VOL. 48 | NO. 18 | Friday, May 3, 2024
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
The real estate community has been waiting for this one to go from pending status to full closure. Everyone can breathe easier now. It has closed, but for less than the list price.
NASHVILLE PREDATORS
In hockey’s regular season, it’s relatively rare for two teams to play consecutive games against each other. It happens, but it’s rare. And even when it does, it is just often just a two-game home-and-home type of series.
Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet told Pius Suter to keep shooting. Suter did just that, and it paid off.
The Federal Trade Commission announced last week it is banning noncompete agreements across the country with a rule that applies to almost all workers. You read that right: The FTC does not want your employer to be able to force a noncompete onto you.
UT SPORTS
Nothing is guaranteed in sports. But the odds are good that someone on the third-ranked University of Tennessee baseball team will hit a home run during any game.
BRIEFS
Oracle Corp.’s planned campus in Nashville will serve as the business software giant’s world headquarters, placing it in a city that’s a center for the U.S. health care industry, company chairperson Larry Ellison said.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Gaze around the next time you’re stuck in traffic and see if you’re not surprised, maybe even a little saddened, by the monochromatic sea around you.
CAREER CORNER
The Federal Trade Commission announced last week it is banning noncompete agreements across the country with a rule that applies to almost all workers. You read that right: The FTC does not want your employer to be able to force a noncompete onto you.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — People buying tickets online for concerts, sporting events and other live events in Minnesota will be guaranteed more transparency and protection under a so-called Taylor Swift bill signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Tim Walz.
NEW YORK (AP) — No, Katy Perry and Rihanna didn't attend the Met Gala this year. But that didn't stop AI-generated images from tricking some fans into thinking the stars made appearances on the steps of fashion's biggest night.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A group of Tennesseans who say they were intimidated into not voting in a primary election or were threatened with prosecution after they did vote has filed a legal challenge to two state laws meant to prevent crossover voting.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal judge in Florida presiding over the classified documents prosecution of former President Donald Trump has canceled the May 20 trial date, postponing it indefinitely.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump squirmed and scowled, shook his head and muttered as Stormy Daniels described the unexpected sex she says they had nearly two decades ago, saying she remembered "trying to think of anything other than what was happening."
NEW YORK (AP) — With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
NEW YORK (AP) — Porn actor Stormy Daniels took the witness stand Tuesday in the hush money case against Donald Trump, who looked on as she detailed their alleged sexual encounter and the payment she got to keep it quiet.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former top executive for major Las Vegas casinos was set to appear before a federal judge on Wednesday after admitting he allowed an illegal bookmaker to gamble millions of dollars at the MGM Grand and pay off debts in cash.
ELECTION 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is racing into yet another battleground state Wednesday, continuing to push a contrast with Donald Trump on economic policy as his own reelection campaign readies a new $14 million advertising blitz aimed in part at Black, Latino and Asian American voters.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Joe Biden runs for reelection, he's resurrecting proposals to reshape American life from the cradle to the grave by lowering the cost of child care, expanding preschool opportunities and making home aides more available to the elderly.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday decried a "ferocious surge" in antisemitism on college campuses and around the globe in the months since Hamas attacked Israel and triggered a war in Gaza, using a ceremony to remember victims of the Holocaust to also denounce new waves of violence and hateful rhetoric toward Jews.
HEALTH CARE
Steward Health Care said it plans to sell off all its hospitals after announcing this week that it filed for bankruptcy protection.
ENERGY
NASHVILLE (AP) — The nation's largest public utility is moving ahead with a plan for a new natural gas plant in Tennessee despite warnings that its environmental review of the project doesn't comply with federal law.
BANKING
WASHINGTON (AP) — An independent review of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. 's workplace culture describes an environment that fostered "hostile, abusive, unprofessional, or inappropriate conduct," and questions whether the agency's chairman is credible to lead the agency through a cultural transformation.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stock drifted to a mixed close as Wall Street remains in a lull.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress and the Biden administration are considering what, if anything, should be done to tighten restrictions on donor-advised funds, an increasingly popular way for donors to set aside money to spend on charitable causes.
SECAUCUS, N.J. (AP) — Internet casino gambling is legal in only a handful of states, but the industry is convinced it is the future of betting, even as some worry about cannibalizing physical casinos.
FTX says that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded, and some will get more than that.
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Disney has received a key approval to expand its Southern California theme parks in its first push to make major changes to its iconic Disneyland in decades.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing heat over its military support for Israel's war, the Biden administration is due to deliver a first-of-its-kind formal verdict this week on whether the airstrikes on Gaza and restrictions on delivery of aid have violated international and U.S. laws designed to spare civilians from the worst horrors of war.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that the country was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S., Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Leaders of three large public school systems strongly denied allegations that they let antisemitism run rampant in their schools, telling a congressional panel Wednesday that they are fighting it with education and, when necessary, discipline.
TUESDAY, MAY 7
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have bolstered their wide receiving group by reuniting first-year coach Brian Callahan with someone he knows very well in Tyler Boyd, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
WEST TENNESSEE
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Tennessee-based sanitation company has agreed to pay more than half a million dollars after a federal investigation found it illegally hired at least two dozen children to clean dangerous meat processing facilities in Iowa and Virginia.
RELIGION
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Pope Francis has appointed Reverend James Mark Beckman as Bishop of Knoxville, Tennessee, almost a year after the previous bishop resigned under pressure following claims he mishandled sex abuse allegations.
COURTS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stormy Daniels was paid to prevent her from going public with claims of a sexual encounter with Donald Trump before the 2016 election. Now Trump is having to confront her testimony in court about the allegations in the midst of another presidential campaign.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stormy Daniels took the witness stand Tuesday at Donald Trump's hush money trial, describing for jurors a sexual encounter the porn actor says she had with him in 2006 that resulted in her being paid off to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
ELECTION 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — As pro-Palestinian demonstrations escalate on college campuses around the country, critics of President Joe Biden 's handling of the Israel-Hamas war suggest this summer's Democratic National Convention could be hit by protests and scenes of chaos that undermine his reelection campaign.
WASHINGTON (AP) — He's a criminal defendant, a businessman and a politician. But to his most loyal supporters, Donald Trump will always be Mr. President. As for the guy currently serving in the White House, they call him Biden, or maybe just Joe.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Federal highway safety investigators want Tesla to tell them how and why it developed the fix in a recall of more than 2 million vehicles equipped with the company's Autopilot partially automated driving system.
WARREN, Mich. (AP) — About 1,000 workers at a Stellantis metal stamping plant north of Detroit have voted to authorize a strike over health and safety issues, the United Auto Workers union says.
TRANSPORTATION
SEATTLE (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it has opened an investigation into Boeing after the beleaguered company reported that workers at a South Carolina plant falsified inspection records on certain 787 planes. Boeing said its engineers have determined that misconduct did not create "an immediate safety of flight issue."
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The go-broke dates for Medicare and Social Security have been pushed back as an improving economy has contributed to changed projected depletion dates, according to the annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report Monday.
TECHNOLOGY
CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) — Apple on Tuesday unveiled its next generation of iPad Pros and Airs — models that will boast faster processors, new sizes and a new display system as part of the company's first update to its tablet lineup in more than a year.
MEDIA
TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance are suing the U.S. federal government over a law that would ban the popular video-sharing app unless it's sold to another company.
The Walt Disney Co. swung to a loss in its second quarter because of restructuring and impairment charges, but its adjusted profit topped expectations and its streaming business turned a profit. Theme parks also continued to do well and the company boosted its outlook for the year.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks held relatively steady as trading on Wall Street calmed following some sharp recent swings.
NEW YORK (AP) — A deadline is looming for millions of businesses who may be entitled to a payout in a $5.5 billion antitrust settlement with Visa and Mastercard.
Grocery delivery company Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to offer a new perk to its customers: restaurant delivery.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden hosted Klaus Iohannis, the president of Romania, on Tuesday at the White House, with the two leaders celebrating their joint cooperation on issues including international security, the economy and continued support for Ukraine.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday decried a "ferocious surge" in antisemitism on college campuses and around the globe in the months since Hamas attacked Israel and triggered a war in Gaza, using a ceremony to remember victims of the Holocaust to also denounce new waves of violence and hateful rhetoric toward Jews.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Embattled House Speaker Mike Johnson portrayed himself as in control Tuesday, insisting he's not negotiating with far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as they met again at the Capitol and she weighed whether to proceed with a vote on his ouster.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In April, Bernie Sanders repeatedly stood shoulder to shoulder with President Joe Biden, promoting their joint accomplishments on health care and climate at formal White House events while eviscerating Donald Trump in a widely viewed campaign TikTok video.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday urgently warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against launching an offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah as the divide between the two leaders continues to grow along with the mounting Palestinian death toll.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans plan to move forward next week with holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for his refusal to turn over the unredacted audio of an interview that was conducted as part of the special counsel probe into President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents.
MONDAY, MAY 6
PERSONAL FINANCE
When Anna Branch, 37, had her hours at work reduced in 2019, she suddenly noticed ads for an app called EarnIn.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
With some help from artificial intelligence, country music star Randy Travis, celebrated for his timeless hits like "Forever and Ever, Amen" and "I Told You So," has his voice back.
COURTS
NEW YORK (AP) — The judge presiding over Donald Trump's hush money trial fined him $1,000 on Monday for violating his gag order once again and sternly warned the former president that additional violations could result in jail time.
NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors in Donald Trump's hush money trial are moving deeper into his orbit following an inside-the-room account about the former president's reaction to a politically damaging recording that surfaced in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump's New York criminal trial is full of terms you don't typically hear in a courtroom.
ELECTION 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's campaign and Democratic candidates are in a fevered race with Republicans over who can best exploit the potential of artificial intelligence, a technology that could transform American elections — and perhaps threaten democracy itself.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Frustrated by the seemingly endless cash flowing to Democrats, Republicans aiming to retake the Senate have rallied around candidates with plenty of their own money.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Brad Parscale was the digital guru behind Donald Trump's surprise victory in the 2016 election and was promoted to manage the 2020 campaign. But he didn't last long on that job: His personal life unraveled in public and he later texted a friend that he felt "guilty" for helping Trump win after the riot at the U.S. Capitol.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump's former campaign manager looked squarely into the camera and promised his viewers they were about to witness a bold new era in politics.
REAL ESTATE
Redfin has agreed to pay $9.25 million to settle federal lawsuits that claim U.S. homeowners were saddled with artificially inflated broker commissions when they sold their home as a result of longstanding real estate industry practices.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — For the first time, researchers have identified a genetic form of late-in-life Alzheimer's disease — in people who inherit two copies of a worrisome gene.
MEDIA
NEW YORK (AP) — Trump Media and Technology Group, the owner of social networking site Truth Social, has fired an auditor that federal regulators recently charged with "massive fraud."
NEW YORK (AP) — Kim Godwin is out after three tumultuous years as ABC News president, a move presaged earlier this year when network parent Walt Disney Co. installed one of its executives, Debra O'Connell, to oversee the news division.
TRAVEL
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Qantas Airways agreed to pay 120 million Australian dollars ($79 million) in compensation and a fine for selling tickets on thousands of cancelled flights, the airline and Australia's consumer watchdog said on Monday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks rose Monday and added to their gains from last week, as technology companies once again led the way.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says the company's leaders should spend more time in stores and focus on coffee drinks as they work to turn around flagging sales.
This year's Berkshire Hathaway meeting gave shareholders their best chance yet to hear from the man who will one day take over as CEO when Warren Buffett is gone, but Buffett said for the first time Saturday that Greg Abel should also take responsibility for the company's investments after he takes over, raising new questions about the succession plan.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
JERUSALEM (AP) — After Hamas on Monday announced its acceptance of an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, Israel said its leaders approved a military operation in the southern Gaza town of Rafah and began striking targets in the area. Still, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would send negotiators to continue talks on the deal.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden again urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against launching an offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah as Israel on Monday appeared to be moving closer to an offensive to root out Hamas militants.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An American soldier has been arrested in Russia and accused of stealing, according to two U.S. officials.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 19 people, including civil rights icons such as the late Medgar Evers, prominent political leaders such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. James Clyburn, and actor Michelle Yeoh.
WASHINGTON (AP) — After a participant in the historic Tiananmen Square protests entered a 2022 congressional race in New York City, a Chinese intelligence operative wasted little time enlisting a private investigator to hunt for any mistresses or tax problems that could upend the candidate's bid, prosecutors say.
FRIDAY, MAY 3
REGION
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — An initial hearing for country music star Morgan Wallen was postponed Friday until August in a case in which he's accused of throwing a chair from the rooftop of a six-story bar and nearly hitting two police officers.
COURTS
NEW YORK (AP) — Hope Hicks, a former longtime adviser to Donald Trump, took the witness stand Friday in his criminal trial, where prosecutors are expected to question her about her knowledge of hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — One of the two Black lawmakers briefly expelled from Tennessee's GOP-controlled Statehouse last year will remain on the 2024 ballot after overcoming a challenge from a Republican opponent.
TRANSPORTATION
DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government has loosened some rules governing electric vehicle tax credits a bit, potentially making more EVs eligible for credits of up to $7,500.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A U.S. Army lieutenant colonel was arrested Thursday on charges that he illegally imported firearms parts from foreign countries including Russia and dealt weapons without a license, federal prosecutors said.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is arguing that a fractured democracy can have destructive effects on the economy — an indirect jab at Donald Trump.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Clarence B. Jones says he thought a prankster was on the line when he answered the telephone and heard the person on the other end say they were calling from the White House.
CAMPUS PROTESTS
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — With student protests over the Israel-Hamas war disrupting campuses nationwide, several major universities are intent on ensuring that commencement ceremonies — joyous milestones for graduates, their families and friends — go off without a hitch this weekend.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's employers pulled back on their hiring in April but still added a decent 175,000 jobs in a sign that persistently high interest rates may be starting to slow the robust U.S. job market.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Comcast has blacked out 15 regional sports networks offered by Bally Sports, escalating a contract dispute with their distributor.
Apple on Thursday disclosed its steepest quarterly decline in iPhone sales since the pandemic's outset, deepening a slump that's increasing the pressure on the trendsetting company to spruce up its products with more artificial intelligence.
REAL ESTATE
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The average rate on a 30-year mortgage climbed this week to its highest level in more than five months, pushing up borrowing costs for prospective homebuyers in what's typically the housing market's busiest stretch of the year.
THURSDAY, MAY 2
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A federal appeals court heard arguments on Thursday over a decades-old Tennessee policy that does not allow transgender people to change the sex designation on their birth certificates.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
Artists from Universal Music Group, which include Drake, Adele, Bad Bunny and Billie Eilish, will be returning to TikTok as the two parties have struck a new licensing agreement following an approximately three-month long dispute.
NEW YORK (AP) — Duane Eddy, a pioneering guitar hero whose reverberating electric sound on instrumentals such as "Rebel Rouser" and "Peter Gunn" helped put the twang in early rock 'n' roll and influenced George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen and countless other musicians, has died at age 86.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS said Thursday that it has taken steps to address a wide disparity in audit rates between Black taxpayers and others filers, and is more closely examining the returns of larger numbers of wealthy people and major companies.
INTERNATIONAL
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday defended the right to protest but insisted that "order must prevail" as college campuses across the country face unrest over the war in Gaza.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police arrested pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses across the country overnight, notably at the University of California, Los Angeles, where chaotic scenes played out early Thursday as officers in riot gear surged against a crowd of demonstrators.
TRANSPORTATION
WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group of senators is pushing for restrictions on the use of facial recognition technology by the Transportation Security Administration, saying they are concerned about travelers' privacy and civil liberties.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for both the Department of Justice and Google will present arguments Thursday and Friday to conclude the biggest antitrust case in a quarter century.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump faces the prospect of additional sanctions in his hush money trial as he returns to court Thursday for another contempt hearing followed by testimony from a lawyer who represented two women who have said they had sexual encounters with the former president.
FREELAND, Mich. (AP) — Donald Trump returned briefly to the campaign trail Wednesday and called the judge presiding over his hush money trial "crooked" a day after he was held in contempt of court and threatened with jail time for violating a gag order.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira, who pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges for leaking highly classified military documents about the war in Ukraine and other national security secrets, will face a military justice proceeding later this month, officials said Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected a bid to release from jail a former FBI informant who is charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden's family.
ELECTION 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden, who heads to Wilmington, North Carolina Thursday to talk about the economy, is detouring to Charlotte to meet with the families of law enforcement officers shot to death on the job — just a week after he sat down with the grieving relatives of two cops killed in Upstate New York.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is staying mum about student protests and police crackdowns as Republicans try to turn campus unrest over the war in Gaza into a campaign cudgel against Democrats.
TECHNOLOGY
PARIS (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida unveiled an international framework for regulation and use of generative AI on Thursday, adding to global efforts on governance for the rapidly advancing technology.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Microsoft is investing $2.2 billion over the next four years in Malaysia's new cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure as well as partnering with the government to establish a national AI center, its CEO Satya Nadella said Thursday.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Elon Musk's move to lay off the department responsible for Tesla's electric vehicle chargers has touched off worries in the auto industry that EVs from other automakers will have trouble joining Tesla's network.
TRAVEL
In a mad mix of game-show glitter and marketing flash, Airbnb is offering customers a chance to spend a night in a Paris museum, stay in houses mocked up to look like movie settings, or sleep surrounded by eight Ferrari racing cars.
Consumer groups are pushing Congress to uphold automatic refunds for airline passengers whose flights are canceled or delayed for several hours.
HEALTH CARE
The Change Healthcare cyberattack that disrupted health care systems nationwide earlier this year started when hackers entered a server that lacked a basic form of security: multifactor authentication.
ECONOMY
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits was unchanged last week and remains historically low as the labor market continues to show resiliency in the face of high interest rates and elevated inflation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve on Wednesday emphasized that inflation has remained stubbornly high in recent months and said it doesn't plan to cut interest rates until it has "greater confidence" that price increases are slowing sustainably to its 2% target.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Without wielding the gavel or holding a formal job laid out in the Constitution, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries might very well be the most powerful person in Congress right now.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 40% of Americans now label China as an enemy, up from a quarter two years ago and reaching the highest level in five years, according to an annual Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday.