VOL. 45 | NO. 20 | Friday, May 14, 2021
Memory care offers services for various stages of need
Julia “Pudge” High was the life of the party. She was voted “wittiest” before her graduation from Coffee High School in Florence, Alabama, in 1959.
JOE ROGERS: MY TAKE
Legislators have again decamped, signaling halftime of the 112th General Assembly, so it’s time to assess the damage they did before leaving. And, sure, the good.
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
Buyers and Realtors alike are lamenting the paucity of real estate inventory in the area. With enormous demand and many homes receiving more than 30 offers – many for hundreds of thousands of dollars more than over list price – April sales numbers are staggering.
REAL ESTATE
Top residential real estate sales, March 2021, for Davidson County, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mortgage rates declined this week, marking their fourth consecutive week below 3% and further evidence of the strength in the economy's recovery from the pandemic recession.
NEWSMAKERS
Robert Zeglarksi, known for his work with clients in the technology, financial and entertainment industries, has joined Frost Brown Todd’s Nashville office as a member in the firm’s securities and corporate governance practice group.
BRIEFS
The 2021 Bridge to Completion report from the Nashville Public Education Foundation and the Tennessee College Access and Success Network finds unique challenges and inequities for Nashville public school graduates due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
It’s no surprise that trucks and SUVs continue to dominate the U.S. vehicle market. But in a further move, automakers are increasingly building more SUVs and trucks that are specifically designed for off-road driving.
PERSONAL FINANCE
The latest coronavirus relief package did more than dole out $1,400 checks. The law also made health insurance free for millions more people and reduced costs for others – at least for now.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
Every morning, it’s the same argument. Two adult human beings, one at a time in front of your desk, complaining about the other over some office war that’s gone on too long. Both think they’re right. Neither will give up. You don’t know how this ridiculousness started but you know it’ll end because you’re going to end it.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
The credit card you pluck out of your wallet can make as much of a statement as the purse or pants in which you carry it.
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have agreed to terms with first-round selection Caleb Farley and four of his fellow draft picks just before their three-day rookie minicamp.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Former NFL player Tim Tebow joined Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee at the state Capitol on Thursday to announce a multimillion-dollar partnership to fight human trafficking.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — Former tourmates Miranda Lambert and Maren Morris are the leading nominees for the 2021 CMT Music Awards, celebrating the best in country music videos.
STATEWIDE
MEMPHIS (AP) — Repairs to the Interstate 40 bridge linking Arkansas and Tennessee could take months after a crack was found in the span, forcing thousands of trucks and cars to detour and shutting down shipping on a section of the Mississippi River, a transportation official said Wednesday.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has announced that Roadtec, Inc. will expand its operations in Chattanooga.
MIDSTATE
FRANKLIN (AP) — A Tennessee exterminator who posed as the relative of an 85-year-old widow with dementia has been charged with defrauding the woman out of nearly $1.7 million, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert Collier says that during the seven years he worked as an operating room aide at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, white nurses called him and other Black employees "boy." Management ignored two large swastikas painted on a storage room wall. And for six months, he regularly rode an elevator with the N-word carved into a wall.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A conservative legal outfit filed a lawsuit Wednesday against President Joe Biden's administration for its prioritization of restaurants and bars owned by women and certain minorities in its COVID-19 relief package, arguing white men are being "pushed to the back of the line" for aid for their eateries.
NEW YORK (AP) — Now that a judge has rejected the National Rifle Association's bankruptcy bid, blocking its plan to reincorporate in Texas, the gun rights group is back to fighting a lawsuit that threatens to put it out of business.
ENVIRONMENT
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency is revoking a Trump-era rule that overhauled how the agency evaluates air pollutants, a move the Biden administration says will make it easier to enact limits on dangerous and climate-changing emissions.
TRANSPORTATION
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators have approved a Boeing procedure to fix about 100 jets that have been idled for the past month because of improper electrical grounding of some components, and some of the planes could be flying again in the next few days.
AUTO INDUSTRY
Electric car maker Tesla will stop accepting Bitcoin as a payment, CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Wednesday, citing environmental concerns.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal safety regulators are sending a team to California to investigate a fatal freeway crash involving a Tesla, just after authorities near Oakland arrested a man in another Tesla rolling down a freeway with no one behind the steering wheel.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
The couple in the website videos could be hawking any number of products.
MEMPHIS (AP) — Nearly a year after requiring people to wear face masks in many public settings to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Memphis will stop enforcing the mandate on Saturday, Mayor Jim Strickland said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a striking move to send the country back toward pre-pandemic life, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday eased indoor mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated people, allowing them to safely stop wearing masks inside in most places.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Wall Street put the brakes on a three-day losing streak with a broad stock market rally Thursday powered by Big Tech companies and banks.
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon is seeking to hire 75,000 people in a tight job market and is offering bonuses to attract workers, including $100 for new hires who are already vaccinated for COVID-19.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to 473,000, a new pandemic low and the latest evidence that fewer employers are cutting jobs as consumers ramp up spending and more businesses reopen.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Wholesale prices, driven by escalating costs for services and food, jumped 0.6% in April, surprising economists and providing more evidence that inflation pressures are starting to mount with the country emerging from a recession brought on by the pandemic.
McDonald's is raising pay at 650 company-owned stores in the U.S. as part of its push to hire thousands of new workers in a tight labor market.
BOSTON (AP) — An outside audit three years ago of the major East Coast pipeline company hit by a cyberattack found "atrocious" information management practices and "a patchwork of poorly connected and secured systems," its author told The Associated Press.
A once-ambitious Facebook-backed digital currency project — formerly known as Libra, now called Diem — is shifting operations from Switzerland to the U.S. and said it plans to launch a cryptocurrency tied to the U.S. dollar later this year.
HONG KONG (AP) — China's commerce ministry on Thursday welcomed the removal of Xiaomi Corp. from a U.S. government blacklist, a day after the U.S. reversed a ban on U.S. investments in the smartphone maker that was imposed under former President Donald Trump.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A key figure in the federal investigation of Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz is expected to plead guilty to criminal charges next week.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday meant to strengthen U.S. cybersecurity defenses in response to a series of headline-grabbing hacking incidents that highlight how vulnerable the country's public and private sectors are to high-tech spies and criminals operating from half a world away.
The Biden administration swung aggressively into action after a primary gasoline pipeline fell prey to a cyberattack — understanding that the situation posed a possible series of political and economic risks.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite sharing pleasantries at the White House, Republican congressional leaders signaled no willingness Wednesday to embrace President Joe Biden's ideas for a massive infrastructure investment, insisting instead on a much smaller package and rejecting the idea of raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to pay for it.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders insisted that purging Trump critic Rep. Liz Cheney from their ranks was necessary to unify the party ahead of next year's midterm elections.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Wednesday took aim at China and a number of other countries for repressing religious freedom as it forges ahead with its aim of restoring human rights as a primary focus of American foreign policy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former White House counsel Don McGahn will answer questions in private from the House Judiciary Committee in an apparent resolution of a longstanding dispute over his testimony, according to a court document filed Wednesday evening.