even within China.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. sales of new homes jumped 7.9% in January to the fastest pace in more than 12 years, a positive sign for economic growth.
AUTO INDUSTRY
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Ratings agency Moody's is lowering its forecast for global auto sales because of the new coronavirus outbreak.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks gave up early gains and ended lower, extending their losses for the week.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese electronics maker Panasonic declined to comment on reports Wednesday that it is planning to end its partnership with Tesla to produce solar panels at a factory in New York state.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sixty-five years after 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi, Congress has approved legislation designating lynching as a hate crime under federal law.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers from both parties told Pentagon leaders on Wednesday that the Defense Department is undermining its own efforts to get military money by diverting billions of dollars for the construction of President Donald Trump's U.S.-Mexico border wall
ELECTION 2020
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Democrats unleashed a roaring assault against Bernie Sanders and seized on Mike Bloomberg's past with women in the workplace during a contentious debate that tested the strength of the two men at the center of the party's presidential nomination fight.
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Democrats held their final debate before the South Carolina presidential primary and the critical Super Tuesday contests that follow three days later.
WASHINGTON (AP) — They flailed their arms, talked over each other and at one point called for backup, asking fact checkers to come to their rescue.
TUESDAY, FEB. 25
ELECTION 2020
The last day for voters to cast early ballots in the March 3 presidential primary in Tennessee is Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats' desire for dramatic political change has emerged as a driving force in the party's presidential primary battle, one that extends beyond the progressive wing and presents challenges for candidates running on promises of moderation.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee lawmakers once again showed their displeasure with Gov. Bill Lee's decision to keep accepting refugees by advancing a resolution Tuesday that criticized the Republican's actions as violating the separation of powers.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A federal lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of a Tennessee statute that made it a felony for sex offenders to live with their own young children has prompted moves by the GOP-dominant Statehouse to amend the 2019 law.
COURTS
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A coalition of 39 states – including Tennessee – will look into the marketing and sales of vaping products by Juul Labs, including whether the company targeted youths and made misleading claims about nicotine content in its devices, officials announced Tuesday.
The generic drugmaker Mallinckrodt has a tentative $1.6 billion deal to settle lawsuits over its role in the U.S. opioid crisis, it announced Tuesday.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee on Monday set two new execution dates, days after putting to death its seventh inmate in the past year and a half.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices rose at a faster pace in December as mortgage rates remained low and a falling supply of available properties set off bidding wars between buyers.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators of both political parties questioned Tuesday whether the White House's request for $2.5 billion is enough to prepare the United States for a possible coronavirus outbreak, even as President Donald Trump said the virus is "very well under control" here.
NEW DELHI (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the urgent $2.5 billion plan for coronavirus he sent to lawmakers will prepare the nation in case of an outbreak in the U.S. and help other nations unprepared to handle the threat.
ENVIRONMENT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Describing windows rattled by industrial blasts and windowsills covered in toxic ash, an African American resident of Texas' oil hub joined Democratic lawmakers, state officials and others Tuesday in urging the Trump administration to drop a proposed rollback that they said would silence disadvantaged communities battling big polluters.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocksfell sharplyagain on Wall Street Tuesday, piling on losses a day after the market's biggest drop in two years as fears spread that the growing virus outbreak will put the brakes on the global economy.
NEW YORK (AP) — Disney CEO Bob Iger, who steered the company through successful purchases of Star Wars, Marvel and Fox's entertainment businesses and the launch of a Netflix challenger, is stepping down immediately, the company said in a surprise announcement Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer confidence improved slightly in February, rising to a reading of 130.7, the highest point since August.
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon is aiming to kill the supermarket checkout line.
NEW YORK (AP) — Macy's reported stronger-than-expected sales and profits for the fourth quarter less than a month after it announced a major restructuring.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Tuesday gave its chief negotiator Michel Barnier a robust negotiating mandate to get a free trade deal with Britain, which counters several of the red lines that London has set.
Intuit is buying consumer finance company Credit Karma in a $7.1 billion cash and stock deal that will take it deeper into the financial products realm.
BEIJING (AP) — Factories that make the world's smartphones, toys and other goods are struggling to reopen after a virus outbreak idled China's economy. But even with the ruling Communist Party promising help, companies and economists say it may be months before production is back to normal.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a pair of Republican bills that would ban most late-term abortions and threaten prison for doctors who don't try saving the life of infants born alive during abortions.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A month before the Supreme Court takes up cases over his tax returns and financial records, President Donald Trump on Tuesday made the unusual suggestion that two liberal justices should not take part in those or any other cases involving him or his administration.
MONDAY, FEB. 24
MEDIA
NASHVILLE (AP) — A nonprofit funding pro bono legal services for local news organizations in five states has picked an attorney to help defend the right to gather and report the news in Tennessee.
HEALTH CARE
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma launched an ad campaign Monday to tell people harmed by their powerful prescription opioid where they can file claims against the company.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is readying an urgent budget request to address the deadly coronavirus outbreak whose rapid spread is spooking financial markets and restricting international travel.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Clarence Thomas has made no secret of his dislike of past Supreme Court decisions written by other justices, including seminal opinions about abortion rights, press freedoms and a defendant's right to a lawyer.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The educational records of a star University of Montana quarterback accused of rape will remain confidential after the Supreme Court declined to get involved in the case brought by author Jon Krakauer.
The Supreme Court on Monday appeared ready to remove an obstacle to construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, with a majority of justices expressing skepticism about a lower court ruling that tossed out a key permit needed for the natural gas pipeline to cross under the Appalachian Trial.
TECHNOLOGY
The Pentagon is adopting new ethical principles as it prepares to accelerate its use of artificial intelligence technology on the battlefield.
LONDON (AP) — China's Huawei unveiled its latest folding smartphone Monday and its first such device to be available internationally, competing in a niche category with new models from Samsung and Motorola.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Transportation Security Administration said Sunday it has stopped allowing employees to use the China-owned video app TikTok to create social media posts for the agency after the Senate's top Democrat raised concerns about potential national security issues.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped more than 1,000 points Monday in the worst day for the stock market in two years as investors worry that the spread of a viral outbreak that began in China will weaken global economic growth.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Billionaire Warren Buffett says the viral outbreak in China has slowed economic growth, but he remains confident in the long-term future of American business.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly two-thirds of U.S. business economists say the Federal Reserve's interest rate policy is "about right," a sharp contrast to President Donald Trump's attacks on the Fed for not cutting rates more aggressively.
BEIJING (AP) — China's government promised tax cuts and other aid Monday to help companies recover from its virus outbreak while a spike in new cases in Iran, Italy and South Korea raised the prospect of wider disruption to tourism and other global industries.
NEW YORK (AP) — Intuit Inc. is reportedly close to a $7 billion deal to acquire personal-finance portal Credit Karma Inc. and beef up its position in the consumer-finance market.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump overstated India's progress in achieving universal access to electricity, skirted facts about sanitation and exaggerated his own administration's record as part of a 36-hour visit to India to reaffirm ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In their boisterous presidential debate, several Democrats sold short the health care plans of rivals and Mike Bloomberg distorted his position on the "stop and frisk" police strategy when he was New York City mayor. In an audacious league of his own, President Donald Trump celebrated the elimination of a tax that still exists and went deep and wide in distorting what he's done in office.
FRIDAY, FEB. 21
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Former Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher, who led the franchise to its lone Super Bowl appearance thus far, will enter the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame.
STATE GOVERNMENT
MEMPHIS (AP) — Federal authorities said Friday that they have conducted searches at the Memphis home and business addresses of Democratic state Sen. Katrina Robinson.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Five Republican attorneys general are seeking to block an effort by three Democratic-led states to see the Equal Rights Amendment is adopted into the U.S. Constitution.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee state government services are now accessible through a new mobile app called "MyTN."
NASHVILLE (AP) — Legislative leaders say they have concerns over how the Department of Education selected its vendor to administer Gov. Bill Lee's school voucher program, but they have no plans to halt the contract from moving forward.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — A convicted murderer was put to death in Tennessee's electric chair Thursday, becoming the state's fifth prisoner over 16 months to choose electrocution over the state's preferred method of lethal injection.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home sales retreated 1.3% in January from the prior month, but low mortgage rates helped enable an increase in purchases from a year ago.
TECHNOLOGY
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A private equity firm seeking to buy rights to operate the internet's .org suffix said Friday it will cap price hikes and create an advisory board with veto powers to ease concerns from the nonprofit community.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks fell and bond prices rose sharply on Wall Street Friday amid fresh signs that the viral outbreak that originated in China is weighing on U.S. companies.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signaled Friday that he's prepared to tap federal coffers again to help farmers suffering from the tariff fights that he initiated.
BEIJING (AP) — China on Friday suspended more punitive tariffs on imports of U.S. industrial goods in response to a truce in its trade war with Washington that threatened global economic growth.
TOKYO (AP) — The outbreak of the new virus threatens to erase $29 billion of this year's revenue for global airlines, mostly for Chinese carriers, as travel crashes worldwide, according to the International Air Transport Association.
TOKYO (AP) — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should be basking in the limelight this year in the run-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Instead, the virus outbreak that has spread from China to even remote parts of Japan has Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party playing defense.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday minimized new warnings from U.S. intelligence experts that Russia is interfering in this year's election campaign, and revived old grievances in claiming that Democrats are determined to undermine the legitimacy of his presidency.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell is the new acting national intelligence director, but he's expected to be a short-timer overseeing the nation's 17 spy agencies.
THURSDAY, FEB. 20
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee panel won't vote on whether to remove or add context to a bust of a Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader in the Capitol until a board vacancy is filled, the board's chairman said at a meeting Thursday.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials have launched a pilot program offering some appointments and e-tickets for people looking to get their Real IDs.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — For a Supreme Court that says it has an allergy to politics, the next few months might require a lot of tissues.
TECHNOLOGY
MADRID (AP) — The top U.S. diplomat for cybersecurity policy says he welcomes European Union moves toward recognizing the risks at stake in 5G technology, but warned that the U.S. will not be able to share top-level information with countries that choose "untrusted" vendors, such as China's Huawei.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks spun lower in a dizzying day of trading Thursday as worries about the viral outbreak that started in China knocked the S&P 500 off its record high.
LONDON (AP) — London-based bank Barclays backed away Thursday from a software program that monitored an employee's productivity - including bathroom breaks - after privacy campaigners described it as "creepy.''
NEW YORK (AP) — The contest for athletic wear customers has left once high-flying Under Armour, which has a large distribution center in Mt. Juliet, dented and bruised as competitors pull ahead.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Microsoft announced a five-year, $1.1 billion investment plan in Mexico on Thursday to develop training programs and increase the availability of cloud computing services.
NEW YORK (AP) — Investment bank Morgan Stanley announced it would buy the online brokerage E-Trade for roughly $13 billion, one of the biggest deals on Wall Street since the financial crisis.
BRUSSELS (AP) — As European Union leaders deliberated over their 1 trillion-euro ($1.1 trillion) budget Thursday, lawmakers were deeply concerned about potential conflicts of interest that could see hundreds of millions of euros in funds granted to companies linked to some of the very people deciding how the money should be spent.
NEW YORK (AP) — Victoria's Secret, which once defined sexy with its leggy supermodels prancing around in their bras and oversized angel wings, is being sold as women increasingly look for styles that more realistically fit their body type.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump loyalist Roger Stone was sentenced Thursday to more than three years in federal prison, following an extraordinary move by Attorney General William Barr to back off his Justice Department's original sentencing recommendation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Victoria Coates, a top official on the National Security Council, is being reassigned amid fallout over the identity of the author of the inside-the-White House tell-all book by "Anonymous."
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced that Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, will become acting director of national intelligence, a move that puts a staunch Trump ally in charge of the nation's 17 spy agencies, which the president has only tepidly embraced.
ELECTION 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee announced Thursday that they will spend more than $10 million during the 2020 election cycle to battle Democrats on voting-related lawsuits and to bolster their Election Day operations.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Through a year of campaigning, the Democratic presidential candidates played nice, talking up party unity, disagreeing mostly politely on policy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The latest Democratic presidential debate was a raucous one, ripe for exaggerations and distortions as Mike Bloomberg made his debut on the debate stage and rivals went after him and each other. President Donald Trump weighed in on the feisty performance at a rally where he mischaracterized what some Democrats want to do with health care.