VOL. 37 | NO. 14 | Friday, April 5, 2013
Gov. Bill Haslam would like to see more Tennesseans with college degrees. Many more. So he has proposed spending $5 million to partner with a unique online university that allows people with some college credit to earn a degree in certain fields.
A college education isn’t getting any cheaper, but for parents who want to at least hold the line, Sewanee: The University of the South is providing an option.
REALTY CHECK
The spring market is approaching, and it has a tough act to follow after the first quarter blew the lid off local residential sales.
NEWSMAKERS
John W. Lamb, Sr., MD, and Catherine Self, PT, PhD, both of Nashville, are among the recipients of 2013 Tennessee Medical Association awards, which will be presented during the TMA’s 178th annual Meeting on Saturday in Franklin.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
We live in a digital world where we’ve grown accustomed to real-time communication with one another, including with the brands we patronize.
SMART STUFF 4 WORK
When I was a very young man many, many years ago, I remember being fascinated by the information on the bottom of the McDonald’s hamburgers signage. Of course, I didn’t know about the word signage back then. I just knew McDonald’s had really cool signs with golden arches and big red and white words. The words at the bottom of the sign intrigued me most.
I SWEAR
I met the word “mitteleuropaish” for the first time in a Paul Greenberg column.
KAY'S COOKING CORNER
Mandarin oranges are Clementines, or “little oranges” with segments that have a flavor suitable for salads, vegetables, main dishes and desserts. Although mostly used in canned form, you have probably eaten a fresh mandarin orange and not even known it.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - The sponsor of a proposal to dock the welfare payments of parents whose children fail school refused to listen to a little girl opposing the measure Thursday, saying she was being used as a prop.
NASHVILLE (AP) - The House has approved Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's bill to change the way the state considers injured workers' claims after defeating several attempts by Democrats to dial back the proposal.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A proposal that would dock the welfare payments of parents whose children fail school is scheduled to be heard by the full Senate on Thursday.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A proposal that would create a special panel to authorize charter schools in several Tennessee counties passed a key legislative committee on Wednesday and is headed for a full House vote after the bill was amended to provide oversight of the entity.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - Southern Baptist leader Richard Land will be the next president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary, in Charlotte, N.C.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Michelle Obama will be the guest speaker at a Nashville public school's graduation exercise next month.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Information technology employees of state government must re-apply for their jobs.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A nuclear plant first begun in 1973 is on schedule to open in Dec. 2015.
AUTO INDUSTRY
Nissan Motor Co. will raise pay for its employees in Tennessee and Mississippi.
BEIJING (AP) — China's auto sales in March rose 13.3 percent over a year earlier but Japanese automakers suffered more declines, an industry group reported Thursday.
TOKYO (AP) — Toyota, Honda and Nissan are recalling more than 2 million vehicles globally for an identical problem with air bags on the passenger side whose inflator may burst, sending plastic pieces flying.
REGIONAL
Unemployment rates fell in more than 80 percent of large U.S. cities in February from January, suggesting that strong hiring that month benefited the vast majority of the country.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking U.S. unemployment benefits fell sharply last week to a seasonally adjusted 346,000, suggesting March's weak month of hiring may be a temporary slowdown.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Prices paid by U.S. importers fell last month after two straight increases, driven down by cheaper oil. Falling import prices helps keep inflation in check.
NEW YORK (AP) — So much for new spring shorts and T-shirts. As cold weather lingered across most of the country, Americans shopped modestly in March.
NEW YORK (AP) — Rite Aid, Ross Stores and other retailers rose Thursday after turning in better sales, and major indexes edged up for a fourth day straight.
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil fell below $94 a barrel Thursday after the International Energy Agency lowered its forecast for global oil demand.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average U.S. rates on fixed mortgages fell sharply this week and moved closer to historic lows, keeping home-buying and refinancing attractive.
NEW YORK (AP) — Airlines are struggling this year to get planes to the gate on time.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The number of U.S. homes repossessed by lenders last month fell to the lowest level in more than five years, the latest evidence that the nation's foreclosure crisis is abating amid an improving housing market.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The ailing personal computer market is getting weaker, and it's starting to look as if it will never fully recover as a new generation of mobile devices reshapes the way people use technology.
AMSTERDAM (AP) — If you've worked in an office, you're probably familiar with the soft glow of fluorescent tubes drifting from the ceiling. If Europe's Philips brand is right, those lamps could soon be history.
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Burger King CEO Bernardo Hees will take the top job at Heinz following its acquisition by investment firm 3G Capital and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Advocates for seniors say President Barack Obama is breaking his promise to protect Social Security, while conservatives say he is breaking his promise not to raise taxes on the middle class.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10
REGIONAL
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Obama administration's 2014 budget is calling for a strategic review of the Tennessee Valley Authority, opening the possibility that the largest U.S. public utility could be sold.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) - Coachella and Lollapalooza are sold out. Bonnaroo's nearly there, too. But eager fans need only be patient: Wait a few years and chances are you'll have a star-studded music festival of your own within driving distance.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Grace Potter & The Nocturnals know a little something about summer festivals after using the circuit to build their following.
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Country Music Hall of Fame recognized pioneers who are responsible for the genre's growing diversity by selecting its new class of Kenny Rogers, Bobby Bare and Jack Clement.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - A proposal that would create a special panel to authorize charter schools in several Tennessee counties is advancing in the House.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A proposal to freeze the state's beer tax is headed to the governor for his consideration.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Tennessee lawmakers gave rousing applause to welcome a Georgia senator who opposed a resolution calling for redrawing the border between the two states.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Before last year's elections, the Senate Republican Caucus obtained a copy of the entire database of handgun carry permit holders in Tennessee. On Wednesday, the GOP-controlled chamber voted to block public access to those records.
NASHVILLE (AP) — State Rep. Lois DeBerry is undergoing treatment for a recurrence of pancreatic cancer.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Proponents of a measure that allows school districts to hire individuals with prior law enforcement experience say it's a needed option for financially strapped schools.
MIDSTATE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Veteran federal prosecutor David Rivera has been named acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee.
AUTO INDUSTRY
MUMBAI, India (AP) — Car sales in India fell by 6.7 percent in the past year, the first decline in a decade for the country's once-booming auto industry as it grapples with a wider economic malaise.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are closing sharply higher on Wall Street, led by gains in technology companies.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. federal budget deficit grew more slowly in March, keeping the annual spending shortfall on pace to finish below $1 trillion for the first time in five years.
NEW YORK (AP) — Global shipments of PCs fell 14 percent in the first three months this year, the sharpest plunge since research firm IDC started tracking the industry in 1994.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service backed down from its plan to eliminate Saturday mail delivery because Congress barred it, officials said Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Urban League says African-Americans are making tremendous gains in education, but have seen little change in economic equality in the last 50 years.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A majority of Federal Reserve policymakers want to continue extraordinary bond purchases to help boost the U.S. economy at least through the middle of the year, according to minutes from the Fed's last meeting released Wednesday.
Oil managed to rise Wednesday, but gasoline futures plunged after a report showed that demand for fuel in the U.S. remains relatively weak.
Believers hailed its reduced tax rates and deregulation as springboards for economic miracles under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Critics dismissed the very same ideas as so much trickle-down hocus-pocus and voodoo.
GENEVA (AP) — Global trade will be weaker than expected this year as European economies struggle with their debt crisis, and will recover only slightly in 2014, the World Trade Organization said Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As desperate as unemployed Americans are to find work, there are still some jobs that many would never consider applying for because they are seen as too dirty, too demanding or just plain unappealing.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two key senators have reached a bipartisan deal on expanding background checks to more gun buyers, a Senate aide and lobbyist said Wednesday, an agreement that could build support for President Barack Obama's drive to curb firearms violence in the wake of the elementary school shootings in Connecticut.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama sent Congress a $3.8 trillion spending blueprint on Wednesday that strives to achieve a "grand bargain" to tame runaway deficits, raising taxes on the wealthy and trimming popular benefit programs including Social Security and Medicare.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A tentative deal has been reached between agriculture workers and growers, a key senator said Tuesday, smoothing the way for a landmark immigration bill to be released within a week.
TUESDAY, APRIL 9
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) - Brad Paisley's collaboration with LL Cool J on "Accidental Racist" has accidentally kicked up some controversy.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - A Tennessee House committee on Tuesday recommended passing a bill that would dock the welfare payments of parents of children who fail at a school despite Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's opposition to the measure.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Lawmakers questioned a proposal to create a special panel to authorize charter schools in several Tennessee counties during debate at the state Legislature Tuesday, while a nonprofit group criticized the governor's decision to withdraw his school voucher program.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A bill seeking to ban cameras in polling places has died for the year amid concerns that voters wouldn't be able to document problems.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The House gave final approval Monday to a proposed constitutional amendment to ban a state income tax in Tennessee, which means the measure will go before the voters next year.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Senate sponsor of legislation to make cock fighting a felony says he believes his bill failed Monday evening because of strong support for the practice in rural parts of Tennessee.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - A Davidson County Election Commission member's statement that the motor voter law had let thousands of non-residents register as voters locally hasn't held up in a state review.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A judge who presided at the trial of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein will speak and take audience questions at Tennessee State University.
MIDSTATE
MURFREESBORO (AP) — Officials in Murfreesboro have closed a section of a greenway after a second hole opened in the ground near the path.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition is holding a statewide forum on immigration reform.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Agriculture officials say the state is accepting proposals for federal funds aimed at increasing production of specialty crops.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Ford Motor Co. says its Focus small car was the best-selling vehicle nameplate in the world last year, with just over 1 million sold.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Materials and energy companies led the stock market higher Tuesday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to its second all-time high in a week.
Oil rose above $94 a barrel as the government raised its forecast for the price of oil this year.
MEMPHIS (AP) — A major Dell shareholder is urging the slumping personal computer maker's board to scrap a $24.4 billion deal to sell the company to a group including CEO Michael Dell and pursue two competing bids instead.
NEW YORK (AP) — Accounting firm KPMG has resigned as the auditor for Herbalife, a dietary supplements maker, and the shoe retailer Skechers after a rogue partner allegedly leaked information about the companies to someone who used it for insider trading.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers advertised the most job openings in nearly five years in February, but they boosted hiring at a much slower pace. The figures suggest that companies remain too cautious about the economy to quickly fill open jobs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's proposed budget will call for reductions in in the growth of Social Security and other benefit programs while still insisting on more taxes from the wealthy in a renewed attempt to strike a broad deficit-cutting deal with Republicans, a senior administration official says.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. wholesalers cut their restocking in February by the most in 17 months. But their sales jumped, suggesting companies underestimated consumer demand.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve's annual "stress tests" of major U.S. banks have become better able to detect risks, Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday night. He said the tests show that the banking industry has grown much healthier since the financial crisis.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Microsoft is skewering Google again with scathing ads that say as much about the dramatic shift in the technology industry's competitive landscape as they do about the animosity between the two rivals.
NEW YORK (AP) — J.C. Penney is hoping its former CEO can revive the retailer after a risky turnaround strategy backfired and led to massive losses and steep sales declines.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican lawmakers are heaping praise a former nurse picked by President Barack Obama to run Medicare and Medicaid, and also oversee his health care law.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is nominating three candidates for full terms on the National Labor Relations Board, which has been in limbo since a federal appeals court invalidated his recess appointments to the agency.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators finalizing a massive immigration bill are arguing over plans to boost visas for high-tech workers, Senate aides and industry officials say, with disputes flaring over how best to punish companies that train workers here only to ship them overseas.
MONDAY, APRIL 8
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) - Two veterans courts are going to receive $40,000 in grant money from an agency of the Tennessee Supreme Court. The money is part of an overall effort to use the court system to help veterans and active service members facing charges as a result of drug addiction or mental health issues.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - State Sen. Stacey Campfield has given a deposition in which he is unapologetic for posting false information about a Democratic candidate on his blog, dismissive of the possibility of paying damages for that and belittling of the technological skills of fellow lawmakers.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The path may have been rocky at times for the new Republican supermajority in the General Assembly, but leaders are pleased that many of the most contentious issues have been decided as lawmakers enter the final few weeks of the session.
MIDSTATE
NASHVILLE (AP) — State officials say that disaster damage restoration services company Servpro is planning to expand its corporate headquarters in Gallatin.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks ended modestly higher Monday, shrugging off an early decline, as investors waited to see whether big U.S. companies would deliver on expectations of strong earnings in 2013.
The price of oil was a little higher Monday, as traders awaited the start of the quarterly corporate earnings season and the latest word from the Federal Reserve on the economy.
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — The newspaper industry's revenue declined at its slowest pace in six years, as publishers turned to new businesses and raised more money from online subscriptions.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. airlines scored their second best performance last year in the more than two decades that researchers have been measuring airline quality, with Virgin America the leader, says an annual report released Monday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Airline passenger complaints to the Transportation Department surged by one-fifth last year even though other measures such as on-time arrivals and mishandled baggage show airlines are doing a better job, according to a report being released Monday.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Senate has confirmed Mary Jo White's nomination as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, making her the first former prosecutor to lead the federal agency that oversees Wall Street.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators writing a comprehensive immigration bill hope to finish their work this week, opening what's sure to be a raucous public debate over measures to secure the border, allow tens of thousands of foreign workers into the country and grant eventual citizenship to the estimated 11 million people living here illegally.
BRUSSELS (AP) — European countries should ease off their austerity and adopt more growth-friendly policies, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Monday as he kicked off a series of meetings with the region's top leaders.
FRIDAY, APRIL 5
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - Two environmental groups have filed suit against a metals recycling facility near downtown Nashville.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - State Finance Commissioner Mark Emkes says federal spending cuts and tax hikes are to blame for a dip in consumer confidence in Tennessee.
NASHVILLE (AP) - An audit shows the state was sending unemployment checks to seven dead people and two dozen current state employees.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - The state House has unanimously approved Gov. Bill Haslam's proposal to cut the state's sales tax on groceries.
NASHVILLE (AP) - The senator who sponsored a measure to let people show student IDs to cast ballots realized it didn't have enough votes to pass, so he instead backed a bill that doesn't allow them to be used.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — U.S. shares of Japanese automakers are soaring Thursday as investors expect them to benefit from Japan's aggressive actions to stimulate its economy.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are closing lower on Wall Street after the U.S. government reported a sharp slowdown in hiring last month.
NEW YORK (AP) — The price of oil dipped below $93 a barrel Friday after a weak U.S. jobs report cast doubt on the strength of the U.S. economy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans borrowed more in February to buy cars and attend school, but were more careful with their credit cards.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers added just 88,000 jobs in March, the fewest in nine months and a sharp retreat after a period of strong hiring. The slowdown may signal that the economy is heading into a weak spring.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly narrowed in February as exports climbed close to an all-time high and the volume of imported crude oil fell to the lowest level in 17 years.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The U.S. government says Tyson Foods has agreed to pay roughly $4 million in civil penalties to settle alleged violations related to eight accidental releases of anhydrous ammonia that happened over a four-year span and caused one death.
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook Home, the new software that takes over the front screen of a smartphone, is a bit of a corporate home invasion. Facebook is essentially moving into Google's turf, taking advantage of software the search giant and competitor created.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Gun enthusiasts fearful of new weapon controls and alarmed by rumors of government hoarding are buying bullets practically by the bushel, making it hard for stores nationwide to keep shelves stocked and even putting a pinch on some local law enforcement departments.
NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Best Buy jumped on Thursday after it announced plans to create store-within-store kiosks for Samsung products — a vote of confidence from a major consumer electronics retailer that the brick-and-mortar format is still an important way to sell products.