VOL. 45 | NO. 53 | Friday, December 31, 2021
JOE ROGERS: MY TAKE
What the hell happened to 2021? I don’t mean that in the “Where did it go?” sense. It went the same place all years go, into the dustbin of history. (Points for anyone who recognizes the Barney Fife allusion.)
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
A few months ago, many were excited for 2021 to end and thrilled to welcome 2022. That might have changed, as it seems that everyone knows someone who has contracted COVID recently. “As infectious as the measles,” people are saying, though it seems even more so.
REAL ESTATE
Top residential real estate sales, November 2021, for Davidson County, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
UT SPORTS
No matter the time of day or amount of work he’s accumulated, Dr. Chris Klenck is always available. Every athlete or coach at the University of Tennessee knows they can walk into his office on campus or call, and Klenck will provide his undivided attention.
NASHVILLE (AP) — First-year Tennessee coach Josh Heupel has the Volunteers in the Music City Bowl for the third time overall.
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.
NEWSMAKERS
The 2021 edition of Mid-South Super Lawyers recently honored several attorneys in the Nashville area as Super Lawyers or Rising Stars.
BRIEFS
Second Avenue, the site of the 2020 Christmas morning bombing, reopened to traffic and pedestrians Monday morning, though it won’t soon be back to normal.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Remember the compact trucks that were popular in the 1980s and 1990s? Well, they’ve made a comeback for the 2022 model year via the all-new Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
Your credit score will start to matter sooner than you may realize.
CAREER CORNER
If 2021 left you feeling disappointed at work (and who doesn’t feel that way?), today is the day to start turning things around for 2022.
PREDATORS
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Filip Forsberg scored twice, Juuse Saros made 41 saves and the Nashville Predators beat the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 on Tuesday night.
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have moved a step closer to having the 2020 AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year back, opening the 21-day window Wednesday for Derrick Henry to start practicing.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee outside linebacker Bud Dupree has been charged with misdemeanor assault in connection with a physical altercation at a Walgreen's hours after the Titans clinched their second straight AFC South title.
STATEWIDE
SPENCER (AP) — Tennessee officials have opened up a new $40.4 million lodge at Fall Creek Falls State Park.
COURTS
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A jury has ended the suspense surrounding the fraud trial of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes by finding her guilty on four of the 11 charges facing her, but some issues in the legal drama remain unresolved. Here's a look at some of the most pressing questions.
AUTO INDUSTRY
PITTSFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — The competition among U.S. automakers for a still-small pool of consumers seeking electric vehicles is quickly intensifying.
TECHNOLOGY
LONDON (AP) — Germany's antitrust watchdog paved the way Wednesday for extra scrutiny of Google by designating it a company of "paramount significance," the first to get that label since regulators got more power to curb abusive practices by big digital companies.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials said Wednesday they are not changing the qualifications for being "fully vaccinated" against COVID-19, but they are urging Americans to stay "up to date" on their protection against the virus by getting booster shots when eligible.
The explosive increase in U.S. coronavirus case counts is raising alarm, but some experts believe the focus should instead be on COVID-19 hospital admissions. And those aren't climbing as fast.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday explained the scientific rationale for shortening its COVID-19 isolation and quarantine recommendations, and clarified that the guidance applies to kids as well as adults.
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong authorities announced a two-week ban on flights from the United States and seven other countries and held 2,500 passengers on a cruise ship for coronavirus testing Wednesday as the city attempted to stem an emerging omicron outbreak.
PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron has provoked outcries in parliament and protests from election rivals by using a vulgarity to describe his strategy for pressuring vaccine refusers to get coronavirus jabs.
MADRID (AP) — Like many people, Alberto Pérez of Madrid used a home test to discover that his headache and cold-like symptoms were caused by COVID-19.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. job market is nearly at levels healthy enough that the central bank's low-interest rate policies are no longer needed, Federal Reserve officials concluded last month, according to minutes of the meeting released Wednesday.
Stocks closed lower on Wall Street Wednesday after minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting raised expectations that the central bank will move faster to raise interest rates to fight inflation.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — ExxonMobil said Wednesday that it made two additional oil discoveries off the coast of Guyana as the South American country prepares to become the world's newest major oil producer.
BEIJING (AP) — A troubled Chinese real estate developer with $310 billion of debt is asking investors in one of its bonds to postpone when they will be repaid.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and Germany said Wednesday that Russia's military buildup near Ukraine's border poses an "immediate and urgent challenge" to European security and that any intervention will draw severe consequences.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert Santos was sworn in Wednesday as the head of the nation's largest statistical agency, becoming the first Hispanic director of the U.S. Census Bureau.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The suspect was covered from head to toe, skulking through the dark streets of the nation's capital before methodically placing two explosives outside the offices of the Republican and Democratic national committees.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Around three dozen Democrats were trapped in the House gallery on Jan. 6 after the rest of their colleagues had been evacuated, ducking beneath their seats as supporters of then-President Donald Trump laid siege.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection on Tuesday requested an interview with Fox News personality Sean Hannity, one of former President Donald Trump's closest allies in the media, as the committee continues to widen its scope.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 4
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says all nine justices have received COVID-19 booster shots. The court's confirmation came Tuesday amid the omicron variant surging and in-person arguments over vaccines scheduled at the court on Friday.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials are appealing a judge's order that blocked the state's new severe limits on when public schools can require masks during the COVID-19 pandemic and its ban against local officials making decisions about quarantines in schools.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — U.S. new vehicle sales rebounded slightly last year from 2020's dismal numbers, but forecasters expect them to be more than 2 million below the years before the coronavirus pandemic.
TRANSPORTATION
A forecast of better weather means that the worst may finally be over for tens of thousands of air travelers who were grounded by flight cancellations that skyrocketed over the New Year's Day weekend.
TECHNOLOGY
AT&T and Verizon said Monday they will delay activating new 5G wireless service for two weeks following a request by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who cited the airline industry's concern that the service could interfere with systems on planes.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden urged concern but not alarm Tuesday as the U.S. set new records for daily reported COVID-19 cases and his administration struggled to ease concerns about testing shortages, school closures and other disruptions caused by the surging omicron variant.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge in Texas has granted a preliminary injunction stopping the Navy from acting against 35 sailors for refusing on religious grounds to comply with an order to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Some school systems around the U.S. extended their holiday break Monday or switched back to online instruction because of the explosion in COVID-19 cases, while others pressed ahead with in-person classes amid a seemingly growing sense that Americans will have to learn to co-exist with the virus.
Why are so many vaccinated people getting COVID-19 lately?
Starbucks says its U.S. workers must be fully vaccinated by Feb. 9 or face a weekly COVID testing requirement.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Slumping technology stocks left the S&P 500 slightly lower on Wall Street Tuesday, even as the Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 blue-chip companies marked another record high.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Growth in U.S. manufacturing slowed in December to an 11-month low with companies still combating supply chain problems.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A record 4.5 million American workers quit their jobs in November, a sign of confidence and more evidence that the U.S. job market is bouncing back strongly from last year's coronavirus recession.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — OPEC and allied oil-producing countries decided Tuesday to pump more oil to the world economy amid hope that travel and demand for fuel will hold up despite the rapid spread of the omicron variant of COVID-19.
BEIJING (AP) — A troubled Chinese real estate developer that is struggling with $310 billion in debt announced Tuesday it has been ordered to demolish a 39-building resort complex in a new blow to its finances.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said Tuesday his opposition to President Joe Biden's roughly $2 trillion package of social and environmental initiatives remains undimmed, as party leaders said work on the stalled measure was on hold until at least later this month.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The fighting — so primitive and ferocious that one Capitol Police officer described it as "medieval" and another as a "trip to hell" — left more than 100 law enforcement personnel injured, some beaten with their own weapons.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A year after thousands of violent pro-Trump rioters overwhelmed police officers at the U.S. Capitol — severely injuring dozens in the process — the force dedicated to protecting the premier symbol of American democracy has transformed.
BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO announced Tuesday that the alliance will hold a virtual meeting of foreign ministers from the 30 member nations this week to assess the situation in Ukraine and upcoming talks with Russia.
MONDAY, JANUARY 3
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The resilient Tennessee Titans now are two-time AFC South champs and just one victory away from making the AFC playoffs come through Nashville.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans are dancing as back-to-back AFC South champs in a season when they lost the NFL's leading rusher at Halloween and have used 88 players — most ever in a non-strike season for the NFL.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — At a time when the omicron variant of the coronavirus is surging, Tennessee health officials say they will no longer provide daily COVID-19 data releases starting this week.
COURTS
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The jury weighing fraud charges against former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes on Monday said it is deadlocked on three of the 11 felony counts against her. Holmes is accused of duping investors and patients about a blood-testing technology that she hailed as a medical breakthrough.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Florida business owner Robert Palmer cheered on the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 before he joined the fray. Screaming obscenities, he hurled a wooden plank and a fire extinguisher at police officers trying to ward off the mob.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — A couple of months ago, a woman paid a visit to Jeff Schrier's used car lot in Omaha, Nebraska. She was on a tight budget, she said, and was desperate for a vehicle to commute to work.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Tesla delivered a record 936,000 vehicles last year, up 87% from its 2020 delivery count, the company said.
TRANSPORTATION
A winter storm hitting the mid-Atlantic combined with the pandemic to further frustrate air travelers whose return flights home from the holidays were canceled or delayed in the first few days of the new year.
TECHNOLOGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — Three bright and driven women with ground-breaking ideas made significant — if very different — marks on the embattled tech industry in 2021.
BERLIN (AP) — The German government said Monday that it considers nuclear energy dangerous and objects to European Union proposals that would let the technology remain part of the bloc's plans for a climate-friendly future.
Is anyone going to CES this year? A long-simmering question in the tech world will finally get its answer as the influential gadget show returns to the Las Vegas Strip after a hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Verizon and AT&T have rejected a request by the U.S. government to delay the rollout of next-generation wireless technology.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the COVID-19 omicron variant surges across the United States, top federal health officials are looking to add a negative test along with its five-day isolation restrictions for asymptomatic Americans who catch the coronavirus, the White House's top medical adviser said Sunday.
Pandemics do eventually end, even if omicron is complicating the question of when this one will. But it won't be like flipping a light switch: The world will have to learn to coexist with a virus that's not going away.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Wall Street got 2022 off to a solid start with more record highs for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden met virtually with independent farmers and ranchers on Monday to discuss initiatives to reduce food prices by increasing competition within the meat industry, part of a broader effort to show his administration is trying to combat inflation.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress' top doctor urged lawmakers Monday to move to a "maximal telework posture," citing "unprecedented" numbers of COVID-19 cases at the Capitol that he said are mostly breakthrough infections of people already vaccinated.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Days before the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the Senate will vote on filibuster rules changes to advance stalled voting legislation that Democrats say is needed to protect democracy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has gotten the same troubling questions from worried world leaders, ones that he never thought he would hear.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has gotten the same troubling questions from worried world leaders, ones that he never thought he would hear.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The first time Celeste Norris laid eyes on Ashli Babbitt, the future insurrectionist had just rammed her vehicle three times with an SUV and was pounding on the window, challenging her to a fight.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Ryan Tannehill has such a bright future that the Tennessee quarterback is in no mood to look back, not when the Titans need one more victory to clinch a second straight AFC South title.
PREDATORS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Evgeny Kuznetsov scored a late short-handed goal in his return from an 18-day absence to put the Washington Capitals ahead for good in a 5-3 victory over the Nashville Predators on Wednesday night.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee has received its first shipments of oral antiviral treatments for COVID-19, the Tennessee Department of Health said on Thursday.
COURTS
A company that operates a network of addiction treatment centers has agreed to pay $4.5 million to settle allegations that it charged the Massachusetts Medicaid program for unnecessary urine drug testing that was illegally performed at the company's own lab, officials said Thursday.
NEW YORK (AP) — Drugmaker Teva Pharmaceuticals is responsible for contributing to the opioid crisis, a suburban New York jury ruled Thursday in one of few verdicts so far among thousands of lawsuits nationwide over the painkillers.
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The jury weighing fraud charges against former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes departed court Wednesday without reaching a verdict after six days of deliberations. It won't resume discussions until after the upcoming New Year's holiday weekend.
TRANSPORTATION
The forces that have scrambled thousands of flights since Christmas Eve could ease in January, but that's cold comfort to the millions of flyers with New Year's plans.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health officials on Thursday pressed nursing home workers to get their booster shots amid a spike in COVID-19 cases among staffers and a concerning lag in booster vaccination for residents and staff.
CHICAGO (AP) — More than a year after the vaccine was rolled out, new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. have soared to their highest level on record at over 265,000 per day on average, a surge driven largely by the highly contagious omicron variant.
SIBIU, Romania (AP) — As the fast-spreading coronavirus variant omicron rages through Western Europe, officials and experts in low-vaccinated Eastern Europe anticipate a post-holiday explosion of COVID-19 cases in much of the region.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
A late slide pulled major indexes into the red on Wall Street Thursday, leaving the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slightly below the record highs they set a day earlier.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell below 200,000, more evidence that the job market remains strong in the aftermath of last year's coronavirus recession.
LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) — The Publix grocery store chain will start offering paid parental leave to employees who are new parents, company officials announced Wednesday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol said Thursday that the Supreme Court should let stand an appeals court ruling that the National Archives turn over documents from former President Donald Trump that might shed light on the events leading up to and including that day.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Presidents and former Senate colleagues are lauding longtime Majority Leader Harry Reid for a political legacy that included an expansion of health insurance coverage for millions of Americans and helping secure an economic aid package and banking overhaul following the 2008 financial crisis.