VOL. 131 | NO. 29 | Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Last Word
Bill Dries
Last Word: Early Voting Begins, Marc Gasol's Right Foot and TNReady's Problem
By Bill Dries
Trump and Sanders win big in New Hampshire with a Republican scramble for second the only matter to be decided in the nation’s first Presidential primaries. That as the road to Tennessee begins to see some traffic in the distance.
Meanwhile, Marc Gasol goes from a “right mid-foot injury” on the Grizzlies DL to a fractured right foot.
First the political ballgame.
Donald Trump at the top of the Republican pack in New Hampshire with 34.8 percent of the primary vote and John Kasich second with 16.2 percent followed by Ted Cruz with 11.5 percent and then Jeb Bush with 11.1 percent.
That is with most but not all of the vote in.
Marco Rubio was just above 10 percent, according to the Associated Press figures Tuesday before midnight.
No coin tosses this time around for the Democrats.
Bernie Sanders with 59.7 percent of the New Hampshire vote per AP to 38.7 percent for Hillary Clinton.
Nevada and South Carolina are next.
But there are already rumblings about Tennessee stops by candidates Republican and Democratic and the first of the local organizations begin their formal efforts this week.
Wednesday begins early voting in Shelby County and across Tennessee in advance of the March 1 election day for the Tennessee primary.
We set the stage for that as well as run down who is doing what Presidential at this stage.
Now to the Grizzlies and a contender who is going to be out of the game for some time.
Marc Gasol’s injury is every bit as serious as thought initially.
Don Wade has some thoughts on what this means down the line for the team and it is not pretty.
You’ve heard about the recruit class for Tigers football. Here’s the schedule for next season with seven home games, three games on ESPN and a road trip to Oxford for the Ole Miss grudge match.
And the number 7 tennis player in the world, Kei Nishikori plays Wednesday at the Racquet Club in the Memphis Open. Nishikori won the Memphis Open last year.
By Thursday, Shelby County Schools officials and leaders of other school districts across the state will know when their TnReady tests will arrive in written form for students to take.
Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen and the state department’s chief information officer began Tuesday by answering questions about a massive technical problem.
It locked many local school districts out of the loop to take an online-only test because the company the state hired taxed the system with something it probably never should have been doing at that critical time.
And McQueen, who will be in Memphis Wednesday, separated the technical problems from the content of the test and the student achievement standards embodied in the test.
Meanwhile, state Representative Antonio Parkinson on Capitol Hill in Nashville was among those saying the glitch has broader implications that are connected to the standards and broader education policies across the state.
Look for a vote by the state House on the voucher bill Thursday just before legislators go home for the week.
Lots of amendments floating around and Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has indicated he will be watching those amendments closely for expansions of the program that he does not favor – expansions that caused him to withdraw the bill from consideration before.
In this case, however, it appears many of the amendments are attempts by legislators to exclude their school districts from the voucher program.
You will be seeing more from this interview later this month. But Madeline Faber sets the stage for the annual Daily News Women & Business Seminar on Feb. 25 with a talk with keynote speaker and chairwoman of the Greater Memphis Chamber Carolyn Hardy as well as the other participants on the panel for the event.
And Andy Meek has more on a Memphis group of women filmmakers who have formed a group to collaborate and share resources in a city with a lot of stories, a lot of scenery and a lot of imagination.
Before Electrolux opened its North American plant and distribution center in southwest Memphis, it moved its headquarters from Georgia to Charlotte, N.C. as part of the Swedish appliance maker’s new North American strategy.
Now the company has called off an expansion in Charlotte that would have added more than 800 jobs there. And in the process it is giving up $27 million in tax breaks that North Carolina officials gave to get the headquarters in Charlotte.
The first Zika virus case is confirmed in Tennessee. It’s someone who traveled to South America before returning to East Tennessee.
Nationally: gas under $2 a gallon this year according to a federal report. And Labor Department stats point to rising wages later this year as 2015 ended with more available jobs and more workers quitting the jobs they had for new jobs.
Newsweek on restoring the London flat where Jimi Hendrix lived and a broader point about such places that relies heavily on the example of Elvis Presley, a figure whose career was a first in so many ways and whose after-life continues to blaze cultural trails.