VOL. 39 | NO. 16 | Friday, April 17, 2015
VIEW FROM THE HILL
Tina Sharma grew up in Tennessee, graduated from Martin Luther King High School in Nashville and enrolled at Belmont University. She calls the Volunteer State home.
REALTY CHECK
I should probably knock on a rather large piece of wood as I write this, perhaps a California Redwood, but here goes:
REAL ESTATE
Top residential real estate transactions, first quarter 2015, for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates rose slightly this week but remained close to historically low levels with the spring home-buying season underway.
BEYOND BELIEF
Everyone seemed a little more curious about Miranda Kovach’s heritage than she was.
NEWSMAKERS
John W. Hale, Jr., MD, a family physician in Union City, has been installed as 2015-2016 president of the Tennessee Medical Association, the state’s largest professional organization for physicians. Hale’s term officially began this week during TMA’s annual convention in Nashville.
UT SPORTS
Turn on local TV news in Knoxville, and University of Tennessee spring football is the usually the lead story.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Budget-conscious buyers don’t have to settle for a used sport utility vehicle or a small sedan any more.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
I knew from the age of 7 that marketing was my destiny as I embarked on my first moneymaking venture. But I hadn’t really reflected, until recently, on the combination of forces that in all likelihood nudged me down that path.
CAREER CORNER
When it comes to job searching, one thing’s for sure. Times have changed. Over the past 20 years, the process for getting a job has been transformed. Most companies require you to apply online, and some even interview you via video chat.
I SWEAR
“Done! Done!” That’s what I heard, almost simultaneously, as 300 voices cheered, 300 voices groaned and 600 people stood and applauded.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee General Assembly adjourned for the year on Wednesday following an often contentious session highlighted by the passage of legislation that would allow handgun-carry permit holders to be armed in any state park, and the failed attempt to make the Bible the official state book.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The defeat of Gov. Bill Haslam's proposal to extend health coverage to 280,000 low-income Tennesseans set the tone for the 2015 session of the state Legislature.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The state House and Senate have failed to agree on a method for rejecting the governor's nominations for judicial vacancies.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new U.S. homes plummeted in March, as the spring buying season opened with sharp declines in the Northeast and South.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates are down slightly this week and remain near historic lows.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — First-quarter profit at General Motors rose nearly eight times above a year ago as U.S. consumers spent big on pickups and SUVs and the company didn't have to set aside a huge stack of money to pay for recalls.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits was little changed last week, evidence that employers are cutting few jobs.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks moved lower in early trading Thursday, sapped by gloomy manufacturing data from Europe, China and Japan. General Motors, Proctor & Gamble and others fell after reporting results that were negatively impacted by a strong U.S. dollar.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $2.5 billion in a settlement with U.S. and British authorities over the manipulation of benchmark interest rates used globally for its own financial gain.
Caterpillar's first-quarter earnings jumped more than 20 percent to top expectations, even though revenue slipped for the construction and mining equipment maker.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans pushed White House-backed trade legislation toward committee approval on Thursday despite strong objections by Democrats demanding stronger labor and environmental standards as well as a ban on currency manipulation by Asian nations.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Legislation that would allow Tennessee motorcyclists to ride without helmets in parades and funeral processions is headed to the governor for his consideration.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Legislation that seeks to ban speeding cameras in Tennessee is headed to the governor for his consideration.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Tennessee lawmakers are mulling a move out of their underground office complex to a building next to the Capitol that until recently was designated for demolition.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A proposal that would allow students lawfully in the United States to be eligible for in-state tuition is dead this session after falling short by one vote in the Tennessee House on Wednesday.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee legislature has passed a bill that would allow jurors to see photographs of murder victims when they were still alive.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A House panel has defeated a proposal to ban alcohol sales to people with three or more drunken driving convictions.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) - Hamilton County may continue asking local clergy to deliver prayers before commission meetings.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Music City Star train service will transport runners to Saturday's Country Music Marathon in Nashville while benefiting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — Hello? Anyone there? Facebook unveiled a new voice-calling app for Android phones on Wednesday, the same day that its WhatsApp messaging service introduced voice-calling for iOS devices.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google is offering a wireless phone service designed to pressure major carriers such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless into lowering their prices.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. homebuyers flooded back into the real estate market in March, pushing up sales and prices at the start of the spring buying season.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Home rental prices are soaring in San Francisco, while pockets of the Midwest and South are also posting big annual increases.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Investors cheered moves by Google and credit-card companies on Wednesday and sent the stock market to a solid gain. Google helped set off a surge in technology stocks after it unveiled a low-cost wireless phone service.
NEW YORK (AP) — Coca-Cola reported a quarterly profit Wednesday that beat Wall Street expectations as the world's largest beverage maker worked on trimming costs and sold more drinks.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled House has passed legislation curbing the growth of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency established by the 2010 overhaul of financial regulations to enforce laws aimed at protecting consumers from unfair or illegal practices by banks, mortgage lenders and other financial services providers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Emotional disagreements over trade erupted in Congress on Wednesday, when a liberal senator delayed a committee's likely endorsement of a top trade priority for President Barack Obama.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Weeks before a key surveillance law expires, Senate Republicans have introduced a bill that would allow the National Security Agency to continue collecting the calling records of nearly every American.
TUESDAY, APRIL 21
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - Nashville city officials have announced a plan to move the Criminal Justice Center, which houses police headquarters, along with the Metro Jail and the sheriff's office.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NEW YORK (AP) — With Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan and Taylor Swift leading the way, country music helped CBS to a dominant week in the television ratings.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee students would have to pass a partial version of the U.S. citizenship and immigration services' civic test before getting a high school diploma under legislation headed for Gov. Bill Haslam's consideration.
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Senate has approved a bill to rename and review Common Core education standards, and Gov. Bill Haslam says he plans to sign the measure into law.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A last-minute legislative maneuver to allow a troubled virtual school to remain open has failed.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A proposal that would let parents move a child from a failing public school in Tennessee to a private school with funding from the state has failed this year - for the third consecutive Tennessee General Assembly session.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Legislation that would place licensing restrictions on all seven of Tennessee's abortion clinics was overwhelmingly approved by state lawmakers Tuesday and sent to the governor, who's expected to sign them into law.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A state House member is seeking to delay votes on Gov. Bill Haslam's legislative proposals to insure against vetoes of embattled measures such as allowing people with handgun carry permits to be armed in city parks.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's proposal to make changes to state employees' longevity bonuses is headed to his desk.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A proposal that would help homeowner associations or neighborhood watch groups keep repeat offenders out of their communities is headed to the governor for his consideration.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A proposal that seeks to replace the state's current academic standards has unanimously passed the House.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Legislation that would require all of Tennessee's law enforcement agencies to adopt written policies to ban racial profiling is headed to the governor for his consideration.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - Metro Nashville Parks' officials say the aging Fort Nashborough historical site along the riverfront will likely be demolished this summer and rebuilt in 2016 or 2017.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Mexico has become the most attractive place in North America to build new automobile factories, a shift that has siphoned jobs from the U.S. and Canada, yet helped keep car and truck prices in check for consumers.
SMYRNA (AP) - Nissan on Tuesday launched the production of a redesigned version of its Maxima that the Japanese automaker hopes will revive struggling sales for its flagship sedan.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Tepid corporate results and another drop in the price of crude oil pulled stocks mostly lower on Tuesday.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Poultry producers and scientists have been hoping warmer weather would knock down a virulent strain of bird flu that has hammered the Midwest, but the virus recently took its biggest toll yet, hitting a farm in Iowa that held nearly 10 percent of the state's egg-laying chickens. Here are some questions and answers about the outbreak:
BRENHAM, Texas (AP) — Texas-based Blue Bell Creameries issued a voluntary recall Monday night for all of its products on the market after two samples of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream tested positive for listeria, a potentially deadly bacteria.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — America's foremost labor federation is asking Congress to block the "fast track" authority that President Barack Obama seeks to advance trade deals being negotiated with numerous nations.
MONDAY, APRIL 20
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - A state school voucher proposal that failed in the last two Tennessee General Assembly sessions is gaining support as it approaches a key committee in the final days of this year's legislative session.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — Breaking up the cable-TV bundle won't be easy. ESPN is objecting to how Verizon is giving its FiOS TV customers more choice.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has declined to disturb the conviction of a former Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble board member on charges of conspiracy and securities fraud.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican or Democrat, the next president will have the chance to remake the nation's health care overhaul without fighting Congress.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. businesses expect their sales will rebound in the next three months after a sluggish first quarter, and they also plan to boost hiring and pay, according to a survey released Monday
NEW YORK (AP) — The stock market bounced back from a big loss on Friday after getting a boost from some good first-quarter earnings reports.
After years of steadily-rising airfare, travelers this summer can expect a tiny bit of relief — $2.01 in savings to be exact.
FRIDAY, APRIL 17
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — The public is invited to a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday to celebrate the grand opening of First Tennessee Park, the new home of the Nashville Sounds.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - A freshman state lawmaker from Nashville was charged with drunken driving and violation of the implied consent law after a traffic stop early Friday morning.
NASHVILLE (AP) - State lawmakers on Thursday approved Tennessee's $33.8 billion annual spending plan after rejecting Democrats' attempts to add a provision to authorize Medicaid expansion that had been twice defeated earlier in the year.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Legislation that would allow handgun-carry permit holders to be armed in all of the state's parks - including greenways, playgrounds and sports fields - was sent to the governor for his consideration Thursday.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Tennessee residents who are authorized to be in the United States would be eligible for in-state tuition under legislation that has passed the Senate.
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Bible usually unites Republicans in conservative Tennessee, but lately it is proving to be - as an epistle writer put it - more powerful and sharper than a double-edged sword.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Nissan is adding 45,000 small cars to a previous recall after a Louisiana woman was injured by flying shrapnel from an exploding air bag.
BERLIN (AP) — Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn will remain in his job and can look forward to having his contract extended, the leadership of the board said Friday, after a comment by chairman Ferdinand Piech raised widespread doubts about his future.
TECHNOLOGY
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google is about to change the way its influential search engine recommends websites on smartphones in a shift that's expected to sway where millions of people shop, eat and find information.
NEW YORK (AP) — Verizon is giving its customers have more control over the channels they pay for as the cacophony of cord cutting reshapes cable TV.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Legislation preventing immediate, deep cuts in doctors' Medicare reimbursements hasn't been signed into law yet, but the government is paying most physicians their full fees anyway.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are closing broadly lower following steep declines in Europe.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An index designed to predict the future health of the economy slowly crept upward for the third straight month, a sign that the pace of growth has been weakening since the start of 2015.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Higher-priced gasoline slightly boosted consumer prices in March, a sign that some of the effects of cheaper oil are fading and that inflation may be edging up to healthier levels.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Finance officials from the world's major economies are searching for the right mix of policies to bolster a still-weak global recovery nearly six years after the Great Recession while confronting a range of new threats from a soaring U.S. dollar to a big drop in oil prices.
NEW YORK (AP) — To improve airline safety, maybe we need to remove the pilots.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The consulting and accounting firm EY is aggressively recruiting on college campuses this spring. The company formerly known as Ernst & Young plans to hire 9,000 graduates from U.S. universities this year, up from 7,500 in 2014. But recruiting isn't as easy as it used to be.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a victory for business, federal regulators said Thursday that employers can continue to use financial penalties and rewards to nudge staff to participate in fast-growing workplace wellness programs.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Friday defended his pursuit of a sweeping trade pact as good for American workers in a global economy, dismissing fierce opposition from his own party as a "ratification of the status quo."
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted Thursday to repeal the federal tax on estates, a politically volatile issue that affects few inheritances.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Republican Gov. Bill Haslam says he will decide this week whether to sign a bill to allow people with handgun carry permits to be armed in city parks near schools.