VOL. 38 | NO. 14 | Friday, April 4, 2014
REALTY CHECK
Richard Bryan was honored recently by the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors for having more listings and more closed sales in 2013 than anyone else in the association.
VIEW FROM THE HILL
A few years ago, before Bill Haslam took office, then-Gov. Phil Bredesen was mentioned as the front-runner for the position of secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration.
LEGISLATIVE PROFILE
Helping people with insurance means requires the ability to plan for multiple scenarios.
NEWSMAKERS
Edward W. Oliphant has been named interim CEO of the Nashville MTA and Regional Transportation Authority of Middle Tennessee, effective April 1, 2014.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
You started a business to make money.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
TED is a nonprofit committed to spreading ideas in the form of succinct-yet-powerful talks that are all 18 minutes or less – the ideal length of time to connect with and persuade viewers.
THE WORLDLY INVESTOR
In sailing, when the wind shifts direction, you must move your sails or risk losing the wind. The first indication of a shifting breeze comes from the telltales, strips of lightweight material attached to the sails that foreshadow a change in conditions. Recently, the market telltales have been active.
I SWEAR
Robin and Darren Morrissey, wife and husband, finished one and one at the 2014 Clinton School Puzzle Festival. That would be first place in crosswords and first place in Sudoku.
KAY'S COOKING CORNER
A French dip is a beef sandwich on a long white French roll that’s dipped in pan juices. American menus often describe the pan juice as “au jus.” Au jus is a French expression that means “with broth” or “with juice.”
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame plans to honor former Colorado Rockies star Todd Helton as its Tennessean of the Year during its May 17 induction banquet.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - The House has approved the state's $32.4 billion spending plan for the budget year beginning in July.
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Senate has voted to overrule the sponsor of a bill that originally sought to require the phrase "In God We Trust" to be painted behind the speaker's podiums in the state Capitol.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville will be the site of the third annual Tennessee Bike Summit.
MIDSTATE
NASHVILLE (AP) — State officials say medical device company Enovate Medical plans to expand its operations at its U.S. headquarters in Murfreesboro, adding 410 jobs in the next five years.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Big U.S. recalls by General Motors and Toyota have put the auto industry on a record pace as companies try to avoid bad publicity and punishment from an increasingly aggressive government.
DETROIT (AP) — General Motors has suspended two engineers with pay in the first disciplinary action linked to its delayed recall of thousands of small cars for a deadly ignition switch problem.
CHATTANOOGA (AP) — The United Auto Workers has issued subpoenas to U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, Gov. Bill Haslam and 18 other officials as part of a challenge of a vote rejecting union representation at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga.
TOKYO (AP) — Toyota has developed an efficient gasoline engine using technology fine-tuned with gas-electric hybrids, in which the Japanese automaker is an industry leader.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Wednesday rejected a bipartisan fix to the Affordable Care Act that would exempt U.S. health plans sold to expatriate workers from having to comply with the law's mandates.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government's budget deficit shrank to just $37 billion in March from $107 billion in the same month last year, the latest sign of improvement in the nation's finances. The deficit was the lowest for the month of March in 14 years.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits dropped to the lowest level in almost seven years, falling 32,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 300,000.
NEW YORK (AP) — Another plunge in the biotechnology sector led stock indexes down Thursday, as Biogen Idec, Gilead Sciences and other biotech companies extended a recent slump. EBay fell after Carl Icahn abandoned an effort to shake up the company and Bed Bath & Beyond fell after reporting weak sales figures.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Internet connection and a bunch of stolen identities are all it takes for crooks to collect billions of dollars in bogus federal tax refunds. And the scam is proving too pervasive to stop.
The price of oil edged slightly lower from a five-week high Thursday after China reported weak monthly trade data and U.S. crude supplies rose substantially last week.
BERLIN (AP) — It's Plan B in the fight against climate change: cooling the planet by sucking heat-trapping CO2 from the air or reflecting sunlight back into space.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average U.S. rates on fixed mortgages declined this week, edging closer to historically low levels as the spring home-buying season begins.
MATTHEWS, N.C. (AP) — Family Dollar plans to cut some jobs and close about 370 underperforming stores as it tries to reverse sagging sales and earnings. The discount store operator will also lower prices on about 1,000 basic items.
NEW YORK (AP) — Worldwide shipments of PCs fell during the first three months of the year, but the latest numbers show that the global slump in PC demand may be easing.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are marching ahead with an election-year budget promising to balance the government's books with wide-ranging cuts in programs like food stamps and government-paid health care for the poor and working class despite the knowledge that they could be checkmated by Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama's veto pen.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - The state Senate is ready to vote on a $32.4 billion spending plan for the budget year beginning in July.
MURFREESBORO (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam said Wednesday that his administration is carefully examining the ramifications of a bill passed by the Senate that would allow Tennesseans to openly carry guns without state-issued permits.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Supporters of a watered-down version of Gov. Bill Haslam's anti-methamphetamine legislation approved by the House on Wednesday believe it will help in the fight against the drug's production across the state, even though it's not as tough as they would like.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A bill calling for the phrase "In God We Trust" to be painted in the tunnel that connects the Tennessee Capitol and the Legislative Plaza has been approved by the House.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam's proposal to create a school voucher program in Tennessee is headed for a full Senate vote.
MIDSTATE
Procter & Gamble is crying uncle on the edible business so it can focus on its core brands like Tide detergent and Pampers diapers.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Gov. Bill Haslam is requesting a presidential disaster declaration for nine Tennessee counties affected by extreme winter weather last month.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Medicare paid a tiny group of doctors $3 million or more apiece in 2012. One got nearly $21 million.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Volkswagen is telling U.S. dealers to stop selling its most popular cars until transmission fluid leaks can be fixed.
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Workers at the General Motors plant in Kentucky that assembles Corvettes voted Tuesday to authorize a strike over lingering safety concerns, but a local union leader said he hopes the differences can be resolved without a walkout.
TOKYO (AP) — Toyota Motor Corp. is recalling 6.39 million vehicles globally for a variety of problems spanning nearly 30 models in Japan, the U.S., Europe and other places.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — The stock market is sharply higher as investors got some encouraging news about interest rates and as U.S. corporate earnings got off to a good start.
The price of oil rose to a five-week high Wednesday amid unrest in eastern Ukraine, even as a report showed a large rise in U.S. crude oil supplies.
WASHINGTON (AP) — With tax day approaching, most Americans say filling out a federal tax return isn't that hard, after all.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Northwestern University is asking the National Labor Relations Board to overturn a regional director's ruling that the school's football players are employees under federal law and thus entitled to unionize.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve struggled last month over how to convey to investors that it will raise short-term interest rates only slowly once it increases them from record lows.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street's cool kids have been booted from the lunchroom.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bank of America Corp. is paying $772 million in fines and refunds to settle regulators' accusations that it misled customers who bought extra credit-card products and illegally charged others for credit monitoring and reporting services they didn't receive.
NEW YORK (AP) — Bank of America says it's cutting about 3,000 jobs overseas as part of ongoing reviews of its global operations.
NEW YORK (AP) — Panera CEO Ron Schaich realizes ordering at his chain can be chaotic.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A confounding computer bug called "Heartbleed" is causing major security headaches across the Internet as websites scramble to fix the problem and Web surfers wonder whether they should change their passwords to prevent theft of their email accounts, credit card numbers and other sensitive information.
NEW YORK (AP) — As Twitter looks to broaden its appeal beyond its 241 million users, the company is introducing a redesign of profile pages that includes bigger photos, more user controls and a distinct resemblance to Facebook.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans derailed a Democratic bill Wednesday curbing paycheck discrimination against women, an effort that even in defeat Democrats hoped would pay political dividends in this fall's congressional elections.
TUESDAY, APRIL 8
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The state Senate on Tuesday passed a bill to allow Tennesseans to openly carry guns without a state-issued permit.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Gov. Bill Haslam's signature proposal to create a program that would cover tuition at two-year colleges for any high school graduate is headed to a full House vote.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Legislation that calls for the phrase "In God We Trust" to be displayed above the main Capitol entrances and behind the speakers' podiums in both the House and Senate has been approved by the Senate.
AUTO INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — Expansion talks at Volkswagen's lone U.S. plant have ground to a halt amid disagreements about the role of organized labor at the factory in Tennessee.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are closing higher as the market stabilizes after a three-day slump.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators are acting to require U.S. banks to build a sturdier financial base to lessen the risk that they could collapse and cause a global meltdown.
NEW YORK (AP) — Drivers will get the slightest of breaks on gasoline prices this summer, according to the Energy Department.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A virus never before seen in the U.S. has killed millions of baby pigs in less than a year, and with little known about how it spreads or how to stop it, it's threatening pork production and pushing up prices by 10 percent or more.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The global economy is strengthening but faces threats from super-low inflation and outflows of capital from emerging economies, the International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers posted more job openings in February, a sign that hiring will likely improve in the months ahead.
Oil prices gained modestly Tuesday in Asia as traders awaited weekly U.S. data on crude oil and distillates stockpiles.
DALLAS (AP) — If you use miles to get a free ticket on American Airlines, you may have to pay to check that suitcase.
TOKYO (AP) — A U.S. jury ordered Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. and its U.S. counterpart, Eli Lilly and Co., to pay $9 billion in punitive damages over a diabetes medicine linked to cancer. The drug companies said Tuesday they will "vigorously challenge" the decision.
HELSINKI (AP) — Nokia has received regulatory approval from Chinese authorities to sell its mobile phone unit to Microsoft Corp., removing one of the last major hurdles to the 5.4 billion-euro ($7.3 billion) deal.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Election-year legislation to resume long-term jobless benefits is headed to the House, where a small band of dissident Republicans is leaning on Speaker John Boehner to permit a vote on resuming aid to more than 2 million victims of the Great Recession.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a concerted election-year push to draw attention to women's wages, President Barack Obama signed directives Tuesday that would make it easier for workers of federal contractors to get information about workplace compensation. He seasoned his move with a sharp rebuke of Republicans whom he accused of "gumming up the works" on workplace fairness.
MONDAY, APRIL 7
MUSIC INDUSTRY
George Strait won his second entertainer of the year — 25 years after he won his first — and Miranda Lambert and Keith Urban teamed up to earn top honors Sunday night at a jam-packed Academy of Country Music Awards that had a little something for everyone.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Legislative leaders are hoping to adopt Tennessee's annual spending plan as early as this week, clearing the way to the conclusion of the legislative session.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Tennessee Capitol Hill Press Corps is asking Gov. Bill Haslam to let them know when he is going to make a speech.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Ford is recalling nearly 435,000 cars and SUVs to fix rusting frame parts or faulty seats.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will consider the requirements for transferring class-action lawsuits from state courts to federal courts.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to century-old bans on campaign contributions by corporations.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's largest doctors' group said Monday it won't try to block Medicare's release of billing records for 880,000 physicians, although it continues to oppose the government's recent decision to open up the massive data trove.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A growing share of Americans got health insurance as sign-up season for President Barack Obama's health care law came to a close last month, a major survey released Monday has found.
WASHINGTON (AP) — At the prodding of business organizations, House Republicans quietly secured a recent change in President Barack Obama's health law to expand coverage choices, a striking, one-of-a-kind departure from dozens of high-decibel attempts to repeal or dismember it.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are sagging at the close, pushing the broader market to its longest losing streak since January.
Oil prices fell below $101 a barrel Monday following reports that four Libyan oil terminals under militia control could soon open and possibly boost global supplies.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumers increased their borrowing in February on autos and student loans by the largest amount in a year. But for a second straight month, they cut back on their credit card use.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Businesses seeking highly skilled workers from overseas took less than a week to snap up all 85,000 visas available for next year, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Monday.
NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft will end support for the persistently popular Windows XP on Tuesday, and with an estimated 30 percent of businesses and consumers still using the 12-year-old operating system, the move could put everything from the operations of heavy industry to the identities of everyday people in danger.
NEW YORK (AP) — Airline passengers might notice something missing these days from their vodka tonics or Diet Cokes: the lime.
DALLAS (AP) — A big drop in customer complaints helped U.S. airlines post their best ratings ever even though more flights were late and more bags were mishandled, according to a report released Monday by university researchers.
NEW YORK (AP) — Lands' End shares are falling in its first day as a separate public company after being spun off from Sears.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Railroads are launching a new campaign to highlight the dangers of being near train tracks after a spike in rail deaths last year.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sidestepping Congress, President Barack Obama is using the federal government's vast array of contractors to impose rules on wages, pay disparities and hiring on a segment of the private sector that gets taxpayer money and falls under his control.
FRIDAY, APRIL 4
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) - The new artist of the year category at the 2014 Academy of Country Music Awards is a primer in Modern Country 101 with three nominees who perfectly capture the genre's 21st century sound.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Gov. Bill Haslam's signature proposal this year, a program that would cover a full ride at two-year colleges for any high school graduate, appears on track to pass as lawmakers enter the waning days of the legislative session. The details, however - including how to pay for this perk in the years to come - remain scattered.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander raised $614,000 in the first quarter, leaving him with $3.1 million on hand for his bid for a third term.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam and Transportation Commissioner John Schroer have released the state's three-year, $1.5 billion transportation program.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - A proposal to allow charter schools in Tennessee to be operated by for-profit groups failed in its final committee vote Thursday before reaching the House floor for debate.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A bill to allow local governments to obtain permits to sell beer is headed for Gov. Bill Haslam's desk after being approved by the House on Thursday.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Tennessee Supreme Court has issued a decision that could be a blow to immigrants who have been convicted of a crime but had the record wiped clean because of good behavior.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Republican Gov. Bill Haslam on Thursday named Criminal Appeals Judge Jeff Bivins to fill an upcoming vacancy on the Tennessee Supreme Court bench.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Three million Americans signed up for Medicaid under President Barack Obama's new health care law as of the end of February, the administration said Friday, offering its first full accounting of how much the safety-net health program has grown since implementation of the law.
AUTO INDUSTRY
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Nissan Motor Co. says it has settled an unfair labor practice charge with a pro-union worker at its assembly plant in Canton, Miss.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — A slump in Internet and other technology stocks pulled the broader market lower Friday, as traders turned on the same companies they flocked to earlier this year. Google, Netflix and other pillars of the Internet economy took a beating.
Oil prices rose slightly Friday after a monthly U.S. jobs report showed stronger hiring in the U.S. in recent months.
The Department of Justice is investigating high-frequency stock trading to see if any of the practices violate insider trading laws, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy delivered a solid month of job growth in March and signaled that stronger gains could lie ahead: More Americans without jobs are starting to look for one, and paychecks are growing.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street appears to be in the mood for takeout.
Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich is stepping down as CEO and leaving the company following protests over his support of a gay marriage ban in California.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Entering the 2014 spring buying season, the U.S. housing market faces an unusual dilemma: Too few people are selling homes. Yet too few buyers can afford the homes that are for sale.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit climbed to the highest level in five months in February as demand for American exports fell while imports increased slightly.
These are good times for U.S. landlords. For many tenants, not so much.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Wind farms, NASCAR tracks and filmmakers would keep their treasured tax breaks as part of an $85 billion package of temporary tax cuts passed by a key Senate committee.