VOL. 45 | NO. 52 | Friday, December 24, 2021
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
Those following the Nashville residential real estate market witnessed a surprising march through the initial COVID-19 invasion when the city was closed for several weeks. Even having been designated an essential service, the real estate community had concerns over what the future might hold, even as buyers were still flocking into town in swarms.
NONPROFITS
The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, a charitable organization dedicated to enriching the quality of life in Middle Tennessee and beyond, announces $2,664,888 in grants to 439 local nonprofit organizations as part of the 2021 annual grantmaking process.
TENNESSEE TITANS
After the Tennessee Titans’ Sunday loss in Pittsburgh, Coach Mike Vrabel was asked if the game got away from his club.
In a season in which the Titans have now played an NFL-record 87 players, Zach Cunningham is quite the find this late in the year, and was able to plug right in and make a strong Tennessee defense even stronger against Pittsburgh.
The Titans head into the home stretch of their regular season and now host the Miami Dolphins, who suddenly have put things together and found playoff life that did not necessarily exist early in the season.
UT SPORTS
Before the signatures began rolling into the Tennessee football offices last week, the Vols received a huge commitment.
NEWSMAKERS
Nashville Metropolitan Chief Public Defender Martesha L. Johnson has been named 2022 president of the Nashville Bar Association. The Nashville native has served as assistant public defender for nine years before becoming the first African American and second woman to be elected to her current role, where she has been for three years.
BRIEFS
Monarch Alternative Capital LP, an investment firm with approximately $9.5 billion of assets under management, has purchased the 8-acre Beaman Toyota dealership property on Broadway.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Every year Edmunds’ experts put their heads together to determine the very best new vehicles on sale. Spread across nine categories, the Edmunds Top Rated Awards are given to the cars, trucks and SUVs that rank at the top of their class according to Edmunds’ vehicle testing program.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
Well, this isn’t working. You set goals for yourself before the pandemic hit, and none of them have been met. By now, you thought you’d be well on your way to a better career, maybe have a few Bucket List things crossed-off, but noooooo.
PERSONAL FINANCE
If you leave a job or retire, you’re often encouraged to roll over your 401(k) or other workplace retirement account into an individual retirement account. That might not be the right move.
CAREER CORNER
Do you remember when holidays meant getting together with co-workers at a fancy restaurant? Or, they were a time for a fun little holiday work lunch where your boss would let the entire team go home early.
UT SPORTS
Candace Parker wrestled with the decision to make a huge change in her life and leave Los Angeles — where she had played her entire WNBA career — and head home to Chicago.
NASHVILLE (AP) — First-year Tennessee coach Josh Heupel has the Volunteers in the Music City Bowl for the third time overall.
STATEWIDE
SHERWOOD (AP) — More than 1,000 acres (405 hectares) have been added to southcentral Tennessee's Bear Hollow Mountain Wildlife Managment Area, connecting two sections of the WMA that were previously divided.
TRANSPORTATION
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia said Wednesday it is lifting its ban on Boeing's 737 Max aircraft, three years after one crashed into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff killing all 189 people on board.
TECHNOLOGY
BEIJING (AP) — China is calling on the United States to protect a Chinese space station and its three-member crew after Beijing complained that satellites launched by Elon Musk's SpaceX nearly struck the station.
NONPROFITS
On GivingTuesday, officials at New Jersey-based health care charity Sostento learned they would receive a donation of roughly $58,000 by the end of the week.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's health minister said Wednesday that the country's coronavirus infection rate is likely two to three times higher than statistics currently show, and urged his compatriots to be cautious during New Year's celebrations.
BERLIN (AP) — The World Health Organization says the number of COVID-19 cases recorded worldwide increased by 11% last week compared with the previous week, with the biggest increase in the Americas. The gain followed a gradual increase since October.
Greece's health minister said Wednesday that music will be banned at all commercial venues for New Year's celebrations as part of new restrictions announced in response to a surge in COVID-19 infections fueled by the omicron variant.
PARIS (AP) — France's government is forging ahead with efforts to increase pressure on unvaccinated people to get coronavirus shots, as the country reported 208,000 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday — a record fueled by the omicron variant.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Wall Street ended another wobbly day mostly higher, enough for the S&P 500 to notch another record high.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 28
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials have picked 10 youth mental health programs statewide to receive a combined $6.5 million to expand their offerings.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices surged again in October as the housing market continues to boom in the wake of last year's coronavirus recession.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks closed mixed on Wall Street Tuesday, leaving the S&P 500 just shy of its latest record high set a day earlier.
BEIJING (AP) — To help make China a self-reliant "technology superpower," the ruling Communist Party is pushing the world's biggest e-commerce company to take on the tricky, expensive business of designing its own processor chips — a business unlike anything Alibaba Group has done before.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials' decision to shorten the recommended COVID-19 isolation and quarantine period from 10 days to five is drawing criticism from some medical experts and could create more confusion and fear among Americans.
In Germany, Lutheran pastors are offering COVID-19 shots inside churches. In Israel's science-skeptical ultra-Orthodox community, trusted rabbis are trying to change minds. And in South Africa, undertakers are taking to the streets to spread the word.
BNEI BRAK, Israel (AP) — Yossi Levy has repeatedly booked and canceled his coronavirus vaccine appointment. The 45-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jew recovered from the virus earlier this year, as have his eight children and wife. But a combination of lethargy and procrastination has prevented him from following through and getting inoculated.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol has agreed to defer its request for hundreds of pages of records from the Trump administration, bending to the wishes of the Biden White House.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 27
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — The downtown Nashville street where a bomb went off on Christmas morning 2020 is set to reopen to traffic and pedestrians Monday morning, though it won't soon be back to normal.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Some victims of the Christmas Day bombing in Nashville are still struggling to recover financially a year later and help is still available, officials said.
COURTS
GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — A judge on Monday was set to consider a request from prosecutors to reduce the 110-year prison sentence of a truck driver for an explosive crash that killed four people in suburban Denver.
MEDIA
NEW YORK (AP) — The presidential election, pandemic and racial reckoning were stories that drove intense interest and engagement to news outlets in 2020. To a large degree, 2021 represented the inevitable hangover.
TRANSPORTATION
NEW YORK (AP) — Flight cancellations that disrupted holiday travel stretched into Monday, with major U.S. airlines each canceling dozens of flights.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said Monday the U.S. should consider a vaccination mandate for domestic air travel, signaling a potential embrace of an idea the Biden administration has previously eschewed, as COVID-19 cases spike.
WASHINGTON (AP) — About two dozen sailors on a U.S. Navy warship — or roughly 25% of the crew — have now tested positive for COVID-19, keeping the ship sidelined in port at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba Monday, according to U.S. defense officials.
BRUSSELS (AP) — After struggling with the coronavirus for far too long, the world understands all too well Belgium's word of the year, "knaldrang!" — the urge to party, the need to let loose. Yet as New Year celebrations approach, the omicron variant is casting more gloom.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden says the federal government will buy half a billion COVID-19 rapid test kits and distribute them free of charge to people to use at home. But despite the high public demand for tests, it will still be several more weeks before these kits are available to be shipped. The administration is still working on details for how the program will work.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City's sweeping mandate requiring nearly all private-sector businesses to ban unvaccinated employees from the workplace took effect Monday amid a spike in coronavirus infections.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Technology companies led U.S. stocks broadly higher Monday, extending the market's recent rally and nudging the S&P 500 to another all-time high.
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — The latest COVID-19 variant is upending holiday plans for tens of thousands of travelers — but it didn't do much damage to holiday shopping.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law Monday, authorizing $768.2 billion in military spending, including a 2.7% pay raise for service members, for 2022.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden insists that he strongly believes in the rights spelled out in the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that are now under the most dire threat in decades.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden marked his first Christmas in office by making calls to military service members stationed around the world, offering them holiday wishes and gratitude for their service and sacrifice for the nation.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 23
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump turned to the Supreme Court Thursday in a last-ditch effort to keep documents away from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol led by his supporters.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday made two final nominations to the federal bench this year as he caps his first year in office with 40 judges confirmed, the most since Ronald Reagan was president.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says it will hold a special session in just over two weeks to weigh challenges to two Biden administration policies covering vaccine requirements for millions of workers, policies that affect large employers and health care workers.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new single-family homes rose 12.4% in November, the fastest pace in seven months, as the housing industry continued to benefit from low mortgage rates and strong demand.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Under pressure from U.S. auto safety regulators, Tesla has agreed to stop allowing video games to be played on center touch screens while its vehicles are moving.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials say a review has led them to adjust the state's number of COVID-19 deaths to 20,644, up by about 2,700.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health regulators on Thursday authorized the second pill against COVID-19, providing another easy-to-use medication to battle the rising tide of omicron infections.
Dave Fravel and his wife invited several relatives to their Cape Cod home for Christmas to share food, gifts and the togetherness they've longed for during the lonely days of the pandemic. They were also looking forward to a holiday sightseeing trip to New York City.
Two new British studies provide some early hints that the omicron variant of the coronavirus may be milder than the delta version.
BEIJING (AP) — China plunged a city of 13 million people into lockdown on Thursday to stamp out an increase in coronavirus infections, as the country doubles down on its "zero tolerance" policy just weeks before it is set to host the Winter Olympics.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks closed higher on Wall Street Thursday, leaving major indexes with solid gains in this holiday-shortened week.
NEW YORK (AP) — Under pressure to improve worker rights, Amazon has reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board to allow its employees to freely organize — and without retaliation.
Wall Street delivered another strong year for investors in 2021, as a resurgence in consumer demand fueled by the reopening of the global economy pumped up corporate profits.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer prices rose 5.7% over the past year, the fastest pace in 39 years, as a surge in inflation confronts Americans with the holiday shopping season under way.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits was unchanged last week, remaining at a historically low level that reflects the job market's strong recovery from the coronavirus recession last year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is awarding more than $241 million in grants to bolster U.S ports, part of the Biden administration's near-term plan to address America's clogged supply chain with infrastructure improvements to speed the flow of goods.
BEIJING (AP) — Intel Corp. apologized Thursday for asking suppliers to avoid sourcing goods from Xinjiang after the world's biggest chipmaker joined other foreign brands that face the fury of state media over complaints of abuses by the ruling Communist Party in the mostly Muslim region.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden, along with progressive and moderate Democrats, appears determined to return to the negotiating table with Sen. Joe Manchin, the holdout Democrat who effectively tanked the party's signature $2 trillion domestic policy initiative.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As Russia was working to subvert U.S. elections and sow discord among Americans, Congress directed the creation of an intelligence center to lead efforts to stop interference by foreign adversaries. But two years later, that center still is not close to opening.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said Wednesday he has tested positive for COVID-19, though he is fully vaccinated with a booster and has no symptoms.