VOL. 43 | NO. 21 | Friday, May 24, 2019
Tennessee goes all-in for legal, online sports betting. Here’s how it will work
Against all odds, legal online sports betting will soon be available in Tennessee, possibly in time for the SEC Championship football game, the college football national championship game, the Super Bowl and most of the Predators’ and college basketball seasons.
A little bet on a game? What’s the harm? For most people, the worst that will happen is losing a few bucks. For others, the little bet starts them down a slippery slope to problem gambling.
JOE ROGERS: MY TAKE
People don’t seem to die very often in the South. I don’t mean that Southerners live forever, though some sweaty July and August days can seem to last an eternity. They’re just less likely to be described as having died.
JIM MYERS: CULINARITY
Eighteen years ago, I found myself standing in the rain in a mud-soaked yard in Gravel Springs, Mississippi, a hare’s breath of a community between the larger Senatobia to the west and the hardly looming Looxahoma to the east.
STATEWIDE
Who knew the beginning of the Atomic Age was so funny? Sort of like the Humor in Uniform section of “Reader’s Digest,” Oak Ridge historian Ray Smith uses homespun humor to tell a condensed version of the key role his city played in the development of the atomic bombs that ended World War II.
Some “Secret City” memories stand out more than others for Monroe Malow. The 96-year-old retired chemical engineer, who now resides in a senior assisted-living home just outside of Nashville, was brought to Oak Ridge from New York in the early 1940s to work on the top-secret Manhattan Project.
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
After completing their real estate courses, passing the state real estate examinations and receiving their real estate licenses, many agents set their sights on Belle Meade.
REAL ESTATE
Top commercial real estate sales, April 2019, for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. long-term mortgage rates fell slightly this week, marking a fourth straight week of declines to lure prospective purchasers in the spring homebuying season.
VANDERBILT SPORTS
Drake Fellows has put himself in select company. The junior right-hander has become the first Friday night starter to finish the regular season undefeated for Vanderbilt since David Price in 2007.
NEWSMAKERS
FirstBank Executive Chairman of the Board Jim Ayers was formally inducted into the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans during recent ceremonies honoring the achievements of 13 prominent Americans.
BRIEFS
Nashville-based MedEquities Realty Trust, Inc. has been acquired by Omega Healthcare Investors.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
A popular selling point for electric vehicles is the notion that you never have to stop for gas. Your “gas station” is in your garage – simply plug in your vehicle to charge it overnight.
PERSONAL FINANCE
You won’t pay for health care in retirement with one lump sum. That’s the way these expenses are often presented, though, and the amounts are terrifying.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
Webster’s New World dictionary defines budget as: “a plan or schedule adjusting expenses during a certain period to the estimated or fixed income for that period.”
CAREER CORNER
Hiring managers, there is someone on your recruiting team who isn’t doing their job properly, and you probably don’t even know it.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has signed a bill diverting tax dollars to private education.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee's governor said Thursday that it's "past time" for a lawmaker accused of sexual misconduct to address the allegations publicly.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville's mayor is threatening to ban electric scooters unless the companies that own them immediately address problems.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The nation's largest Protestant denomination reported its twelfth year of declining membership in an annual report released Thursday.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — A handful of lawmakers are throwing their name into the race to be Tennessee's next House speaker.
VANDERBILT SPORTS
HOOVER, Ala. (AP) — Drake Fellows pitched six scoreless innings for his 11th win of the season and top-seeded Vanderbilt beat No. 4 seed Mississippi State 1-0 in the Southeastern Conference Tournament on Thursday night.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Former Colorado and Northern Illinois coach Ricardo Patton has joined Vanderbilt's staff as a senior adviser to new coach Jerry Stackhouse.
HOOVER, Ala. (AP) — JJ Bleday had five hits, Mason Hickman threw six stellar innings and top-seeded Vanderbilt cruised to an 11-1 win over No. 8 seed Auburn on Wednesday in the Southeastern Conference Tournament.
REAL ESTATE
Homebuyers in Salt Lake City, Atlanta and other big U.S. metropolitan areas are seeing a pickup in the number of homes for sale, especially in the most affordable segment of the market.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new U.S. homes sank 6.9% in April, driven by a decline in the sale of homes worth less than $300,000 that are generally bought by middle class and first-time buyers.
TECHNOLOGY
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX has launched 60 little satellites, the first of thousands that founder Elon Musk plans to put in orbit for global internet coverage.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — NASA has launched the final stage of a four-year effort to develop a national traffic management system for drones, testing them in cities for the first time beyond the operator's line of sight as businesses look in the future to unleash the unmanned devices in droves above busy streets and buildings.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook removed more than 3 billion fake accounts from October to March, twice as many as the previous six months, the company said Thursday.
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that aims to combat the illegal robocalls torturing Americans .
AUTO INDUSTRY
CHATTANOOGA (AP) — German auto maker Volkswagen has named a new chief executive at its factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a company spokeswoman said Friday.
Late last year, Tesla Inc. was fully charged and cruising down the highway on Autopilot.
Shares of Tesla, suffering one of the worst stretches in company history, rebounded Thursday after CEO Elon Musk told employees that orders are up.
TOKYO (AP) — Nissan's former chairman, Carlos Ghosn, appeared in a Japanese courtroom Thursday for a hearing ahead of his trial on accusations of financial misconduct.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday put on hold court orders in Michigan and Ohio to redraw electoral maps that federal judges found were too partisan.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with receiving and publishing classified information.
NEW YORK (AP) — A banker who prosecutors say tried to buy himself a senior post in President Donald Trump's administration by making risky loans to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort pleaded not guilty Thursday to a financial institution bribery charge.
CHICAGO (AP) — Are older workers being discriminated against on the job? The answer appears to depend on the age of the person asked.
HEALTH CARE
U.S. regulators have approved the most expensive medicine ever, a therapy meant to cure a disorder that rapidly destroys a baby's muscle control and kills most within a couple years.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration proposed Friday to roll back Obama-era discrimination protections for transgender people in health care, a move LGBT groups warn will unleash a wave of discrimination.
A coalition of Connecticut Democrats, including Gov. Ned Lamont and top legislative leaders, announced Thursday they have reached consensus on legislation that could lead to a public health insurance option for people and small businesses by 2022.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senior Republican and Democratic senators are proposing legislation to address the problem of surprise medical bills. Those are the shockingly high charges insured patients can get hit with when a hospital or doctor is not in their insurers' network.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Did you get a 7% raise last year? Congratulations, yours was in line with what CEOs at the biggest companies got. But for chief executives, that 7% was roughly $800,000.
Here are the top paid CEOs by state for 2018, as calculated by The Associated Press and Equilar, an executive data firm.
NEW YORK (AP) — Shareholders are still voting overwhelmingly in favor of big pay packages for CEOs, but there are more pockets of resistance eight years after "Say on Pay" became a mandatory exercise at annual meetings.
Here are the 10 highest-paid female CEOs for 2018, as calculated by The Associated Press and Equilar, an executive data firm.
Stocks on Wall Street notched modest gains Friday, erasing some of the market's steep losses from a day earlier.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories for large manufactured goods fell sharply last month, pulled down by lower demand for commercial aircraft and cars, while businesses also pulled back on investment spending.
LONDON (AP) — Theresa May ended her failed three-year quest to lead Britain out of the European Union on Friday, announcing that she will step down as Conservative Party leader June 7 and triggering a contest to choose a new prime minister who will try to complete Brexit.
BEIJING (AP) — Stepping up Beijing's propaganda offensive in the tariffs standoff with Washington, Chinese state media on Friday accused the U.S. of seeking to "colonize global business" with moves against Huawei and other Chinese technology companies.
Heightened worries that the U.S. and China are headed for a long standoff in their costly trade dispute put investors in a selling mood Thursday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump rolled out another $16 billion in aid for farmers hurt by his trade policies, and financial markets shook Thursday on the growing realization that the U.S. and China are far from settling a bitter, year-long trade dispute.
BEIJING (AP) — China held the door open to resuming talks in the tariff war with Washington on Thursday, but lashed out at limits on access to key technologies that it said might hurt global supply chains.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The CEO of Deutsche Bank says he is ready to make "tough cuts" to improve the struggling bank's profitability and raise a "disappointing" share price as negative headlines continue to plague Germany's biggest bank.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration notified Congress on Friday that it is invoking a rarely used provision in federal law to bypass congressional review of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, two Democratic senators said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A House GOP conservative complaining a long-overdue $19 billion disaster aid bill leaves out money needed to address the migrant crisis at the border blocked the bill Friday, extending a tempest over hurricane and flood relief that has left the measure meandering for months.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration notified Congress on Friday that it plans to send about 1,500 additional troops to the Middle East amid heightened tensions with Iran, officials said.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Japanese media say Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is considering a visit to Iran next month amid rising tension between Tehran and Washington, and will consult with President Donald Trump about it when he arrives in Tokyo this weekend.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has directed the U.S. intelligence community to "quickly and fully cooperate" with Attorney General William Barr's investigation of the origins of the multiyear probe of whether his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is rushing to wrap up a long-overdue $19 billion disaster aid package, but only after Democrats insisted on jettisoning President Donald Trump's $4.5 billion request to handle an unprecedented influx of migrants at the southern border.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi openly questioned President Donald Trump's fitness for office Thursday, suggesting a family or staff "intervention" after a dramatic blow-up at a White House meeting the previous day.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House overwhelmingly approved a bill Thursday to promote retirement security by making it easier for small businesses and other companies to offer retirement plans.
Americans generally do not have enough saved for retirement and Congress is considering a number of measures to address that.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A dozen times, Rep. Ayanna Pressley asked the witness for a yes or no answer on housing policy.
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May was hunkered down with close allies Thursday as she considered whether to give in to relentless pressure to resign, or fight on to save her Brexit plan and her premiership.