VOL. 42 | NO. 14 | Friday, April 6, 2018
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Long-term U.S. mortgage rates fell this week, benefiting potential homebuyers with the spring buying season underway.
PREDATORS
Only hours after setting a franchise record for single-season points last week, the Predators returned to their Centennial Sportsplex practice rink.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nashville Predators players stood around the locker room after beating the Washington Capitals 4-3, huddled around cellphones watching and rooting for more franchise history.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Predators coach Peter Laviolette's biggest challenge adding Finnish scoring whiz Eeli Tolvanen has been finding a spot for the teenager in his lineup.
NEWSMAKERS
Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands has named attorney DarKenya W. Waller as its new executive director. Waller, who previously served as managing attorney of the firm’s Nashville office, replaces Gary Housepian, who served as executive director for the last decade.
BRIEFS
Ascensus, a technology-enabled service provider, has entered into an agreement to acquire Nashville-based Avintus.
UT SPORTS
Jeremy Pruitt hasn’t been afraid to change things around during his first spring practice as Tennessee’s head football coach.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Ten years ago, you could count on one hand the number of hybrid models available from luxury automakers.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
Just do it. That’s a demand that comes from everywhere. Sneaker companies say it, your spouse says it, the law demands it and your diet might say it. Your boss does, for sure. Just do it.
CAREER CORNER
Diversity is one of the most important issues companies are focused on today, with
GUERRILLA MARKETING
While marketers anticipate that e-commerce will continue to push retail boundaries throughout 2018, mobile commerce is a large factor in that boundary movement, widely due to advanced interest in geofencing.
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The moment the Predators have been waiting for since June 11 finally is here. After failing to force a Game 7 for the Stanley Cup, Nashville is back in the postseason eager to chase hockey's ultimate prize once again.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Meharry Medical College and the Morehouse School of Medicine have formed a partnership with the University of Zambia to develop an international exchange program focused on disease research and prevention.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — An international crackdown on illegal logging in tropical forests has ensnared the makers of some guitars and other musical instruments, whose top-end products require small amounts of rosewood, a material prized for its rich, multicolored grain and resonant sound.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Uber will start doing annual criminal background checks on U.S. drivers and hire a company that constantly monitors criminal arrests as it tries to do a better job of keeping riders safe.
TOKYO (AP) — Hino Motors, Toyota Motor Corp.'s group truck manufacturer, and Volkswagen Truck & Bus of Germany agreed Thursday to work together on technologies such as hybrids, electric cars, autonomous driving and connectivity.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are climbing Thursday morning as technology companies, banks and industrial companies rally. Companies including Delta Air Lines and BlackRock are rising after they reported strong results in the first quarter. Big technology companies including Apple and Microsoft are making some of the biggest gains.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An array of business executives are expressing alarm to federal lawmakers Thursday about the impact that tariffs will have on their business.
GENEVA (AP) — The head of the World Trade Organization says he understands that President Donald Trump wants to create U.S. jobs, but warns that getting tough on trade can trigger a "domino effect" that could derail such goals in the first place.
BEIJING (AP) — China's government on Thursday denied President Xi Jinping's promise of market-opening measures this week was aimed at settling a tariff dispute with Washington and said negotiations are impossible under "unilateral coercion" by the United States.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Top officials at the European Central Bank were concerned about a strengthening euro and the possibility of a global trade war as they decided at their last meeting to go slow in removing economic stimulus.
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Beachfront, five-star hotels? Skyscrapers just blocks from Kim Il Sung Square?
REVERE, Mass. (AP) — The maker of the colorful Necco Wafers has experienced a surge in sales since announcing it might close unless it finds a buyer, and a Florida woman offered to exchange her 15-year-old car for one company's wafer inventory.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that an attack on Syria could take place "very soon or not so soon at all," arguing he had never signaled the timing of retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack that he had suggested was imminent a day earlier.
NEW YORK (AP) — Eight months before the company that owns the National Enquirer paid $150,000 to a former Playboy Playmate who claimed she'd had an affair with Donald Trump, the tabloid's parent made a $30,000 payment to a less famous individual: a former doorman at one of the real estate mogul's New York City buildings.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Some say it's a fight between West and South. Or a test of who can woo conservatives. Or who would be the better fundraiser and communicator for a divided party struggling to protect its House majority.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Former Vice President Joe Biden said five weeks before the 2016 presidential election he knew Donald Trump would win and he even quarreled with then-President-Barack Obama over his prediction. He also said he knew that Trump never expected to win the presidency and wasn't prepared to take office.
STATE GOVERNMENT
Buoyed by Bible verses and compromise giving liquor stores a head start on Sunday sales, legislation allowing grocery stores to sell wine on Sundays has passed the Senate on a 17-11 vote.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee bill that would allow local officials to be charged with a felony for passing sanctuary city ordinances or measures that would illegally remove Confederate statues has gotten new life.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee candidates for governor are raising millions of dollars in contributions, but the big money is coming from the contenders themselves.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam has announced that more than 10,000 adults have applied to Tennessee Reconnect, the state's new program that allows adults, no matter their age, to go to community college or technical schools tuition-free.
COURTS
NEW YORK (AP) — Retailers are hoping for a resolution this year from the Supreme Court, which hears arguments Tuesday in a decades-old dispute: Whether companies must collect sales tax on items sold in a state where they don't have a store or other building.
EDUCATION
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — As teachers in multiple states protest for better pay, a new study warns that the fast-growing South region must invest more in public schools and higher education to ensure its homegrown talent shares in its economic prosperity.
TECHNOLOGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told a House oversight panel Wednesday that he believes it is "inevitable" there will be regulation of the social media industry and also disclosed to lawmakers that his own data was included in the personal information sold to malicious third parties.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Discussion forum company Reddit issued its transparency report for 2017 during Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Senate appearance, saying it had found and banned 944 suspicious accounts associated with Russia's Internet Research Agency.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Under fire for the worst privacy debacle in his company's history, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg batted away often-aggressive questioning from lawmakers who accused him of failing to protect the personal information of millions of Americans from Russians intent on upsetting the U.S. election.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Companies including banks and technology and health care firms fell Wednesday after U.S. stocks had surged the day before. Oil prices hit a three-year high after President Donald trump tweeted that the U.S. will launch missiles at targets in Syria.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government recorded a budget deficit of $208.7 billion in March, an increase of more than $32 billion from a year ago as revenues slipped and expenditures climbed.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve officials signaled rising confidence last month that a strong economy will lift inflation closer to its 2 percent target and that they may accelerate the Fed's pace of interest rate hikes as a result.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer prices rose 2.4 percent in March from a year earlier, the fastest annual pace in 12 months.
NATIONAL POLITICS
CINCINNATI (AP) — Former U.S. House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday he has had a change of heart on marijuana and will promote its nationwide legalization as a way to help veterans and the nation's deadly opioid crisis.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mick Mulvaney faced criticism Wednesday from House Democrats of his actions as acting head of the nation's consumer financial watchdog, while Republicans praised him as a responsible steward of a bureau they've long considered too independent and powerful.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Paul Ryan announced Wednesday he will retire rather than seek another term in Congress as the steady if reluctant wingman for President Donald Trump, sending ripples through a Washington already on edge and spreading new uncertainty through a party bracing for a rough election year.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — With Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan deciding against re-election, the focus Wednesday turned to other Republicans who could run for the southeast Wisconsin congressional seat that Ryan has held for 20 years.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was so incensed by the FBI's raid of his personal attorney's office and hotel room that he's privately pondered firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and publicly mused about ousting special counsel Robert Mueller.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group of four senators is moving to protect special counsel Robert Mueller's job as President Donald Trump publicly muses about firing him.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rebuffing Russian warnings against U.S. military strikes in Syria, President Donald Trump said Wednesday that missiles "will be coming" in response to Syria's suspected chemical attack that killed at least 40 people.
TUESDAY, APRIL 10
SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Goaltender Pekka Rinne wound up in a most unfamiliar spot in two of the most important games of his life.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — The body of former president James K. Polk has been moved three times since he died of cholera in 1849, and now an effort to move it again has taken on a life of its own in the Tennessee Legislature.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A bill that would allow liquor sales on Sunday in Tennessee has passed the House after an impassioned debate from lawmakers, several of them citing scripture.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee House has refused to agree to changes the Senate made last week in a bill that would overturn some local short-term rental bans.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — U.S. Sen. Bob Corker says he is donating money to another Tennessee Republican's campaign to succeed him.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam has appointed 10 people to a new University of Tennessee Board of Trustees following passage of legislation he backed to overhaul the board.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a special election must be held in May to decide who will fill the remaining term of disgraced former Mayor Megan Barry. The expedited decision puts an end to at least some of the confusion about when voters should go to the polls.
AUTO INDUSTRY
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Volkswagen said Tuesday it was considering replacing CEO Matthias Mueller as part of a management shake-up, and German news media reported Mueller's job would go to core Volkswagen brand head Herbert Diess.
DETROIT (AP) — At the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains sits a sprawling factory that has become an unlikely victim in the escalating trade fight between the U.S. and China.
TECHNOLOGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — Apologetic Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told senators Tuesday it had been "clearly a mistake" to believe the Trump-linked data-mining company Cambridge Analytica had discarded data that it had harvested from social media users in an attempt to sway 2016 elections.
Facebook has begun alerting some users that their data was swept up in the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg began a two-day congressional inquisition Tuesday with a public apology for a privacy scandal that has roiled the social media giant he founded more than a decade ago.
Lost amid a flurry of Facebook announcements about privacy settings and data access is a much more fundamental question: Is Facebook really changing its relationship with users, or just tinkering around the edges of a deeper problem — its insatiable appetite for the data it uses to sell ads?
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks jumped Tuesday after Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing would reduce tariffs on imported cars and improve intellectual property protection, steps that could ease trade tensions. Facebook climbed as CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the Senate about the company's privacy scandal.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The U.S. government announced Tuesday that it will award $18.5 billion worth of disaster recovery grants to Puerto Rico to help repair homes, businesses and its crumbling power grid as the U.S. territory struggles to recover from Hurricane Maria.
BEIJING (AP) — Investors and China watchers welcomed President Xi Jinping's pledge Tuesday to open his country's market wider to foreign competition, hoping it will ease a trade dispute with Washington that has unsettled financial markets and could jeopardize a global economic expansion.
BERLIN (AP) — Swiss Re says insured losses worldwide from disasters reached a record $144 billion last year, the highest on record.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate's top Republican said Tuesday that he's open to a proposal from the White House to pare back a hard-fought spending package that has come under assault from party conservatives.
WASHINGTON (AP) — After threatening a military strike against Syria, President Donald Trump on Tuesday cancelled plans to travel to South America later this week, choosing to stay in the United States to manage the response to an apparent chemical weapons attack.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agents have raided the office of President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen, seizing records on topics that include a $130,000 payment made to porn actress Stormy Daniels, who says she had sex with Trump.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded contracts for hurricane supplies without adequately researching whether winning bidders could deliver what they promised, according to a new investigation by Democrats on a Senate oversight committee.
MONDAY, APRIL 9
STATEWIDE
MEMPHIS (AP) — U.S. Rep. David Kustoff of Tennessee says he is running again.
SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Mike Vrabel is finally getting to work with players as the Titans' new coach.
MIDSTATE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee distribution center is expanding and expects to add as many as 75 jobs in the next five years.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Supreme Court has heard arguments in a legal case that has cast doubt over when voters will decide who will continue the term of disgraced former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry.
PHOENIX (AP) — The founders of Backpage.com and five others at the classified site have been indicted on federal charges in what authorities say was a scheme to facilitate prostitution by running ads for sexual services and hiding their revenues.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Employers cannot pay women less than men for the same work based on differences in their salaries at previous jobs, a federal appeals court said Monday.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — Get ready to find out if your Facebook data has been swept up in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is shutting down his Facebook account as the social media giant struggles to cope with the worst privacy crisis in its history.
EDUCATION
WASHINGTON (AP) — The for-profit college industry is struggling under the weight of declining enrollment, stiff competition from traditional universities and an image battered by past misdeeds, even as the Trump administration tries to offer a helping hand.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes finished a bit higher Monday as investors let go of some of their fears about a possible trade war between the U.S. and China. But far bigger gains slipped away as the market suffered a steep afternoon decline.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump acknowledged Monday that farmers could be adversely affected by the escalating tariff dispute with China, but promised to make it up to them, saying they "will be better off than they ever were."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Investors across the globe are bracing for uncertain markets as President Donald Trump tries to downplay fears of a trade dispute between the U.S. and China, suggesting that Beijing will ease trade barriers "because it is the right thing to do" and that the economic superpowers can settle the escalating conflict.
U.S. airlines are getting better at many things except getting you to your destination on time.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia said Monday it will support companies hit by fresh U.S. sanctions as Russian stocks dropped and shares in aluminum producer Rusal plummeted.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agents on Monday raided the office of President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen, seizing records on topics including a $130,000 payment made to a porn actress who says she had sex with Trump more than a decade ago.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The combined effect of President Donald Trump's tax cuts and last month's budget-busting spending bill is sending the government's budget deficit toward the $1 trillion mark next year, according to a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican majority in Congress was on a glide path to the midterms, having passed tax cuts into law and backed off budget battles with a year-end funding package. But President Trump was not impressed.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to confer with senior military leaders Monday, after he threatened a "big price to pay" for a suspected poison gas attack in Syria that killed women and children.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Calling Washington "horribly dysfunctional," Florida Gov. Rick Scott is challenging U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in an election that could be one of the most expensive and highly-watched races in the nation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The speech was written. A cast of relatable Americans with emotional stories was standing by to reinforce the message. But President Donald Trump was in no mood to play along.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is sidestepping facts when it comes to the ethical questions swirling around Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt.
FRIDAY, APRIL 6
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee man is accused of stealing more than $130,000 in cellphones through his former role as an airport authority official.
MIDSTATE
CLARKSVILLE (AP) — An automotive battery manufacturer is locating a plant in Tennessee, where the company plans to locate about 200 jobs.
STATE GOVERNMENT
The state Senate overwhelmingly passed a short-term rental bill Thursday pre-empting Nashville’s measure to clamp down on “party houses” and phase them out in less than three years.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A resolution that would change the Tennessee Constitution to say that God is the source of liberty for the state's citizens is gaining momentum.
TECHNOLOGY
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union says that Facebook has told it that up to 2.7 million people in the 28-nation bloc may have been victim of improper data sharing involving political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks ended the week the way they began it: tumbling as investors worry that tariffs and harsh words between the U.S. and China will touch off a trade war that derails the global economy. The latest drop came as the White House proposed tripling the amount of goods from China that will be subject to tariffs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers added a modest 103,000 jobs in March after several months of robust gains, though the government's overall jobs report Friday suggested that the labor market remains fundamentally healthy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Unwilling to yield, President Donald Trump and China's government escalated their trade clash Friday, with Beijing vowing to "counterattack with great strength" if Trump follows through on threats to impose tariffs on an additional $100 billion in Chinese goods.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Amazon is spending millions of dollars on lobbying as the global online retailer seeks to expand its reach into a swath of industries that President Donald Trump's broadsides haven't come close to hitting.
Delta now says that payment-card information for about "several hundred thousand" airline customers may have been exposed by a malware breach last fall that also hit Sears and other companies.
BERLIN (AP) — More money was invested in new solar energy plants last year than in any other power source, with China responsible for much of the boom, according to a report published Thursday by the U.N. Environment Program.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit rose for the sixth straight month in February, reaching the highest level since October 2008 and defying President Donald Trump's efforts to rebalance America's lopsided trade with the rest of the world.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States hit seven Russian oligarchs and 17 Russian government officials with sanctions on Friday for what it called "malign activity" around the world, as the Trump administration tried to show that President Donald Trump is taking tough action to stand up to Moscow.
WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Donald Trump made a congratulatory phone call to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, White House chief of staff John Kelly wasn't on the line.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has instructed the U.S. trade representative to consider slapping an additional $100 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, the White House announced Thursday, in a dramatic escalation in the trade dispute between the two countries.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An on-again, off-again effort to restrict harmful methane emissions on federal lands is off — again.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Environmental Protection Agency lawyer said he wasn't provided the full facts when he ruled there was no ethics violation in Administrator Scott Pruitt's lease of a bargain-priced Capitol Hill condo with ties to a fossil fuels lobbyist.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is hoping to counter Chinese efforts to bolster its economic influence in the Americas during his inaugural trip to Latin America next week amid an escalating trade fight and his harsh rhetoric on immigration.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is preparing to impose new sanctions on powerful Russian business and political figures under a law passed last year in response to alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.