VOL. 41 | NO. 25 | Friday, June 23, 2017
REAL ESTATE
Top commercial real estate sales, May 2017, for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Long-term U.S. mortgage rates dropped slightly this week.
DAVID CLIMER: OUT OF LEFT FIELD
Time and again during the recent Stanley Cup Final, people asked the rhetorical question: Is this the greatest moment in Nashville sports history?
NEWSMAKERS
Nashville attorneys Steve Cobb and Larry Bridgesmith were both presented President’s Awards at the Tennessee Bar Association annual convention.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Acura’s top-selling car, the compact TLX, has been restyled for 2018 and is now even more of a bargain as an entry-level luxury sedan.
FAMILY TRAVEL
I remember it like it was yesterday, even though it actually was five years ago.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
It’s always the little things. A chocolate on the pillow or slippers beneath a turned-down bed. Stickers for a customer’s kids. A lagniappe in the box to make a baker’s dozen: all things to ensure a speedy return of buyer or client.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
Many marketing professionals have found themselves at odds with their CEO, be it over competing priorities or different versions of success. The same often holds true for marketing agencies and their clients’ leadership teams.
CAREER CORNER
Interviewing is hard work. If you’re looking for something new, you know that finding a job is a job.
COURTS
KNOXVILLE (AP) — A federal judge is expected to rule on the terms of an injunction that regulates how the Tennessee Valley Authority removes trees along right of ways while TVA works on an Environmental Impact Statement.
STATE LEGISLATURE
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Term-limited Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett says he plans to make a bid to join Tennessee's delegation in Congress next year.
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Tennessee state Rep. Harry Brooks is donating $66,000 in campaign funds to four high schools in his district.
STATEWIDE
MEMPHIS (AP) — A group of Tennessee lawmakers and residents are opposing a request from three Shelby County officials requesting the Department of Justice terminate oversight of its juvenile court.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is exploring options for salvaging the battered Republican health care bill, even as he confronts an expanding chorus of GOP detractors.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans' struggle to pass a health care bill is jeopardizing another one of President Donald Trump's top priorities: overhauling America's tax system.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The superheated argument over the Republican drive to overhaul health care has not been the finest moment for accuracy.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks are lower in early trading as technology companies and big-dividend stocks dip.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Slightly more people sought U.S. unemployment benefits last week, but the number of applications remained at a historically low level suggesting a strong job market.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy got off to a lackluster start during the first three months of 2017, though it had a bit more momentum than earlier estimates indicated.
NEW YORK (AP) — Walgreens has ended its takeover pursuit of rival Rite Aid following resistance from U.S. regulators and will instead now buy stores, distribution centers and inventory in a new deal.
LONDON (AP) — Britain's government stalled Twenty-First Century Fox's takeover bid of the Sky pay television and broadband network Thursday after media regulators expressed concern about the influence of Rupert Murdoch and his family.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has set new criteria for visa applicants from six mainly Muslim nations and all refugees that require a "close" family or business tie to the United States. The move came after the Supreme Court partially restored President Donald Trump's executive order that was widely criticized as a ban on Muslims.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican donors paid $35,000 apiece to hear familiar a message from President Donald Trump: The media, particularly CNN, keep trying to take him down, and yet Republicans just keep on winning elections. He noted with pride that his party had won four special elections this year.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28
SPORTS
ABERDEEN, S.D. (AP) — Legendary men's basketball coach Don Meyer is being inducted into the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — The sponsor of a Nashville "sanctuary city"-like push is withdrawing the proposal before a July 6 final vote.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville's mayor may privatize the operations of city-owned Nashville International Airport to generate funding for mass transit in middle Tennessee.
MIDSTATE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee doctor and his wife were sentenced to three years in prison for a conspiracy to commit tax fraud.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans signed fewer contracts to buy homes in May, the third straight monthly decline and evidence that a shortage of homes for sale has suppressed home-buying.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell explored options for salvaging the battered Republican health care bill Wednesday but confronted an expanding chorus of GOP detractors, deepening the uncertainty over whether the party can resuscitate its bedrock promise to repeal President Barack Obama's overhaul.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are touting lower premiums under their health care legislation, but that reflects insurance that would cover a smaller share of the cost of medical bills.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says getting approval of a Senate health care bill will be "very tough." But he predicts that Republicans will at least "get very close" and may "get it over the line."
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican Party's long-promised repeal of "Obamacare" stands in limbo after Senate GOP leaders, short of support, abruptly shelved a vote on legislation to fulfill the promise.
AUTO INDUSTRY
Summer is upon us, and that means car sales are in full swing. With the July Fourth holiday approaching, car dealership advertisements flood the airwaves and every deal sounds better than the one before it. Given all that noise, you might have a case of car-deal information overload.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
The U.S. stock market notched its biggest gain in two months Wednesday, bouncing back from losses a day earlier.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve has given the green light to all 34 of the biggest banks in the U.S. to raise their dividends and buy back shares, judging their financial foundations sturdy enough to withstand a major economic downturn.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Homeland Security Department is set to announce new security measures Wednesday for international flights bound to the United States, which could lead to a lifting of a ban on laptops and other electronics from passenger cabins from certain airports.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — ABC and a South Dakota meat producer announced a settlement Wednesday in a $1.9 billion lawsuit against the American network over its reports on a lean, finely textured beef product that critics dubbed "pink slime."
Presidents of U.S. public colleges and universities saw their earnings climb by 5.3 percent last year, with several of them topping $1 million, according to an annual survey.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Republican-controlled House subcommittees Wednesday soundly rejected President Donald Trump's proposals to slash the Agriculture Department, overseas food aid and water projects.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bipartisan legislation to limit the influence of so-called shell corporations in the U.S. could get a boost as Congress probes the ways that Russia influenced last year's election.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, has registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for political consulting work he did for a Ukrainian political party, acknowledging that he coached party members on how to interact with U.S. government officials.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Barely five months into office, President Donald Trump keeps taking time out from governing to run for re-election.
TUESDAY, JUNE 27
MUSIC INDUSTRY
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A Tennessee man is asking an appeals court to overturn a decision that awarded a guitar once owned by Elvis Presley to the National Music Museum at the University of South Dakota.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville's attorney says a proposal to adopt "sanctuary city"-like standards is unenforceable.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Vanderbilt University project to combat fake news has clinched an award worth $50,000 in funding.
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee state Capitol has been evacuated over concerns about smoke from a fire that broke out in a tunnel being built beneath the building.
AUTO INDUSTRY
Takata's lethally defective air bags proved to be the company's undoing Monday. But it could take years to get the dangerous devices off the road in the U.S. and around the world.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a bruising setback, Senate Republican leaders shelved a vote on their prized health care bill Tuesday until at least next month, forced to retreat by a GOP rebellion that left them lacking enough votes to even begin debate.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says that if the health care bill fails to pass in the Senate, he won't like it — but "that's OK."
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's campaign promise to repeal and replace "Obamacare" is now in the hands of a key group of GOP senators who are opposing —or not yet supporting — legislation Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Major veterans' organizations are voicing concerns about a Senate GOP bill to repeal the nation's health care law, fearing the impact of rising insurance costs and worried the underfunded Department of Veterans Affairs won't be able to fill the coverage gap.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Millionaires would get tax cuts averaging $52,000 a year from the Senate Republicans' health bill while middle-income families would get about $260, according to a new analysis of the bill Senate leaders hope to vote on this week.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Somewhere along the way, the Republican crusade to repeal "Obamacare" also turned into an effort to limit the future growth of Medicaid. That bit of mission creep is complicating prospects for the GOP, and could lead to deadlock.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices rose at a healthy clip in April, though the increase slowed a bit from the previous two months.
TECHNOLOGY
MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) — Facebook is reaching another milestone, announcing that it now has more than 2 billion users.
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook said Tuesday that it deleted about 66,000 posts a week in the last two months as the social media giant cracks down on what it deems to be hate speech.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Technology stocks led a broad slide in U.S. stocks Tuesday after a day of mostly choppy trading.
LONDON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Tuesday that banking reforms now in place have made the financial system safer, and the world should be able to avoid the type of devastating crisis that struck the global economy in 2008.
U.S. consumers became more confident in June —with more Americans pleased by current conditions but slightly less hopeful about what the next six months hold.
PARIS (AP) — A new and highly virulent outbreak of data-scrambling software caused disruption across the world Tuesday. Following a similar attack in May , the fresh assault paralyzed some hospitals, government offices and major multinational corporations in a dramatic demonstration of how easily malicious programs can bring daily life to a halt.
BRUSSELS (AP) — After a seven-year legal battle, European authorities came down hard on Google on Tuesday for taking advantage of its dominance in online searches to direct customers to its own businesses, fining the tech giant a record 2.42 billion euros ($2.72 billion) and raising the prospect of more.
BRUSSELS (AP) — As the European Union fines Google for abusing its dominance in online searches, here is a look back at the key dates in the bloc's legal tussle with the technology company.
NEW YORK (AP) — CNN accepted the resignations Monday of three journalists involved in a retracted story about a supposed investigation into a pre-inaugural meeting between an associate of President Donald Trump and the head of a Russian investment fund.
NATIONAL POLITICS
President Donald Trump's new policy on Cuba travel has winners and losers: Group tour operators hope to sell more trips, but bed-and-breakfast owners in Cuba say they're losing business.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are out to capitalize on what they believe is growing public sentiment that President Donald Trump, the richest man to call the White House home, is turning his back on the people who got him elected in favor of his wealthy peers. The party is hoping that pitch will pack extra oomph at a time when even some Republicans are raising concerns that the GOP health-care plan could hurt the poor.
MONDAY, JUNE 26
STATE LEGISLATURE
KINGSPORT (AP) — Former Tennessee Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey is plotting a return to the hallways of the state Capitol complex.
REGION
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — A private spaceflight company owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos plans to build a powerful new rocket engine in Alabama for space flight, the company and state officials announced Monday.
SPORTS
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Tennessee has hired Kurt Gulbrand as senior associate athletic director for development.
STATEWIDE
MURFREESBORO — The most recent statewide survey of Tennessee consumers by MTSU’s Office of Consumer Research indicates consumers’ outlook on the economy “has waned heading into the summer months.”
OAK RIDGE (AP) — Environmental groups are challenging the Tennessee Valley Authority's proposal to use a Tennessee nuclear reactor design site abandoned in the 1970s to develop new small modular reactors.
MIDSTATE
SPRINGFIELD (AP) — Electrolux is investing an additional $20 million in a plant in Tennessee, bringing the total amount the Swedish appliance maker is spending at the facility to $45 million.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Republican health care bill would leave 22 million more Americans uninsured in 2026 than under President Barack Obama's health care law, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Monday, in a blow to GOP leaders' hopes of pushing the plan through the chamber this week.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders added a penalty for people who've let their insurance lapse Monday as party leaders prepared to begin pushing their health care measure through the Senate, despite a rebellion within GOP ranks.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — At least one influential donor has informed congressional Republicans that the "Dallas piggy bank" is closed until he sees major action on health care and taxes.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans skeptical about a GOP health overhaul bill are expressing some doubt about holding a vote this week as they await a key analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. President Donald Trump, making a final push to fulfill a key campaign promise, insists Republicans are not "that far off" and signaled last-minute changes are coming to win votes.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is not known for plunging into the details of complex policy issues, and health care is no exception. Since his campaign days, Trump has addressed health care in broad, aspirational strokes. Nonetheless he made some clear promises along the way.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The last day of the Supreme Court's term was notable not only for what was announced but also for what wasn't.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that churches have the same right as other charitable groups to seek state money for new playground surfaces and other non-religious needs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to go forward with a limited version of its ban on travel from six mostly Muslim countries, a victory for President Donald Trump in the biggest legal controversy of his young presidency.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is rejecting yet another call to decide whether Americans have a constitutional right to carry guns with them outside their homes.
AUTO INDUSTRY
BMW said Monday it will invest an additional $600 million to expand its South Carolina plant, creating 1,000 new jobs over the next four years.
Japanese air bag maker Takata Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo and the U.S. on Monday, saying it was the only way to ensure it could carry on supplying replacements for faulty air bag inflators linked to the deaths of at least 16 people.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
U.S. stock indexes closed mostly higher Monday, snapping a four-day losing streak for the Dow Jones industrial average on a day of largely listless trading.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Demand for long-lasting U.S. factory goods fell by the most in 18 months, and a key category that tracks business investment also slipped, evidence that manufacturing output is barely growing.
SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle's $15-an-hour minimum wage law has cost the city jobs, according to a study released Monday that contradicted another new study published last week.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Why are Republicans struggling mightily to reach a consensus on how to overhaul the nation's tax system?
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is eager to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin with full diplomatic bells and whistles when the two are in Germany for a multinational summit next month. But the idea is exposing deep divisions within the administration on the best way to approach Moscow in the midst of an ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. elections.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An influential House committee chairman will press his case for a $696.5 billion defense budget in 2018, a blueprint that provides more military spending than at any point during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Authorities in Indonesia have issued a travel ban against the Indonesian business partner of U.S. President Donald Trump after he was accused of threatening a deputy attorney general, officials said Monday.
FRIDAY, JUNE 23
NASHVILLE AREA
BOSTON (AP) — Prosecutors say the co-founder of a Massachusetts pharmacy linked to a deadly nationwide meningitis outbreak that affected 153 in Tennessee should be sent to prison for 35 years for showing "an unconscionable disregard for the lives of the patients."
NASHVILLE (AP) — A university and medical college have created a new program to funnel doctors to rural Tennessee.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville's library system is ditching fines for overdue books, movies and music and forgiving the ones patrons currently owe.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville Mayor Megan Barry is asking a private prison company to cover out-of-pocket costs for city employees affected by a scabies outbreak at a jail.
STATEWIDE
Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III has been elected by his colleagues to serve as chair of the Southern Region of Attorneys General, which stretches from Texas to Virginia.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam is headed to Europe next week to try to recruit more foreign investment in Tennessee.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new homes rebounded in May, helped by strong sales gains in the South and West.
AUTO INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — A U.S. Supreme Court action this week in a labor case involving Macy's department store workers should persuade Volkswagen to drop its legal challenges to the United Auto Workers' representation of skilled-trades workers at German automaker's lone U.S. plant in Tennessee, union officials said Thursday.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Cheered on by the White House, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is focusing on finding the votes he'll need to push the Republican plan for dismantling President Barack Obama's health care law through the Senate.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican leaders have released their 142-page discussion draft of a health care bill, triggering a series of legislative steps with one goal — repeal and replace Democratic President Barack Obama's 7-year-old law.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Republican health care bill would guarantee immediate assistance for insurance markets that are struggling in many states. Yet overall it would do the same thing as its House counterpart: less federal money for health insurance and a greater likelihood that more Americans will be uninsured.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans released their long-awaited bill Thursday to dismantle much of Barack Obama's health care law, proposing to cut Medicaid and erase tax boosts that helped Obama finance his expansion of coverage. The measure encountered immediate trouble as four GOP senators said they opposed it but were open to negotiations.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans' new health bill cuts taxes by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade, mostly for corporations and the richest families in America.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Barack Obama says the Senate's GOP-written health care bill will cause millions of families to lose health care coverage.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Medical groups are beginning to weigh in on the Senate Republican health care bill, and they have problems with the proposal.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says he and three other Republican senators are preparing to announced their opposition to the Senate health care bill as it's written.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are roundly criticizing the Republican plan to scrap the Obama health care law.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ruled immigrants can get a second chance in court when their lawyers advise them to plead guilty to a crime that leads to deportation.
NEW YORK (AP) — Coal company Murray Energy has sued HBO and its Sunday-night host, John Oliver, for what it says was a "false and malicious broadcast" last Sunday evening. It's seeking financial damages and a court order barring rebroadcasts of the segment's "defamatory statements."
TECHNOLOGY
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Now that Facebook is larger than any country, CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks the social network is ready to shepherd people into online communities that become integral parts of their lives.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Sears is closing another 20 stores as the ailing retailer tries to turn around its business.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Federal Communications Commission is proposing a $120 million fine for a scheme that appeared to trick consumers into buying vacation packages that were not what they had expected.
NATIONAL POLITICS
Phone and utilities companies led U.S. stock indexes lower in afternoon trading Tuesday as investors sized up the latest company and economic news. Banks led the gainers. Energy stocks also rose as crude oil prices headed higher. Several homebuilders were up following new data on home prices.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has signed a bill into law designed to make it easier to fire Department of Veterans Affairs employees.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is crediting himself with the idea of building a Mexico border wall of solar panels. But that looks to be a borrowed brainwave; others pitched a solar wall back when he was a skeptic of tapping power from the sun.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday on Twitter that he "did not make" and doesn't have any recordings of his private conversations with ousted former FBI Director James Comey.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says the idea of putting solar panels on the wall he wants to build along the Mexico border sprang from his imagination. Actually, others proposed it, back when he was criticizing solar power as too expensive.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi defended her leadership on Thursday in the face of needling from President Donald Trump and grumbling from fellow House Democrats exasperated after a high-profile special election loss.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump appeared to cast doubt on the assessment of 17 U.S. intelligence agencies that blame Russia for election meddling, questioning Thursday why the Obama administration didn't try to stop it.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican-led Senate committee is considering an aviation bill that omits one of President Donald Trump's goals — turning air traffic control operations over to a private company.