VOL. 40 | NO. 33 | Friday, August 12, 2016
High demand in accounting, technology, financial services, health care
If you’re a Tennessean just starting to plan for a career – or considering a new career – you can take heart. Indicators that show Tennessee, as a whole, is emerging as a job-friendly place with stable, good paying jobs with good benefits available.
College degrees are more important than ever in helping job seekers land good jobs, but there are always some people who manage to forge unconventional career paths. They either don’t have a college degree or they have a degree that’s not in their career of choice.
If you’re a Tennessean looking for a great job with a future and find yourself compulsively checking online websites such as Career Builder, Monster.com or LinkedIn, you might want to add another tool – Tennessee Department of Labor & Workforce Development’s website at www.jobs4tn.gov.
SAM STOCKARD: VIEW FROM THE HILL
Murfreesboro Realtor Larry Sims almost closes his ears when Donald Trump speaks. “He gets out of bounds. Of course, the press, they love it because they get to exploit his sayings and doings,” says Sims, who traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, as a Trump delegate for the Republican National Convention.
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
The great songwriter Harlan Howard described a country song as “three chords and the truth.” Most of the songs written by Hank Williams, widely accepted as the best songwriter of all time, include only three chords, those being major chords C, D and G, with an occasional F thrown in.
REAL ESTATE
July 2016 real estate trends for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford and Wilson counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Long-term U.S. mortgage rates edged higher this week, though rates remain at historically low levels.
DAVID CLIMER: OUT OF LEFT FIELD
There are two kinds of football coaches in the Southeastern Conference: those that have gotten fired and those that haven’t gotten fired – yet.
TERRY McCORMICK: TENNESSEE TITANS
Welcome back, Ken Whisenhunt. You’ve only been gone a few months, but you might not recognize many things about your old workplace when you arrive Saturday night.
How much have things changed since Ken Whisenhunt was fired by Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk last November? There are 35 players with the Titans now who were not on the roster or in camp when Whisenhunt was head coach.
DAVE LINK: UT SPORTS
Clarksville’s Jalen Reeves-Maybin is in full football mode as he prepares for his senior season at Tennessee.
NEWSMAKERS
Edward D. Lanquist, Jr., managing shareholder at Patterson Intellectual Property Law, P.C., has been appointed general counsel of the Tennessee Bar Association.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
The Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan is bigger yet lighter for 2016, with fresh styling, a new turbo-charged engine and more technology and safety features.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
How many times have you found yourself staring at your company’s social media page wondering why you are struggling to get your followers to engage?
CAREER CORNER
How often have you talked to a friend who hasn’t received a real raise in years and is feeling frustrated? Perhaps you are that person.
I SWEAR
It’s been a summer of ingestion – not indigestion. I’ve read, I’ve watched. Last week I wrote about movies. This week the topic is books.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - A proposal to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana in Nashville has cleared its first hurdle in the Metro Council.
MIDSTATE
NASHVILLE (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee has settled a lawsuit to protect students' right to free speech in Giles County schools.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A judge has dismissed a trespassing charge brought against a Nashville Scene reporter by Rep. Jeremy Durham.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — Country star Blake Shelton apologized on Twitter for offending people with his language, but denied being hateful after several old tweets referencing gays and non-English speakers surfaced online.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Long-term U.S. mortgage rates edged lower this week, remaining at historically low levels as a potential spur to home purchases.
AUTO INDUSTRY
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Uber passengers in Pittsburgh will be able to summon rides in self-driving cars with the touch of a smartphone button in the next several weeks.
CHATTANOOGA (AP) — Chattanooga Seating Systems says an expansion at its facility Volkswagen's Tennessee plant will create 190 jobs.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer people sought U.S. unemployment benefits last week, evidence that layoffs are scarce and employers are likely hiring at a solid clip.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are little changed Thursday morning as the market remains in the doldrums. Energy companies are rising as the price of oil continues a recent recovery and phone companies and health care stocks are trading lower.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart raised its earnings outlook for the year and delivered strong profit and sales in the second quarter after the world's largest retailer revamped its stores and improved the shopping experience online, changes that appear to be winning over customers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — THE ISSUE: The rich keep getting richer while more Americans are getting left behind financially.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — An audit has found lax internal financial controls at the Tennessee education district in charge of trying to turn around failing public schools.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) - Campaign finance documents indicate a more than $190,000 discrepancy between state Rep. Jeremy Durham's bank records and his re-election account.
NASHVILLE AREA
Seventeen members of the Nashville chapter of The Entrepreneurs’ Organization have been included in the 2016 Inc. 500|5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America.
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Tennessee chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy said Tuesday that it had no legal choice but to accept $1.2 million from Vanderbilt University in exchange for relinquishing the naming rights to the private school's Confederate Memorial Hall.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve officials believed last month that near-term risks to the U.S. economy had subsided and that an interest rate increase could soon be warranted. But they did not indicate when they would likely raise rates.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks closed barely higher Wednesday as big gains for utilities balanced out losses for retailers like Lowe's, Target and Staples.
NEW YORK (AP) — Target Corp. cut its profit forecast and a key sales outlook Wednesday as it saw fewer customers in its stores and acknowledged it didn't push the second part of its "Expect More, Pay Less" slogan.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump's campaign chairman helped a pro-Russian governing party in Ukraine secretly route at least $2.2 million in payments to two prominent Washington lobbying firms in 2012, and did so in a way that effectively obscured the foreign political party's efforts to influence U.S. policy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In this unconventional campaign season, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have produced two conventional tax plans that mostly track their parties' long-standing views.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 16
SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have agreed to trade wide receiver Dorial Green-Beckham to the Philadelphia Eagles for offensive lineman Dennis Kelly.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick says he will stand for another term in charge of the Republican supermajority in the lower chamber of the Tennessee General Assembly.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - Google is warning that an impasse over access to utility poles could lead the company to pull the plug on its plans to bring its fiber optic broadband service to Nashville.
NEW YORK (AP) — An undisclosed number of people who used credit cards at 20 Hyatt, Sheraton, Marriott, Westin and other hotels in 10 states and the District of Columbia – including the Sheraton Music City in Nashville between March 1 and June 8 – may have had their cards compromised as a result of hack of the hotels' payment system.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Apartment construction in the Northeast fueled a jump in home building in July as the pace of housing starts nationwide reached their strongest pace in six months.
HEALTH CARE
Aetna has become the latest health insurer to retreat from the Affordable Care Act's public exchanges by announcing a pullback that will further deplete customer choices in many pockets of the country.
TECHNOLOGY
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Knock, knock, Google's video chatting app has arrived.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks slid Tuesday as investors continued to sell phone company and utility shares. Energy companies rose with the price of oil, but stocks have been locked in an up-and-down pattern for more than a week.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Billionaire hedge-fund manager Steven A. Cohen, who was earlier accused of failing to prevent insider trading at his firm, has agreed in a settlement with the government not to engage in any activities overseen by federal commodities regulators until at least Dec. 31, 2017.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. factories cranked out more autos, machinery and chemicals in July, lifting production by the most in a year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer prices were unchanged in July as a big drop in gasoline and other energy prices kept inflation under control.
NATIONAL POLITICS
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google is pulling another lever on its influential search engine in an effort to boost voter turnout in November's U.S. presidential election.
MONDAY, AUGUST 15
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - Vanderbilt University announced Monday that it will pay more than a million dollars to remove an inscription containing the word "Confederate" from one of its campus dorms.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A custom footwear designer says he has given a pair of Nike cleats a patriotic look for Titans linebacker Avery Williamson to wear during Tennessee's opener on Sept. 11.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Inmates at a downtown Nashville jail have been transferred out in preparation for the jail's reconstruction.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The administrator of Tennessee's Bureau of Workers' Compensation has been named president of the Southern Association of Workers' Compensation Administrators.
AUTO INDUSTRY
BERLIN (AP) — German automaker Volkswagen says it's received approval from the country's motor vehicle authority for technical fixes for another 460,000 cars equipped with software to help them cheat emissions tests.
REAL ESTATE
U.S. homebuilders are feeling more optimistic about the housing market this month, reflecting strong growth in new-home sales and prices.
NEW YORK (AP) — Mid-America Apartment Communities Inc. is buying rival real estate investment trust Post Properties in a deal worth about $3.9 billion.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks closed at a record high Monday behind gains for chemical and machinery companies. Energy companies rose as the price of oil continued its recent recovery.
NEW YORK (AP) — Police were investigating what caused people to report hearing gunshots at Kennedy Airport on Sunday night, triggering a series of evacuations and some panic among travelers spooked by the heavy police response.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 12
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - Threatened by looming developers and a changing industry, some of Nashville's Music Row recording studios are preparing to formally open their doors to tour groups for the first time.
MIDSTATE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The state veterinarian's office is investigating an outbreak of a disease involving 17 horses in Middle Tennessee.
AUTO INDUSTRY
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — A group of computer security experts say they figured out how to hack the keyless entry systems used on millions of cars, meaning that thieves could in theory break and steal items without leaving a broken window.
CHATTANOOGA (AP) — This year's graduates from the Volkswagen Academy at the German automaker's plant in Tennessee include the first person to complete its engineering specialist program for candidates with bachelor's degrees in engineering.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are closing mostly lower on Wall Street Friday, weighed down by new data showing weaker-than-expected retail sales and a drop in producer prices in July.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A sluggish month of retail spending has tempered expectations for the U.S. economy's growth in the coming months.
WASHINGTON (AP) — US producer prices last month registered the biggest drop since September, pulled down by tumbling energy, clothing and food prices.
NEW YORK (AP) — Macy's plans to close about 100 stores next year and boost its online investments, the nation's largest department store chain said Thursday, as it tries to become more nimble in an increasingly fierce market. The closures represent close to 14 percent of its stores under the Macy's brand.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Huffington Post is going to be without a Huffington.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Slightly fewer people sought U.S. unemployment benefits last week, a sign that layoffs are low and employers are probably adding new jobs.