VOL. 42 | NO. 12 | Friday, March 23, 2018
NASHVILLE – Jack Daniel’s is over a barrel – literally – regarding a tax assessment, an attorney general’s opinion and the potential impact of President Donald Trump’s trade tariff.
PREDATORS
Having rocketed past 100 points faster than any team in franchise history, the Predators are well on their way to producing a historic regular season.
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
There were 61 fewer real estate sales in February compared to the same month in 2017, Greater Nashville Realtors figures show. That’s a 1.6 percent drop-off.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Long-term U.S. mortgage rates are ticking up slightly this week, the 10th increase in the past 11 weeks.
NEWSMAKERS
Butler Snow has hired Tara L. Blake for the firm’s Nashville office, and more specifically the firm’s pharmaceutical, medical device and health care litigation group.
BRIEFS
Nashville-based 180 Health Partners has raised an $8 million Series B financing round led by Spring Mountain Capital for the purpose of a national expansion. The company provides immediate and realistic accessibility to medical and behavioral health care to pregnant mothers caught up in the nation’s opioid crisis.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
Yesterday, your desk was piled with paperwork. But not today. Nope, you delegated most of it to your team, along with a list of things that absolutely had to be done ASAP.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
If you’re in the market for a new SUV, it’s important to know not only what’s available now but also what’s coming. Here are six SUVs going on sale in the next several months that we at Edmunds think are worth waiting for.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
2017 taught us that e-commerce is much more than transactions made from a desktop computer or mobile device. Whether you’re in a B2B or B2C market, e-commerce remains a critical sales tool with a wide influential reach estimated at more than 50 percent of in-store purchases. Estimates for online annual sales increases are about 15 percent for each of the next four years.
CAREER CORNER
Digital marketing is a hot field and has been hot for more than 10 years. I rarely share much about how to move into the field of digital marketing. However, I get many questions about it because a large part of my career was spent as a digital marketer.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — A medical marijuana bill has cleared another panel despite opposition from law enforcement, state health officials and Republican Gov. Bill Haslam.
STATEWIDE
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Tennessee communities of all sizes can now apply for grants to build or improve dog parks in their areas.
EDUCATION
WASHINGTON (AP) — Armed security officers are becoming more prevalent at America's schools, according to a federal study released Thursday amid a heated debate over whether teachers and other school officials should carry guns.
AUTO INDUSTRY
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Volkswagen is seeking to reassure German customers that they can trade in their new diesel auto if the car is banned from the road by cities trying to meeting air pollution limits.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Long-term U.S. mortgage rates moved little this week after a months-long stretch of increases.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
U.S. stocks rose sharply Thursday morning on the last day of trading ahead of the Easter holiday weekend. Technology stocks, which were big decliners earlier in the week, powered much of the market's climb. Banks, industrial companies and energy stocks also notched solid gains. Investors were weighing the latest company earnings and new economic data showing spending by U.S. consumers rose modestly last month.
NEW YORK (AP) — Barclays has agreed to pay $2 billion in civil penalties to the U.S. government to settle a lawsuit alleging that it was involved in a fraudulent scheme to sell residential mortgage-backed securities.
Americans increased their spending just 0.2 percent in February, while their incomes were boosted by increased wages and business owners' income.
NEW YORK (AP) — McDonald's, citing the new U.S. tax law and the tightening job market, is expanding its 3-year-old education benefits program, tripling the amount of money some workers can get each year to help pay for college or trade school tuition.
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Family Dollar has agreed to pay $45 million to settle a gender bias lawsuit that dates 16 years ago.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is going after Amazon again.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump fired Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin and nominated White House doctor Ronny Jackson to replace him following a bruising ethics scandal and a mounting rebellion within the agency.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee senator says his bill to offer in-state tuition for Tennessee public college students whose parents brought or kept them in the country illegally has halted because House leadership won't let it go forward.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee lawmaker on Wednesday questioned the motives of three women who accused him of sexual misconduct as their high school basketball coach decades ago, but he didn't outright deny the accusations.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Senate Speaker Randy McNally is echoing House Speaker Beth Harwell's call for a lawmaker's resignation after three women have accused him in a report of sexual misconduct as their high school basketball coach decades ago.
SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The checklist for the Nashville Predators is getting shorter as the regular season winds down.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The pace of Americans signing contracts to buy homes picked up last month, rebounding from a drop in January.
HEALTH CARE
SEATTLE (AP) — Take two tablets and a selfie? Your doctor's orders may one day include a smartphone video to make sure you took your medicine.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to testify before Congress about the company's privacy practices in coming weeks, according to a person familiar with the matter.
NEW YORK (AP) — Some 60 companies including such leading brands as Subway, Sprint and the NFL are joining forces to help each other follow you around online.
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook is giving its privacy tools a makeover as it reels from criticisms over its data practices and faces tighter European regulations in the coming months.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Three Facebook Messenger app users have filed a lawsuit claiming the social network violated their privacy by collecting logs of their phone calls and text messages.
AUTO INDUSTRY
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Automakers Daimler and BMW say they have agreed to merge their transportation services businesses so they can expand their offerings in ride-hailing apps, car-sharing, parking and charging electric cars.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge Wednesday allowed Maryland and the District of Columbia to proceed with their lawsuit accusing President Donald Trump of accepting unconstitutional gifts from foreign interests, but limited the case to the president's involvement with the Trump International Hotel in Washington.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
U.S. stock indexes struggled to find direction Wednesday, ending the choppy day of trading with a loss for the second straight day.
BENTONVILLE, Ark. (AP) — Walmart has removed Cosmopolitan magazine from its checkout aisles. The retailer says it was primarily a business decision, but concerns raised by groups over the magazine's content were heard.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy grew at a solid 2.9 percent annual rate in the final three months of last year, a sharp upward revision that caps three straight quarters of healthy growth. The Trump administration is hoping the economy will accelerate further this year, aided by sizable tax cuts and increased government spending.
BAGHDAD (AP) — The OPEC cartel and a group of allied oil-producing nations will decide by the end of this year whether to extend production cuts and by how long, Iraqi and OPEC officials said Wednesday.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — An attorney for an adult film star claiming a sexual encounter with President Donald Trump filed a motion Wednesday seeking to depose the president and his attorney.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday there's "a good chance" that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will "do what is right for his people and for humanity" and make moves toward peace.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Still angry about the budget deal he signed last week, President Donald Trump has floated the idea of using the Pentagon budget to pay for his long-promised border wall with Mexico, despite the fact that such spending would likely require approval from Congress.
TUESDAY, MARCH 27
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Jack White, Chris Stapleton and Lionel Richie are headlining the Pilgrimage Music and Cultural Festival in Tennessee this September.
SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have agreed to terms on a deal with quarterback Blaine Gabbert.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander says he's "not a big fan" of arming teachers at school, saying they have their hands full without carrying guns.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Republican-led state Senate has approved a bill that would reshape the University of Tennessee's board of trustees.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices posted another big gain in January, pushed higher by a shortage of homes for sale.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — A lawsuit claims a Tennessee private prison inmate was beaten and died because of inadequate staffing, training, supervision and medical care.
TECHNOLOGY
CHICAGO (AP) — Apple is adding the ability to use a digital pencil to draw and write on its cheapest iPad model in an attempt to make the tablet more compelling for creating, teaching and learning.
CHICAGO (AP) — Apple is hoping to return to the head of the class in the competition to get high-tech products into U.S. classrooms.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Uber will not renew its permit to test autonomous vehicles on California public roads when it expires Saturday. And the company will have some explaining to do if it wants to get a new permit.
NEW YORK (AP) — Self-driving car pioneer Waymo will buy up to 20,000 electric vehicles from Jaguar Land Rover to help realize its vision for a robotic ride-hailing service.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Unions at South Korea's two-largest automakers, Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp., have blasted plans to revise a free trade deal with the United States, saying the amended deal will prevent local automakers from entering the fast-growing U.S. pick-up truck market.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
A steep, late-afternoon sell-off in technology companies pulled U.S. stocks sharply lower Tuesday, knocking 344 points off the Dow Jones industrial average.
WASHINGTON (AP) — American consumers' confidence has slipped after reaching an 18-year high last month.
LONDON (AP) — The computer expert who sparked a global debate over electronic privacy said Tuesday that the official campaign backing Britain's exit from the European Union had access to data that was inappropriately collected from millions of Facebook users.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Greenpeace is withdrawing from the main global group for certifying sustainable wood, saying the organization it helped found more than two decades ago is failing to protect natural forests from exploitation.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A growing American economy and passage of a Republican tax overhaul appear to be helping President Donald Trump lift his approval ratings from historic lows, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Commerce Department says the 2020 U.S. Census will include a question about citizenship status, a move that brought a swift response by the California attorney general to oppose it.
MONDAY, MARCH 26
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Violins that were once used to make music in concentration camps and ghettos during the Holocaust are now on display for free at the Nashville Public Library in Tennessee.
SPORTS
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — Captain Blake Wheeler wasn't certain at the beginning of the season if his Winnipeg Jets would contend for a playoff spot. Now he has his answer.
COURTS
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A judge has ruled U.S. government officials engaged in regional planning for an area that supplies 40 percent of the nation's coal must consider reducing coal mining to fight climate change.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. regulators and state attorneys general are increasing pressure on Facebook as they probe whether the company's data-collection practices have hurt the people who use its services.
On the same day Facebook bought ads in U.S. and British newspapers to apologize for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media site faced new questions about collecting phone numbers and text messages from Android devices.
AUTO INDUSTRY
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea has agreed to further open its auto market to the United States as the two countries prepare to amend their six-year-old trade agreement following complaints by President Donald Trump.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
News that the U.S. and China are open to negotiating to avert a trade war put investors in a buying mood Monday, giving the market its best day in more than two years and erasing about half of its huge losses last week.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A second consecutive year of soaring profits on Wall Street pushed the average bonus paid to securities industry employees in New York City to more than $184,000 in 2017, New York state's top elected fiscal officer reported Monday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Business economists are expressing optimism that tax cuts and increased government spending will accelerate economic growth over the next two years.
Remington, the storied gun maker that began turning out flintlock rifles when there were only 19 states in the Union, has filed for bankruptcy reorganization amid years of slumping sales and legal and financial pressure over the Sandy Hook school massacre.
BEIJING (AP) — China's government said Monday it is open to negotiating with Washington amid a spiraling tariff dispute following a news report American officials have submitted a list of market-opening requests.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — While Americans say they're feeling slightly better about the current direction of the country than they did last month, their overall outlook for the future remains quite dim, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and more than a dozen European nations kicked out Russian diplomats on Monday and the Trump administration ordered Russia's consulate in Seattle to close, as the West sought joint punishment for Moscow's alleged poisoning of an ex-spy in Britain.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans appear open to President Donald Trump's surprise decision to negotiate directly with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and at the same time are less concerned than in recent months by the threat posed by the pariah nation's nuclear weapons.
WASHINGTON (AP) — With passage of an enormous budget bill, the GOP-controlled Congress all but wrapped up its legislating for the year. But will it be enough to convince voters to give Republicans another term at the helm?
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has already heard a major case about political line-drawing that has the potential to reshape American politics. Now, before even deciding that one, the court is taking up another similar case.
FRIDAY, MARCH 23
SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Auston Matthews didn't look rusty in his return from a monthlong layoff.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have agreed to terms with offensive lineman Kevin Pamphile, who has spent the last four years with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Tennessee has reached a $2.5 million settlement with former athletic director John Currie less than four months after he was suspended in the midst of a football coaching search that turned into a fiasco.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — The owners of Opry Mills are asking the Tennessee Supreme Court to reverse a ruling that reduced their 2010 flood insurance coverage from $200 to $50 million.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Magazine and broadcasting company Meredith, which owns WSMV-TV in Nashville, laid off an additional 200 workers on Wednesday and announced it would eliminate another 1,000 jobs over the next 10 months as it integrates the operations of Time Inc., which it bought six weeks ago.
TECHNOLOGY
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Americans looking for love or companionship on Craigslist can't make a connection.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fed up with Facebook? You're not alone. A growing number of people are deleting it, or at least wrestling with whether they should, in light of its latest privacy debacle — allegations that a Trump-linked data-mining firm stole information on tens of millions of users to influence elections.
AUTO INDUSTRY
YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — Nissan's chief planning officer said Friday the Japanese automaker does not plan to change its road tests for self-driving vehicles after the recent fatal accident of an Uber autonomous vehicle.
TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — Two experts say video of a deadly crash involving a self-driving Uber vehicle shows the sport utility vehicle's laser and radar sensors should have spotted a pedestrian, and computers should have braked to avoid the crash.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new U.S. homes slipped 0.6 percent in February, a third straight monthly decline. But year to date, sales are up 2.2 percent compared with 2017 in a sign that buyer demand remains solid.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Four state attorneys general are supporting a judge's order for a federal utility to clean up coal ash at a Tennessee plant.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government and AT&T exchanged opening salvos in a federal trial Thursday as the U.S. seeks to block the telephone giant from absorbing Time Warner, in a case that could shape how consumers get — and how much they pay for — streaming TV and movies.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The budget bill before Congress includes an update to federal law that makes clear that authorities with a warrant can obtain emails and other data held by American technology companies but stored on servers overseas.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks around the world plunged Friday as investors feared that a trade conflict between the U.S. and China, the biggest economies in the world, would escalate. A second day of big losses pushed U.S. stocks to their worst week in two years.
MIAMI (AP) — H. Wayne Huizenga (HY'-zing-ah), a college dropout who built a business empire that included Blockbuster Entertainment, AutoNation and three professional sports franchises, has died at 80.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Led by a surge in demand for commercial aircraft, U.S. orders for long-lasting manufactured goods rebounded in February, reversing a drop in January, to rise at the fastest pace since June.
BEIJING (AP) — China announced a $3 billion list of U.S. goods including pork, apples and steel pipe on Friday that it said may be hit with higher tariffs in a spiraling trade dispute with President Donald Trump that companies and investors worry could depress global commerce.
GENEVA (AP) — The World Trade Organization says it's making a "detailed analysis" of President Donald Trump's decision to impose tariffs on up to $60 billion worth of Chinese imports amid rising concerns of a trade war that sent stock markets reeling.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union and the U.S. seem to have averted a trade war for now, after the administration of President Donald Trump said Thursday it was ready to exempt the 28-country bloc from tariffs on steel and aluminum.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration readied restrictions Thursday on Chinese investment and tariffs on nearly $50 billion worth of Chinese imports to punish Beijing for stealing American technology and pressuring U.S. companies to hand it over.
NEW YORK (AP) — Last year was a terrific one for nearly every stock investor as markets kept soaring higher. It was even better for one group that's among the most maligned on Wall Street.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are moving higher in early trading as the market claws back some of the ground it lost a day earlier.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Tucked in the massive congressional budget bill is a provision that props up the price Medicare pays for a handful of medications, costing taxpayers millions at a time when the Trump administration is vowing to reduce the cost of prescription drugs.
NEW YORK (AP) — Support for tougher gun control laws is soaring in the United States, according to a new poll that found a majority of gun owners and half of Republicans favor new laws to address gun violence in the weeks after a Florida school shooting left 17 dead and sparked nationwide protests.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump grudgingly signed a $1.3 trillion federal spending measure Friday and averted a midnight government shutdown — but only after undercutting his own negotiators and setting off a mini-panic with a last-minute veto threat. The episode further eroded the already damaged credibility of both the president and a White House staff that had assured the nation he was onboard.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress gave final approval Friday to a giant $1.3 trillion spending bill that ends the budget battles for now, but only after late scuffles and conservatives objected to big outlays on Democratic priorities at a time when Republicans control the House, Senate and White House.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Charging ahead with the dramatic remaking of his White House, President Donald Trump said he would replace national security adviser H.R. McMaster with the former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, a foreign policy hawk entering an administration facing key decisions on Iran and North Korea.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House easily approved a bipartisan $1.3 trillion spending bill Thursday that pours huge sums into Pentagon programs and domestic initiatives ranging from building roads to combatting the nation's opioid abuse crisis, but left Congress in stalemate over shielding young Dreamer immigrants from deportation and curbing surging health insurance premiums.
NEW YORK (AP) — CNN chief Jeff Zucker sharply attacked the network's rivals at Fox News Channel on Thursday, saying that it has become a propaganda machine that is "doing an incredible disservice to the country."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Robert Mueller is scrutinizing the connections between President Donald Trump's campaign and the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A sweeping $1.3 trillion budget bill that substantially boosts military and domestic spending but leaves behind young immigrant "Dreamers" cleared an important procedural hurdle Thursday as lawmakers struggled to meet a Friday deadline to fund the government or face a shutdown.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's lead lawyer in the special counsel's Russia investigation has resigned amid a shake-up of the president's legal team.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House intelligence committee has approved its final report into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, concluding that there was no coordination between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attempting a policy reset, President Donald Trump will push for upgrades to the nation's aging roads and bridges Thursday in his first public appearance since an adult-film actress claimed on national TV that they had sex months after his wife gave birth to his fifth child.