VOL. 43 | NO. 47 | Friday, November 22, 2019
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
The Tennessee Residential Property Disclosure was designed as a safety net for homebuyers and a lawsuit deflector for sellers. Several years and many versions and revisions later, it is almost both of these.
REAL ESTATE
Top commercial real estate sales, October 2019, for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. mortgage rates turned down this week, lowering the cost of purchasing a home and supporting the housing market.
TENNESSEE TITANS
The Tennessee Titans are still harboring playoff aspirations with six games remaining.
The Titans return after a week off to once again face a must-win situation with Jacksonville coming to town. The Titans have been notorious in recent years for following a big win, like the one before the bye against Kansas City, by laying a colossal egg in their next game.
Titans 23, Jaguars 20: The Titans have had a bad habit of blowing games like this one against bad teams, especially when coming off a big win in their last previous outing. Maybe the bye week will help level the emotions. Whatever the case, the Titans should – and the emphasis here is on should – win this game at home. Whether they do is another matter altogether.
UT SPORTS
Rick Barnes isn’t one to dole out compliments very easily after games.
NEWSMAKERS
Dan Roden, M.D., senior vice president for personalized medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has been awarded the 2019 Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Prize in Cardiovascular Sciences by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s Heart and Vascular Center.
BRIEFS
Forbes Magazine has named Butler Snow one of America’s Top Trusted Corporate Law Firms of 2019. The firm also was named “most recommended for” labor and employment law.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Lincoln has reintroduced its Aviator SUV for 2020. This new three-row luxury SUV is spacious, comfortable and at the forefront of the brand’s efforts to introduce more attractive and desirable vehicles.
PERSONAL FINANCE
A task without a deadline is just wishful thinking. Sometimes, you can get away with procrastinating. If you never get around to alphabetizing your spices, no one’s life will change.
CAREER CORNER
Have you ever had a date with someone who had recently been through a bad breakup? There’s a good chance they were nervous about the possibility of going through the same thing again. You can practically see the fear in their eyes.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — The wife of a state attorney general who's helping lead national opioid epidemic settlement negotiations has held investments in Walgreens for years.
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have placed five-time Pro Bowl linebacker Cameron Wake on injured reserve after the 37-year-old veteran was hurt late in their win over the Jaguars.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy grew at a moderate 2.1% annual rate over the summer, slightly faster than first estimated, the government said Wednesday. But many economists say they think growth is slowing sharply in the current quarter.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods rebounded last month on a surge in demand for military aircraft.
At least a half-dozen companies that make or distribute prescription opioid painkillers are facing a federal criminal investigation of their roles in a nationwide addiction and overdose crisis.
BEIJING (AP) — The Department of Commerce has proposed requiring case-by-case approvals of all purchases of telecommunications equipment in a move likely to hit major Chinese suppliers like Huawei.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has tapped a former Bank of Italy executive to take over the Vatican's financial intelligence unit following a scandal that resulted in the Vatican being suspended from an international anti-money laundering network.
CHICAGO (AP) — Carolyn Harper made her pitch for donations to the Salvation Army with a smile on her face and a bell in her hand, trying to convince shoppers along Chicago's busy Michigan Avenue that there was "no line, no wait."
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Judiciary Committee is set to take over the impeachment probe of President Donald Trump, scheduling a hearing for next week as they push closer to a possible vote on actual charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors."
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump persists in his false story that he opened an Apple manufacturing plant last week.
TUESDAY, NOV. 26
STATE GOVERNMENT
MEMPHIS (AP) — Gov. Bill Lee and Comcast say a $2.4 million fiber network expansion will bring high-speed broadband internet to a rural West Tennessee county.
STATEWIDE
OAK RIDGE (AP) — The new director of a Tennessee museum was fired from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum for lending out an irreplaceable copy of the Gettysburg Address.
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Peter Laviolette's decision to put Daniel Carr into the lineup paid off for the Nashville Predators.
VANDERBILT SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Maxwell Evans is starting to prove he's more than just a defensive specialist.
UT SPORTS
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Tennessee's Lamonte' Turner is emerging as one of the nation's top distributors while he waits for his shots to start falling again.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new homes dipped slightly in October compared with September but remain well above levels of a year ago, with lower mortgage rates helping spur a rebound in purchases.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices increased modestly in September from a year ago, as roughly seven years of rising home values have hurt affordability.
AUTO INDUSTRY
BERLIN (AP) — Volkswagen subsidiary Audi says it's cutting 9,500 jobs in Germany through 2025 as part of a transformation plan to make the company "lean and sustainable."
COURTS
FRANKLIN (AP) — A Sons of Confederate Veterans chapter in Tennessee has voluntarily dismissed its complaint against the state Historic Commission accusing it of improperly removing Civil War markers.
ENVIRONMENT
GENEVA (AP) — Countries need to begin making steep cuts to their greenhouse gas emissions immediately or risk missing the targets they've agreed for limiting global warming, with potentially dire consequences, senior United Nations officials said Tuesday.
TECHNOLOGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee are harshly criticizing tech giant Google for making it harder for political advertisers to target specific types of people.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Technology companies and retailers led stocks modestly higher on Wall Street, adding to the market's solid start to the week.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer confidence declined slightly for a fourth consecutive month, but it remains elevated with the holiday shopping season ramping up.
HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba's shares jumped 6.6% in their debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Tuesday, an auspicious start at a time when the former British colony is reeling from political unrest.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Monday sketched an optimistic view of the economy but signaled that continued low inflation means higher interest rates won't likely be necessary anytime soon.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that Democratic lawmakers are "within range of a substantially improved" trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, but that they need to see progress made in negotiations put into writing by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer for "final review."
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats are proposing a broad federal data privacy law that would allow people to see what information companies have collected on them and demand that it be deleted.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Judiciary Committee is set to take over the impeachment probe of President Donald Trump next week, scheduling a Dec. 4 hearing on the question of "high crimes and misdemeanors" set out in the Constitution.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Oversight Committee sued two top Trump administration officials Tuesday for refusing to produce documents related to a decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
WASHINGTON (AP) — John Bolton's attorney is suggesting that a court order directing former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify to Congress has no bearing on whether his client and another ex-national security official will appear.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has ordered former White House counsel Donald McGahn to appear before Congress in a setback to President Donald Trump's effort to keep his top aides from testifying.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Mark Esper declared that President Donald Trump ordered him to stop a disciplinary review of a Navy SEAL accused of battlefield misconduct, an intervention that raised questions about America's commitment to international standards for battlefield ethics.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is shielding President Donald Trump's financial records from House Democrats for now.
MONDAY, NOV. 25
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee lawmaker wants to change the name of the state's legislative office building from that of a Democratic Nobel laureate to a Republican one-term governor.
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans scored touchdowns so fast and furiously quarterback Ryan Tannehill needed a little help recalling the exact order.
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville Predators forward Viktor Arvidsson will miss four to six weeks after hurting his lower body when cross-checked during the first period of Saturday night's 4-2 win over St. Louis.
COURTS
LOS ANGELES (AP) — McDonald's has agreed to a $26 million settlement of a long-running class-action lawsuit over wages and work conditions at corporate-run locations in California, the parties said Monday.
KNOXVILLE (AP) — More than 40 insurance companies are suing the federal government over its handling of a 2016 Tennessee wildfire that killed 14 people and destroyed or damaged more than 2,500 buildings in Sevier County.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is raising doubts about Alaska's $500-a-year limit on contributions to political candidates. The justices are ordering a lower court to take a new look at the issue.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a Maryland man's bid for a new trial based on information uncovered by the hit podcast "Serial."
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court won't revive a lawsuit against a firearms website over a suburban Milwaukee spa shooting.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has returned to the court after a two-night stay in a hospital.
TRANSPORTATION
LONDON (AP) — London's transit authority on Monday refused to renew Uber's operating license over concerns about impostor drivers, with the ride-hailing company vowing to appeal the decision as it struggles to secure its future in the British capital.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — A flurry of buyout deals and rising optimism about U.S.-China trade talks sent stocks back to record heights Monday, the latest bit of fuel for a market that's been climbing since early last month.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's finance ministry says the country has completed an early repayment of loans to the International Monetary Fund worth 2.7 billion euros ($2.9 billion).
EBay is selling StubHub to ticket seller viagogo for $4.05 billion in cash.
NEW YORK (AP) — Charles Schwab is buying rival TD Ameritrade in a $26 billion stock swap, a blockbuster agreement brought about by massive disruption in the online brokerage industry.
PARIS (AP) — French luxury group LVMH has agreed to buy New York jeweler Tiffany & Co. for $16.2 billion, adding a famed star to its portfolio that already boasts Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Bulgari.
BEIJING (AP) — China issued new, tougher guidelines for protection of patents, copyrights and other intellectual property in a move that may be timed to help along halting progress in trade talks with the United States.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch energy company Eneco says it has agreed to a proposed 4.1 billion-euro ($4.5 billion) takeover by Japanese corporations Mitsubishi and Chubu.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has ordered former White House counsel Donald McGahn to appear before Congress in a setback to President Donald Trump's effort to keep his top aides from testifying.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff says his committee is preparing an impeachment report to submit to the House Judiciary Committee "soon after Congress returns from the Thanksgiving recess."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Monday that President Donald Trump gave him a direct order to allow a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes to retire without losing his SEAL status.
WASHINGTON (AP) — After two weeks of public hearings, Democrats could soon turn the impeachment process over to the House Judiciary Committee. They're moving "expeditiously" ahead as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has instructed.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's latest reasons for firing Marie Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine: She was an "Obama person" who refused to hang Trump's portrait in the U.S. Embassy. That's false on both counts.
WASHINGTON (AP) — George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide and key figure in the FBI's Russia probe, says he's running for the California Congressional District seat vacated by Democrat Katie Hill.
FRIDAY, NOV. 22
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Vancouver Canucks hurt the Nashville Predators with their power play.
AUTO INDUSTRY
The much-hyped unveiling of Tesla's electric pickup truck went off script Thursday night when supposedly unbreakable window glass splintered twice when hit with a large metal ball.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Health advocates are encouraging President Donald Trump to move forward with a federal ban on thousands of flavors used in e-cigarettes.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will take up the Trump administration's bid to end a lawsuit filed by Muslim men who say they were placed on the government's no-fly list because they refused to serve as FBI informants.
CHICAGO (AP) — Boeing has settled about half of the lawsuits filed in federal court over the October 2018 crash of a 737 Max jet off the coast of Indonesia.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are closing higher on Wall Street after three days of losses as a week of worry about trade talks between the U.S. and China winds down.
BEIJING (AP) — President Xi Jinping said Friday that Beijing wants to work for a trade deal with the United States but is not afraid to "fight back" to protect its own interests.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California is increasing business tax rates on legal marijuana, a move that stunned struggling companies that have been pleading with the state to do just the opposite.
BERLIN (AP) — Taking the stage exactly 14 years after becoming German chancellor, Angela Merkel has told party faithful in Leipzig she had never imagined being in power for so long, but that the work isn't done.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — After two weeks of public hearings, Democrats could soon turn the impeachment process over to the House Judiciary Committee. They're moving "expeditiously" ahead as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has instructed.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is withholding more than $100 million in U.S. military assistance to Lebanon that has been approved by Congress and is favored by his national security team.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he does not expect to be impeached, claiming Democrats have "absolutely nothing" incriminating, despite days of public testimony by witnesses who said Trump withheld aid from Ukraine to press the country to investigate his political rivals.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Offering his own take on five long days of public hearings, President Donald Trump brushed off the impeachment inquiry as "total nonsense" on Friday and bad-mouthed a number of the U.S. diplomats who testified to Congress about his Ukraine pressure campaign.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday wouldn't commit to signing bipartisan legislation supporting pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong as he tries to work out a trade deal with China.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump appeared to open the door on Friday for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to run for an open Senate seat in his home state of Kansas.
WASHINGTON (AP) — After two weeks of riveting public hearings in the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, there is a mountain of evidence that is now beyond dispute.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday touted news reports that a former FBI lawyer is suspected of altering a document related to surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser in 2016.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump asked a foreign country to investigate a political rival as he enters his reelection campaign. That has been established almost beyond doubt. But Republicans and Democrats agree on little else as they engage in on only the fourth impeachment inquiry in the nation's history.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former White House official said Thursday that President Donald Trump's top European envoy was sent on a "domestic political errand" seeking investigations of Democrats, stunning testimony that dismantled a main line of the president's defense in the impeachment inquiry.
THURSDAY, NOV. 21
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — Country singer Sam Hunt was arrested for driving under the influence and violation of the open container law after police in Nashville stopped him for driving the wrong way down a one-way road.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee is releasing proposed rules and has hired a director for its online-only sports betting program. But there's still no indication of when people can start placing bets.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Reversing course, Tennessee's Department of Education says it aims to ensure its school vouchers won't be taxable.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — A glitch in Medicare's revamped prescription plan finder can steer unwitting seniors to coverage that costs much more than they need to pay, according to people who help with sign-ups as well as program experts.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In almost any other year it would be hailed as a public health victory: The smoking rate among U.S. high schoolers took its biggest hit ever this year, federal figures show, falling to a new low.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans took advantage of lower mortgage rates and purchased more homes in October, though sales were held back by a shortage of available properties.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Automakers sue each other on occasion, but no one in Detroit can remember one accusing another of bribing union officials to get an unfair labor cost advantage.
MILAN (AP) — The chairman of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is indicating that the merger with French carmaker PSA Peugeot will not be affected by a General Motors lawsuit.
BEIJING (AP) — China is working to resolve conflicts with Washington over trade, a Commerce Ministry official said Thursday, dismissing speculation the talks might be in trouble as inaccurate "rumors."
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats and Manhattan's top prosecutor told the Supreme Court Thursday that President Donald Trump's arguments to shield his tax returns and financial records are weak, and not deserving of the justices' intervention.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — President Donald Trump does not have to disclose his tax returns to appear as a candidate on California's primary ballot next spring, a unanimous state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge has temporarily halted the first federal executions in 16 years, saying death row inmates scheduled to be executed are likely to win their legal challenge.
CHICAGO (AP) — A group of employees from 13 McDonald's restaurants in Chicago filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging that the company's drive for profits puts workers at "daily risk" of physical attack by dangerous customers.
ENVIRONMENT
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The Trump administration will consider a new management plan and expanded oil drilling for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, an Indiana-size area that former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar characterized as an "iconic place on our Earth."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Department figures show criminal prosecution and convictions of polluters have fallen to quarter-century lows under the Trump administration's Environmental Protection Agency.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks closed modestly lower on Wall Street Thursday after a mostly listless day of trading handed the market its third straight drop.
NEW YORK (AP) — Macy's weak third-quarter earnings report threw coal on the holiday season and offered the latest sign of challenges for traditional clothing retailers operating at malls.
CLAYTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Dave Crabill and two business partners started small for their first foray into farming hemp, growing two strains of the now-legal cousin of marijuana on an acre along a dirt road outside the industrial city of Flint.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — In riveting testimony, a former national security official declared Thursday that a U.S. ambassador carried out a controversial "domestic political errand" for Donald Trump on Ukraine, an allegation undercutting a main line of the president's defense in the impeachment inquiry.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says there is clear evidence that President Donald Trump has used his office for his personal gain. She says doing that "undermined the national security of the United States."
WASHINGTON (AP) — The final testimony of an extraordinary week of impeachment hearings came from a former White House national security adviser who wrote the book on Vladimir Putin — literally — and a political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine who overheard a pivotal conversation between President Donald Trump and European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and his GOP allies pressed a defense Thursday that he acted appropriately in withholding military aid to Ukraine out of concern over the country's corruption and claimed the House impeachment hearings amounted to a rogue process.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-held Senate passed a temporary government-wide spending bill that would keep federal agencies up and running through Dec. 20 and avert a government shutdown after midnight Thursday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that the Navy "will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher's Trident Pin," inserting himself into an ongoing legal review of the sailor's ability to hold onto the pin that designates him a SEAL.