VOL. 46 | NO. 40 | Friday, October 7, 2022
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
As many know, East Nashville was the home of the rich and famous when Nashville had few rich and almost no one famous. The well-chronicled East Nashville fire of 1916 was Nashville’s answer to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, although Nashville was a small town in comparison to the massive city of Chicago.
TENNESSEE TITANS
“Help Wanted” signs have become a more frequent sight as businesses face the challenge of keeping enough people available and on hand.
After all they have been through, playing spotty football through the season’s first month, the Tennessee Titans are back even and in decent position to defend their AFC South title. Tennessee is 2-2, but the Titans are 1-0 inside the division after Sunday’s win at Indianapolis.
The Titans have scratched and clawed their way back to .500 after an 0-2 start and now share the AFC South lead with Jacksonville at 2-2. Now, the key is to keep that going with a third straight win to get to 3-2 before the much-needed bye week to perhaps get healthier for games down the road.
UT SPORTS
Just how high is the ceiling for Tennessee football this season? The answer should come in the next few weeks as the Vols hit the heart of their SEC schedule.
PREDATORS
Is this the year? That’s the predominant question facing the Nashville Predators as they launch their 24th season Oct. 7 in the NHL Global Series in Prague, Czechoslovakia, against the San Jose Sharks.
NEWSMAKERS
Seven Nashville leaders have joined the board of directors of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp:
BRIEFS
Nashville SC will advance to the MLS Cup Playoffs for the third consecutive season.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Hyundai is one of just a few automakers that offer sporty performance-oriented versions of its small cars, and one of its newest is the 2022 Elantra N. Based on the redesigned and sharply styled Elantra small sedan, the N has a high-output engine, a sport-tuned suspension, upgraded brakes and other enhancements. It’s a bona fide sport sedan priced under $35,000.
CAREER CORNER
How do you react when you’re behind at work, or at home? So often, when this happens, it feels like the answer is to do more. Roll your sleeves up, work harder, and push through it. Stay up late, and get up early.
UT SPORTS
Will Anderson is one of the nation's top pass rushers. Hendon Hooker has been among the hottest passers.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is encouraging law enforcement agencies to apply for a piece of a $100 million violent crime reduction grant.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit that sought to force longtime casino developer Steve Wynn to register as a foreign agent because of lobbying work it said he conducted at the behest of the Chinese government during the Trump administration.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to steer clear of a legal fight over classified documents seized during an FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Florida estate.
REGION
WASHINGTON (AP) — Floridians will need about $33 billion in emergency aid from the federal government as the state recovers from the devastation left by Hurricane Ian, the state's Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said Wednesday.
ENVIRONMENT
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Some cities around the world are pulling back from shorelines, as rising seas from climate change increase flooding. But so far, retreat appears out of the question for Atlantic City, New Jersey.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Tuesday said eligible Americans should get the updated COVID-19 boosters by Halloween to have maximum protection against the coronavirus by Thanksgiving and the holidays, as it warned of a "challenging" virus season ahead.
MEDIA
NEW YORK (AP) — TikTok appears to be deepening its foray into e-commerce with plans to operate its own U.S. warehouses, the kind of packing and shipping facilities more associated with Amazon or Walmart than the social media platform best known for addictive short videos.
TECHNOLOGY
Facebook parent Meta unveiled a high-end virtual reality headset Tuesday with the hope that people will soon be using it to work and play in the still-elusive place called the "metaverse."
ENERGY
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Moscow is ready to resume gas supplies to Europe via a link of the Germany-bound Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic Sea.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A leak was detected in an underground oil pipeline in Poland which is the main route through which Russian crude reaches Germany, the Polish operator said Wednesday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks ended a wobbly day lower on Wall Street after a late-afternoon drop erased the tentative gains major indexes had been clinging to for much of the day.
NEW YORK (AP) — The federal labor board has scheduled a November vote on a petition from Home Depot workers in Philadelphia to form what could be the first storewide union at the world's largest home improvement retailer.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve officials at their last meeting stressed their commitment to taming "unacceptably high'' inflation before announcing that they were raising their benchmark interest rate by a substantial three-quarters of a point for a third straight time and signaling more large rate hikes ahead.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sought Wednesday to project confidence in the U.S. financial outlook while pledging vigilance in responding to "risks on the horizon."
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Hurricane Ian might have come and gone but it could deliver prolonged blows to the local economy, walloping small businesses heavily dependent on tourists and seasonal residents.
LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Liz Truss took office last month promising to reenergize the British economy and put the nation on a path to "long-term success." Instead, her tenure so far has been marred by turmoil as mortgage rates soared, the pound fell to record lows and chaos in bond markets threatened the country's financial stability.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most pets hate visiting the vet. Now it's becoming a lot more unpleasant for their owners, too.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation at the wholesale level rose 8.5% in September from a year earlier, the third straight decline though costs remain at painfully high levels.
LONDON (AP) — Britain's economy faced new shocks Wednesday after the Bank of England ruled out extending an emergency debt-buying plan – and the Conservative government appeared to blame the independent central bank for the U.K.'s economic turmoil.
BERLIN (AP) — The German government on Wednesday slashed its growth forecast for this year and predicted that Europe's biggest economy would shrink in 2023 as it deals with the fallout from Russia's war in Ukraine, including Moscow cutting off natural gas supplies.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Working at an urgent pace, the House committee investigating Jan. 6 has managed in 15 months to collect a staggering trove of material that includes transcripts of more than 1,000 interviews and millions of other documents.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House laid out a national security strategy Wednesday aimed at checking an ascendant China and a more assertive Russia even as it stressed that domestic investments are key to helping the U.S. compete in the critical decade ahead.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More U.S. adults are now feeling financially vulnerable amid high inflation — a political risk for President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats one month before the midterm elections.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday there will be "consequences" for Saudi Arabia as the Riyadh-led OPEC+ alliance moves to cut oil production and Democratic lawmakers call for a freeze on cooperation with the Saudis.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden's three-state swing out West this week will capture, in a nutshell, the White House's midterm strategy for a president who remains broadly unpopular: promote his administration's accomplishments and appear where he can effectively rally the party faithful — all while continuing to rake in campaign cash.
UKRAINE
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Unbowed Western powers pledged to supply Ukraine with more potent air defense systems following a furious barrage of retaliatory Russian missile strikes, including one that temporarily knocked Europe's biggest nuclear plant off the invaded country's electrical grid Wednesday.
BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO defense ministers met Wednesday as its member countries face the twin challenges of struggling to make and supply weapons to Ukraine while protecting vital European infrastructure like pipelines or cables that Russia might want to sabotage in retaliation.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces showered Ukraine with more missiles and munition-carrying drones Tuesday after widespread strikes killed at least 19 people in an attack the U.N. human rights office described as "particularly shocking" and amounting to potential war crimes.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Having a bye at the NFL's first opportunity is not usually not what anyone wants.
UT SPORTS
It could well be among the marquee quarterback matchups of the season: Alabama's Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young vs. Tennessee's own emerging candidate, rising star Hendon Hooker.
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Tennessee starting safety and captain Jaylen McCollough has been arrested for aggravated felony assault, putting his status for Saturday's game against No. 3 Alabama in question for the sixth-ranked Volunteers.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer for former president Donald Trump who signed a letter stating that a "diligent search" for classified records had been conducted and that all such documents had been given back to the government has spoken with the FBI, according to a person familiar with the matter.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from a Black Texas death row inmate who argued he didn't get a fair trial because jurors who convicted him objected to interracial marriage.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Dylann Roof, who challenged his death sentence and conviction in the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Video of a landmark 2010 trial that cleared the way for gay marriage in California can be made public, the culmination of a years-long legal fight. The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it would not intervene in the dispute over the recordings, leaving in place lower court rulings permitting the video's release.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will hear arguments over a California animal cruelty law that could raise the cost of bacon and other pork products nationwide.
AUTO INDUSTRY
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Honda says it will build a $3.5 billion joint-venture battery factory in rural southern Ohio and hire 2,200 people to staff it as the company starts to turn the state into its North American electric vehicle hub.
General Motors, which plans to go almost entirely electric by 2035, is creating a new energy division that will produce chargers for electric vehicles, as well as solar panels and other energy-related technology for homes and businesses.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Co. said Tuesday that it plans to sell its Russian operations to its local partner and withdraw from manufacturing there.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Families who get expensive health insurance through employers could see a price break if they sign up instead for coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace this fall.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks ended mostly lower after an afternoon hiccup on Wall Street as trading remains unsettled ahead of key reports on inflation and corporate earnings. The S&P 500 fell 0.7% after wavering down, up, then back down again. The Nasdaq fell 1.1% and the Dow ended just barely in the green. The S&P 500 marked its fifth straight loss as worries grow that a recession may be looming. The International Monetary Fund, a global lending agency, further stoked those fears when it cut its forecast for global growth next year to 2.7%, down from the 2.9% it estimated in July.
The Biden administration published a new proposal Tuesday regarding how workers should be classified, saying that thousands of people have been incorrectly labeled as contractors rather than employees, potentially curtailing access to benefits and protections they rightfully deserve.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The International Monetary Fund is downgrading its outlook for the world economy for 2023, citing a long list of threats that include Russia's war against Ukraine, chronic inflation pressures, punishing interest rates and the lingering consequences of the global pandemic.
FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The seafood industry in southwest Florida is racing against time and the elements to save what's left of a major shrimping fleet — and a lifestyle — that was battered by Hurricane Ian.
LONDON (AP) — The Bank of England on Tuesday expanded its efforts to stabilize the bond market to include inflation-linked bonds amid continuing concerns about the government's budget.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A majority of U.S. adults expect America's relations with foreign adversaries like Russia and North Korea to grow more hostile, according to a new poll, a major shift in public opinion from four years ago under President Donald Trump.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez called Monday for freezing all U.S. cooperation with Saudi Arabia, delivering one of the strongest expressions yet of U.S. anger over Saudi oil-production cuts that serve to boost Russia in its war in Ukraine.
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday hailed a recent decision by OPEC, Russia and other oil producing nations to limit production as key to stabilizing the global energy market, as he met the leader of the United Arab Emirates for talks on fostering economic ties.
UKRAINE
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong's leader John Lee said Tuesday he will only implement United Nations sanctions, after the U.S. warned the territory's status as a financial center could be affected if it acts as a safe haven for sanctioned individuals.
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Moscow's barrage of missile strikes on cities all across Ukraine has elicited celebratory comments from Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits, who in recent weeks have actively criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly started debating Monday whether to demand that Russia reverse course on annexing four regions of Ukraine — a discussion that came as Moscow's most extensive missile strikes in months alarmed much of the international community anew.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 10
TENNESSEE TITANS
LANDOVER, Md. (AP) — A teammate yelled at David Long Jr. from a corner of the locker room, "Keep that game ball!"
NASHVILLE SC
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Teal Bunbury scored in the 53rd minute and Joe Willis made it stand up with a career-high 14 saves as Nashville SC edged Los Angeles FC 1-0 in a regular-season finale on Sunday.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennesseans are running out of time to register to vote in the Nov. 8 primary election.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Private nonprofit organizations in 13 Tennessee counties have a few more weeks to file for federal economic injury disaster loans for losses from storms and tornadoes last December.
EAST TENNESSEE
GATLINBURG (AP) — Motorists traveling to Great Smoky Mountains National Park through the Tennessee city of Gatlinburg have been asked to take caution after a fire Sunday damaged a building containing businesses in the downtown area.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A small-business advocacy group has filed a new lawsuit seeking to block the Biden administration's efforts to forgive student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans — the latest legal challenge to the program.
PARIS (AP) — Distraught families whose loved ones died in Air France's worst-ever crash on Monday shouted down the CEOs of the airline and of planemaker Airbus as the two companies went on trial on manslaughter charges for the 2009 accident over the Atlantic Ocean.
MEDIA
NEW YORK (AP) — Kanye West once suggested slavery was a choice. He called the COVID-19 vaccine "the mark of the beast." Earlier this month, he was criticized for wearing a "White Lives Matter" T-shirt to his collection at Paris Fashion Week.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — After finishing a tour in Afghanistan in 2013, Dionne Williamson felt emotionally numb. More warning signs appeared during several years of subsequent overseas postings.
ENERGY
BERLIN (AP) — A government-appointed expert panel on Monday proposed a two-stage system for distributing some of the up to 200 billion euros ($195 billion) in subsidies Germany has announced to ease the strain of high energy prices, a plan that the group said would still encourage people to save gas.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks are closing lower on Wall Street ahead of the beginning of the corporate earnings reporting season, which will provide insight into how high inflation and rising interest rates have been affecting U.S. companies.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The third largest railroad union rejected its deal with freight railroads Monday — renewing the possibility of a strike that could cripple the economy — but before that could happen both sides will return to the bargaining table.
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke and two other U.S.-based economists won the Nobel Prize in economics for research into bank failures -- work that built on lessons learned in the Great Depression and helped shape America's aggressive response to the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Seventy-year-old Cassandra Gentry is looking forward to a hefty cost-of-living increase in her Social Security benefits — not for herself but to pay for haircuts for her two grandchildren and put food on the table.
WASHINGTON (AP) — When it comes to reassuring Americans about an economy that's an election-year challenge for his party, President Joe Biden is telling the country to hold on.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Marjorie Taylor Greene took her seat directly behind Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy, a proximity to power for the firebrand congresswoman that did not go unnoticed, as he unveiled the House GOP's midterm election agenda in Pennsylvania.
UKRAINE
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia unleashed a lethal barrage of strikes against multiple Ukrainian cities Monday, smashing civilian targets including downtown Kyiv where at least six people were killed amid burnt-out cars and shattered buildings that brought back into focus the grim reality of war after months of easing tensions in the capital.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union's top diplomat criticized Monday the bloc's slow pace of action in setting up a military training mission for the Ukrainian armed forces, as foreign ministers prepare to discuss the plan next week.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is pardoning thousands of Americans convicted of "simple possession" of marijuana under federal law, as his administration takes a dramatic step toward decriminalizing the drug and addressing charging practices that disproportionately impact people of color.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — A longtime prison reform advocate was sentenced to 40 years behind bars on Thursday following his conviction for hiding guns, ammunition, handcuff keys and hacksaw blades inside the walls of Nashville's new jail while it was being built.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A federal grand jury has indicted 11 people on charges of obstructing a reproductive health clinic outside of Nashville, Tennessee.
INTERNATIONAL
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Human rights activists from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a strong rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine has ruptured decades of nearly uninterrupted peace in Europe, and to the Belarusian president, his authoritarian ally.
EMPLOYMENT
WASHINGTON (AP) — America's employers slowed their hiring in September but still added 263,000 jobs, a solid figure that will likely keep the Federal Reserve on pace to keep raising interest rates aggressively to fight persistently high inflation.
ENERGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday effectively acknowledged the failure of one of his biggest and most humiliating foreign policy gambles: a fist-bump with the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, the crown prince associated with human rights abuses.
JANUARY 6TH AFTERMATH
WASHINGTON (AP) — Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes told a member of the extremist group before the 2020 election that he had a contact in the Secret Service, a witness testified Thursday in Rhodes' Capitol riot trial.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A North Carolina man pleaded guilty Thursday to plotting with other members of the far-right Proud Boys to violently stop the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election, making him the first member of the extremist group to plead guilty to a seditious conspiracy charge.
HURRICANE IAN
NORTH PORT, Fla. (AP) — Christine Barrett was inside her family's North Port home during Hurricane Ian when one of her children started yelling that water was coming up from the shower.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
If the squabbling ever stops over Elon Musk's renewed bid to buy Twitter, experts say he still faces a huge obstacle to closing the $44 billion deal: Keeping his financing in place.
SPORTS
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — First-year LSU coach Brian Kelly isn't about to celebrate the Tigers' return this week to the national rankings for the first time in more than a year.
PRAGUE (AP) — After the San Jose Sharks missed the NHL playoffs for a third straight season, Tomas Hertl is determined to turn things around.
LANDOVER, Md. (AP) — Coming off consecutive victories to get them to .500, coach Mike Vrabel told his Tennessee Titans there was much more to accomplish because half the NFL is 2-2 at this point.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Voter rights advocates on Wednesday once again challenged Tennessee's policy on how people convicted of felonies out of state can participate in elections.
LORETTA LYNN
NASHVILLE (AP) — Loretta Lynn, the Grammy-winning country music icon who died Tuesday at 90, lived through — and sang about — decades of advancements for women's social movements, achievements now endangered.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Wall Street expects the latest round of quarterly profits to show burn marks from the hottest inflation in four decades, and the damage could linger into 2023.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The former chief security officer for Uber was convicted Wednesday of trying to cover up a 2016 data breach in which hackers accessed tens of millions of customer records from the ride-hailing service.
REGION
The unusually low water level in the lower Mississippi River is causing barges to get stuck in mud and sand, disrupting river travel for shippers, recreational boaters and even passengers on a cruise line.
ELECTION 2022
NEW YORK (AP) — Leading Republicans are entering the final month of the midterm campaign increasingly optimistic that a Senate majority is within reach even as a dramatic family fight in Georgia clouds one of the party's biggest pickup opportunities.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The ACLU's Nevada chapter filed a lawsuit Tuesday against a rural Nevada county and its interim clerk in an attempt to stop the implementation of the county's new hand-counting process, which was spurred by false claims of election fraud. The process entails hand-counting all paper ballots alongside a machine tabulator.
UKRAINE
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday it was "hard to say" whether the risk of nuclear war had increased with his military's territorial gains, but he remains confident his Russian counterpart would not survive such as escalation in hostilities.
INTERNATIONAL
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has hit back at Iran over the government's brutal crackdown on antigovernment protests. He's praised the "brave women of Iran" for demanding basic rights and signaled that he'll announce more sanctions against those responsible for violence against protesters in the coming days.
EDUCATION
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Democratic senators urged the Education Department on Wednesday to strengthen regulations against quietly excluding kids from class because of behaviors related to a disability — a practice known as informal removal.