VOL. 46 | NO. 20 | Friday, May 20, 2022
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
Has the Midstate real estate market slowed? This is a question asked by potential buyers hoping the answer is “yes.” And there are some signs that point in that direction.
REAL ESTATE
Top commercial real estate sales, April 2022, for Davidson County, as compiled by the Nashville Ledger.
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes slowed for the third consecutive month in April as mortgage rates surged, driving up borrowing costs for would-be buyers as home prices soared to new highs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates retreated modestly this week, but interest on the key 30-year loan remains at decade-high levels.
NEWSMAKERS
Baker Donelson has named Meagan Nebel to serve as the firm’s first director of lateral recruiting and integration, a newly created role responsible for managing the recruitment, acquisition, integration and retention of shareholders and of counsel.
BRIEFS
The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation has awarded $6.37 million to communities throughout the state from the Local Parks and Recreation Fund program and the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Acura launched its MDX three-row luxury SUV more than 20 years ago, and a redesigned fourth-generation model has arrived for 2022. It features a sleeker design, a more spacious cabin and a new range-topping Type S trim.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
My mom died at age 61, when I was 31. Seeing her headstone in a field of others smacked me with a brutal, if obvious fact: Everyone, including everyone’s parents, will die.
PERSONAL FINANCE
It’s a banner year for weddings, with industry experts at the Wedding Report predicting more than 2.5 million couples will tie the knot – a 40-year high. But you might find your finances aren’t quite ready to take on the costs associated with being a wedding guest or a guest at multiple weddings.
Home values have been soaring, but the amount of home sale profit you can shelter from taxes has not.
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans agreed to terms on a multi-year contract with tight end Chig Okonkwo on Monday.
UT SPORTS
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — LSU's Dylan Crews and Auburn's Sonny DiChiara are co-Southeastern Conference players of the year while Tennessee's Chase Dollander was named the top pitcher.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Beginning this month, warrant officers retired from active duty in the U.S. Army will be able to join the Tennessee National Guard.
ELECTION 2022
NASHVILLE (AP) — A one-time U.S. House hopeful in Tennessee who landed former President Donald Trump's endorsement before state Republican Party officials booted her off the ballot is now providing national security advice to another candidate in that race.
WASHINGTON (AP) — One of the last anti-abortion Democrats in Congress is in a primary runoff in Texas to hold on to his seat.
RELIGION
A blistering report on the Southern Baptist Convention's mishandling of sex abuse allegations is raising the prospect that the denomination, for the first time, will create a publicly accessible database of pastors and other church personnel known to be abusers.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The District of Columbia on Monday sued Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, seeking to hold him personally liable for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, a privacy breach of millions of Facebook users' personal data that became a major corporate and political scandal.
WASHINGTON (AP) — When Gail Curley began her job as Marshal of the U.S. Supreme Court less than a year ago, she would have expected to work mostly behind the scenes: overseeing the court's police force and the operations of the marble-columned building where the justices work.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled along ideological lines Monday against two Arizona death row inmates who had argued that their lawyers did a poor job representing them in state court. The ruling will make it harder for certain inmates sentenced to death or long terms in prison who believe their lawyers failed them to bring challenges on those grounds.
ENVIRONMENT
BRUSSELS (AP) — The contamination of fruits and vegetables produced in the European Union by the most toxic pesticides has substantially increased over the past decade, according to new research published Tuesday.
AUTO INDUSTRY
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hyundai is recalling 239,000 cars in the U.S. because the seat belt pretensioners can explode and injure vehicle occupants. Three injuries have been reported, two in the U.S. and one in Singapore.
DETROIT (AP) — Automaker Stellantis has scheduled an announcement for Tuesday in Kokomo, Indiana, for what could be the company's second North American electric vehicle battery factory.
HEALTH CARE
LONDON (AP) — WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is expected to be confirmed by the U.N. health agency's member countries for a second five-year term on Tuesday.
MEDIA
Social media has had a rough 2022 with lingering questions about advertising spending, political ads and a $44 billion takeover of Twitter that may or may not be happening, depending on which Elon Musk tweet you read.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facebook parent Meta said it will start publicly providing more details about how advertisers target people with political ads just months ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, fresh off winning Senate confirmation for a second term earlier in the day, acknowledged for the first time Thursday that high inflation and economic weakness overseas could thwart his efforts to avoid causing a recession.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A massive recall is getting most of the blame for the U.S. baby formula shortage, but experts say the products have long been vulnerable to this type of crisis due to decades-old policies that have allowed a handful of companies to corner the market.
Americans on the cusp of retiring are facing a tough choice as they watch their nest eggs shrink: Stay the course or keep working.
Amazon is planning to sublease some of its warehouse space now that the pandemic-fueled surge in online shopping, which helped the e-commerce giant rake in soaring profits in the past two years, has eased.
BEIJING (AP) — Airbnb Inc. announced Tuesday it will stop representing short-term rental properties in China and focus its business in the country on serving Chinese tourists looking for lodgings abroad.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed back Tuesday on the decision by San Francisco's conservative Catholic archbishop to deny her Communion over her support of abortion rights, saying she respects that people have opposing views but not when they impose them on others.
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Kremlin critic Bill Browder wants governments to step up efforts to get to the riches squirreled away by Russian oligarchs and linked to President Vladimir Putin by forcing the accountants, lawyers and others who set up murky legal and financial structures to become whistleblowers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans are becoming less supportive of punishing Russia for launching its invasion of Ukraine if it comes at the expense of the U.S. economy, a sign of rising anxiety over inflation and other challenges, according to a new poll.
NEW YORK (AP) — The statistics discussed at the inaugural Global Citizen NOW conference were bleak.
UKRAINE
When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, it had hoped to overtake the country in a blitz lasting only days or a few weeks. Many Western analysts thought so, too.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Workers digging through rubble found 200 bodies in Mariupol, Ukrainian authorities said Tuesday, another grim discovery in the ruined port city that has seen some of the worst suffering of the 3-month-old war.
MONDAY, MAY 23
RELIGION
The Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee — and thousands of its rank-and-file members — now have opportunities to address a scathing investigative report that says top SBC leaders stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over two decades while seeking to protect their own reputations.
STATE GOVERNMENT
COOKEVILLE (AP) — Miranda Atnip lost her home during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she fell behind on bills. Living in a car, the 34-year-old worries every day about getting money for food, finding somewhere to shower, and saving up enough money for an apartment where her three children can live with her again.
EDUCATION
CLEVELAND (AP) — A private Christian university is considering strictly limiting the free speech rights of its students when it comes to sexuality and gender, from how they behave to what they wear and what they can say on campus or even online, according to published reports.
COURTS
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A Florida law intended to punish social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, dealing a major victory to companies who had been accused by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis of discriminating against conservative thought.
MEDIA
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Video game workers at a division of game publisher Activision Blizzard have voted to unionize, creating the first labor union at a large U.S. video game company.
ENVIRONMENT
BERLIN (AP) — A longtime contractor for Shell has publicly called out the oil and gas company's climate plans, accusing the company of "double talk" by saying it wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions while working on tapping new sources of fossil fuel.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy are warning of burnout among the nation's health care staff after more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the potential for severe worker shortages in the years ahead if the situation is not addressed.
COVID-19
Three doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine offer strong protection for children younger than 5, the company announced Monday. Pfizer plans to give the data to U.S. regulators later this week in a step toward letting the littlest kids get the shots.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks closed higher on Wall Street Monday following seven weeks of declines that nearly ended the bull market that began in March 2020.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The president of the European Central Bank on Monday gave the clearest sign yet that policymakers will aim to raise interest rates as soon as July to ease surging inflation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans' financial health reached its highest level in nearly a decade last year, the Federal Reserve said Monday, spurred by a strong job market and government support payments.
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The head of the U.N.'s World Food Program is telling billionaires it's "time to step up" as the global threat of food insecurity rises with Russia's war in Ukraine, saying he's seen encouraging signs from some of the world's richest people, like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Starbucks is pulling out of the Russian market. In a memo to employees Monday, the Seattle coffee giant said it decided to close its 130 stores and no longer have a brand presence in Russia.
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for "maximum" sanctions against Russia during a virtual speech Monday to corporate executives, government officials and other elites on the first day of the World Economic Economic gathering in Davos.
CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — The average U.S. price of regular-grade gasoline spiked 33 cents over the past two weeks to $4.71 per gallon.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Ethics Committee is investigating allegations that Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn had a conflict of interest in a cryptocurrency he promoted and engaged in an improper relationship with a member of his staff, the panel said Monday.
BANGKOK (AP) — The United States and four other nations that walked out of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group meeting in Bangkok over the weekend underlined their support Monday for host nation Thailand, saying their protest was aimed solely at Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union has moved to prolong looser limits on spending by member countries for an extra year in a bid to counter the economic fallout from Russia's war in Ukraine.
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been shadowed by career-threatening scandal for months — but so far he has escaped unscathed.
UKRAINE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 50 defense leaders from around the world met Monday and agreed to send more advanced weapons to Ukraine, including a harpoon launcher and missiles to protect its coast, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters.
When Vladimir Putin announced the invasion of Ukraine, war seemed far away from Russian territory. Yet within days the conflict came home — not with cruise missiles and mortars but in the form of unprecedented and unexpectedly extensive volleys of sanctions by Western governments and economic punishment by corporations.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court sentenced a 21-year-old Russian soldier to life in prison Monday for killing a civilian, sealing the first conviction for war crimes since Moscow's invasion three months ago.
POKROVSK, Ukraine (AP) — Houses on fire. Artillery blasting through thick apartment walls. People hiding in basements without electricity, water or gas as their towns are pulverized above them.
FRIDAY, MAY 20
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans agreed to terms with third-round pick Nicholas Petit-Frere on Thursday.
NASHVILLE AREA
CHICAGO (AP) — FIFA intends to announce the 2026 World Cup sites during a news conference in New York on June 16.
EDUCATION
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee State University has announced a new full scholarship program for 100 Nashville public school graduates to study business, education, engineering and heath sciences.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Vanderbilt University School of Nursing is accepting applications for a new master of nursing program to launch in January.
COURTS
BERLIN (AP) — A court in Germany cast doubt Friday on claims by a German farmer that automaker Volkswagen is partly responsible for the impact that global warming is having on his family business.
ENVIRONMENT
WATERFORD, Conn. (AP) — It is critical to find a solution for storing the nation's spent nuclear fuel, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Friday during a visit to a nuclear power plant in Connecticut.
NEW YORK (AP) — The federal government is investing in machines that suck giant amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air in the hopes of reducing damage from climate change.
AUTO INDUSTRY
ELLABELL, Ga. (AP) — Hyundai Motor Group confirmed Friday the company will spend $5.5 billion on a huge electric vehicle plant near Savannah that will employ thousands — a deal Georgia's governor called the largest economic development project in the state's history.
NEW YORK (AP) — Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has denied a claim of sexual misconduct by a flight attendant contracted by SpaceX who worked on his private jet in 2016.
MEDIA
MILAN (AP) — Netflix has agreed to pay more than 55.8 million euros ($59 million) to settle a tax dispute, Milan prosecutors said Friday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — The bear came close to Wall Street but then backed off.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Food and Drug Administration told lawmakers Thursday that a shuttered baby formula factory could be up and running as soon as next week, though he sidestepped questions about whether his agency should have intervened earlier to address problems at the plant that have triggered the national shortage.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan welcomes a new U.S. economic initiative for the Indo-Pacific that President Joe Biden is expected to roll out during a visit to Tokyo next week because it demonstrates American commitment to a regional economic order that is not just about market access, an official said Friday.
MILAN (AP) — Edoardo Ronzoni inspects a construction site near Milan that he shut down in March as costs for materials skyrocketed. He can't complete a half-built roundabout at an intersection known for fender-benders because asphalt, cast-iron pipes and concrete are too expensive — prices exacerbated by Russia's war in Ukraine.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is considering inviting a Cuban representative to the Summit of the Americas, a U.S. official said Friday, as his administration tries to salvage an event that risks collapsing over disagreements about the guest list.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a conservative political activist, urged Republican lawmakers in Arizona after the 2020 presidential election to choose their own slate of electors, arguing that results giving Joe Biden a victory in the state were marred by fraud.
KOENIGSWINTER, Germany (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen celebrated a "historic day" last summer when more than 100 nations agreed to a global minimum tax deal, aimed at putting the world's countries on a more equal footing in attracting and keeping multinational companies. President Joe Biden tweeted that the idea was "diplomacy reshaping our global economy and delivering for our people."
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Russia will cut off natural gas to Finland after the Nordic country that applied for NATO membership this week refused President Vladimir Putin's demand to pay in rubles, the Finnish state-owned energy company said Friday, the latest escalation over European energy amid the war in Ukraine.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate approved a bill Thursday aimed at easing the baby formula shortage for families participating in a government assistance program that accounts for about half of all formula purchased in the United States.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has whisked a $40 billion package of military, economic and food aid for Ukraine and U.S. allies to final congressional approval, putting a bipartisan stamp on America's biggest commitment yet to turning Russia's invasion into a painful quagmire for Moscow.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nina Jankowicz, like so many millennials, was excited to share a social media post announcing her new job on Twitter late last month when she was named executive director for a new disinformation board established by the Department of Homeland Security.
UKRAINE
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia on Thursday of weaponizing food and holding grain for millions of people around the world hostage to help accomplish what its invasion of Ukraine has not -- "to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people."
KOENIGSWINTER, Germany (AP) — The Group of Seven leading economies agreed Friday to provide $19.8 billion in economic aid to Ukraine to help keep tight finances from hindering its ability to defend itself from Russia's invasion.
THURSDAY, MAY 19
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Nashville Predators have extended the contracts of coach John Hynes and his assistants through the 2023-24 season, trying to build on a season with several individual successes for a franchise that wound up being swept in the playoffs for the first time.
NASHVILLE SC
NASHVILLE (AP) — Hany Mukhtar scored the deciding goal to spark Nashville to a 2-1 victory over CF Montreal on Wednesday, upping Nashville's home unbeaten streak to 23 straight.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — Country stars Faith Hill, Trisha Yearwood, Brandi Carlile, Little Big Town, Martina McBride and Ashley McBryde will join Wynonna Judd on tour this fall after the sudden death of her mother and musical partner, Naomi Judd.
STATEWIDE
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Leaders of a Tennessee abortion clinic calculated driving distances and studied passenger rail routes as they scanned the map for another place to offer services if the U.S. Supreme Court lets states restrict or eliminate abortion rights.
Around 1 in 20 residents in Tennessee and Arkansas were missed during the 2020 census, and four other U.S. states had significant undercounts of their populations which could short-change them of federal funding in the current decade, according to figures from a survey the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday.
COURTS
MANCHESTER (AP) — A Tennessee physician has been barred from prescribing a number of controlled substances in settling a lawsuit that accused him of prescribing drugs with no legitimate medical purpose.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A federal appeals court has ruled that details of some of the conversations between the nation's four largest railroads about their rates can now be included in lawsuits challenging billions of dollars they charged their customers, but the mixed ruling will also exclude some documents.
ENVIRONMENT
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — President Joe Biden's order to protect the nation's oldest forests against climate change, wildfires and other problems devastating vast woodlands is raising a simple yet vexing question: When does a forest grow old?
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government's road safety agency has dispatched a team to investigate the possibility that a Tesla involved in a California crash that killed three people was operating on a partially automated driving system.
TRANSPORTATION
LONDON (AP) — Britain on Thursday froze the assets of three Russian airlines, preventing them from selling landing slots at U.K. airports that are worth up to 50 million pounds ($62 million).
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks ended another volatile day lower on Wall Street Thursday, bringing the market closer to its first bear market since the beginning of the pandemic.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's pick to be the Federal Reserve's top banking regulator pledged Thursday to help reduce high inflation and provide "clear rules" to govern financial innovation.
McDonald's has begun the sale of its restaurants in Russia 30 years after the burger chain became a powerful symbol of easing of Cold War tensions between the United States and Soviet Union.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More Americans applied for jobless aid last week, but the total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits is at a 53-year low.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to speed production of infant formula and authorized flights to import supply from overseas, as he faces mounting political pressure over a domestic shortage caused by the safety-related closure of the country's largest formula manufacturing plant.
NEW YORK (AP) — The bears are rumbling toward Wall Street. The stock market's skid this year has pulled the S&P 500 close to what's known as a bear market. Rising interest rates, high inflation, the war in Ukraine and a slowdown in China's economy have caused investors to reconsider the prices they're willing to pay for a wide range of stocks, from high-flying tech companies to traditional automakers.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan recorded a trade deficit in April as its imports ballooned 28% due to soaring energy costs and the yen's weakness against the dollar.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The peril National Security Agency staff wanted to discuss with their director didn't involve terrorists or enemy nations. It was something closer to home: the racism and cultural misunderstandings inside America's largest intelligence service.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The congressional committee investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection sent a letter Thursday to a House Republican in an effort to learn more about a tour he led of the building the day before the deadly attack.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A closely divided House approved legislation Thursday to crack down on alleged price gouging by oil companies and other energy producers as prices at the pump continue to soar.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Flanked by the leaders of Finland and Sweden, President Joe Biden forcefully supported their applications to join NATO on Thursday as Russia's war in the heart of Europe challenges the continent's security. The U.S. president rejected Turkey's opposition, insisting the two countries "meet every NATO requirement and then some."
WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Food and Drug Administration faced congressional lawmakers for the first time Thursday over the shortage of baby formula that has rattled American parents and become a growing political liability for President Joe Biden.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate overwhelmingly approved a $40 billion infusion of military and economic aid for Ukraine and its allies on Thursday as both parties rallied behind America's latest, and quite possibly not last, financial salvo against Russia's invasion.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed legislation late Wednesday night that would bolster federal resources to prevent domestic terrorism in response to the racist mass shooting in Buffalo, New York.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion striking down the constitutional right to abortion has unleashed a wave of threats against officials and others and increased the likelihood of extremist violence, an internal government report says.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will speak Thursday with abortion providers from states with some of the nation's strictest restrictions to thank them for their work, the White House said.
KOENIGSWINTER, Germany (AP) — Finance ministers for the Group of Seven leading economies grappled Thursday with deepening inflation concerns and the immediate effects of Russia's war in Ukraine, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warning that it all adds up to a "very difficult economic situation."
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden embarked Thursday on a six-day trip to South Korea and Japan aiming to build rapport with the two nations' leaders while also sending an unmistakable message to China: Russia's faltering invasion of Ukraine should give Beijing pause about its own saber-rattling in the Pacific.
UKRAINE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate confirmed Bridget Brink late Wednesday as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, filling the post as officials plan to return American diplomats to Kyiv during the nation's continuing battle against the Russian invasion.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has gathered intelligence that shows some Russian officials have become concerned that Russian forces in the ravaged port city of Mariupol are carrying out grievous abuses, a U.S official familiar with the findings said Wednesday.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Hundreds more fighters have emerged from the Mariupol stronghold where they made their last stand and surrendered, Russia said Thursday, and the Red Cross worked to register them as prisoners of war, as the end of a key battle in the conflict drew closer.