VOL. 43 | NO. 34 | Friday, August 23, 2019
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. long-term mortgage rates are near historically low levels this week with the average on the benchmark 30-year loan falling to its lowest level since November 2016.
JOE ROGERS: MY TAKE
Councilman Freddie O’Connell wants to do something about panhandling in Nashville. He’s still working on precisely what.
TIM GHIANNI: STREET LEVEL
Uncle Meat leans back on the piano bench – arm-swept clear of the CDs and assorted implements of a musician’s life that fill it and the rest of the living room of the home in Bellevue – and sings a joyous, or at least joy-filled and powerful song titled “Rollin’ With The Punches.”
The release of “The One And Only Essra Mohawk” will be celebrated with an in-store performance by the artist at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, August 29. at The Great Escape. Guitarist August Zona, who worked on the recording sessions, will be on-hand to accompany Mohawk. The store is at 5400 Charlotte Avenue. For information call 615-385-2116.
NEWSMAKERS
Lela M. Hollabaugh of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP in Nashville has been selected for the Top 250 Women In Litigation 2019.
BRIEFS
The Princeton Review has named Middle Tennessee State University one of the best places for an undergraduate degree.
TENNESSEE TITANS
For nearly 20 years now, the New England Patriots with Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have set the standard by which all other NFL teams – past, present and future – are measured.
This Sunday night – yes it is still preseason – Nashville will be in the spotlight as Sunday Night Football comes to town when the Titans host the Pittsburgh Steelers.
UT SPORTS
If there was any doubt about Jauan Jennings’ status within the Tennessee football program, he quickly put it to rest.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Few issues unite millennials like the future of Social Security. Overwhelmingly, they’re convinced it doesn’t have one.
GUEST COLUMNIST
The Tennessee Court of Appeals in a ruling on Friday put much-needed limits around the so-called investigative exemption that has been used by the state to cloak otherwise public records.
WEDNESDAY, AUG. 28
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Ex-Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam isn't ruling out a future run for office, though he says he isn't currently planning on it.
ENVIRONMENT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Oil and gas companies would face looser controls on emissions of potent climate-changing methane gas under a proposal expected from the Trump administration as soon as Thursday, oil industry and environmental groups say. The government's plan would ease requirements on oil and gas sites to monitor for methane leaks and plug them.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economic landscape would look even bleaker if not for America's consumers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy slowed in the spring, and many economists think the slowdown will continue through the second half of the year, a possible headwind for President Donald Trump's hopes that a surging economy will provide the backdrop for his 2020 re-election campaign.
LONDON (AP) — Europe's Brexit drama is hurtling toward a new climax at the wrong time for the region's economy, threatening to sow chaos for businesses just as a large part of the continent is sliding toward recession.
TUESDAY, AUG. 27
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — Maren Morris has a chance to win up to eight trophies including for album of the year at the 2019 Country Music Association Awards thanks to her work as an artist, songwriter and producer.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks overcame an early stumble and closed broadly higher Wednesday as the market more than made up its losses from a day earlier.
McDonald's is introducing a new training program for its U.S. employees after dozens of workers complained of sexual harassment.
NEW YORK (AP) — Lord & Taylor, one of the nation's oldest department stores, is being sold for $100 million to a rental clothing company.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — Apple is apologizing and changing the way humans review audio recordings made through the company's Siri digital assistant.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Take the post down. Put it back up. Stop policing speech. Start silencing extremists.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
LACONA, Iowa (AP) — When President Donald Trump levied tariffs on China that scrambled global markets, farmer Randy Miller was willing to absorb the financial hit. Even as the soybeans in his fields about an hour south of Des Moines became less valuable, Miller saw long-term promise in Trump's efforts to rebalance America's trade relationship with Beijing.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook is tightening its rules around political advertising ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential elections, an acknowledgement of previous misuse. But it's not clear if it will be enough to stop bad actors from abusing its system.
EAST TENNESSEE
KINGSTON (AP) — The Tennessee Valley Authority, long respected for providing good jobs and cheap electricity, is facing a growing backlash over its handling of a massive coal ash spill a decade ago, with potentially serious consequences for an industry often opposed to environmental regulation.
HEALTH CARE
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — State attorneys general and lawyers representing local governments said Tuesday they are in active settlement talks with Purdue Pharma, the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin that is facing billions of dollars in potential liability for its role in the nation's opioid crisis.
MONDAY, AUG. 26
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — A group that helped advance Tennessee's newly enacted voucher law is targeting a lawmaker who voted against the contentious plan.
EAST TENNESSEE
GATLINBURG (AP) — The Great Smoky Mountains National Park has issued an unusual video, alerting people to watch for rolling poop.
REGION
MEMPHIS (AP) — The Tennessee Valley Authority says it has identified a route for a new transmission line that would send power from Mississippi to Tennessee.
EDUCATION
The company that administers the SAT college admissions test is replacing the so-called adversity score with a tool that will no longer reduce an applicant's background to a single number, an idea the College Board's chief executive now says was a mistake.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks capped a wobbly day on Wall Street with broad losses Tuesday as anxious investors shifted money to U.S. government bonds, gold and other traditional safe-haven assets.
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A former Google engineer was charged Tuesday with stealing closely guarded secrets that he later sold to Uber as the ride-hailing service scrambled to catch up in the high-stakes race to build robotic vehicles.
MIAMI (AP) — President Donald Trump was in full sales mode Monday, doing everything but pass out brochures as he touted the features that would make the Doral golf resort the ideal place for the next G-7 Summit — close to the airport, plenty of hotel rooms, separate buildings for every delegation, even top facilities for the media.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumer confidence dipped slightly in August after a big rebound in July.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices rose more slowly in June as some of the country's most expensive housing markets saw stagnant or even falling prices.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
BIARRITZ, France (AP) — Never mind his differences with world leaders on China, trade, Russia, Iran and more. President Donald Trump's takeaway message from the Group of Seven summit in France was "unity." In fact, "flawless" unity.
WASHINGTON (AP) — "Never Trump" Republicans are eager to see the president confront a credible primary adversary. But the party will likely erect structural barriers that make that kind of challenge exceedingly difficult.
PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron says it's time for Europe to reach out to Russia — to keep it in the Western fold, check its global ambitions and avoid being caught in the middle of a new Cold War.
FRIDAY, AUG. 16
COURTS
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — An Oklahoma judge on Monday found Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries helped fuel the state's opioid drug crisis and ordered the consumer products giant to pay $572 million to help abate the problem in the coming years.
STATEWIDE
KNOXVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Valley Authority board of directors has approved a 20-year plan that includes no new major generating plants.
HEALTH CARE
How much marijuana is really in that pot brownie? Chocolate can throw off potency tests so labels aren't always accurate, and now scientists are trying to figure out why.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
BIARRITZ, France (AP) — Brushing off concerns about global economic instability, President Donald Trump defended the way he is trying to squeeze a trade deal out of China on Monday, saying it's a style that worked for him as a businessman.
BIARRITZ, France (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump skipped a discussion on climate with other world leaders at the Group of Seven summit in France, leaving an empty chair as global power brokers debated how to help the fire-ravaged Amazon and reduce carbon emissions.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks closed broadly higher on Wall Street Monday as investors found reason to be cautiously optimistic again about the potential for progress in the costly trade war between the U.S. and China.
BIARRITZ, France (AP) — With clouds growing over growth, French President Emmanuel Macron ended the Group of Seven summit of rich democracies Monday with a sparse declaration in which leaders committed themselves to "open and fair global trade and the stability of the global economy."
BIARRITZ, France (AP) — President Donald Trump, facing pressure to scale back a U.S.-China trade war contributing to a global economic slowdown, claimed Monday that serious talks will begin soon although another round has been expected in Washington in September.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories for large manufactured goods rose for the second straight month, but the strength again came from a big increase in the volatile aircraft category. A category that tracks business investment also rose for the second straight month, though last month's reading was revised down significantly.
BEIJING (AP) — China allowed its yuan to sink Monday and U.S. President Donald Trump said the two sides will talk "very seriously" about their war over trade and technology following tit-for-tat tariff hikes and Trump's threat to order American companies to stop doing business with China.
NEW YORK (AP) — Although President Donald Trump has told U.S. companies to stop dealing with China, small business owners say complying would hurt, even devastate them.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee state representatives elected a new House speaker Friday, following months of chaos inside the GOP-dominated chamber as the former leader became engulfed in multiple scandals involving sexually explicit text messages.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials are asking health care providers to report cases of suspected serious respiratory illness among patients who use electronic cigarettes or other vaping devices.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee House Republican members are defending holding a recent private meeting, arguing that the matters discussed behind closed doors did not pertain to state business.
HEALTH CARE
CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois health officials said Friday that a patient who contracted a serious lung disease after vaping has died, which could make it the first death in the United States linked to the smoking alternative that has become popular with teens and young adults.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and China escalated their 13-month trade war Friday, sending financial markets tumbling and intensifying worries about the health of the global economy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new U.S. homes fell a steep 12.8% in July, but the drop came after revisions to June sales showed the sales highest growth in 12 years.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sent no clear signal Friday that the Fed will further cut interest rates this year but said it would "act as appropriate" to sustain the expansion — phrasing that analysts see as suggesting rate cuts.
BEIJING (AP) — China has announced it will raise tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. products in retaliation for President Donald Trump's planned Sept. 1 duty increase in a war over trade and technology policy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As global leaders gather on two continents to take account of a darkening economic outlook, this is the picture they face:
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump launched a furious and highly personal Twitter attack Friday against the Federal Reserve and Chairman Jerome Powell, fuming that the Fed once more "did NOTHING!" and wondering who is "our bigger enemy" — Powell or China's leader.
PROLE, Iowa (AP) — Campaigning under the stifling August sun, Joe Biden assailed President Donald Trump's trade war with China, accusing him of squandering a strong economy and putting Americans' financial security at risk.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
A wobbly day on Wall Street left stock indexes mostly lower Thursday as investors turned cautious ahead of a widely anticipated speech by the Federal Reserve chairman.
TASIILAQ, Greenland (AP) — From a helicopter, Greenland's brilliant white ice and dark mountains make the desolation seem to go on forever. And the few people who live here — its whole population wouldn't fill a football stadium — are poor, with a high rate of substance abuse and suicide.
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Walmart plans to reopen the El Paso store where 22 people were killed in a mass shooting this month, the retail giant said Thursday, but the entire interior of the building will first be rebuilt.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal budget deficit is expected to balloon to more than $1 trillion in the next fiscal year under the first projections taking into account the big budget deal that President Donald Trump and Congress reached this summer, the Congressional Budget Office reported.
When it comes to credit card rewards, it's not all about gas, groceries and restaurants anymore. Issuers are moving beyond suburban staples to include millennial-friendly categories such as transit and streaming subscriptions.
EDUCATION
NASHVILLE (AP) — The majority of Tennessee teachers say they would leave the profession if they could get a higher paying job, while an even higher percentage say their job isn't worth the daily stress and disappointment.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — Apple tried to make the new Apple-branded credit card attractive, copying the heft and sleekness of higher-end cards like the Chase Sapphire. But cardholders are discovering that with such a design, they'll have to give it special care.
HEALTH CARE
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Planned Parenthood clinics in several states are charging new fees, tapping financial reserves, intensifying fundraising and warning of more unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases after its decision to quit a $260 million federal family planning program in an abortion dispute with the Trump administration.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after considering cutting taxes to promote economic growth, President Donald Trump changed course and said he would abandon the idea because the nation already had "a strong economy."
NEW YORK (AP) — About 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump's overall job performance, according to a new poll released Thursday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which finds some support for the president's handling of the U.S. economy but gives him weak marks on other major issues.