VOL. 46 | NO. 46 | Friday, November 18, 2022
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
Nashville-area home sales for October were astonishingly bad – or so it seems – Greater Nashville Realtors data reveals. Closings fell from 4,047 in October 2021 to 2,824 for October 2022, a 30% drop. That’s the largest decline since 2007 when sales fell 27%.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate tumbled by nearly a half-point this week, but will likely remain a significant barrier for potential homebuyers as Federal Reserve officials have all but promised more rate hikes in the coming months.
UT SPORTS
Tate Williams waited more than a year to make his dream of attending a University of Tennessee football game into a reality. The 10-year-old refused to let anything stop him. Not even emergency brain surgery.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina coach Shane Beamer had a message for those wondering why Tennessee receiver Jalin Hyatt left town to star for the fifth-ranked Volunteers.
NEWSMAKERS
Architecture, engineering and design firm Gresham Smith has announced changes and additions to its board of directors, effective Jan. 1. Those changes include:
BRIEFS
National law firm Frost Brown Todd, with offices in Nashville, and California-based AlvaradoSmith are announcing their plan to merge.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Driving range is one of the most important factors for most shoppers in the market for an electric vehicle. The term “range anxiety” has been synonymous with EVs for most of their existence, but that shouldn’t be the case anymore.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Accessory dwelling units are known by many names: in-law suites, guest houses, backyard cottages or basement or garage conversions, among others. What all ADUs have in common is that they’re a separate living space typically added to a single-family residential lot, and they’re having a moment.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
Black Friday sales are everywhere. Judging by retailers' advertisements stuffed with language like "must-have deals" and "can't-miss epic finds," you'd be led to believe that every deal is too good to pass up.
NASHVILLE PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Nashville Predators feel like they're improving with each game, and that meant finishing off a long homestand with a seven-round shootout.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
Some of Taylor Swift's fans want you to know three things: They're not still 16, they have careers and resources and, right now, they're angry. That's a powerful political motivator, researchers say.
MIDSTATE
CLARKSVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials on Monday announced plans to invest $3.2 billion to develop a cathode materials plant for electric vehicle batteries.
REGION
GOLDEN POND, Ky. (AP) — Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area is offering permits for free cedar Christmas trees.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for the imminent handover of former President Donald Trump's tax returns to a congressional committee after a three-year legal fight.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court appeared deeply skeptical Tuesday that former President Donald Trump was entitled to challenge an FBI search of his Florida estate or to have an independent arbiter review documents that were seized from the home.
ATLANTA (AP) — U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham testified Tuesday before a special grand jury that's investigating whether President Donald Trump and others illegally meddled in the 2020 election in Georgia.
ATLANTA (AP) — Reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley were sentenced Monday to lengthy prison terms after being convicted earlier this year on charges including bank fraud and tax evasion.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Jurors began deliberating Tuesday in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot case accusing Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four of his extremist group associates of a violent plot to stop the transfer of presidential power from Republican Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A coalition of conservative-leaning states is making a last-ditch effort to keep in place a Trump-era public health rule that allows many asylum seekers to be turned away at the southern U.S. border.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Pennsylvania woman linked to the far-right "Groyper" extremist movement was convicted Monday of several federal charges after prosecutors said she was part of a group that stormed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration announced Tuesday that it's seeing a big uptick in the number of new customers buying private health insurance for 2023 from the Affordable Care Act's marketplace.
TRANSPORTATION
More people are expected on airplanes and highways over Thanksgiving than last year, but changing habits around work and play might spread out the crowds and reduce the usual amount of holiday travel stress.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Over half of Mississippi's rural hospitals are at risk of closing immediately or in the near future, according to the state's leading public health official.
ENERGY
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Bulgaria will allow a Black Sea refinery owned by a Russian oil company to keep operating and exporting oil products to the European Union until the end of 2024 despite warnings by Brussels that it is against the bloc's sanctions.
BERLIN (AP) — Consumers and businesses in Germany will receive subsidies to soften the blow of higher natural gas and electricity prices starting in January, two months earlier than originally planned, officials said Tuesday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks on Wall Street closed broadly higher Tuesday, as solid company earnings helped lift several retailers ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — American consumers and nearly every industry will be affected if freight trains grind to a halt next month.
BEIJING (AP) — More than 253,000 coronavirus cases have been found in China in the past three weeks and the daily average is rising, the government said Tuesday, adding to pressure on officials who are trying to reduce economic damage by easing controls that confine millions of people to their homes.
NEW YORK (AP) — Best Buy's profit and sales slipped in the third quarter on weakening demand for electronic gadgets, but it beat expectations and the retailer said a downturn in comparable stores sales this year will not be as bad as it had expected.
Hobbled by high interest rates, punishing inflation and Russia's war against Ukraine, the world economy is expected to eke out only modest growth this year and to expand even more tepidly in 2023.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia's Parliament passed bilateral free trade agreements with India and Britain on Tuesday, leaving those partner nations to bring the deals into force.
ELECTION 2022
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats have secured their majority in the Senate for the next two years. But holding on to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock's seat in Georgia's runoff next month could be crucial to their success.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that his administration will extend the pause on federal student loan payments while the White House fights a legal battle to save his plan to cancel portions of the debt.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21
VANDERBILT SPORTS
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) — South Carolina and Vanderbilt were fined by the Southeastern Conference on Sunday, a day after schools' fans rushed the field to celebrate football victories.
UT SPORTS
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker will miss the rest of the season after injuring his left knee in the fourth quarter of the ninth-ranked Volunteers loss to South Carolina.
EAST TENNESSEE
GATLINBURG (AP) — Tennessee motorists traveling on the Spur between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge may encounter delays for a few days starting later this month.
COURTS
NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors in the Trump Organization's criminal tax fraud trial rested their case Monday earlier than expected, pinning hopes for convicting Donald Trump's company largely on the word of two top executives who cut deals before testifying they schemed to avoid taxes on company-paid perks.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As angry supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, smashing through windows and beating police officers, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes extolled them as patriots and harkened back to the battle that kicked off the American Revolutionary War.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear a dispute over a dog toy that got whiskey maker Jack Daniel's barking mad.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said his panel is reviewing "serious allegations" in a report that a former anti-abortion leader knew in advance the outcome of a 2014 Supreme Court case involving health care coverage of contraception.
MEDIA
Elon Musk's Twitter has reinstated the personal account of far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which was banned in January for violating the platform's COVID misinformation policies at the time.
No, LeBron James does not want to be traded — that was put into the world by a fake Twitter feed purporting to belong to the Los Angeles Lakers superstar when a pay-$8-and-pretend-to-be-anyone verification system made a brief appearance.
ENVIRONMENT
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — Given an energy crisis in Europe and progress made in helping climate victims, the new climate chief for the United Nations said he'll settle for a lack of new emissions-cutting action coming out of the now-concluded climate talks in Egypt.
ENERGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Monday announced preliminary approval to spend up to $1.1 billion to help keep California's last operating nuclear power plant running, even as officials turned down a request for financial aid to restart a closed nuclear plant in Michigan.
AUTO INDUSTRY
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tesla is recalling more than 300,000 vehicles in the U.S. because a software glitch can make taillights go off intermittently, increasing the risk of a collision.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks ended lower on Wall Street at the beginning of a holiday-shortened week.
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge has ordered Amazon to stop retaliating against employees engaged in workplace activism, issuing a mixed ruling that also hands a loss to the federal labor agency that sued the company earlier this year.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Railroad engineers accepted their deal with the railroads that will deliver 24% raises but conductors rejected theirs, threatening the health of the economy just before the holidays and casting more doubt on whether the industry will be able to resolve the labor dispute before next month's deadline without the help of Congress.
The nation's major shipping companies are in the best shape to get holiday shoppers' packages delivered on time since the start of the pandemic, suggesting a return to normalcy.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Trailing badly in his Arizona Senate race as votes poured in, Republican Blake Masters went on Tucker Carlson's Fox News program and assigned blame to one person: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
UKRAINE
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — When the power is out, as it so often is, the high-rise apartment overlooking Ukraine's war-torn capital feels like a deathtrap. No lights, no water, no way to cook food. And the risk of not being able to escape from the 21st floor in time should a Russian missile strike. Even when electricity comes back, it's never on for long.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian authorities have started evacuating civilians from the recently-liberated areas of the Kherson region and the neighboring province of Mykolaiv, fearing that damage to the infrastructure is too severe for people to endure the upcoming winter, officials said Monday.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Powerful explosions from shelling shook Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, the site of Europe's largest nuclear power plant, the global nuclear watchdog said Sunday, calling for "urgent measures to help prevent a nuclear accident" in the Russian-occupied facility.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18
TENNESSEE TITANS
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Ryan Tannehill and the Tennessee Titans showed they don't have to rely exclusively on their bruising ground attack.
FRANKLIN (AP) — Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Todd Downing is free on bond after he was arrested on charges of speeding and driving under the influence early Friday morning.
NASHVILLE PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Juuso Parssinen had two goals and an assist and the Nashville Predators extended their winning streak to three games with a 5-4 victory over the New York Islanders on Thursday night.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — Ticketmaster says it is canceling Friday's planned general public sale for Taylor Swift's upcoming stadium tour because it doesn't have enough tickets.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee's Supreme Court ruled Friday that a state law mandating life sentences for juvenile homicide offenders is unconstitutional, saying it amounts to "cruel and unusual punishment" and violates the Eighth Amendment.
NEW YORK (AP) — How did Donald Trump's oldest sons — entrusted to run his real estate empire when he became president — react when they learned that a top executive was scheming to dodge taxes on lavish corporate perks?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Merrick Garland named a special counsel on Friday to oversee the Justice Department's investigation into the presence of classified documents at former President Donald Trump's Florida estate as well as key aspects of a separate probe involving the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and efforts to undo the 2020 election.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday sentenced an Ohio man who claimed he was only "following presidential orders" from Donald Trump when he stormed the U.S. Capitol to 3 years in prison.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration plans to ask the Supreme Court to reinstate the president's student debt cancellation plan, according to a Thursday legal filing warning that Americans will face financial strain if the plan remains stalled in court when loan payments are scheduled to restart in January.
NEW YORK (AP) — President Joe Biden's plan to provide up to $20,000 in federal student loan forgiveness has been blocked by two federal courts, leaving millions of borrowers wondering what happens next. The Justice Department on Friday asked the Supreme Court to reverse one of the lower court decisions, warning that many Americans will face financial hardship if the plan remains blocked.
WASHINGTON (AP) — For weeks leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four associates discussed using violence to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and when rioters started storming the Capitol they saw an opportunity to do it, a federal prosecutor told jurors on Friday as the seditious conspiracy case wound toward a close.
A federal judge on Friday will decide whether disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes should serve a lengthy prison sentence for duping investors and endangering patients while peddling a bogus blood-testing technology.
REAL ESTATE
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell in October for the ninth consecutive month to the slowest pre-pandemic sales pace in more than 10 years as homebuyers grappled with sharply higher mortgage rates, rising home prices and fewer properties on the market.
HEALTH CARE
Pfizer said Friday that its updated COVID-19 booster may offer some protection against newly emerging omicron mutants even though it's not an exact match.
TRENDS
PARIS (AP) — What is bigger: A ronna or a quetta?
MEDIA
Twitter is in chaos. Elon Musk, its new owner, has decimated its staff and this week gave those remaining an ultimatum — work grueling hours and be "extremely hardcore " or leave. Hundreds chose the latter and headed for the door.
Elon Musk's managerial bomb-throwing at Twitter has so thinned the ranks of software engineers who keep the world's de-facto public square up and running that industry insiders and programmers who were fired or resigned this week agree: Twitter may soon fray so badly it could actually crash.
TRANSPORTATION
Airline lawyers and the Justice Department delivered starkly contrasting views of an alliance between American Airlines and JetBlue during closing arguments Friday in a case that will test the Biden administration's aggressive enforcement of antitrust laws.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden cautioned on Friday that "it's going to take time" for inflation to recede, but he offered fresh assurance that legislation he signed earlier this year will soon help limit costs for health care and energy.
Stocks ended higher on Wall Street but still wound up with weekly losses after several days of bumpy trading.
NEW YORK (AP) — The mass layoffs that began in Amazon's corporate ranks this week will extend into next year, CEO Andy Jassy said Thursday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced she would step aside, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York announced his own history-making bid Friday to become the first Black American to helm a major U.S. political party in Congress as leader of the House Democrats.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A key member of President Joe Biden's economic team, Cecilia Rouse, will leave his administration in the spring, a White House official said Friday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — There are two searing scenes of Nancy Pelosi confronting the violent extremism that spilled into the open late in her storied political career. In one, she's uncharacteristically shaken in a TV interview as she recounts the brutal attack on her husband.
WASHINGTON (AP) — It raised eyebrows six weeks ago when Saudi Arabia's aged king, Salman, named his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as prime minister. The kingdom's laws designate the king as prime minister. King Salman had to declare a temporary exception to loan out the title, and at the same time made clear he retains key duties.
U.S. agriculture officials proposed changes Thursday to the federal program that helps pay the grocery bills for low-income pregnant women, babies and young children, including extending a bump in payments for fresh fruits and vegetables allowed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
UKRAINE
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — When Russia's top military brass announced in a televised appearance that they were pulling troops out of the key city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, one man missing from the room was President Vladimir Putin.
KYSELIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — For 10 days, Alesha Babenko was locked in a basement and regularly beaten by Russian soldiers. Bound, blindfolded and threatened with electric shocks, the 27-year-old pleaded for them to stop.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17
NASHVILLE AREA
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (AP) — The hulking grandstand at the shuttered Arlington International Racecourse casts an eerie shadow as the sun sets on a weekday evening. It sits dormant on a tract of land that could be transformed in a major way.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Historical preservation officials have announced 35 grants totaling nearly $900,000 for projects throughout Tennessee.
COURTS
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump's longtime finance chief choked up on the witness stand Thursday, saying he betrayed the Trump family's trust by scheming to dodge taxes on $1.7 million in company-paid perks, including a Manhattan apartment and luxury cars.
WASHINGTON (AP) — WNBA star Brittney Griner has begun serving her nine-year sentence for drug possession at a Russian penal colony, her lawyers and agent said Thursday.
MEDIA
WASHINGTON (AP) — Reacting to the tumult and mass layoffs at Twitter under its new owner Elon Musk, a group of Democratic senators on Thursday asked federal regulators to investigate any possible violations by the platform of consumer-protection laws or of its data-security commitments.
Donald Trump may be running for president, but he still can't use Facebook.
HONG KONG (AP) — American game developer Blizzard Entertainment said Thursday that it will suspend most of its game services in mainland China after current licensing agreements with Chinese games company NetEase end, sending NetEase's shares tumbling.
ENERGY
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Arizona-based First Solar Inc. has selected Alabama as the site of a more than $1 billion factory that will manufacture modules that generate solar power, the company announced Wednesday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks fell on Wall Street and Treasury yields rose after more indications from the Federal Reserve that it may need to raise interest rates much higher than many people expect to get inflation under control.
The Federal Reserve may have to raise its benchmark interest rate much higher than it has previously projected to get inflation under control, James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said Thursday.
NEW YORK (AP) — Several SpaceX employees who were fired after circulating an open letter calling out CEO Elon Musk's behavior have filed a complaint accusing the company of violating labor laws.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. job market remains healthy as fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, despite the Federal Reserve's rapid interest rate hikes this year intended to bring down inflation and tighten the labor market.
The new CEO of the collapsed cryptocurrency trading firm FTX, who oversaw Enron's bankruptcy, said he has never seen such a "complete failure" of corporate control.
NEW YORK (AP) — Macy's profits and sales slid in the third quarter as the department store had to step up discounts amid a pullback from shoppers stung by inflation.
Starbucks workers at more than 100 U.S. stores are on strike Thursday in their largest labor action since a campaign to unionize the company's stores began late last year.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan marked a trade deficit for the 15th month in a row in October, as both imports and exports reached record highs amid the soaring costs of energy and food and a drooping yen.
DENVER (AP) — Three meat plant workers have filed a federal lawsuit accusing 11 of the United States' largest beef and pork producers of conspiring to depress wages and benefits.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she will not seek a leadership position in the new Congress, making way for a new generation to steer the party after Democrats lost control of the House to Republicans in the midterm elections.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican Party's capture of the House majority, though narrow, will soon transform the agenda in Washington, empowering GOP lawmakers to pursue conservative goals, vigorously challenge the policies of Democratic President Joe Biden — and dash with relief to the other side of Washington investigations.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House investigators reported Thursday that a federal contractor that provided identity verification services for the Internal Revenue Service exaggerated the amount of money being lost to pandemic fraud in an apparent attempt to increase demand for its product and that it also overstated its capacity to provide services.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans won control of the U.S. House on Wednesday, returning the party to power in Washington and giving conservatives leverage to blunt President Joe Biden's agenda and spur a flurry of investigations. But a threadbare majority will pose immediate challenges for GOP leaders and complicate the party's ability to govern.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Mitch McConnell was reelected as Republican leader Wednesday, quashing a challenge from Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the Senate GOP campaign chief criticized after a disappointing performance in the midterm elections that kept Senate control with Democrats.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Legislation to protect same-sex and interracial marriages crossed a major Senate hurdle Wednesday, putting Congress on track to take the historic step of ensuring that such unions are enshrined in federal law.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Obama Foundation program that has trained hundreds of young leaders across Africa, the Asia-Pacific and Europe is being expanded to include the United States.
UKRAINE
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian airstrikes targeted Ukraine's energy facilities again Thursday as the first snow of the season fell in Kyiv, a harbinger of the hardship to come if Moscow's missiles continue to take out power and gas plants as winter descends.
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AP) — China and India, after months of refusing to condemn Russia's war in Ukraine, did not stand in the way of the release this week of a statement by the world's leading economies that strongly criticizes Moscow.