VOL. 39 | NO. 13 | Friday, March 27, 2015
VIEW FROM THE HILL
Are Tennessee’s public schools headed for extinction? Not if it’s up to Memphis teachers.
La Vergne High School graduate Cesar Bautista, who has lived in Tennessee since he was 8 years old, is among a group of students who’ve been here most of their lives but are still forced to pay out-of-state college tuition because they don’t have legal status.
BEYOND FAITH
It’s another blood-pressure-raising Tennessee legislative session – at least for a politically active group of moms concerned about their children potentially being shot.
REALTY CHECK
There is a new trend developing in the sale of homes in the area.
REAL ESTATE
Top February 2015 residential real estate transactions for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
NEWSMAKERS
Tim Corbin, head coach of the Vanderbilt University’s NCAA national championship baseball team, has been named Outstanding Nashvillian of the Year by The Kiwanis Club of Nashville.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Nissan’s stylish 2015 Murano mid-size, sport utility vehicle is getting lots of second and even third looks as consumers seek the next big thing in SUVs.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
This friend of mine – we’ll call him Luke – told an interesting story recently.
I SWEAR
The Honorable George Rose Smith is depicted in a John Deering wall-mounted bronze relief at the Central Arkansas Library System’s main branch. He’s in his robe and seated in front of a giant crossword grid.
KAY'S COOKING CORNER
I recently received an email about the health benefits of lemons. It was interesting, so I thought I’d share it with you.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Sidney Hillman Foundation is creating a new award in honor of the late Nashville attorney George Barrett, a crusading lawyer known for his role in the civil rights and labor movements.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - The state Senate has voted to ban drones from recording images above ticketed events with more than 100 people in attendance.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The latest effort to make it a crime to have open alcohol containers in vehicles driving on Tennessee roads has failed in a House committee.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates barely moved this week, remaining close to historically low levels as the spring home-buying season gets underway.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories rose in February, breaking a six-month losing streak.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits dropped significantly last week, a sign of a strong job market despite evidence of tepid economic growth in the opening months of 2015.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit plunged in February as both imports and exports sank, driven by a since-settled trade dispute and a global economic slowdown that has cut into oil prices and caused the dollar to rise in value.
Major U.S. stock indexes moved higher in morning trading Thursday as investors welcomed economic news on jobs and factory orders. The market is coming off a two-day losing streak as traders look ahead to the start of the next round of corporate earnings beginning next week. Oil prices eased after climbing the day before.
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Workers at a major Vietnamese footwear factory for Nike and Adidas ended a weeklong strike Thursday after the government agreed to their demands on retirement payouts.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — An unorthodox stock split designed to ensure Google CEO Larry Page and fellow co-founder Sergey Brin retain control of the Internet's most profitable company could cost Google more than half a billion dollars.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is unhappy about plans by Republicans who control Congress to repeal the estate tax.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - A bill to repeal a state law that sets requirements for which spirits can me marked as "Tennessee Whiskey" is poised for full committee votes in both the House and Senate next week.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Tennessee lawmakers won't vote this year on a bill seeking to allow municipal broadband to be offered outside of electric utilities' service areas.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A proposal to make the Bible the official state book of Tennessee is advancing in the state House despite constitutional questions raised by the state attorney general's office.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A state senator who has drawn the ire of supporters of Gov. Bill Haslam's Insure Tennessee proposal called a protester an obscene name in a video posted to YouTube.
NASHVILLE (AP) - People with handgun carry permits would be able to carry their weapons on the grounds of the state Capitol under a provision inserted into a guns-in-parks proposal that overwhelmingly passed the Senate on Wednesday.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Tennessee Department of Labor officials say they are continuing to collect millions of dollars of unemployment benefits that were improperly paid out. This comes out after an audit by the state comptroller's office found that prisoners, state officials and at least one dead person were on unemployment rolls.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) - A Nashville prosecutor has been fired after reports surfaced that he made sterilization of women part of plea negotiations in some cases.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — U.S. car buyers tapped the brakes in March, a sign of a long-expected slowdown in the blistering pace of sales.
TECHNOLOGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Wednesday created the first-ever sanctions program to penalize overseas hackers who engage in cyber spying and companies that knowingly benefit from the fruits of that espionage, potentially including state-owned corporations in Russia and China.
REAL ESTATE
SUNNY ISLES BEACH, Florida (AP) — The wow factor for Miami's skyscraper condos no longer comes from a dazzling Atlantic Ocean view.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. construction spending slipped for the second month in February, pulled down by a drop in single-family home building.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — A bevy of big-name businesses including Apple, Gap and Levi Strauss are publicly speaking out against religious-objections legislation in states such as Indiana and Arkansas.
A batch of discouraging economic news deepened investors' concerns about corporate earnings, pulling major U.S. stock indexes down on Wednesday for the second day in a row.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. businesses slowed their pace of hiring in March, a private survey found. The modest gains suggest that harsh winter weather has generated a broader slowdown that caused the survey to report gains of less than 200,000 jobs for the first time in 13 months.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. factories expanded last month at a weaker pace, with orders growing more slowly and hiring essentially flat.
PHOENIX (AP) — Four Peaks Brewing Co. has grown over the last two decades from a historic red-brick microbrewery and restaurant into an Arizona staple that served nearly 1 million gallons of beer last year, including its popular Kilt Lifter ale.
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Thousands of Vietnamese workers at a major footwear factory were on strike for a sixth day Wednesday over a social insurance law in a rare challenge to government policy.
TUESDAY, MARCH 31
UT SPORTS
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Just two days after leaving Texas, Rick Barnes has landed at Tennessee.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - A bill that originally sought to require ultrasound images be shown or described to women seeking abortions in Tennessee has been withdrawn for the year.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's proposal to extend health coverage to 280,000 low-income Tennesseans failed again Tuesday, voted down by a key Senate committee a month after it was defeated in a special legislative session.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A proposal that seeks to create a school voucher program in Tennessee was amended Tuesday to delay the plan for a year, even though the measure's sponsor says it would hurt efforts to help children get a better education.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's Insure Tennessee proposal is up for a key vote in the Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The House has passed a bill to strip city and county governments of the power to ban guns in parks, playgrounds and sports fields.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) - A Nashville judge has found to be unconstitutional a state law that limits the amount of workers' compensation benefits laborers living in the country illegally can receive.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Four trucking companies have settled lawsuits against the truck-stop chain owned by Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam claiming Knoxville-based Pilot Flying J fraudulently withheld fuel rebates and discounts from customers.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A tax attorney who sued for the release of records from Gov. Bill Haslam's administration related to a $350,000 analysis of business tax collections in Tennessee said Tuesday that he likely will appeal a judge's denial of his lawsuit.
EDUCATION
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Louisiana residents like the idea of multistate education standards for public schools - just not when they're called Common Core.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Dead people, prisoners and state employees are on the rolls of those receiving unemployment benefits in Tennessee, in spite of repeated warnings that the state is improperly paying out tens of millions in jobless claims.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Republican Gov. Bill Haslam is withdrawing his effort to remove longevity bonuses for current state employees after running into staunch opposition in the Legislature.
TRIMBLE (AP) — Booze, bikes and rock 'n' roll. That's the plan for economic development in this otherwise sleepy town of Trimble, tucked away among the corn and soybean fields of northwestern Tennessee.
SAN DIEGO (AP) — In a move that could heighten the hurdles faced by states attempting to execute prisoners, a leading association for U.S. pharmacists has officially discouraged its members from providing drugs for use in lethal injections.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices rose at a steady pace in January, pushing prices up at a faster pace than wages and putting more homes financially out of reach for would-be buyers.
TECHNOLOGY
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Morgan Stanley has cut its estimate of the potential U.S. Internet gambling market by nearly half.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google is releasing its cheapest Chromebook laptops yet, two versions priced at $149 aimed at undercutting Microsoft's Windows franchise and gaining ground in even more classrooms.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — The bull market slowed to a trot but didn't stop this winter.
The stock market closed out the first three months of the year Tuesday on a down note, erasing much of the gains from the prior day's big rally.
DOVER, Del. (AP) — A Delaware bankruptcy judge has approved the sale of assets of RadioShack to hedge fund Standard General LP that will keep more than 1,700 stores open and preserve more than 7,000 jobs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An improving job market drove U.S. consumer confidence higher this month after a dip in February.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sarah Dieffenbacher is on a debt strike. She's refusing to make payments on the more than $100,000 in federal and private loans she says she owes for studies at a for-profit college that she now considers so worthless she doesn't include it on her resume.
STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) — Charter Communications Inc. is buying fellow cable operator Bright House Networks LLC in a deal valued at $10.4 billion.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Tuesday vetoed a measure passed by the Republican-run Congress blocking the National Labor Relations Board from streamlining the process for union elections, saying government should not make it harder for workers to be heard in the workplace.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will pledge Tuesday to cut its greenhouse gas emissions up to 28 percent as part of a global treaty aimed at preventing the worst effects of climate change, according to individuals briefed on the White House's plans.
MONDAY, MARCH 30
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - Healthways' board has decided against selling the company after reviewing its strategic options to boost shareholder value.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Legislation that would give parents the option to move a child from a failing public school to a private school has passed the Senate.
NASHVILLE (AP) - State Rep. Mary Littleton is joining the race to become the next chair of the Tennessee Republican Party.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Gov. Bill Haslam on Monday urged fellow Republicans to look beyond political considerations as they prepare to vote on a revived version of his Insure Tennessee proposal.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A coalition supporting Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's proposal to extend health coverage to 280,000 low-income Tennesseans is planning a rally at the state Capitol today.
COURTS
MURFREESBORO (AP) - Officials in Murfreesboro plan to meet this week to iron out details of a court being developed specifically to serve veterans.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Department of Agriculture is administering a reimbursement program for farmers who grow fruits or vegetables and have received Good Agriculture Practices certification.
TECHNOLOGY
SEATTLE (AP) — Amazon.com is introducing a referral service to help people to get projects and chores done around their homes.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Tesla Motors says it will reveal a new product next month, but it's not a car.
DETROIT (AP) — Volvo Cars is planning to build an assembly plant in the U.S.
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Elvis Presley had one; so did Clark Gable. It was even the sedan of presidents. Then the name vanished amid an invasion of newer luxury cars from Europe and Asia.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — More Americans signed contracts to buy homes in February, evidence that the spring buying season could open strong after sluggish sales for much of the winter.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
A business economics group has boosted its outlook for U.S. economic improvement this year and next, particularly for job growth.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumers spent just slightly more in February even though their income rose by a healthy amount. But economists hope bigger paychecks will give spending a bigger boost in the coming months.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are closing higher following encouraging news on consumer spending and home sales.
NEW YORK (AP) — Susan Bernardo trusted her stockbroker. She wound up losing a fortune.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is getting a new title — blogger.
NEW YORK (AP) — Apple CEO Tim Cook said that so-called "religious objection" legislation being introduced in a number of states is dangerous and bad for business.
NEW YORK (AP) — A computer outage that caused delays for thousands of JetBlue Airways passengers early Monday morning has been resolved, the company said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two major companies in a prominent $1.4 billion Asia investment fund managed by New York banking giant Morgan Stanley unexpectedly told securities regulators they will not file their financial statements on time and froze trading in their stocks, actions generally considered to be cause for concern.
FRIDAY, MARCH 27
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Grammy Museum is opening up a gallery in Nashville this summer, promising to give visitors an immersive experience on the art and technology of making music.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - House Speaker Beth Harwell will once again co-chair the Republican State Leadership Committee's Right Women, Right Now initiative.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Gov. Bill Haslam said Thursday that he's not going to let a lawsuit several East Tennessee school systems filed against the state over funding derail the administration's efforts to address grievances about the state's school funding formula.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam said Thursday that he is willing to risk a second defeat of his Insure Tennessee proposal to highlight the need for improving health standards in the state.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Legislation that would give parents the option to move a child from a failing public school to a private school is scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor on Monday.
TECHNOLOGY
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — When vandals sliced a fiber-optic cable in the Arizona desert last month, they did more than time-warp thousands of people back to an era before computers, credit cards or even phones. They exposed a glaring vulnerability in the nation's Internet infrastructure: no backup systems in many places.
AUTO INDUSTRY
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Energy is reviving a vehicle loan program it pledged to retool after criticism it funded flops and wasted taxpayer money.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A nationwide crackdown on auto dealers has turned up widespread evidence of false ads, deceptive loans and fake odometer readings, the government said Thursday.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — In uncommon bipartisan harmony, the House approved a $214 billion bill Thursday permanently blocking physician Medicare cuts, moving Congress closer to resolving a problem that has plagued it for years.
COURTS
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A jury decided Friday that a prestigious venture capital firm did not discriminate or retaliate against a female employee in a case that shined a light on gender imbalance and working conditions for women in Silicon Valley.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Friday that continued improvement in the U.S. economy means an increase in the Fed's key interest rate could come later this year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bad weather and rising gasoline prices pushed U.S. consumer sentiment a bit lower in March.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy's tepid performance last quarter — a 2.2 percent annual growth rate — was typical of the economic rebound that began in the summer of 2009. Yet the sluggish pace of the recovery has a silver lining: This growth spurt has proved to be one of the most durable since World War II.
NEW YORK (AP) — A tough week on the stock market ended quietly Friday.
The price of oil rose sharply on Thursday as mounting tensions in Yemen got traders worried that the flow of crude from the Persian Gulf region could be disrupted.
NEW YORK (AP) — Americans bought less soda for the tenth straight year in 2014, with diet sodas shrinking more than their sugary counterparts, according to a report released Thursday.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans muscled a balanced-budget plan through the Senate early Friday, positioning Congress for months of battling President Barack Obama over the GOP's goals of slicing spending and dismantling his health care law.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Embracing proposed new rules aimed at payday lenders, President Barack Obama on Thursday warned Republicans that he would veto attempts to unravel regulations that govern the financial industry.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the House have found something in common: Many have issues with the Obama administration's new regulations requiring companies that drill for oil and natural gas to disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Tennessee Supreme Court has ordered a new trial for a man convicted of child molestation in Union County because the judge in the case did not follow the rules on how to pick a jury.