VOL. 45 | NO. 46 | Friday, November 12, 2021
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
When preparing to take the real estate examination, students learn of the term force majeure, a little used procedure in the world of real estate. Force majeure would fall into the “Let the buyer beware” category, though both these terms have more relevance than they have had in the past 40 years.
REAL ESTATE
Top residential real estate sales, October 2021, for Davidson County, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
TENNESSEE TITANS
Those who grew up on Sesame Street will remember the game and accompanying song: “One of These Things is Not Like the Other.”
The Titans have thrived in an underdog role all season long.
The Titans bring their 7-2 mark back to Nissan Stadium Sunday against the New Orleans Saints, who will be without Jameis Winston but with running back Alvin Kamara and a stout defense. Here are the four keys to the game.
UT SPORTS
Most football programs schedule a downtrodden opponent for their homecoming game to celebrate an easy win. Tennessee went in the exact opposite direction this season.
NEWSMAKERS
Littler, an employment and labor law practice representing management, has appointed Bradley Strawn as regional office managing shareholder of the firm’s Nashville office, succeeding Jennifer Robinson, who has stepped down to focus on her practice.
BRIEFS
Barings, global investment managers, and Hines, an international real estate firm, have formed a joint venture partnership to acquire the Reed District site in Nashville for the future development of a 2.7 million-square foot multiphased mixed-use project.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Driving your vehicle when there’s snow and ice on the roads can be a little intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Edmunds’ experts have five steps you can take now that will pay off come winter.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Many people don’t have much choice about when they retire. Illness, job loss or caretaking responsibilities push them out of the labor force, ready or not.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
Jingle, jingle, jangle. That’s the sound of Almost Payday: a little coin in your pocket, just waiting for some folding paper to join it. Judging by that jingle alone, the rich get richer and the poor, well, you know. You also know where you are on the spectrum, and it ain’t in the One Percent, but that’s really not who you should watch anyhow. In the new book, “The 9.9 Percent” by Michael Stewart, another income group matters more.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
Holiday shoppers, prepare to be bombarded with social media ads – and scams.
PREDATORS
TORONTO (AP) — Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe is running out of adjectives to describe goalie Jack Campbell. One word, however, continues to surface — consistency.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than two weeks have passed since the Supreme Court's extraordinarily rushed arguments over Texas' unique abortion law without any word from the justices.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says about 10% of eligible kids aged 5 to 11 have received a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine since its approval for their age group two weeks ago.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgium extended the use of facemasks and mandatory remote work on Wednesday in an attempt to contain a new surge of COVID-19 cases.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's disease control agency reported 52,826 new coronavirus cases Wednesday — a number that has roughly doubled in two weeks — stoking calls for fresh measures to curb the country's steadily rising infections.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Universities, transportation agencies and the operator of a national laboratory are among those landing exemptions to a new Tennessee law that strictly limits or prohibits most government entities and businesses from implementing COVID-19 prevention mandates. For some, approval was almost immediate.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is making billions of dollars available to drugmakers to scale up domestic production of COVID-19 vaccines in the hopes of building capacity to produce an additional 1 billion shots per year to share with the world.
TECHNOLOGY
CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) — Apple is letting some iPhone users fix their own phones, a sharp turnaround for a company that has long prohibited anyone but company-approved technicians from fiddling with its proprietary parts and software.
AUTO INDUSTRY
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Battery-powered vehicles will get top billing at the Los Angeles Auto Show, which opens this week after a year's hiatus due to the novel coronavirus.
DETROIT (AP) — Elon Musk is selling more Tesla shares than he needs to pay current tax obligations, and experts say he's either converting part of his fortune from stock to cash, or he's saving for bigger tax bills that will come due next year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is highlighting billions of dollars in his giant bipartisan infrastructure deal to pay for the installation of electric vehicle chargers across the country, an investment he says will go a long way to curbing planet-warming carbon emissions while creating good-paying jobs.
TRANSPORTATION
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of airline passengers traveling for Thanksgiving this year is expected to rebound to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels, but the Transportation Security Administration says it is ready to handle the surge.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stock indexes shuffled lower on Wall Street Wednesday, pulling a bit further off their record heights.
NEW YORK (AP) — A fierce battle is being waged in Washington over President Biden's choice to lead a typically low-profile agency that oversees the banking industry.
SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — Construction of new homes in the U.S. fell 0.7% in October, but a big jump in the number of permits last month points to anticipation by builders that supply chain problems that have dogged them for much of the year will soon ease.
NEW YORK (AP) — Target delivered another strong quarter, overcoming a slew of challenges from inflationary pressures to congested ports.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — President Joe Biden announced a deal last month to establish around-the-clock operations at the Port of Los Angeles, the nation's largest, to break an unprecedented container ship traffic jam blamed for driving up consumer prices.
LONDON (AP) — Consumer prices in the United Kingdom surged at the fastest rate in nearly a decade in October amid soaring energy costs, official figures showed Wednesday, a development that has cemented market expectations that the Bank of England will raise interest rates next month.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Europe is short of natural gas — dangerously short. A cold winter could mean a severe crunch, and utility bills are headed higher, burdening ordinary people and weighing on the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Congress Tuesday that she believed she would run out of maneuvering room to avoid the nation's first-ever default soon after Dec. 15.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Regaining momentum, Democratic leaders are pressing ahead on President Joe Biden's big domestic policy bill, with the House expected to vote later this week and the Senate vowing to follow by Christmas in hopes of boosting the party's standing and delivering on a main campaign promise.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's choice to lead enforcement of competition laws at the Justice Department has won Senate approval as his administration pursues action against outsized market power it has condemned in several industries, including Big Tech, health care, airlines and agriculture.
TOKYO (AP) — U.S. Trade Representative Katharine Tai and Japan's trade and industry minister agreed Wednesday to work to resolve a dispute over American tariffs on steel and aluminum as part of a framework for cooperation in wider areas.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted Wednesday to censure Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona for posting of an animated video that depicted him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword, an extraordinary rebuke that highlighted the political strains testing Washington and the country.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — ChildcareTennessee on Monday announced a $5 million grant program to establish new childcare services or expand existing ones.
MIDSTATE
MURFREESBORO (AP) — Middle Tennessee will spend $66 million on a three-story football building behind the north end zone of Floyd Stadium, the first of a three-part plan to upgrade athletics facilities costing at least $100 million.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — A newly enacted law seeking to block most Tennessee schools from implementing mask mandates will continue to be put on hold as a federal lawsuit moves forward, a judge determined Monday.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pfizer asked U.S. regulators Tuesday to authorize its experimental pill for COVID-19, setting the stage for a likely launch this winter of a promising treatment that can be taken at home.
The fate of President Joe Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for private employers could come down to the bounce of a ping-pong ball.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The District of Columbia will lift its indoor mask requirement starting next week, as local COVID-19 infection cases continue to trend downward.
LONDON (AP) — Drugmaker Pfizer Inc. has signed a deal with a U.N.-backed group to allow other manufacturers to make its experimental COVID-19 pill, a move that could make the treatment available to more than half of the world's population.
The rollout of COVID-19 shots for elementary-age children has exposed another blind spot in the nation's efforts to address pandemic inequalities: Health systems have released little data on the racial breakdown of youth vaccinations, and community leaders fear that Black and Latino kids are falling behind.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks closed higher on Wall Street Tuesday as investors reviewed solid earnings reports from retailers and an encouraging update on consumer spending.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. industrial production rebounded in October as automakers, stung by supply chain problems, posted strong increases and the adverse effects from a hurricane that struck the nation's energy complex in the Gulf of Mexico faded.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Many Americans have taken a darker view of the economy as inflation has worsened. Yet so far, they appear no less willing to spend freely at retailers — an encouraging sign for the crucial holiday shopping season.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Investor Warren Buffett's company made two new investments during the third quarter while trimming its holdings in several drugmakers and financial firms.
NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart raised its outlook for the year after another surprisingly strong quarter as the largest retailer in the world flexed its scale to deal with rising costs and a snarled global supply chain.
Home Depot's sales continued to climb through third quarter with the U.S. housing market red hot.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex will delay fining shipping companies that let cargo containers stack up at terminals.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Amazon has agreed to pay $500,000 and be monitored by California officials to ensure it properly notifies its workers about new coronavirus cases, the state's attorney general said Monday.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's network regulator said Tuesday that it has suspended its procedure to certify the operator of a new pipeline that would bring Russian gas to the country under the Baltic Sea because of an issue with the company's status under German law.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The last time Joe Biden was in New Hampshire, he was a no-show at his own, sad party.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and China's Xi Jinping's more than three-hour virtual talk concluded with the leaders of the superpowers agreeing they need to tread carefully as their nations find themselves in an increasingly fraught competition.
BEIJING (AP) — China on Tuesday welcomed a virtual meeting between President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden as raising hopes for better relations, while the U.S. was more muted on the talks as the world's two biggest powers sought to ratchet down more than a year of tensions.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Steve Bannon's indictment on contempt of Congress charges is the nation's first since 1983, and his appearance in federal court provides a rare glimpse into one of U.S. lawmakers' politically messiest and least-used powers.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NEW YORK (AP) — The first time they collaborated was such a surprise smash that the only question was when Robert Plant and Alison Krauss would sing together again. The answer is out this week.
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans would prefer easier wins that don't come down to a final stand at the goal line or scratching out a victory in overtime.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans want to stack up wins, not style points.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee's new wide-ranging law against COVID-19 prevention mandates hit a snag Sunday when a federal judge appeared to temporarily halt its implementation of strict limits on mask mandates in schools as they apply in at least three counties.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Bill Lee says his chief of staff and adviser Blake Harris is leaving to oversee the Republican's reelection campaign, as well as assist in Republican Governors Association efforts.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday turned away appeals from Volkswagen that sought to stop state and local lawsuits related to the 2015 scandal in which the automaker was found to have rigged its vehicles to cheat U.S. diesel emissions tests.
ENVIRONMENT
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New oil and gas leasing within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of Chaco Culture National Historical Park will be prohibited for the next two years as officials consider a proposal to withdraw federal land in the area from development for a 20-year period, the U.S. Department of Interior said Monday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks closed mostly lower after wobbling most of Monday on Wall Street as the market comes off its first weekly loss in six weeks and investors move past the recent round of mostly solid corporate earnings.
DETROIT (AP) — Take a step back from the picked-over store shelves, the stalled container ships and the empty auto showrooms, and you'll find a root cause of the shortages of just about everything.
LONDON (AP) — Royal Dutch Shell proposed moving its headquarters from the Netherlands to the United Kingdom and streamlining its structure Monday in hopes of making it easier to move forward in a world transitioning away from a dependence on fossil fuels.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan's economy shrank at a 3% annual rate in the July-September quarter, as private consumption and auto production took a hit from efforts to curb the coronavirus pandemic.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, appeared before a judge on Monday to face criminal contempt charges for defying a subpoena from a House committee investigating January's insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Longtime advocates of paid family and medical leave are scrambling to make sure that the long-sought Democratic priority remains in a massive social and environmental spending bill after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi revived it. But the outcome will likely come down to the support of one man.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed his $1 trillion infrastructure deal into law Monday on the White House lawn, hailing it as an example of what bipartisanship can achieve.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The $1 trillion infrastructure plan that President Joe Biden plans to sign into law has money for roads, bridges, ports, rail transit, safe water, the power grid, broadband internet and more.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden sought to showcase his commitment to Native Americans on Monday by announcing a step to help improve public safety and justice for their communities, which experience violent crime at rates more than double the national average.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has chosen as supervisor of his $1 trillion infrastructure plan Mitch Landrieu, who as New Orleans mayor pushed the city into recovery after the devastation from Hurricane Katrina.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden and China's Xi Jinping have slurped noodles together in Beijing. They've shared deep thoughts about the meaning of America during an exchange on the Tibetan plateau. They've gushed to U.S. business leaders about developing a sincere respect for each other.
FRIDAY, NOVEMER 12
PREDATORS
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Matt Duchene scored his second goal of the game 2:01 into overtime, giving the Nashville Predators a 4-3 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night.
EDUCATION
KNOXVILLE (AP) — The University of Tennessee system is proposing a break that would let military veterans attend its campuses at the discounted in-state tuition rate.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold another chunk of his stock after pledging on Twitter to liquidate 10% of his holdings in the electric car maker.
MEDIA
NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter says it has permanently banned Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson from its service for repeated violations of its COVID-19 misinformation policy.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
The contagious delta variant is driving up COVID-19 hospitalizations in the Mountain West and fueling disruptive outbreaks in the North, a worrisome sign of what could be ahead this winter in the U.S.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Santa won't be getting his traditional welcome in the Dutch city of Utrecht this year. The ceremonial head of Carnival celebrations in Germany's Cologne had to bow out because he tested positive for COVID-19. And Austria is considering imposing a lockdown on unvaccinated people.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks closed higher on Wall Street on Friday, but the market still ended the week lower as inflation worries weighed on investors' moods earlier in the week.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans quit their jobs at a record pace for the second straight month in September, in many cases for more money elsewhere as companies bump up pay to fill job openings that are close to an all-time high.
Johnson & Johnson is peeling off a consumer health business that helped it become the world's biggest health care products maker.
LONDON (AP) — British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said Friday that it will start to book a modest profit from its coronavirus vaccine as it moves away from the nonprofit model it has operated during the pandemic.
TOKYO (AP) — Embattled Japanese technology conglomerate Toshiba said Friday it is restructuring to improve its competitiveness, spinning off its energy infrastructure and computer devices businesses.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, was indicted Friday on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Pacific Rim leaders agreed to do all they can to improve access to coronavirus vaccines and reduce carbon emissions, but failed to reach agreement on whether the U.S. should host talks in two years' time.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and China's Xi Jinping will hold their much-anticipated virtual summit on Monday evening as the two sides look to dial back tensions after a rough start to the U.S.-China relationship since Biden took office earlier this year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer for former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows says his client will defy a subpoena from a House committee that is investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, a move that is likely to trigger a contempt vote against the former Republican congressman.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday is tapping former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Robert Califf to again lead the powerful regulatory agency, according to a person familiar with the decision.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial and had called for his resignation after the Jan. 6 insurrection, announced Friday she will run for reelection in 2022.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has issued almost three dozen subpoenas as it aggressively seeks information about the origins of the attack and what former President Donald Trump did — or didn't do — to stop it.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — Chris Stapleton was the big winner with six trophies including song and album of the year and Luke Combs claimed the biggest prize with entertainer of the year at the Country Music Association Awards on Wednesday night.
NASHVILLE (AP) — List of winners at the 2021 Country Music Association Awards, held Wednesday at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena:
PREDATORS
DALLAS (AP) — Rookie Tanner Jeannot had a goal and an assist, Juuse Saros stopped 25 shots, and the Nashville Predators beat the Dallas Stars 4-2 on Wednesday night.
MIDSTATE
LYNCHBURG (AP) — The Tennessee distillery producing Jack Daniel's whiskey is teaming with a military support group to help service members and their families get home for the holidays.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the release of records sought by a U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection as the court considers an emergency request by former President Donald Trump.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Prosecutors are supporting a push by the Tennessee Innocence Project to reopen a post-conviction appeal for two people in the rape and slaying of a 4-year-old child more than 30 years ago.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Thursday asked a federal appeals court to temporarily block the release of records to a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection led by his supporters.
NEW YORK (AP) — Boeing has reached an agreement with the families of the victims of a March 2019 crash in Ethiopia of one of its 737-Max aircraft that claimed 157 lives.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden, whose son Beau was an Iraq war veteran, is using his first Veterans Day in office to announce an effort to better understand, identify and treat medical conditions suffered by troops deployed to toxic environments.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Medicare enrollees who take expensive medicines could save thousands of dollars a year under the Democrats' sweeping social agenda bill, but those dividends won't come overnight. Instead, they'll build gradually over the decade.
AUTO INDUSTRY
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress are looking to give U.S. automakers with union employees the inside track on the burgeoning electric vehicle market, triggering vocal opposition from foreign trade partners and Republicans who worry that manufacturers in their home states will be placed at a competitive disadvantage.
NEW YORK (AP) — Rivian Automotive, a company that went public a day ago and hopes to produce 1,000 electric vehicles by the end of the year, will surpass General Motors to become the nation's second most valuable automaker if an overnight surge in the price of its shares hold.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
Can at-home COVID-19 tests make holiday gatherings safer?
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks managed to close mostly higher on Wall Street Thursday, but the S&P 500 is still on track for its first weekly loss in six weeks.
NEW YORK (AP) — The skeptics on Wall Street have gone missing.
The somewhat mysterious charitable giving strategy known as donor-advised funds is a point of contention in the philanthropic community, but a new report released Thursday is shedding light on what types of organizations benefited most from it in the past few years.
MILAN (AP) — The personal luxury market of high-end accessories, leather goods and apparel has snapped back to pre-pandemic levels as U.S. shoppers outspent those in China in pursuit of the latest fashion trends, according to a study released Thursday by the Bain consultancy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation is starting to look like that unexpected — and unwanted — houseguest who just won't leave.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The European Commission raised its growth forecast for the year for the 19 countries using the euro, saying Thursday that the economy was bouncing back from the worst of the coronavirus pandemic as people went back to work in consumer-facing jobs.
LONDON (AP) — The British economy slowed down during the third quarter of the year as widespread supply chain problems hobbled the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, official figures showed Thursday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden saluted the nation's military veterans as "the spine of America" Thursday as he marked his first Veterans Day as president in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The last time Congress approved a major renewal of federal highway and other transportation programs, the votes were 359-65 in the House and 83-16 in the Senate. It was backed by nearly every Democrat and robust majorities of Republicans.
BALTIMORE (AP) — President Joe Biden touted his $1 trillion infrastructure plan Wednesday as an eventual fix for the nation's inflation and supply chain woes — if Americans just have the patience to wait for the construction to begin.
STILWELL, Kan. (AP) — Traffic whizzing behind her, Rep. Sharice Davids gathered reporters at a transportation facility along U.S. 69 in eastern Kansas this week to celebrate the surge of federal money headed in her state's direction.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ten House Democrats, led by the co-chairs of the Democratic Women's Caucus, said Wednesday that they will introduce a House resolution to censure Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., for tweeting a video that included altered animation showing him striking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., with a sword.