VOL. 48 | NO. 47 | Friday, November 22, 2024
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
While the National Association of Realtors might be better known for its attorneys than any other professional group in its midst, it also has a chief economist, though he has stayed out of the headlines for the most part.
REAL ESTATE
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose in October, the first annual gain in more than three years, with home shoppers encouraged by easing rates and a pickup in properties on the market.
The average rate on a 30-year mortgage in the U.S. edged closer to 7% this week as it climbed to its highest level since July.
MARKETS
Stocks closed higher on Wall Street as the market posted its fifth straight gain and the Dow Jones Industrial Average notched another record high.
TENNESSEE TITANS
It has become pretty clear that the right tackle position will not be fixed at any point this year for the Tennessee Titans.
The name Bryce Oliver might not mean much to casual Titans fans.
The Titans continue to fight, but the results have not been favorable. At least they haven’t taken any drubbings like the Jaguars did in Detroit Sunday. That said, they will be facing a big challenge on the road this week in a division game against Houston.
NEWSMAKERS
Drew Holt has joined Neal & Harwell, PLC as an associate in the firm’s litigation group.
BRIEFS
To better understand how to connect people experiencing homelessness in Nashville to the housing and services they need, Metro Nashville’s Office of Homeless Services is integrating their data collection system with Nashville’s largest shelter provider, the Nashville Rescue Mission.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
The holidays are coming and so are the car deals. As the year draws to a close, many manufacturers will have end-of-year or holiday sales designed to bring shoppers into showrooms and move metal.
UT SPORTS
Little kids usually grow up dreaming about winning the Heisman Trophy, not the Burlsworth Trophy. They all want to be starters right away, not stand on the sideline and patiently wait for a turn that may never come.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The 10th-ranked Tennessee Volunteers have lots to celebrate as they play their final home game of the season. They also have some serious questions to answer.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
Everybody, it seems, is doing better than you are.
TRAVEL
On Sunday, Nov. 10, Amtrak’s newest long-distance train route made its inaugural departure. In September, the U.S. railroad company announced it would temporarily resurrect the long-retired “Floridian” and its Chicago-to-Miami route.
Amid employee strikes, manufacturer controversies, service outages, and President Joe Biden’s crackdown on industry policies, American air travel is having its most tumultuous year since 2020. The United States Department of Transportation’s (DOT) latest report found 2% of August flights were canceled, surpassing their year-to-date cancellation rate of 1.7%.
NASHVILLE PREDATORS
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Nico Hischier recorded his first career hat trick to give the New Jersey Devils a 5-2 win over the Nashville Predators on Monday.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — One year after the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department was committed to holding accountable all perpetrators "at any level" for "the assault on our democracy." That bold declaration won't apply to at least one person: Donald Trump.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Married couples across the U.S. have had access to no-fault divorce for more than 50 years, an option many call crucial to supporting domestic abuse victims and key to preventing already crowded family courts from drowning in complicated divorce proceedings.
A bankruptcy judge on Monday delayed a hearing in conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' effort to stop the satirical news outlet The Onion from buying Infowars, keeping the auction sale up in the air for at least another few weeks.
REAL ESTATE
The Federal Housing Finance Agency is increasing the size of home loans that the government can guarantee against default as it takes into account rising housing prices.
AUTO INDUSTRY
ATLANTA (AP) — President Joe Biden's administration announced Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Energy will make a $6.6 billion loan to Rivian Automotive to build a factory in Georgia that had stalled as the startup electric vehicle maker struggled to become profitable.
HEALTH CARE
People with HIV who need a kidney or liver transplant will be able to receive an organ from a donor with HIV under a new rule announced Tuesday by U.S. health officials.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of Americans with obesity would be eligible to have popular weight-loss drugs like Wegovy or Ozempic covered by Medicare or Medicaid under a new rule the Biden administration proposed Tuesday morning.
ECONOMY
WASHINGTON (AP) — With inflation still elevated, Federal Reserve officials expressed caution at their last meeting about cutting interest rates too quickly, adding to uncertainty about their next moves.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans' outlook on the economy improved modestly in November, lifted by expectations for lower inflation and more hiring.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks closed at more records after Donald Trump's latest talk about tariffs created only some ripples on Wall Street.
NEW YORK (AP) — A ransomware attack that hit a major software provider last week caused disruptions for a handful of companies over recent days, from Starbucks to U.K. grocery giant Morrisons.
DETROIT (AP) — If Donald Trump makes good on his threat to slap 25% tariffs on everything imported from Mexico and Canada, the price increases that could follow will collide with his campaign promise to give American families a break from inflation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has identified what he sees as an all-purpose fix for what ails America: Slap huge new tariffs on foreign goods entering the United States.
Small business owners have had a mostly positive reaction to a judge's decision to strike down an overtime rule that would have qualified more workers for overtime pay.
YIWU, China (AP) — Visitors who bought fridge magnets at Times Square or other tourist hotspots around New York in recent years most likely were purchasing the work of Du Jing or one of her fellow exporters in a small Chinese city that supplies the U.S. and the world with tons of small commodities.
NEW YORK (AP) — Best Buy, the nation's largest consumer electronics chain, on Tuesday reported another quarterly drop in sales as Americans continued to tighten their purse strings on appliances and gadgets to focus on essentials.
NEW YORK (AP) — The holiday shopping season is about to reach full speed with Black Friday, which kicks off the post-Thanksgiving retail rush later this week.
PARIS (AP) — After more than 20 years of negotiations, the 27-nation European Union and Mercosur — a South American trade bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia — are still trying to finalize a major trade agreement that is sparking protests by European farmers.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
TORONTO (AP) — Canadian officials on Tuesday blasted President-elect Donald's Trump's threat to impose sweeping tariffs, as the leader of the country's most populous province called Trump's comparison of Canada to Mexico "the most insulting thing I've ever heard."
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Already bracing for funding cuts under a new Trump administration, U.S. Treasury officials are calling on Congress to unlock $20 billion in IRS enforcement money that is tied up in legislative language that has effectively rendered the money frozen.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested Tuesday that Mexico could retaliate with tariffs of its own, after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on Mexican goods if the country doesn't stop the flow of drugs and migrants across the border.
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose sweeping new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China as soon as he takes office as part of his effort to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs. He said he would impose a 25% tax on all products entering the country from Canada and Mexico, and an additional 10% tariff on goods from China, as one of his first executive orders.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The top lawyer on Donald Trump's transition team investigated a longtime adviser to the president-elect over allegations he used his proximity to Trump to score payments from those seeking roles or influence in the new administration.
NEW YORK (AP) — Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general, was chosen by Donald Trump to serve as U.S. attorney general hours after his first choice, Matt Gaetz, withdrew from consideration after a federal sex trafficking investigation and ethics probe made his ability to be confirmed dubious.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25
TENNESSEE TITANS
The Tennessee Titans are showing signs of growing tougher. This time, they shook off eight sacks and three turnovers to stave off a third straight losing season for at least another week.
HOUSTON (AP) — Will Levis and the Tennessee Titans were far from perfect Sunday.
UT SPORTS
KNOXVILLE (AP) — No. 7 Tennessee will be without J.P. Estrella the rest of the season because the sophomore forward needs surgery on his left foot, Coach Rick Barnes said Monday.
Alabama and Mississippi tumbled out of the top 10 of The Associated Press Top 25 poll Sunday and Miami and SMU moved in following a chaotic weekend in the SEC and across college football in general.
NASHVILLE PREDATORS
PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pittsburgh Penguins acquired center Philip Tomasino from the Nashville Predators on Monday in exchange for a fourth-round pick in the 2027 draft.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith moved to abandon two criminal cases against Donald Trump on Monday, acknowledging that Trump's return to the White House will preclude attempts to federally prosecute him for retaining classified documents or trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court won't hear a challenge to a federal requirement that cigarette packages and advertising include graphic images demonstrating the effects of smoking.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Google, already facing a possible breakup of the company over its ubiquitous search engine, is fighting to beat back another attack by the U.S. Department of Justice alleging monopolistic conduct, this time over technology that puts online advertising in front of consumers.
A bankruptcy judge is set to hear arguments Monday in conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' effort to stop the satirical news outlet The Onion from buying Infowars and turning it into a parody.
MEDIA
One of the striking things about how furiously many people reacted to the news last week that MSNBC "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski met with President-Elect Donald Trump was how quaint their defenders sounded.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — An advocate for major social media platforms told an Australian Senate committee Monday that laws to ban children younger than 16 from the sites should be delayed until next year at least instead of being rushed through the Parliament this week.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Kim Dotcom, the internet entrepreneur fighting deportation from New Zealand to the United States on charges relating to his file-sharing website Megaupload, has suffered a "serious stroke", a post on his X account said Monday.
AGRICULTURE
Egg prices are rising once more as a lingering outbreak of bird flu coincides with the high demand of the holiday baking season.
TRAVEL
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Workers who clean airplanes, remove trash and help with wheelchairs at Charlotte's airport, one of the nation's busiest, went on strike Monday during a busy week of Thanksgiving travel to demand higher wages.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks closed higher on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to another all-time high. The Dow added 1% Monday to the record it set on Friday. The S&P 500 rose 0.3%, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.3%. Treasury yields eased in the bond market after President-elect Donald Trump said he wants Scott Bessent, a hedge fund manager, to be his Treasury Secretary. Smaller companies can feel a big boost from easier borrowing costs, and the Russell 2000 index of small stocks jumped 1.5%, closing just shy of the record high it set three years ago.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Biden administration plans on reducing part of Intel's $8.5 billion in federal funding for computer chip plants around the country, according to three people familiar with the grant who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Investor Warren Buffett renewed his Thanksgiving tradition of giving by announcing plans Monday to hand more than $1.1 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to four of his family's foundations, and he offered new details about who will be handing out the rest of his fortune after his death.
Amazon has introduced a handful of robots in its warehouses that the e-commerce giant says will improve efficiency and reduce employee injuries.
Macy's reported stronger-than-expected sales for the third quarter and said it's delaying the release of its full quarterly results after it discovered an employee intentionally hid up to $154 million of expenses over several years.
LONDON (AP) — When Katja Vogt considers a Jaguar, she pictures a British-made car purring confidently along the Italian coastline — a vision of familiarity that conveys "that dreaming, longing feeling we all love."
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Swiss watchmaker Swatch won a suit against the Malaysian government on Monday after a court ordered the return of 172 Swatch watches that were seized last year due to designs that authorities said bore LGBT elements.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The chair of the Democratic National Committee informed party leaders on Monday that the DNC will choose his successor in February, an election that will speak volumes about how the party wants to present itself during four more years of Donald Trump in the White House.
WASHINGTON (AP) — It's a short phrase in the Constitution, mentioned in passing. But it's already taking on an outsize significance as President-elect Donald Trump charts his return to office.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump's personnel choices for his new Cabinet and White House reflect his signature positions on immigration and trade but also a range of viewpoints and backgrounds that raise questions about what ideological anchors might guide his Oval Office encore.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Republican senators pushed back on Sunday against criticism from Democrats that Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump's pick to lead U.S. intelligence services, is "compromised" by her comments supportive of Russia and secret meetings, as a congresswoman, with Syria's president, a close ally of the Kremlin and Iran.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — After several weeks working mostly behind closed doors, Vice President-elect JD Vance returned to Capitol Hill this week in a new, more visible role: Helping Donald Trump try to get his most contentious Cabinet picks through Senate confirmation in the Senate, where Vance has served for the last two years.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday he will nominate former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead the Justice Department, turning to a longtime ally after his first choice, Matt Gaetz, withdrew his name from consideration amid scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate won't hold votes on four of President Joe Biden's appellate court nominees as part of a deal with Republicans to allow for speedier consideration of other judicial nominations and bring Biden within striking distance of the 234 total judicial confirmations that occurred during President-elect Donald Trump's first term.
COURTS
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge confirmed Friday that President-elect Donald Trump won't be sentenced this month in his hush money case, instead setting a schedule for prosecutors and his lawyers to expand on their ideas about what to do next.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is allowing a multibillion-dollar class action investors' lawsuit to proceed against Facebook parent Meta, stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.
ECONOMY
HONG KONG (AP) — Higher tariffs on Chinese exports will backfire, just increasing prices paid by consumers, while China can manage to weather the impact of such "external shocks," a senior Commerce Ministry official said Friday in Beijing.
PHILANTHROPHY
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. House passed legislation Thursday that would give the Treasury Department unilateral authority to strip the tax-exempt status of nonprofits it claims support terrorism, alarming civil liberties groups about how a second Trump presidency could invoke it to punish political opponents.
TRAVEL
DALLAS (AP) — Delta and United have become the most profitable U.S. airlines by targeting premium customers while also winning back a significant share of travelers on a tight budget.
CLIMATE CRISIS
BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — A new draft of a deal on cash to curb and adapt to climate change released Friday afternoon at the United Nations climate summit pledged $250 billion by 2035 from wealthy countries to poorer ones. The amount pleases the countries who will be paying, but not those on the receiving end.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Matt Gaetz withdrew Thursday as President-elect Donald Trump's pick for attorney general following continued scrutiny over a federal sex trafficking investigation that cast doubt on the former congressman's ability to be confirmed as the nation's chief federal law enforcement officer.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The leaders of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security declined to testify publicly at a scheduled Senate committee hearing Thursday on global threats to national security, a break from standard protocol of open testimony before the panel.
Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, who was aggressive in his oversight of cryptocurrencies and other financial markets, will step down from his post on Jan. 20.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As incoming White House chief of staff, one of Susie Wiles' vexing challenges will be policing the buffet line of powerful interests who want something from Donald Trump.
WASHINGTON (AP) — When Elon Musk first suggested a new effort to cut the size of government, Donald Trump didn't seem to take it seriously. His eventual name for the idea sounded like a joke too. It would be called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a reference to an online meme featuring a surprised-looking dog from Japan.
INTERNATIONAL
THE HAGUE (AP) — The world's top war-crimes court issued arrest warrants Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and Hamas' military chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity in connection with the 13-month war in Gaza.
TECHNOLOGY
Mary Louis' excitement to move into an apartment in Massachusetts in the spring of 2021 turned to dismay when Louis, a Black woman, received an email saying that a "third-party service" had denied her tenancy.
MEDIA
Comcast's corporate reorganization means that there will soon be two television networks with "NBC" in their name — CNBC and MSNBC — that will no longer have any corporate connection to NBC News.