VOL. 45 | NO. 42 | Friday, October 15, 2021
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
Some have designated the crane as the official bird of Nashville. The skyline is decorated with the machinery swinging through the heights of the city, now spreading their wings into Midtown, down West End and into SoBro.
REAL ESTATE
Top residential real estate sales, September 2021, for Davidson County, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term mortgage rates jumped this week, with the benchmark 30-year loan again breaching 3%.
TENNESSEE TITANS
Titans’ secrecy leads to suspicion of mishandling
Last week, there was some refreshing candor from the Tennessee Titans camp.
Kevin Byard has talked at length this year about the Titans needing to force more turnovers. Now he’s leading by example.
The stakes get a little higher when the Titans host the Buffalo Bills this week on Monday Night Football. The Bills probably haven’t forgotten the 42-16 smackdown the Titans put on them last year in a rare Tuesday night game. The game had been rescheduled due to the Titans’ COVID-19 outbreak.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Titans wide receiver Julio Jones returned to practice Wednesday after missing the past two games with an injured hamstring.
UT SPORTS
Lane Kiffin slipped out of Knoxville in the dead of night, leaving burning mattresses, police barricades and expletive-screaming students in his wake.
NEWSMAKERS
Rachel Schaffer Lawson has joined Dickinson Wright PLLC’s Nashville office as of counsel.
BRIEFS
Condé Nast Traveler has announced the results of its annual Readers’ Choice Awards with Nashville International Airport named as the Ninth Best Airport in the U.S.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
The Toyota Tacoma has been the most popular midsize truck sold in America through the first half of 2021. It’s also one of Edmunds’ most highly rated models in the category.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Emergency preparedness experts recommend that you have a “go bag” and a “stay bin” for disasters: Kits with supplies to help you survive a few days if you have to evacuate your home or shelter in place.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
In retrospect, it was such a small thing. Any other day, that nearly-inconsequential little annoyance at work might not have bothered you. This time, it did, though, and that was it. You had no more cares to give, and you were done, immediate action was required.
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Seattle Kraken wound up having to wait longer to play their first regular-season game on home ice than they did their first victory.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee has posted another month of positive revenue numbers in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
RELIGION
NASHVILLE (AP) — A top Southern Baptist Convention administrator is resigning amid internal rifts over how to handle an investigation into the SBC's response to sexual abuse, a decision that underscores the broader ongoing turmoil in the nation's largest Protestant denomination.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A commission tasked with studying potential changes to the Supreme Court has released a first look at its review, a draft report that is cautious in discussing proposals for expanding the court but also speaks approvingly of term limits for justices.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts has rejected a Supreme Court appeal by the St. Louis-based natural gas company Spire Inc. to allow it to keep operating a pipeline through Illinois and Missouri.
ENVIRONMENT
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is taking steps to address the economic risks from climate change, issuing a 40-page report Friday on government-wide plans to protect the financial, insurance and housing markets and the savings of American families.
AUTO INDUSTRY
TOKYO (AP) — Nippon Steel Corp. is suing Toyota Motor Corp. over a patent for a technology used in electric motors in a rare case of legal wrangling between Japan's top steelmaker and top automaker over intellectual property.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health advisers endorsed a booster of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine Friday, citing growing worry that Americans who got the single-dose shot aren't as protected as those given two-dose brands.
U.S. health advisers said Thursday that some Americans who received Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine at least six months ago should get a half-dose booster to rev up protection against the coronavirus.
LONDON (AP) — British health officials said Friday that 43,000 people may have been wrongly told they don't have the coronavirus because of problems at a private laboratory.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — European Union agencies are launching a year-long operation to crack down on fraud targeting the bloc's multibillion-euro COVID-19 pandemic recovery fund, EU police agency Europol announced Friday.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's daily tolls of coronavirus infections and deaths surged to another record on Friday, a quickly mounting figure that has put a severe strain on the country's health care system.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks ended higher again on Wall Street Friday, giving the S&P 500 its best week since July. The benchmark index added 0.7% and ended the week up 1.8%.
NEW YORK (AP) — Goldman Sachs' profits jumped 60% in the third quarter, as the deal-making bonanza that dominated financial markets this summer brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in fee revenue for the investment bank.
NEW YORK (AP) — Americans continued to spend at a solid clip in September even while facing sticker shock in grocery aisles, car lots and restaurants as snarled global supply chains slow the flow of goods.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. has confirmed it is planning to build a computer chip factory in Japan.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly a year out of the White House, Donald Trump continues to circle the Republican Party, commanding attention and influence as he ponders another run for the presidency.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden was set to highlight his plan to lower the cost of child care for most American families as he makes the case for his stalled social spending bill during a visit to Connecticut on Friday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has moved aggressively against close Trump adviser Steve Bannon, swiftly scheduling a vote to recommend criminal contempt charges against the former White House aide after he defied a subpoena.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton was admitted to a Southern California hospital with an infection but is "on the mend," his spokesman said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has won back his full pension as part of a settlement of his lawsuit arising from his firing during the Trump administration more than three years ago, his lawyers announced Thursday.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14
VANDERBILT SPORTS
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — There may be debate over the Southeastern Conference's top team this season. After Saturday, though, there should be little doubt about who's at the bottom when Vanderbilt faces South Carolina.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee solar energy firm has bought an organization that helps companies offset their carbon emissions by funding new solar farms, both of which a former governor helped establish.
DETROIT (AP) — A second person has been killed by an exploding air bag inflator made by a Tennessee company that has been under investigation by a federal agency for more than six years without any resolution.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The federal government is funding organizations that illegally discriminate against LGBTQ candidates to become foster care parents for unaccompanied refugee children, a lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges.
HEALTH CARE
MINNETONKA, Minn. (AP) — UnitedHealth's Optum division continues to outperform and after putting up better-than-expected numbers for the third quarter, the nation's largest health insurer raised its outlook for 2021 for the third time.
ENVIRONMENT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Seven major offshore wind farms would be developed on the East and West coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico under a plan announced Wednesday by the Biden administration.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Crucial U.N. climate talks next month likely will end short of the global target for cutting coal, gas and oil emissions, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry says, after nearly a year of climate diplomacy that helped win deeper cuts from allies but has so far failed to move some of the world's biggest polluters to act fast enough.
MEDIA
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators say they are cracking down on "an explosion" of businesses' use of fake reviews and other misleading messages to promote their products and services on social media.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The consortium of journalists behind the Pegasus Project investigation into malware from Israel-based NSO Group that provided further evidence that it was used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents, won the top European Union journalism prize Thursday.
NEW YORK (AP) — Near the Twizzlers and Sour Patch Kids at It'Sugar are random items — fidget toys, fruit-shaped soft jelly candies — that earned a spot on the candy store's shelves because they went viral on TikTok.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it will ask its outside experts to meet in late November to scrutinize Merck's pill to treat COVID-19.
GENEVA (AP) — A top U.S. trade official said Thursday the Biden administration remains committed to an easing of rules that protect the technology behind coronavirus vaccines so that they can be produced more widely.
U.S. health advisers are debating if millions of Americans who received Moderna vaccinations should get a booster shot -- this time, using half the original dose.
CHICAGO (AP) — The head of the Chicago police officers union has called on its members to defy the city's requirement to report their COVID-19 vaccination status by Friday or be placed on unpaid leave.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia on Thursday recorded the highest daily numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths since the start of the pandemic, a rapidly surging toll that has severely strained the nation's health care system.
DENPASAR, Indonesia (AP) — The Indonesian resort island of Bali reopened for international travelers to visit its shops and white-sand beaches for the first time in more than a year Thursday — if they're vaccinated, test negative, hail from certain countries, quarantine and heed restrictions in public.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks rallied on Wall Street Thursday as the market shook off several days of wobbly trading.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Domino's, a company seemingly tailormade for a pandemic, has not been spared from a phenomenon plaguing almost every employer this summer: A severe shortage of workers.
LONDON (AP) — A work by British street artist Banksy that sensationally self-shredded just after it sold at auction three years ago fetched 18.5 million pounds ($25.4 million) on Thursday, a record for the artist.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation at the wholesale level rose 8.6% in September compared to a year ago, the largest advance since the 12-month change was first calculated in 2010.
NEW YORK (AP) — It's good to be a bank right now.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell to its lowest level since the pandemic began, a sign the job market is still improving even as hiring has slowed in the past two months.
MOLINE, Ill. (AP) — More than 10,000 Deere & Co. workers went on strike Thursday after "the company failed to present an agreement that met our members' demands and needs," the United Auto Workers union said in statement.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has set a vote to recommend criminal contempt charges against former White House aide Steve Bannon after he defied the panel's subpoena on Thursday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats are set to try again to advance a sweeping elections and voting overhaul bill, testing objections from Republicans with a vote planned for next week, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Thursday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned fellow Democrats on Thursday they "must put aside our differences" as the party struggles to coalesce around President Joe Biden's huge but now-scaled-back package of social services and climate change strategies.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is set to meet Pope Francis when he visits the Vatican later this month as part of a five-day swing through Italy and the U.K. for global economic and climate change meetings.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Progressive leaders in Congress are warning colleagues against a "false choice" over what to keep or cut as Democrats scale back President Joe Biden's now-$2 trillion package of social services and climate change strategies.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol has issued a subpoena to a former Justice Department lawyer who positioned himself as an ally of Donald Trump and aided the Republican president's efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and Israel said Wednesday they are exploring a "Plan B" for dealing with Iran if the Islamic Republic does not return in good faith to negotiations to salvage the languishing landmark 2015 nuclear deal.