VOL. 131 | NO. 219 | Wednesday, November 2, 2016
The Shelby County District Attorney General’s office will not pursue criminal charges against Memphis police officers who shot and killed Jonathon Bratcher this past January in South Memphis.
Laurelwood Shopping Center will undergo a $1 million renovation and is bringing in two new tenants, a local fine gifts retailer and a New York-based clothier.
Starting a used car lot used to be a lot simpler. In fact it was considered a right – “development by right” until a change in recent years in the local Unified Development Code.
Memphis-based Verso Corp. is laying off 190 workers at its Androscoggin Mill in Jay, Maine, as it temporarily idles one of its paper machines there.
A pot ordinance for unincorporated areas of Shelby County got only four votes Monday, Oct. 31, from the county commission but still advanced to second reading, and commissioners could not agree on a resolution opposing a Nov. 8 ballot question that would shift MLGW funds to the city of Memphis.
With about six weeks left until Ikea Memphis' grand opening, the Swedish furniture retailer is assembling the displays within the 271,000-square-foot store. The store opens Dec. 14, but managers are preparing for customers to begin lining up two days beforehand.
The recovery from the worst national economic downturn since the Great Depression has been slow and long. Any optimism about the growth we are seeing, particularly in commercial real estate, is tempered by thoughts about when the recovery might take another inevitable dip – even if it’s not as bad as what we saw starting in 2008 and 2009.
First Tennessee Bank says it's working to fix a multi-day hardware snafu that's caused a delay in the posting of customer transactions.
When it comes to commercial real estate, Memphis is on a tear at the moment.
The way Rhodes College junior Tate Mulligan sees it, to whom much has been given, much is expected.
Morris Marketing Group, Archer Malmo and DCA took top honors at the 23rd annual Vox Awards hosted recently by the PRSA Memphis chapter at Visible Music College.
When Butch Jones arrived at Tennessee, he adopted a “brick-by-brick” mantra for describing the building of the Vols program. And the bricks did appear to be getting stacked higher: five wins in 2013, seven wins the next year, and nine last season.
MEMPHIS NEWSMAKERS
Shannon A. Brown, senior vice president and chief human resource/diversity officer at FedEx Express, has been named to Savoy Magazine’s Power 300: 2016 Most Influential Black Corporate Directors list. Brown, who was honored as a member of the BancorpSouth Inc. board of directors, also holds board memberships with several universities and nonprofit organizations in the Mid-South and beyond.
LOCAL COLUMNISTS
In the 1989 film “Field of Dreams,” Kevin Costner’s character builds a baseball field after hearing a voice say, “If you build it, he will come.” As job seekers, it seems we often try to take a similar approach.
It’s a scenario many sales leaders know too well: You hire talented people with stellar track records and are left bewildered when they struggle to make their numbers week after week. You coach them. You put them on performance improvement plans. You remind your team of minimum targets and echo their bonus incentives at every sales meeting. Yet your team’s performance continues to decline and motivation nosedives as a result.
MEMPHIS AREA
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich is facing more disciplinary charges from a state board in connection with a murder case she handled as a prosecutor.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Gov. Bill Haslam is kicking off his annual public budget hearings next week as he gets ready to put together his annual spending plan for the state of Tennessee.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Legislative leaders have said that sexual misconduct accusations levied against ex-lawmaker Jeremy Durham are not demonstrative of the state Capitol culture, but officials have refused to give data about sexual harassment in state government.
MEDIA
NEW YORK (AP) – USA Today publisher Gannett walked away Tuesday from its attempted takeover of Tronc, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and other major dailies.
NEW YORK (AP) – Thomas Reuters said Tuesday that it plans to cut 2,000 jobs and take a charge of up to $250 million as the news and financial information company seeks to streamline its business.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) – It's a chilly autumn for U.S. auto sales. Sales of new cars and trucks were expected to fall in October as consumer demand wanes. J.D. Power and LMC Automotive expect total October sales to fall by just over 7 percent, with retail sales to individual customers dropping 8 percent.