VOL. 44 | NO. 39 | Friday, September 25, 2020
TENNESSEE TITANS
There is no doubt that Derrick Henry commands the attention of opposing defenses. On Sunday, the Jacksonville Jaguars were determined not to let Henry run roughshod over them the way he had so many times in the past, making them his personal highlight reel. Mission accomplished on that end for the Jacksonville defense that held the Titans star running back to 82 yards on 24 rushes.
First down: Kirk Cousins. The Vikings are off to an uncharacteristic start at 0-2, and Cousins struggled Sunday against Indianapolis. The good version of Cousins is bound to surface sooner or later, and the Titans have to be wary of him and his talented receivers, especially with a secondary that suddenly looks banged up and could be exposed.
MEDIA
The Nashville Ledger, Knoxville Ledger and Hamilton County Herald took 13 first-place awards Thursday in the annual Tennessee Press Association competition, with the Knoxville Ledger and the Hamilton County Herald winning “general excellence” as the top papers in their circulation categories.
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
Since taxes seem to be involved in most real estate conversations, let’s talk tax.
REAL ESTATE
Top commercial real estate sales, August 2020, for Davidson County, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — U.S. average rates on long-term mortgages rose slightly this week but remain at historically low levels.
NEW YORK (AP) — The market for newly constructed homes in the U.S. continued its upward climb in August, despite the ongoing pandemic and lingering worries about the future of the U.S. economy.
NEWSMAKERS
Quincy Byrdsong, a veteran health care and higher education leader, has been appointed vice provost for health affairs at Lipscomb University.
BRIEFS
The Nashville Entrepreneur Center and Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. are partnering to create a first-of-its-kind Small Batch-Big Ideas Entrepreneur Network.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
The current generation Honda Accord has been a class leader since it was introduced in 2018. It has garnered an Edmunds Top Rated award for the last two years, meaning it outranked all other midsize sedans.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
Please and Thank You. Those were The Magic Words you learned at your mother’s knee, the ones that opened doors and gained favors. That also was when you learned something important, as you’ll see in “My Own Words” by Ruth Bader Ginsburg (with Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams): Letters, when properly collected, can move mountains.
PERSONAL FINANCE
The mystery isn’t why so many people file for bankruptcy each year. It’s why more people don’t.
CAREER CORNER
We’ve all been there. The list of things you have to do or to manage suddenly grows. It can feel truly overwhelming. And, that’s because it is overwhelming.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
If you’re saving for your first home, there’s no shortage of advice out there – some of it questionable, even if you do have an avocado toast habit. Still, it’s true that your down payment may be the biggest check you ever write.
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans suspended in-person activities through Friday after the NFL says three Titans players and five personnel tested positive for the coronavirus, becoming the first COVID-19 outbreak of the NFL season in Week 4.
CLEVELAND (AP) — Former Tennessee Titans All-Pro defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth was arrested Monday after he was accused of threatening and yelling at his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend.
SPORTS
NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball started the process of contracting minor league affiliates Tuesday, with the Appalachian League – and its five Tennessee teams – converted to a college summer circuit for rising freshmen and sophomores.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee has given more than $170 million in federal relief funds to businesses struggling to survive during the coronavirus pandemic, but top state officials aren't saying exactly who is getting the money.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Department of Health has announced that it has received $750,000 for suicide prevention efforts over the next five years.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer for former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn told a judge Tuesday that she recently updated President Donald Trump on the case and asked him not to issue a pardon for her client.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court has close ties to a charismatic Christian religious group that holds men are divinely ordained as the "head" of the family and faith. Former members of the group, called People of Praise, say it teaches that wives must submit to the will of their husbands.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are confronting the limits of their power as they fight against the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett with a strategy aimed at avoiding costly mistakes that could hurt the party's candidates in November.
MADRID (AP) — Spain's National Court has acquitted 34 people who were tried over the stock market listing of financial firm Bankia, including former International Monetary Fund chief Rodrigo Rato.
AUTO INDUSTRY
TOKYO (AP) — A Nissan employee testified Tuesday that he worked with another former Nissan executive, American Greg Kelly to find ways to pay the automaker's former chairman, Carlos Ghosn without fully disclosing his compensation.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices rose at a faster pace in July as the housing market continued to show strength in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak.
EDUCATION
NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of schoolteachers will receive $500 grants from author James Patterson to help students build reading skills, especially as schools struggle to adapt to the coronavirus pandemic.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft took five hours to resolve a major outage of its workplace applications on Monday, but has not clarified what caused the outage.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A computer outage at a major hospital chain thrust healthcare facilities across the U.S. into chaos Monday, with treatment impeded as doctors and nurses already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic were forced to rely on paper backup systems.
SEATTLE (AP) — Amazon has introduced new palm recognition technology in a pair of Seattle stores and sees broader uses in places like stadiums and offices.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — JPMorgan Chase admitted Tuesday to manipulating the markets for precious metals and U.S. Treasuries, agreeing to pay $920 million in fines and penalties for the illegal behavior.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer confidence rebounded more quickly in September than most economists had expected though they remain far from levels that were the norm before the pandemic struck.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats unveiled a scaled-back $2.2 trillion aid measure Monday in an attempt to boost long-stalled talks on COVID-19 relief, though there was no sign of progress in continuing negotiations between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
ELECTION 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden paid nearly $288,000 in federal income taxes last year, according to returns he released just hours before his Tuesday night debate with President Donald Trump.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Revelations that President Donald Trump is personally liable for more than $400 million in debt are casting a shadow that ethics experts say raises national security concerns he could be manipulated to sway U.S. policy by organizations or individuals he's indebted to.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As a presidential candidate in 2016, Donald Trump seized control of the White House race and never let go. He masterfully defined and denigrated his opponents with cutting nicknames and a say-anything debate style, and repeatedly drew his rivals into the controversies he created.
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, will meet on the debate stage for the first time Tuesday night in Cleveland. Millions of voters will get their first opportunity to compare the candidates' policies and personalities side by side on national television for 90 minutes just five weeks before Election Day and as early voting is already unfolding in some states.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Tuesday he will subpoena the Department of Homeland Security after a department whistleblower wasn't allowed access to documents and clearance he needs to testify.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans improved to 3-0 despite not having their defensive play-caller on the sideline in Minnesota, and coach Mike Vrabel said Monday assistant Shane Bowen remains in the COVID-19 protocol.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Ryan Tannehill and the Tennessee Titans have had little reason to sweat these tight finishes.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A judge has ruled that Tennessee officials have to change the absentee ballot application again to reflect their promise to let voters cast mail ballots if someone in their household has an underlying health condition that makes them more susceptible to COVID-19.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A financial management detachment with the Tennessee National Guard is departing for a 10-month deployment to Europe to support Operation Joint Guardian in Kosovo, officials said.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization announced Monday that it and leading partners have agreed to a plan to roll out 120 million rapid-diagnostic tests for the coronavirus to help lower- and middle-income countries make up ground in a testing gap with richer countries — even if it's not fully funded yet.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump planned to announce Monday that the federal government will begin distributing millions of rapid coronavirus tests to states this week and urging governors to use them to reopen schools for students in kindergarten through 12th grade.
COURTS
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A federal judge in Philadelphia joined others Monday in ordering a halt to recent Postal Service cuts that critics say are causing mail delays and threatening the integrity of the presidential election.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is pushing for quick confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett while his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, implored the Republican-led Senate to hold off on voting on her nomination until after the Nov. 3 election to "let the people decide."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Four years ago, Amy Coney Barrett was a little-known law professor in Indiana. Within weeks, she is likely to be the newest associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Amy Coney Barrett paid homage to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her White House speech Saturday as a shatterer of glass ceilings. She said she would be mindful of the woman whose place she would take on the Supreme Court.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks notched solid gains Monday as Wall Street clawed back some of its sharp and sudden September losses.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The solid growth that the United States enjoyed before the viral pandemic paralyzed the economy this spring failed to reduce racial disparities in Americans' income and wealth from 2016 through 2019, the Federal Reserve said Monday.
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon is aiming to kickstart the holiday shopping season early this year.
PARIS (AP) — France's government presented its 2021 budget on Monday, a plan that aims to rescue the country's beleaguered economy from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic by injecting a 42 billion-euro ($49 billion) stimulus next year.
LONDON (AP) — Uber can keep operating in London for another year and a half after winning its appeal of a decision by the British capital's transit regulator not to renew its license.
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden's largest fuel company said Monday that it has decided to stop a planned oil refinery expansion that would have made it the country's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and was increasingly becoming a hot potato issue for Prime Minister Stefan Lofven's minority government.
ELECTION 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — The tax-avoidance strategies that President Donald Trump capitalized on to shrink his tax bill to essentially zero are surprisingly common among major real estate developers and other uber-wealthy Americans.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ahead of their first debate, President Donald Trump took aim at Democratic rival Joe Biden on health care, accusing the former vice president of wanting to foment uncontrolled immigration by offering free health care to people who don't have legal authorization to be in the country. But Trump's volley missed its mark because Biden has proposed no such thing.
NEW YORK (AP) — Presidential politics move fast. What we're watching heading into a new week on the 2020 campaign:
WASHINGTON (AP) — A New York Times report that President Donald Trump paid just $750 in federal income tax the year he entered the White House — and, thanks to colossal losses, no income tax at all in 11 of the 18 years that the Times reviewed — served to raise doubts about Trump's self-image as a shrewd and successful businessman.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The bombshell revelations that President Donald Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes the year he ran for office and paid no income taxes at all in many others threaten to undercut a pillar of his appeal among blue-collar voters and provide a new opening for his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, on the eve of the first presidential debate.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ahead of the first debate between President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden, each campaign is promising a stark contrast in policy, personality and preparation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump isn't providing all the facts when he promises that people with preexisting medical problems will always be covered by health insurance if "Obamacare" is ruled unconstitutional.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee judge ruled on Friday the state's Registry of Election Finance violated open meetings law when it held a vote by email on the eve of an election filing deadline.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee prosecutors are at odds over whether to enforce a new law that requires abortion providers to tell their patients it may be possible to reverse the action of abortion medication half-way through the procedure. Doctors who do not comply could face felony charges, fines and lawsuits.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lay in state Friday at the U.S. Capitol as the first woman ever so honored, making history again as she had throughout her extraordinary life while an intensifying election-year battle swirled over her replacement.
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments Friday in President Donald Trump's long-running fight to prevent a top New York prosecutor from getting his tax returns.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is infusing deliberations over his coming nomination of a new Supreme Court justice with political meaning as he aims to maximize the benefit before Nov. 3 and even secure an electoral backstop should the result be contested.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee is now accepting applications for an opening on the state's Court of Criminal Appeals.
ENVIRONMENT
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to exempt the country's largest national forest from a ban on timber harvests and road building in roadless areas, a move conservation groups denounced Thursday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has approved a modest bill to promote "clean energy" and increase energy efficiency while phasing out the use of coolants in air conditioners and refrigerators that are considered a major driver of global warming.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — BMW will pay an $18 million fine to settle allegations that it inflated its monthly U.S. sales numbers for five straight years.
REAL ESTATE
MEMPHIS (AP) — As millions of Americans struggle to pay their rent during the coronavirus pandemic, landlords are going to courts, claiming that the national eviction moratorium unfairly strains their finances and violates their property rights.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — If you're on Medicare, don't run to the mailbox looking for a $200 prescription drug card courtesy of President Donald Trump.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump's remarks at a campaign event in Ohio this week reverberated all the way to a sparkling waterfront in Florida, where senior citizens parsed his assessment of the coronavirus pandemic.
MISSION, Kan. (AP) — It began with devastation in the New York City area, followed by a summertime crisis in the Sun Belt. Now the coronavirus outbreak is heating up fast in smaller cities in the heartland, often in conservative corners of America where anti-mask sentiment runs high.
PARIS (AP) — Struggling to contain resurgent virus infections, European leaders decried a collective failure to vanquish the pandemic and told the U.N. General Assembly on Friday that the time has come for countries to reinvent international cooperation.
MARSEILLE, France (AP) — Angry restaurant and bar owners demonstrated in Marseille on Friday to challenge a French government order to close all public venues as of Saturday to battle resurgent virus infections.
BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese health official said Friday that the country's annual production capacity for coronavirus vaccines will top 1 billion doses next year, following an aggressive government support program for construction of new factories.
MEDIA
NEW YORK (AP) — Google's parent company has reached a $310 million settlement in a shareholder lawsuit over its treatment of allegations of executives' sexual misconduct.
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A group of prominent Facebook critics, including one of the social network's early investors and a journalist facing jail time in the Philippines, are launching their version of an "oversight board" to rival the company's own.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks shook off another bout of volatile trading and finished solidly higher Friday, led by gains in technology and health care companies. Despite the rally, the S&P 500 still posted its fourth straight weekly loss, extending Wall Street's September swoon.
NEW YORK (AP) — First it was toilet paper. Disinfectant wipes. Beans. Coins. Computers. Now, desks are in short supply because of the coronavirus pandemic.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods increased just 0.4% in August following a much larger gain in the previous month.
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leader Charles Michel used the virtual pulpit of the U.N. General Assembly on Friday to lash out at Britain for its threats to renege on parts of the withdrawal treaty it signed with the EU and warned that the 27-nation bloc won't back down in the final weeks of acrimonious talks on a free-trade deal.
LONDON (AP) — The European Commission said Friday it is appealing a court decision that Apple doesn't have to repay 13 billion euros ($15 billion) in back taxes to Ireland.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats are going back to the drawing board on a huge COVID-19 relief bill, paring back the measure in an attempt to jump-start negotiations with the Trump administration.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is expected to bring an antitrust action against Google in coming weeks, focusing on its dominance in online search and whether it was used to stifle competition and hurt consumers, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press Thursday.
ELECTION 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Christopher Wray was the target of White House criticism for the second time in a week Friday as Chief of Staff Mark Meadows chided him over remarks made a day earlier to Congress about voter fraud.
From the opening of his third presidential bid, Joe Biden has argued that he is in a unique position to mend a fractured nation and work — even with Republicans — to "unify the country" into some semblance of consensus.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — As the pandemic prompts a surge in voting by mail, voters in a handful of states, including the presidential battlegrounds of North Carolina and Wisconsin, are facing a requirement that already is tripping up thousands — the need to have a witness sign their ballot envelope.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses drew swift blowback Thursday from both parties in Congress, and lawmakers turned to unprecedented steps to ensure he can't ignore the vote of the people. Amid the uproar, Trump said anew he's not sure the election will be "honest."
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — The final stretch of a presidential campaign is typically a nonstop mix of travel, caffeine and adrenaline. But as the worst pandemic in a century bears down on the United States, Joe Biden is taking a lower key approach.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department's internal watchdog has determined that the agency lied about the reasons it rescinded a prestigious award to a Finnish journalist, finding she was denied the honor because of her criticism of President Donald Trump.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
EDUCATION
MISSION, Kan. (AP) — Claire Reagan was feeling overwhelmed as her oldest child's first day of kindergarten approached and with a baby on the way. The 5-year-old boy has autism, and she worried he would struggle with juggling in-person and virtual learning, and that she wouldn't have enough time to give him the help he needs.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson, a Trump administration appointee who bucked the president's conservative base by blocking a Tennessee law that restricts mail-in voting, had an announcement to make before wrapping up his decision: it had nothing to do with politics.
NEW YORK (AP) — Investors who profited from Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme even though they knew nothing of it must still pay back their profits, an appeals court decided Thursday.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Secretary of State's office announced Wednesday that voters who request a mail-in absentee ballot for the Nov. 3 election will be able to track the status of their ballot.
TECHNOLOGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — Spotify and the makers of Fortnite and Tinder are taking on Apple and Google as part of a newly formed coalition calling for "fair treatment" in the way the tech giant runs its app store.
LONDON (AP) — Facebook's long-awaited oversight board that will act as a referee on whether specific content is allowed on the tech giant's platforms is set to launch in October.
AUTO INDUSTRY
BERLIN (AP) — A German court has ruled that former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn must face trial on a second set of charges in the company's diesel emissions scandal, this time accused of market manipulation.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Since Joe Biden ran away with the Democratic presidential nomination in March, leading progressives have accepted him — sometimes grudgingly — as their party's leader. But, in the final weeks of the campaign, the Supreme Court vacancy is threatening to inflame old divides.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump paid respects to late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Thursday morning, just two days before he announces his nominee to replace her on the high court.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is putting the Senate in uncharted political terrain. There's no recent precedent for a confirmation vote so close to a presidential election.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
UK may take part in COVID-19 vaccine 'challenge studies'
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — German airline Lufthansa says it will test the practice of offering on-the-spot coronavirus tests before boarding intercontinental flights in an attempt to find a way to get long-haul passengers flying again.
BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese pharmaceutical company said Thursday the coronavirus vaccine it is developing should be ready by early 2021 for distribution worldwide, including the United States.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks eked out modest gains Thursday even as volatility continued to be the dominant force in Wall Street's tumultuous September.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Thursday that the government's top priorities in any new economic relief package should be to provide affordable loans to small businesses and further support for millions of Americans still unemployed.
Companies that cater to the "new normal" of working and shopping from home are rushing to go public.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Many American workers applying for unemployment benefits after being thrown out of a job by the coronavirus face a new complication: States' efforts to prevent fraud have delayed or disrupted their payments.
ELECTION 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was booed Thursday as he paid respects to late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He plans to nominate a replacement this weekend for the liberal justice, best known for her advancement of women's rights.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional leaders from both parties, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, swiftly pushed back Thursday after President Donald Trump declined to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the Nov. 3 presidential election.
The slice of Michigan that covers Detroit, its suburbs and towns dependent on the auto industry is coveted political terrain in one of this year's most important presidential swing states. It also has another distinction as home to one of the worst-performing U.S. Postal Service districts in the country.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday again declined to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the Nov. 3 presidential election.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and his Senate allies are misrepresenting the facts about Supreme Court nominations as he prepares to push ahead with a replacement for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for former national security adviser John Bolton told a judge Thursday they want to interview White House officials following new allegations that a pre-publication review of his tell-all book was politicized in an effort to block its release.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former special counsel Robert Mueller pushed back Tuesday against criticism from one of the top prosecutors on the Russia investigation team that the team was not as aggressive as it should have been in probing connections between Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia.