VOL. 43 | NO. 31 | Friday, August 2, 2019
When outside linebacker Derrick Morgan retired a few weeks ago, it left punter Brett Kern as the longest tenured Titan, having been claimed off waivers from Denver six weeks into the 2009 season.
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
The city of Nashville lost a treasured, iconic character recently with the death of Rogan Allen. Arguably the best home builder in Nashville during his heyday, Allen was a sponge absorbing architectural history and construction knowledge and consistently incorporating the ancient practices into the current, cutting edge building trends worldwide.
U.S. long-term mortgage rates were flat to slightly higher this week, as markets expected the Federal Reserve to cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in a decade.
NEWSMAKERS
Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP has announced two of the firm’s Nashville attorneys, Stephanie M. Hoffmann and Janus Pan have been selected to participate in the American Health Lawyers Association Leadership Development Program.
BRIEFS
Nashville-based Stonebridge Wealth Management and the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants are launching a program of joint quarterly webinars for professional athletes and entertainers.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Some of us in the personal finance realm have a weird little hobby: We try to scam the scam artists.
UT SPORTS
First-year head coach Jeremy Pruitt was so focused on the bigger picture, he unintentionally overlooked what truly matters most.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
You need to pick up one of those magnifying glasses. Oh, and a trenchcoat. You want to close cold cases and fight crime, so those must be mandatory, right?
MILLENNIAL MONEY
A few years ago, my best friend said something that really stuck with me. The gist was this: it doesn’t matter whether you make $25,000 or $100,000 a year – you’ll still feel like you don’t have enough money.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
The vehicle you drive every day can be a platform for the exploration of the nation’s campsites if you consider factors such as space, appropriate on- and off-road capability, and general comfort. Some auto manufacturers now also offer specific features that make their vehicles particularly camping-friendly.
WEDNESDAY, AUG. 7
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 200 mayors, including two anguished by mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, are urging the Senate to return to the Capitol to act on gun safety legislation amid criticism that Congress is failing to respond to back-to-back shootings that left 31 people dead.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is not letting up on his attacks on the Federal Reserve, calling for "substantial" Fed rate cuts to allow the dollar to fall in value against foreign currencies.
BERLIN (AP) — The International Air Transport Association says passenger traffic grew by a "solid" 5% in June compared with the same month last year, despite the impact of U.S.-China trade tensions.
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese imports of American goods plunged in July as a tariff war with Washington intensified.
TUESDAY, AUG. 6
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is resisting pressure to bring senators back from recess to address gun violence.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Battling dual crises of gun violence and trade, President Donald Trump is twisting the facts in regards to gun control and exaggerating his case for tariffs against China.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite frequent mass shootings, Congress has proved to be unable to pass substantial gun violence legislation, largely because of resistance from Republicans.
TECHNOLOGY
DOVER, Del. (AP) — A federal appeals court has rejected a settlement in a class-action lawsuit alleging that Google spied on users' online activity using tracking "cookies," even when privacy settings were set to prevent the snooping.
AUTO INDUSTRY
Nissan pays $1.5M in crash of car without side air bags
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
U.S. stocks turned higher Wednesday afternoon as investors shook off early jitters that had briefly pulled the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 580 points.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A deal seemed so close.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told nervous Midwestern farmers on Wednesday that he's confident that they'll eventually regain the markets they've lost in the Trump administration's trade war with China.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumer borrowing slowed in June to the smallest increase in three months as a jump in auto loans and student loans was offset by a big drop in borrowing on credit cards.
NEW YORK (AP) — FedEx is severing ties with Amazon as the online retailer builds out its own delivery fleet and becomes more of a threat.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — "I thank Governor and First Lady Haslam for their vote of confidence in me and with the Lord's help I will make them as well as the rest of my supporters proud," she wrote.
MONDAY, AUG. 5
REGION
ATHENS, Ala. (AP) — The Tennessee Valley Authority says it's completed a $475 million upgrade at its oldest nuclear power plant in a move that helped boost the amount of electricity it produces without carbon emissions.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — A woman who said she was a 16-year-old sex-trafficking victim when she killed a man in 2004 is scheduled to be released from prison this week after being granted clemency .
MEDIA
NEW YORK (AP) — Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, a pioneer and reigning giant of modern literature whose imaginative power in "Beloved," ''Song of Solomon" and other works transformed American letters by dramatizing the pursuit of freedom within the boundaries of race, has died at age 88.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — The Apple credit card designed primarily for mobile use is here.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is distorting his record when it comes to gun control.
BEIJING (AP) — China said Tuesday that it "will not stand idly by" and will take countermeasures if the U.S. deploys intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region, which Washington has said it plans to do within months.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks closed broadly higher Tuesday as Wall Street regained its footing a day after the market had its biggest decline in a year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of open U.S. jobs was largely unchanged in June and hiring slipped, suggesting the job market has cooled a bit.
NEW YORK (AP) — Like most retailers, Walmart is accustomed to the everyday dealings of shoplifters. Now, it's confronting a bigger threat: active shooters.
NASHVILLE AREA
MURFREESBORO (AP) — A Tennessee city is working to fix a portion of its website that was hacked over the weekend.
FRIDAY, AUG. 2
MEDIA
NEW YORK (AP) — Two of the country's largest newspaper companies have agreed to combine in the latest media deal driven by the industry's struggles with a decline in printed editions.
NASHVILLE AREA
LEBANON (AP) — Restoration plans for the original Cracker Barrel Old Country Store in Tennessee have been chopped.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — The most powerful street-legal Ford Mustang ever built will go on sale this fall.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — If President Donald Trump is serious about strengthening gun laws in the wake of two mass shootings, he should demand that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put a House-passed bill strengthening background checks up for a vote, congressional Democrats said Monday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump claimed Monday he wants legislation providing "strong background checks" for gun users, but he provided no details and has reneged on previous promises to strengthen gun laws after mass shootings.
MCMINNVILLE (AP) — A federal lawsuit accuses the brother of former Vice President Joe Biden, hedge fund manager Michael Lewitt and others of attempting to defraud a Tennessee business.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks plunged to their worst loss of the year Monday and investors around the world scrambled to sell on worries about how much President Donald Trump's worsening trade war will damage the global economy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — China decided Monday to meet President Donald Trump's latest tariff threat with defiance, letting its currency drop to an 11-year low and halting purchases of U.S. farm products.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The pace of expansion for U.S. services companies fell to its slowest pace in nearly three years, as gauges of business activity and new orders weakened.
BEIJING (AP) — China allowed its yuan to fall below the politically sensitive level of seven to the U.S. dollar on Monday for the first time in 11 years, prompting concern Beijing might use devaluation as a weapon in a tariff war with Washington.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee's embattled House speaker has officially resigned from his leadership role after being plagued for months by multiple scandals involving explicit text messages.
STATEWIDE
OAK RIDGE (AP) — Two researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee are among the recipients of the 2019 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
AUTO INDUSTRY
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — General Motors says U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was incorrect in saying that a fledgling electric vehicle maker and a new affiliated company have secured funding to buy GM's shuttered Lordstown plant in Ohio.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Investors rattled by President Donald Trump's latest escalation in his trade war with China drove another round of selling on Wall Street Friday.
MEMPHIS (AP) — FedEx Corp. is investing an additional $450 million to improve operations at its busy hub in Memphis, Tennessee.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit shrunk slightly in June, as did the politically sensitive trade deficit with China, the principal target of President Donald Trump's tariffs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers slowed their hiring in July, adding a still-healthy 164,000 jobs to an economy that appears poised to extend its decade-plus expansion.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The latest batch of tariffs that President Donald Trump plans to impose on Chinese goods would likely cost U.S. households an average of $200 a year, some economists have estimated.
BEIJING (AP) — China on Friday threatened retaliation if U.S. President Donald Trump's planned tariff hikes go ahead, while the renewed acrimony between the two biggest global economies sent stock markets tumbling.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit shrunk slightly in June, as did the politically sensitive trade deficit with China, the principal target of President Donald Trump's tariffs.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says his pick for national intelligence director has decided to withdraw from the running, citing unfair media coverage.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States plans to test a new missile in coming weeks that would have been prohibited under a landmark, 32-year-old arms control treaty that the U.S. and Russia ripped up on Friday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday signed a bipartisan debt increase and new set of spending limits that would help lock in spending increases for the Pentagon and elsewhere in the budget.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House's only black Republican has become the latest GOP lawmaker to say he won't seek reelection next year, jolting the party's efforts to appeal to minority voters and wounding its already uphill chances of regaining House control.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks slumped Thursday and bond prices spiked after President Donald Trump surprised markets with a new 10% tariff on $300 billion worth of goods from China beginning next month.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Thursday the U.S. will apply a new tariff of 10% on about $300 billion worth of products from China beginning Sept. 1, escalating the two countries' festering trade dispute.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. factory activity expanded at a slower rate in July for the fourth consecutive month as the Trump administration squares off with other countries on trade.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Spending on U.S. construction projects fell in June by the largest amount in seven months, reflecting weakness in home building, nonresidential construction and the largest drop in government projects in 17 years.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee upended the rules Thursday for immigration legislation that would extend family detentions as chairman Lindsey Graham muscled the measure forward over the objections of Democrats.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A hard-won budget and debt deal easily cleared the Senate on Thursday, powered by President Donald Trump's endorsement and a bipartisan drive to cement recent spending increases for the Pentagon and domestic agencies.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials say they weren't aware that the state's pension fund invested stock in a marijuana industry company, despite the state's opposition to legalizing any usage of marijuana.
REGION
ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta will soon add some lessons about the South's racist history on markers placed next to four historic monuments amid the ongoing national debate over Confederate statues.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Nissan will do a "service campaign" to fix nearly 200,000 Altima midsize cars because a suspension part can come loose from the frame due to corrosion.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
MEMPHIS(AP) — Jewelry, clothing, contractual documents and a signed guitar are among more than 400 items available at an auction of Elvis Presley-related memorabilia at Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jurors will decide how much Katy Perry's 2013 mega-hit "Dark Horse" is worth and how much of that money should go to a Christian rapper whose song they already said the pop star copied.
BEIJING (AP) — China stabilized its currency Tuesday, suggesting it might hold off from aggressively letting the yuan weaken as a way to respond to U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.
BEIJING (AP) — China lowered the trading range for its currency for a fourth day on Thursday, showing its potential for use as a trade weapon against Washington, but the exchange rate steadied following declines that alarmed financial markets.