VOL. 37 | NO. 22 | Friday, May 31, 2013
Conexión Américas has a Spanish name, primarily serves Middle Tennessee’s Latino community, and helped lead a coalition to defeat an English-only referendum in Nashville in 2009.
REALTY CHECK
The Greater Nashville Association of Realtors sales information for April shows there were 2,780 home closings, up 27 percent from 2012, which was up 28 percent from 2011. In addition, 2010 was up 6 percent from 2009.
NEWSMAKERS
Williamson County native Jeff Smith has joined FirstBank as Franklin president, responsible for overseeing the bank’s branch office in the historic Post Office building at Five Points in Franklin, which is scheduled to open in early 2014.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
People buy from those they like and trust, often regardless of the strength of the sales pitch or quality of the products and services. That’s reality.
THE WORLDLY INVESTOR
In an otherwise exceptionally dull trading week, markets worldwide reacted violently last Wednesday to Ben Bernanke’s mixed congressional testimony and the Fed meeting minutes released later in the day. Why so skittish?
SMART STUFF 4 WORK
I’m going to get all literary on you today and make the statement that business meetings remind me of the classic opening sentence of Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities.”
I SWEAR
(Continuing my apologies to Schmick, Wheelan, Rowling, Lamott, Wallace, Sedaris, and others, I offer Part 2 of the graduation speech I’ve never given. Part 1 ended On Election Day, 1996. Executing a plan to visit 25 polling places, I got caught in traffic, went down a road I’d no intention of traveling, and wound up at a polling place I’d not intended of visiting. It was 5:30 p.m., and the volunteers at this place expected only a dozen or so voters in the next two hours.)
KAY'S COOKING CORNER
It’s the time of year when just about everyone you know is racing the clock to get in shape before they have to don that cellulite-bulging, fat-roll showing bathing suit. Eventually, the opportunity will pop-up (if not already), and – if you’re like me – you won’t be any closer to looking svelte and debonair than you were last year at this time.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) - Carrie Underwood's awesome week got off to a roaring start at the CMT Music Awards.
NASHVILLE AREA
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Broadcast companies Media General Inc. and New Young Broadcasting Holding Co. said Thursday that they are combining to create a company that will operate 30 TV stations in 27 markets including Nashville (WKRN, Channel 2), San Francisco and Richmond, Va.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Mayor Karl Dean will join Mayor Col Murray of Tamworth, Australia, on Friday to sign a treaty that joins Nashville and Tamworth as sister cities.
AUTO INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — Japanese auto parts maker Meiwa Industry will build a plant in Marshall County to supply carmakers in the Southeast.
DETROIT (AP) — Just two days after refusing a government request to recall 2.7 million older-model Jeeps, Chrysler has decided to do two other recalls totaling 630,000 vehicles worldwide.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — America as a whole has regained all the household wealth it lost to the Great Recession and then some, thanks to higher stock and home prices.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A debate is raging among investors and analysts: Has the Federal Reserve inflated a stock market bubble by driving interest rates to record lows?
NEW YORK (AP) — In the latest sign that Americans are feeling better about the overall economy, stores across the country had a pickup in sales in May.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The average U.S. rate on a 15-year fixed mortgage rose above 3 percent this week for the first time in a year, while the rate on the 30-year fixed loan approached 4 percent.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell 11,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 346,000, a level consistent with steady job growth.
NEW YORK (AP) — The stock market fell in afternoon trading Thursday, putting it in line for its first three-day loss this year.
The price of oil rose to a high for the week after a positive reading on the U.S. job market.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government is secretly collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon under a top-secret court order, according to the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Obama administration is defending the National Security Agency's need to collect such records, but critics are calling it a huge over-reach.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the agency's latest scandal told lawmakers Thursday that an expensive conference held in 2010 conformed to existing rules, though he acknowledged it was not the best use of taxpayer money.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A southeastern New Mexico company's plans to convert a cattle plant into a horse slaughterhouse has hit another roadblock, this time over an environmental dispute that the company's attorney blames on the Obama administration putting politics over policy.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee college students will see a lower increase in tuition thanks to improved state funding.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) - Country music has been good to the rapper Nelly, and he's back in Music City because of it.
MIDSTATE
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Liquor producer Brown-Forman Corp. says its fourth-quarter net income rose 8 percent with broad sales growth in its spirits lineup, led by its flagship Jack Daniel's brand.
AUTO INDUSTRY
KNOXVILLE (AP) — A research study by the University of Tennessee at Knoxville shows Volkswagen's assembly plant in Chattanooga is responsible for more than $643 million in annual income.
DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government plans to sell another 30 million shares of General Motors stock in a public offering on Thursday as it speeds up efforts to divest itself from a stake in the auto giant that it got in a bailout four years ago.
TOKYO (AP) — Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it is recalling about 242,000 of its Prius and Lexus hybrid vehicles due to problems with their braking systems.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — A series of weak reports on the U.S. economy is sending the stock market sharply lower.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Federal Reserve survey says economic growth increased throughout the United States from April through mid-May, fueled by home construction, consumer spending and steady hiring.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories rose modestly in April as manufacturers rebounded from a weak March performance.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A private survey shows U.S. businesses added just 135,000 jobs in May, the second straight month of weak gains.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A private survey shows U.S. businesses added just 135,000 jobs in May, the second straight month of weak gains.
NEW YORK (AP) — The price of oil rose Wednesday as a government report showed the nation's supplies of oil and gasoline declined last week.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Investors could lose principal from money market investment funds that underperform under rules being proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. But the change would affect mainly institutional rather than individual investors.
NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. trade agency on Tuesday issued a ban on imports of Apple's iPhone 4 and a variant of the iPad 2 after finding the devices violate a patent held by South Korean rival Samsung Electronics.
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar is preparing to show off what two years of reform-minded elected government has accomplished as it welcomes hundreds of business titans and decision-makers from around the world to the Asian edition of the prestigious World Economic Forum.
TUESDAY, JUNE 4
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) - Carrie Underwood will pay tribute to the victims of the recent deadly tornadoes in Oklahoma when she appears at the CMT Music Awards.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - Ryman Hospitality Properties Inc., owner of Gaylord Opryland and the Grand Ole Opry, is lowering a key full-year forecast partly because of slowing hotel bookings.
GOODLETTSVILLE (AP) - Dollar General's fiscal first-quarter net income increased 3 percent as more customers visited its stores and shoppers spent more per transaction.
STATEWIDE
Memphis is losing its status as a passenger hub for Delta Air Lines.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee's annual free fishing day is coming up this weekend.
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Regal Entertainment Group is installing new equipment in its theaters that will help people with vision or hearing impairments enjoy the movies.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — A defiant Chrysler is refusing to recall about 2.7 million Jeeps the government says are at risk of a fuel tank fire in a rear-end collision.
DETROIT (AP) — U.S. safety regulators are checking to see if up to 400,000 General Motors cars should be added to two recalls for defective air bags.
DETROIT (AP) — Full-size pickups once again dominated U.S. auto sales in May, as small businesses — increasingly confident in the economy — raced to replace the aging pickups they held on to during the recession.
Automakers said Monday that U.S. new car and truck sales rose 8.2 percent to 1.44 million vehicles in May. Here are the top-selling cars and trucks for the month and the percent change in sales from May of 2012.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — The first keyboard-equipped BlackBerry sporting the company's radically new operating system is hitting U.S. stores this week.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices soared 12.1 percent in April from a year earlier, the biggest gain since February 2006, as more buyers competed for fewer homes.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Federal Reserve guessing game threw the markets for another loop Tuesday.
NEW YORK (AP) — The price of oil fell slightly Tuesday as traders awaited the latest report on oil supplies and gasoline demand.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit widened in April, as demand for foreign cars, cell phones and other imported goods outpaced growth in U.S. exports.
NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. government lawyer opened a civil trial by portraying Apple Inc. as a corporate bully that swaggered into the market for electronic books in 2010, forcing an end to price competition and costing consumers hundreds of millions of dollars.
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping and American counterpart Barack Obama will talk cyber-security this week in California, but experts say the state's Silicon Valley and its signature high-tech firms should provide the front lines in the increasingly aggressive fight against overseas hackers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators have proposed that a group of firms that aren't banks be deemed potential threats to the financial system that need stricter government oversight.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is taking steps to encourage innovation in high tech patents that it calls "a key driver of economic growth."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Some of President Barack Obama's political appointees, including the secretary for Health and Human Services, are using secret government email accounts they say are necessary to prevent their inboxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages, according to a review by The Associated Press.
MONDAY, JUNE 3
REGION
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Anglers won their fight Monday to preserve access to prime fishing spots below dams along the Cumberland River in Kentucky and Tennessee, catching the attention of Congress and now President Barack Obama.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — The CMT Music Awards are known for cross-genre mashups and this year will be no different as Lenny Kravitz and Nelly prepare to perform.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A yearlong celebration of Johnny Cash's legacy will come to an end this week with the issue of a new postal stamp and free public concert.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Price cuts at Nissan and strong demand for pickup trucks helped U.S. auto sales rebound in May after a slight dip in April.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Spending on U.S. construction projects rose in April despite weakness in residential projects and government spending.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A measure of U.S. manufacturing fell in May to its lowest level since June 2009 as slumping overseas economies and weak business spending reduced new orders and production.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stock indexes are ending higher on Wall Street as traders hope that the Federal Reserve won't move quickly to pull back on its economic stimulus.
NEW YORK (AP) — The price of oil rose above $93 a barrel on Monday at the start of a week that is jam-packed with economic data, culminating in Friday's U.S. nonfarm payrolls report for May.
Packed planes should help the world's airlines earn $12.7 billion this year, as travel demand accelerates faster than the airlines add seats, according to a new prediction from a trade group.
NEW YORK (AP) — In a civil case where the words of Steve Jobs play prominently, the government and Apple Inc. are set to square off over allegations that Apple Inc. conspired with the country's largest book publishers to make consumers pay more for electronic books.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service, already under fire after officials disclosed that the agency targeted conservative groups, faces increased scrutiny because of an inspector general's report that it spent about $50 million to hold at least 220 conferences for employees between 2010 and 2012.
FRIDAY, MAY 31
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - A real estate services firm that recommended Tennessee government unload some state-owned office buildings will benefit financially as the state leases space in the private market.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Senate Minority Leader Jim Kyle has filed legislation to create a Memphis Grizzlies specialty license plate.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Sudden guilty pleas by a pair of mid-level executives show the investigation into the truck stop chain controlled by the family of Tennessee's governor and the Cleveland Browns' owner is picking up steam, with prosecutors likely setting their sights on higher-ups at the company, experts say.
AUTO INDUSTRY
The Chevrolet Malibu, an also-ran in the popular midsize car segment, shows off a quick makeover Friday that is expected to address criticism of its bland styling and so-so performance.
DETROIT (AP) — Auto companies are lowering lease prices for electric cars as they try to jump-start slow sales in a competitive market.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A measure of U.S. consumer confidence jumped to its highest level in almost six years in May, lifted by rising home prices and record stock market gains. Greater confidence could help revive spending in coming months.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans cut back on spending in April after their income failed to grow, a sign that economic growth may be slowing.
The board at Dell said that a takeover bid led by the company's founder and CEO is in the best interest of the slumping PC maker's shareholders and asked them to approve the deal when it's put to a vote in July.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are on track to close out the month with a strong gain, confounding the Wall Street adage of "Sell in May and go away."
The price of oil fell below $93 a barrel Friday after OPEC stuck to its current production target despite ample supplies of crude.
VIENNA (AP) — OPEC oil ministers reached quick agreement Friday on keeping output targets steady but deferred solutions on how to deal with surging U.S. shale oil production and internal rivalries denting the organization's image of unity.
VIENNA (AP) — Iran's oil minister shrugged off the effects of sanctions on its oil industry on Friday, claiming that a drop in crude exports was being made up for by international sales of gasoline and other refined products.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The average U.S. household has a long way to go to recover the wealth it lost to the recession, a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis concludes.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The average medical claim from a motorcycle crash rose by more than one-fifth last year in Michigan after the state stopped requiring all riders to wear helmets, according to an insurance industry study. Across the nation, motorcyclists opposed to mandatory helmet use have been chipping away at state helmet laws for years while crash deaths have been on the rise.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes ticked up in April to the highest level in three years. The increase points to growth in home sales in the coming months.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the U.S. recovery slowly gathers steam, federal deficits are finally coming down from their nosebleed $1 trillion-plus heights. That will postpone until fall a new budget showdown between Congress and the White House — and also will probably delay the days of reckoning, feared by millions of aging Americans, when Social Security and Medicare could become insolvent.
WASHINGTON (AP) — College students are joining President Barack Obama at the White House as he calls on Congress to keep federally subsidized student loan rates from doubling on July 1.