VOL. 39 | NO. 24 | Friday, June 12, 2015
REALTY CHECK
Friends don’t let friends buy junk. As it pertains to real estate, friends don’t let friends buy anything. In the past it was the parents with the “Ma and Pa Meddle” syndrome that impeded the youth from purchasing homes.
VIEW FROM THE HILL
Republican Sen. Doug Overbey took the road less traveled this year when he sponsored Insure Tennessee at the request of Gov. Bill Haslam.
BEYOND BELIEF
The Rev. Cindy “Cyd” Andrews-Looper’s first message to Nashville: You can be gay, and you can be a conservative Christian, and there is nothing mutually exclusive about those two things.
NEWSMAKERS
Vanderbilt University Medical Center announces that Lisa Kachnic, M.D., has been named professor and chair of the Vanderbilt Department of Radiation Oncology.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Finally, there’s a Lexus sport utility vehicle that’s priced under $40,000.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
Starting a business is not for the faint of heart. It takes brains and guts enough to step out of a comfort zone.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
Numerous studies support the fact that companies that excel at aligning their marketing and sales efforts enjoy significantly higher revenue growth. A best-in-class strategy for creating such cohesion is the regular development of a business dashboard.
I SWEAR
Anne Lamott is something of an expert on grace. And she’s a brilliant thinker and writer. As such, she’s widely cited in sermons. And some columns. The following are among my favorite Lamott quotes:
KAY'S COOKING CORNER
This week, I decided to write about a little of this and a little of that. You know, tips on foods, a little trivia, etc. Maybe you’ll learn something you didn’t know.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee General Assembly has named two new directors of legal affairs following the retirement of attorney Joe Barnes.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Democratic state Rep. Joe Armstrong of Knoxville has been indicted on federal fraud and tax evasion charges connected to an increase in the state's cigarette tax in 2007.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates eased this week after hitting their highest levels this year in the previous week.
TECHNOLOGY
HAVANA (AP) — Cuba says it's expanding Internet access by adding Wi-Fi capacity to dozens of state-run Internet centers and more than halving the cost that users pay for an hour online.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people seeking unemployment benefits fell last week, evidence that layoffs remain at unusually low levels and the job market is moving closer to full health.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumer prices increased in May by the largest amount in more than two years, reflecting the biggest one-month jump in gas prices in nearly six years. But outside of energy, price pressures remained modest.
US stocks moved sharply higher in midday trading Thursday, as investors assessed the latest corporate deal and earnings news. The rally came a day after the Federal Reserve suggested that it wasn't planning to raise interest rates right away.
LUXEMBOURG (AP) — The last time Greece was facing a hard deadline to secure a deal with its bailout creditors, in February, it agreed to one only when it feared a worst case scenario — a run on the country's banks.
NEW YORK (AP) — The burger chain that put "supersize" into the American vernacular is slimming down: For the first time in more than 40 years, and perhaps ever, McDonald's says the number of U.S. restaurants it has is shrinking.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Alexander Hamilton, who has been featured on the $10 bill since 1929, is making way for a woman.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House shrugged off a White House veto threat and voted Thursday to repeal a tax that President Barack Obama's health care law imposed on medical equipment makers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has revived President Barack Obama's embattled trade agenda. But a potentially tough Senate battle awaits.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17
STATEWIDE
FedEx's latest quarterly results missed Wall Street expectations, as lower fuel surcharges and the strong dollar cut into revenue at its big express-shipping business.
NASHVILLE (AP) — State officials say a new program will help veterans and active military members find jobs as truck drivers.
TECHNOLOGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — AT&T Mobility LLC has been hit with a $100 million fine for offering consumers "unlimited" data, but then slowing their Internet speeds after they hit a certain amount.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Online retail giant Amazon says it is developing the technology to use drones to deliver packages in 30 minutes or less, a broad expansion of unmanned flight that is raising concerns about safety, security and privacy.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — The quality of cars and trucks made by European, Korean and U.S. companies has improved so much in recent years that Japanese automakers, long the industry standard, are having trouble keeping pace.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The financial oversight board chaired by Gov. Nikki Haley approved her request Tuesday to borrow $123 million for infrastructure promised to Volvo Cars to secure its first North American plant.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy has strengthened since a slump early this year, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday, but it wants to see further gains in the job market and higher inflation before raising interest rates from record lows.
Stocks are closing higher after the Federal Reserve kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at historic lows.
NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly a million people became millionaires last year.
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A federal judge is pressing U.S. officials to explain why it's taken three decades to decide on a proposal to drill for natural gas just outside Glacier National Park in an area considered sacred by some Indian tribes in Montana and Canada.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and Republican leaders are thinking of returning to the Senate to salvage their imperiled trade agenda. It's testament to a crucial miscalculation they made months ago.
TUESDAY, JUNE 16
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - The president of the nation's largest Protestant denomination on Tuesday exhorted members to stand united against same-sex marriage and vowed never to officiate at a same-sex union.
HEALTH CARE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee is asking a federal appeals court to throw out a class-action lawsuit that claims the state left thousands of TennCare applicants in indefinite limbo, with their applications neither approved nor rejected.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — One of the state's largest school districts failed to nominate its top teachers to a special group formed by the governor because of a mistake in the way the names were to be submitted, a spokesman said Tuesday.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam has issued a writ of election to fill the state House seat vacated by new Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Ryan Haynes.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The state comptroller's audit division has won the 2015 excellence in accountability award from the National State Auditors Association.
AUTO INDUSTRY
TOKYO (AP) — Detroit-based General Motors Co. is expanding its partnership with Japanese truckmaker Isuzu Motors by collaborating in the U.S. and marking GM's return to the medium-duty truck business.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. builders broke ground on fewer homes in May, but the pace of construction remains significantly higher than a year ago as the real estate sector increasingly reflects the stronger job market.
TECHNOLOGY
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter's lame-duck CEO Dick Costolo says he is leaving the company stocked with new features that will boost revenue and help make the short-messaging service useful to more people.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Retailers have the ability to scan your face digitally, and use that identification to offer you special prices or even recognize you as a prior shoplifter. But should they use it? Should they get your permission first?
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is ordering food companies to phase out the use of heart-clogging trans fats over the next three years, calling them a threat to public health.
Signs of more corporate dealmaking sent U.S. stocks higher on Tuesday, allowing investors to take their mind off Greece's debt troubles.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — After talks with President Barack Obama, top Republican leaders in Congress put together a quick rescue plan Tuesday for highly controversial, White House-backed trade legislation that Democrats derailed in the House last week.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and his legislative allies scrambled Monday for ways to revive his severely wounded trade agenda, although Democrats and Republicans alike said all options face serious hurdles.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is announcing $4 billion in pledges from major foundations and institutional investors to pay for innovations that reduce carbon pollution. President Barack Obama is also using his executive powers to help make such investments easier.
MONDAY, JUNE 15
REAL ESTATE
U.S. homebuilders are feeling more confident about their sales prospects than they have since last fall, while their outlook for sales over the next six months is at the highest level in 10 years.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that one of the nation's biggest law firms is not entitled to recover $5.2 million in legal fees it incurred in the course of a bankruptcy proceeding.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Leaders of three Tennessee groups stripped of their short-lived recognition as American Indian tribes have filed a federal lawsuit seeking more than $36 million in damages.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) - Nashville stars, friends and fans remembered longtime Grand Ole Opry member Jim Ed Brown for his faith and friendships at a music-filled memorial service Monday in Nashville's Ryman Auditorium.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Carrie Underwood remembers when she first performed to thousands of country fans at the coveted Country Music Association's Music Festival in Nashville, Tennessee.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — The Pope is on Twitter, along with the Dalai Lama, world leaders and, of course, Kim Kardashian.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — A government data warehouse that stores information indefinitely on millions of HealthCare.gov customers is raising privacy concerns at a time when major breaches have become distressingly common.
Target will sell its pharmacy and clinic businesses to CVS Health in the latest twist behind a push from big retailers to become all things to all customers.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Gap is closing 175 of its namesake stores and eliminating 250 corporate jobs as it tries to strengthen its struggling Gap brand.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumers, businesses and investors are facing an era of higher borrowing costs as some of the lowest global interest rates in modern history begin to rise.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A decline in refining oil caused U.S. factory output to slip in May, overshadowing solid gains by automakers.
U.S. stocks are ending lower as uncertainty mounts over Greece's bailout talks with its creditors.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia's stock market, valued at $585 billion, opened up to direct foreign investment for the first time Monday, as the kingdom seeks an economic boost amid low global oil prices.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dinosaurs are anything but extinct at the box office.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House majority leader said Monday that Congress must find a way to pass President Barack Obama's trade agenda. But he acknowledged there's no obvious pathway in the wake of Friday's stunning defeat for the president, engineered chiefly by fellow Democrats.
FRIDAY, JUNE 12
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — A setback in talks between Greece and its creditors helped knock the stock market lower on Friday, amid renewed concerns that the country could default on its debts.
NEW YORK (AP) — FedEx said it is changing its pension accounting methods, and it will take a $2.2 billion charge as a result.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece said Friday it will present its creditors with new proposals over the weekend in an attempt to breathe life into stalled bailout discussions that have stoked fears of the country's bankruptcy.
MOXEE, Wash. (AP) — These are good times for growers like Ben St. Mary. He stood at his family's farm in Washington state recently and watched as employees built trellises where a new field of hops, the key ingredient in the flavoring of beer, will grow.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Led by union-backed Democrats, the House delivered a stinging blow to President Barack Obama on Friday and left his ambitious global trade agenda in serious doubt.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Prices at the wholesale level rose at the fastest pace in nearly 3 years in May, pushed higher by a sharp jump in the cost of gasoline and a record increase in the price eggs related to an outbreak of avian influenza. But outside of increases in volatile food and energy costs, core inflation remained moderate.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams has found listeria in its plant again and has halted production and closed retail shops for the second time since April, the company said Friday.
TECHNOLOGY
LOS ANGELES (AP) — YouTube is seeking to win over gamers.
NEW YORK (AP) — An appeals court says it won't block net neutrality rules, which will go into effect Friday as a result.
AUTO INDUSTRY
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. regulators have confirmed that an air bag made by Takata Corp. was involved in the April death of a woman in Louisiana , connecting the defective air bags to a seventh fatality.
DETROIT (AP) — Honda Motor Co. is setting aside another $363 million to fund a growing recall of air bags that can explode with too much force.
EDUCATION
NASHVILLE (AP) — A judge in Nashville has ruled that the Tennessee Virtual Academy can remain open.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee and Kentucky are among seven states that will receive a portion of $3.1 million in grants to help preserve Civil War battlefields.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rose for a second day after an encouraging report on retail sales suggested that Americans are finally feeling confident enough to spend more.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits rose slightly last week, yet remained at a historically low level that points to a healthy job market.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates jumped this week to their highest levels this year, with the key 30-year rate topping 4 percent for the first time since late 2014.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A rising stock market and climbing home prices boosted Americans' net worth to a new high in the first three months of the year.
BRUSSELS (AP) — International creditors sent Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras home from a summit Thursday with a clear message: swiftly tone down your demands in the bailout talks over the next week or face financial ruin.