VOL. 42 | NO. 49 | Friday, December 7, 2018
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
The Amazon announcement has created some devious practices among real estate types. Several weeks ago, Gov. Haslam and Mayor Briley proclaimed that Nashville had been selected by Amazon as the site of its Operations Center of Excellence and its accompanying 5,000 jobs.
UT SPORTS
Anthony Schofield received a text message from his son, Admiral, last Thursday wanting to know if he would be at Tennessee’s big game against No. 1 Gonzaga the following Sunday in Phoenix.
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Under center at the 1-yard line, Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota checked out of a quarterback sneak, and Derrick Henry did the rest — as much with his arms as his legs.
The Tennessee Titans seem to have caught a break with the latter part of the schedule – four home games in the month of December, and most of them against sub-.500 opponents. But a closer look reveals a hazard, a number of short-week games.
It is hard to think of the Tennessee Titans as a playoff contender given their season-long inconsistency.
NEWSMAKERS
Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP partner Lela M. Hollabaugh has been named by Who’s Who Legal as one of the world’s leading life sciences attorneys and is listed in the Product Liability chapter of the 2019 edition of Who’s Who Legal: Life Sciences.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
Round and round and round. That’s how your week goes. Monday morning up, breakfast, work, home, dinner, fall into bed, sleep, do it again ‘til Friday, like a five-day circle.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Millennials’ aversion to credit cards can make it hard for them to build good credit scores. A recently announced scoring system, the UltraFICO, may someday help them and other consumers get loans and credit based on how they use their bank accounts.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
About 85 percent of new car buyers will use some sort of financing to pay for their vehicle, the credit reporting company Experian has found. If you’re such a buyer, you can expect that a car dealership will try to sell you gap insurance during your purchase.
CAREER CORNER
Have you ever had to do extra work in a job interview? One of my most intense interviews ever was at Target. I interviewed there after graduate school for a project management role. The process was unlike one I had ever seen up to then.
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Titans right tackle Jack Conklin and tight end Jonnu Smith have been placed on injured reserve with knee injuries, a double blow for a team on the fringe of the playoff race.
VANDERBILT SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Vanderbilt has hired NBA G League President Malcolm Turner as its new athletic director, opting for a business executive over candidates with experience in college athletic administration for the Southeastern Conference's only private university.
AUTO INDUSTRY
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — An Argentine court on Tuesday sentenced two former Ford Motor Co. executives to prison for helping agents of the country's former dictatorship round up 24 Argentine union workers who were tortured and held in military jails.
TOKYO (AP) — A Tokyo court ruled Tuesday that Nissan Motor Co.'s former chairman, Carlos Ghosn, and another executive will remain in custody through Dec. 20, more than a month after their arrest. Their detention could continue for months more under the Japanese legal system.
TECHNOLOGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy kicked off a congressional grilling of Google CEO Sundar Pichai by noting a "widening gap of distrust" between tech companies and the American people.
Biometric screening is expanding to the rental car industry.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators are considering multiple pieces of legislation to formally rebuke Saudi Arabia for the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, with momentum building for a resolution to call Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman complicit in the killing.
ENVIRONMENT
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration proposed withdrawing federal protections for countless waterways and wetlands across the country Tuesday, making good on President Donald Trump's campaign pledge to weaken landmark Obama-era water rules long opposed by some developers, farmers and oil, gas, and mining executives.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks careened between big gains and losses on Tuesday before indexes ended the day mixed, the latest dizzying run for a market that's been dominated by them in recent months.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. wholesale prices barely rose last month as a sharp decline in the cost of gas offset pricier freight trucking services and mobile phone plans.
NEW YORK (AP) — The newly elected CBS board faces daunting tasks: deciding whether former CEO Les Moonves gets a $120 million exit package following a sexual-misconduct investigation and charting a path for CBS to recover after the scandal.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — CBS says it has sold Television City, its Los Angeles headquarters and production facility, to a real estate developer for $750 million.
BEIJING (AP) — China's economy czar and U.S. trade envoys discussed plans for talks on a tariff battle, the government said Tuesday, indicating negotiations are going ahead despite tension over the arrest of a Chinese tech executive.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bickering in public with Democratic leaders, President Donald Trump threatened repeatedly on Tuesday to shut down the government if Congress doesn't provide the money he says is needed to build a wall at the Mexican border.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is unloading on President Donald Trump after their Oval Office confrontation over government funding.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As if spotting a mirage in the southwestern desert, President Donald Trump and his aides are seeing a wall standing along the Mexico border where none exists.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers have reached an agreement on the farm bill, a mammoth package that will fund key farm safety net programs for the next five years without making significant changes to the food stamp program that serves nearly 40 million low-income Americans.
LONDON (AP) — Tuesday was supposed to be the day that Britain's battle over Brexit was resolved.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump sought Tuesday to pressure Democratic congressional leaders into supporting his demand for billions of dollars to build his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, threatening to have the military build it "if Democrats do not give us the votes to secure our Country."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Wanted: Top aide to most powerful leader in world. Chief qualification: Willing to take the job. Must also be prepared to tolerate regular undermining by boss and risk of steep legal bills. Post-employment prospects: Uncertain.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's intensifying legal troubles are unnerving some of his fellow Republicans. Despite his brash stance, they believe the turmoil has left him increasingly vulnerable as he gears up for what is sure to be a nasty fight for re-election.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 10
TECHNOLOGY
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Google is still having trouble protecting the personal information on its Plus service, prodding the company to accelerate its plans to shut down a little-used social network that it created to compete against Facebook.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — A state government group says Tennessee should still keep a paper trail of voters' ballots roughly 10 years after coming out with a similar recommendation that resulted in little change.
AUTO INDUSTRY
NEW YORK (AP) — Tesla CEO Elon Musk dismissed the idea that the company's new chairwoman can exert control over his behavior.
WASHINGTON (AP) — General Motors is fighting to retain a valuable tax credit for electric vehicles as the nation's largest automaker contends with the political fallout triggered by its plans to shutter several U.S. factories and shed thousands of workers.
ENVIRONMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee is offering free guided hikes at 55 state parks to kick off 2019.
COURTS
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The Trump administration wants to reclassify some radioactive waste left from the production of nuclear weapons to lower its threat level and make disposal cheaper and easier.
TOKYO (AP) — Prosecutors have charged Nissan Motor Co.'s former chairman Carlos Ghosn, another executive and the automaker itself for allegedly violating financial laws by underreporting income.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday avoided a high-profile case by rejecting appeals from Kansas and Louisiana in their effort to strip Medicaid money from Planned Parenthood, over the dissenting votes of three justices.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks remained volatile Monday as the market took a dive in early trading only to erase those losses later and end slightly higher.
LONDON (AP) — Facing almost certain defeat, British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday postponed a vote in Parliament on her Brexit deal, saying she would go back to European Union leaders to seek changes to the divorce agreement.
NEW YORK (AP) — Verizon says 10,400 U.S. managers have accepted a voluntary buyout offered as the company seeks to trim costs to invest more into its push into the next-generation network known as 5G. That's about 7 percent of its global workforce.
MARRAKECH, Morocco (AP) — Defying fierce opposition from the U.S. and a few other nations, nearly 85 percent of U.N. member states agreed Monday on a sweeping yet non-binding accord to ensure safe, orderly and humane migration.
NATIONAL POLITICS
PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron tried to reassert control over a nation wracked by increasingly violent protests with offers of tax relief for struggling workers and pensioners — and an exceptional admission Monday that "I might have hurt people with my words."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Some Democrats who will take the House majority in January are willing to say that President Donald Trump may have committed impeachable offenses. But that doesn't mean they will try to impeach him — at least not yet.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is in denial when it comes to the Russia investigation and other scandals besieging him.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — China raised the pressure on the United States and Canada as a bail hearing resumed Monday for a top Chinese technology executive in a case that has fueled U.S.-China trade tensions and roiled financial markets.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is weighing at least four people to serve as his next chief of staff, after plans for an orderly succession for departing John Kelly fell through.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Incoming Gov. Bill Lee has named four more staffers as he prepares to take office next month.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee has awarded $8.9 million for next year's summer reading program.
MIDSTATE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A $25 million federal grant will help build a new interstate interchange in Middle Tennessee.
PREDATORS
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Chalk up another first for Elias Pettersson.
EDUCATION
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Police at the University of Tennessee are investigating a fraternity after two women reported being drugged and sexually assaulted.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee education group founded by former Republican U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is switching up its leadership.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has appointed 20 members to the new advisory boards for each of the four campuses within the state's university system.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was not on the ballot in the Michigan governor's race, but her legacy loomed over the campaign in her home state, which has the country's highest concentration of for-profit charter schools.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee inmate became the second person to die in the state's electric chair in just over a month Thursday, nearly two decades after Tennessee adopted lethal injection as its preferred method of execution.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee inmate is scheduled to become the second person to die in the state's electric chair in as many months Thursday evening, nearly two decades after the state adopted lethal injection as its preferred method of execution.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration separated 81 migrant children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border since the June executive order that stopped the general practice amid a crackdown on illegal crossings, according to government data obtained by The Associated Press.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. long-term mortgage rates fell this week amid a steep decline in stock prices.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's health care tab hit $3.5 trillion last year, or $10,739 per person, the government reported Thursday. But behind those staggering figures was some fairly good news:
ENVIRONMENT
STOCKHOLM (AP) — A winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Economics who advocates carbon taxes as the best way to address greenhouse gas emissions says he does not expect U.S. President Donald Trump to back his view.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California became the first state in the nation to require homes built in 2020 and later be solar powered, following a vote by the Building Standards Commission.
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Trump administration moved forward Thursday with plans to ease restrictions on oil and natural gas drilling, mining and other activities across millions of acres in the American West that were put in place to protect an imperiled bird species.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency proposed another rollback Thursday aimed at easing controls on emissions from coal-fired power plants, this time for new ones, even as warnings mount from the agency's scientists and others about the growing toll of climate change.
AUTO INDUSTRY
TOKYO (AP) — Nissan, the Japanese automaker under scrutiny after its former chairman Carlos Ghosn was arrested on suspicion of financial misconduct, is recalling 150,000 vehicles spanning 11 models in Japan for dubious inspections for brakes and steering.
MILAN (AP) — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is tapping executives from Amazon and Shell Oil Company with previous automotive industry experience to fill its ranks.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Wall Street capped a turbulent week of trading Friday with the biggest weekly loss since March as traders fret over rising trade tensions between Washington and Beijing and signals of slower economic growth.
VIENNA (AP) — Oil prices spiked sharply higher Friday as major oil producers, including the OPEC cartel, agreed to cut global oil production by 1.2 million barrels a day to reduce oversupply.
VIENNA (AP) — Oil prices spiked sharply higher Friday after OPEC countries agreed to a proposal that would see global oil production reduced by 1.2 million barrels a day.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. businesses added a smaller but still-healthy number of jobs last month, while the unemployment rate remained at a five-decade low and wages rose at a solid clip.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Health care and business services led U.S. job gains in November, a month that saw slower hiring overall.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Black Americans, adult men and those with just a high school diploma made notable gains in the job market in November.
NEW YORK (AP) — One of the world's biggest tobacco companies is diving into the cannabis market with a $2.4 billion buy-in.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Lyft still hasn't caught up to Uber in the rapidly growing ride-hailing market, but it's ahead in the race to sell its stock on the public market where the two companies could potentially raise billions to help finance their expansion.
VIENNA (AP) — OPEC countries hoping to support the price of oil put off their decision Thursday on how much to reduce oil production until they negotiate with ally Russia on Friday on how much it will contribute to the cut.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A stock market rally, which has since reversed, propelled U.S. household net worth to a record high of $109 trillion in the July-September quarter.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Record imports in October drove the U.S. trade deficit to the highest level in a decade.
BEIJING (AP) — China on Thursday demanded that Canada release an executive of Chinese tech giant Huawei who was arrested in a case that compounds tensions with the U.S. and threatens to complicate trade talks.
NEW YORK (AP) — Eddie Lampert and his ESL Holdings hedge fund are offering to buy the rest of Sears for up to $4.6 billion in cash and stock in a move to stave off liquidation.
PARIS (AP) — France mobilized tens of thousands of police officers and made plans to shut down beloved tourist attractions like the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre on the eve of anti-government protests that authorities feared could be even more violent than ones that have crippled the country for weeks.
Top executives from Google, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and Qualcomm gathered Thursday at the White House amid strained ties between President Donald Trump's administration and the tech industry and an ongoing trade war with China.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. services firms grew at a slightly stronger pace in November, a sign that the recent stock market sell-offs have yet to dampen enthusiasm among consumers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. businesses hired new workers at a solid pace in November, adding 179,000 jobs, according to a private survey.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday he will nominate William Barr, the late President George H.W. Bush's attorney general, to serve in the same role.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert Mueller is set to reveal more details about his Russia investigation on Friday as he faces court deadlines in the cases of two men who worked closely with President Donald Trump.
WASHINGTON (AP) — White House political director Bill Stepien and deputy Justin Clark are leaving the administration to work on President Donald Trump's re-election campaign.
NEW YORK (AP) — Two women who cleaned rooms set aside for President Donald Trump at one of his golf resorts in New Jersey say they used false papers to get hired, their supervisors knew it and that many employees there also lack legal documents.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee for a federal energy board, despite a video that shows the nominee saying that renewable energy "screws up" the nation's electrical grid.