VOL. 47 | NO. 25 | Friday, June 16, 2023
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
As some houses are aging on the market, many homeowners are opting to withdraw them and await better times, change real estate brokers or retool their marketing plan with their current agents.
REAL ESTATE
Top Davidson County residential real estate sales for May 2023, as compiled by the Nashville Ledger.
UT SPORTS
Few people would have been surprised if they were told in February the Tennessee baseball team would reach the Men’s College World Series. But it would have been much harder to imagine the route the Vols took to get there.
NEWSMAKERS
Lifepoint Health has appointed Elmer Polite to the role of president, Eastern Division. He will provide operational oversight for Lifepoint’s acute care hospitals in Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. He previously served as chief financial officer of the Eastern Division.
BRIEFS
Voter registration for the Aug. 3 Metro Nashville/Davidson County general election ends Wednesday, July 5.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
The Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4 are two of the most popular SUVs on sale today. With their spacious cabins, large cargo holds and the elevated ride height SUV shoppers love, each makes a strong case for itself as a family-friendly people mover with room for five on board.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Women often don’t score as well as men in surveys of financial literacy. One area where we seem to do better is “longevity literacy,” or understanding how long we’re likely to live.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
Planning travel can be a daunting maze. Guidebooks, by their nature, send all readers to the same destinations. And web searches can yield an unhelpful mess of content.
UT SPORTS
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Jay Johnson texted Nate Ackenhausen at 8:56 a.m. Tuesday to let him know he would make his first start for LSU less than 12 hours later in a game against Tennessee with the Tigers' season on the line.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Vanderbilt University Medical Center has turned over medical records for transgender patients to the Tennessee attorney general's team in what his office confirmed is an investigation into potential medical billing fraud.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Kansas man is facing federal charges of making threats on social media to build bombs and carry out a mass shooting at a Nashville Pride festival.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito accepted a 2008 trip to a luxury fishing lodge in Alaska from two wealthy Republican donors, one of whom repeatedly had interests before the court, and he did not disclose the trips on his financial disclosure for that year, ProPublica reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A California man who drove a stun gun into a police officer's neck during one of the most violent clashes of the U.S. Capitol riot was sentenced on Wednesday to more than 12 years in prison.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump's tempestuous views aside, Manhattan prosecutors say neither the former president nor his lawyers have shown any evidence to support their claims that the judge in his hush-money criminal case has an anti-Trump bias. They urged him to reject defense demands that he step aside from the case.
EDUCATION
WASHINGTON (AP) — Math and reading scores among America's 13-year-olds fell to their lowest levels in decades, with math scores plunging by the largest margin ever recorded, according to the results of a federal test known as the nation's report card.
MEDIA
NEW YORK (AP) — Geraldo Rivera has quit as one of the lonely liberal voices on Fox News' popular political combat show "The Five," saying Wednesday that "a growing tension that goes beyond editorial differences" made it no longer worth it to him.
ENERGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Wednesday increased the amount of biofuels that must be blended into the nation's fuel supplies over the next three years, but held production totals steady for corn-based ethanol, disappointing the biofuel industry and farm advocates.
PERSONAL FINANCE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS has processed tens of millions of tax returns faster this year compared with past years while getting through to customer service on the phone is slowly improving, according to a report to Congress released Wednesday.
ECONOMY
WASHINGTON (AP) — With inflation in the United States still excessive, most Federal Reserve officials expect to raise interest rates further this year, Chair Jerome Powell told a House committee Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Heads of state, finance leaders and activists from around the world will converge in Paris this week to seek ways to overhaul the world's development banks — like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank — and help them weather a warmer and stormier world.
LONDON (AP) — Borrowers in the U.K. will be bracing themselves for further increases in lending costs after official figures Wednesday showed inflation failing to fall as anticipated in May.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Drops for technology stocks left Wall Street mixed Wednesday and sapped more momentum from its five-week rally.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon on Wednesday for what it called a years-long effort to enroll consumers without consent into its Prime program and making it difficult for them to cancel their subscriptions.
Employees are suing Twitter over tens of millions of dollars in bonuses they say the social media company failed to pay despite promises it would.
BEIJING (AP) — Foreign companies are shifting investments and their Asian headquarters out of China as confidence plunges following the expansion of an anti-spying law and other challenges, a business group said Wednesday.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Billionaire Warren Buffett is upping his bet on Japan, announcing this week that Berkshire Hathaway will increase its ownership stake in five major Japanese trading houses.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff was defiant Wednesday as the Republican-led House prepared to censure him over his comments made several years ago during investigations into President Donald Trump's ties to Russia. He said he will wear the formal disapproval as a "badge of honor" and charged his GOP colleagues of doing the former president's bidding.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's remarks calling Chinese leader Xi Jinping a "dictator" and China a country with "real economic difficulties" drew fast condemnation from China on Wednesday, cracking open a new rift just after the two countries agreed to tentative steps to stabilize the relationship.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's three nominees for the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors pledged to fight inflation during a confirmation hearing Wednesday that drew only modest pushback from Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Calling the rapid growth of artificial intelligence tools a "moment of revolution," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that the government must act quickly to regulate companies that are developing it.
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union countries on Wednesday agreed on a new package of sanctions against Russia for its war against Ukraine.
BEIJING (AP) — After years of breakneck growth, China's security and surveillance industry is now focused on shoring up its vulnerabilities to the United States and other outside actors, worried about risks posed by hackers, advances in artificial intelligence and pressure from rival governments.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The special counsel who investigated the FBI's probe of ties between Russia and Donald Trump's 2016 campaign found himself at the center of a heated political fight as he appeared before a congressional committee Wednesday, with Democrats denouncing his inquiry and Republicans arguing that its findings helped prove an anti-Trump bias within law enforcement.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden had just six words to offer after his 53-year-old son Hunter pleaded guilty to federal tax offenses in a deal that is also likely to spare him time behind bars on a weapons charge.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Joe Biden convened a group of technology leaders on Tuesday to debate what he called the "risks and enormous promises" of artificial intelligence.
TUESDAY, JUNE 20
UT SPORTS
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Chase Burns pitched six shutout innings in relief of Chase Dollander, Tennessee manufactured two runs to break a tie in the seventh, and the Volunteers knocked Stanford out of the College World Series with a 6-4 victory Monday.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Criminal defendants are routinely advised to avoid commenting on pending charges against them. But Donald Trump, the former president and current White House hopeful, is no ordinary defendant.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal on behalf of some U.S. veterans who want disability benefits because they were exposed to radiation while responding to a Cold War-era hydrogen bomb accident in Spain.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's son Hunter will plead guilty to federal tax offenses but avoid a full prosecution on a separate gun charge in a deal with the Justice Department that likely spares him time behind bars.
The announcement that federal prosecutors have reached a plea deal with President Joe Biden's son Hunter over tax and gun charges marks the likely end of a five-year Justice Department investigation that has dogged the Biden family.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Attorney John Eastman, a lead architect of some of former President Donald Trump's efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election, faces possible disbarment in disciplinary proceedings that began Tuesday in Los Angeles.
REAL ESTATE
ATLANTA (AP) — Entering court using a walker, a doctor's note clutched in his hand, 70-year-old Dana Williams, who suffers serious heart problems, hypertension and asthma, pleaded to delay eviction from his two-bedroom apartment in Atlanta.
AUTO INDUSTRY
BEIRUT (AP) — Auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn has filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Nissan and about a dozen individuals in Beirut over his imprisonment in Japan and what he says is misinformation spread against him, Lebanese officials said Tuesday.
DETROIT (AP) — Electric vehicle maker Rivian says it will follow General Motors and Ford and join Tesla's charging network next year.
MEDIA
Gannett has filed a civil lawsuit against Google and its parent company Alphabet, claiming that they unlawfully hold monopolies in the advertising technology tools that publishers and advertisers use to buy and sell online ad space.
TECHNOLOGY
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Joe Biden will convene a group of technology leaders on Tuesday to debate artificial intelligence.
LONDON (AP) — European Union consumer protection groups urged regulators on Tuesday to investigate the type of artificial intelligence underpinning systems like ChatGPT, citing risks that leave people vulnerable and the delay before the bloc's groundbreaking AI regulations take effect.
ENERGY
RAWLINS, Wyo. (AP) — Portrait photographer Anne Brande shoots graduation and wedding engagement photos at scenic spots throughout southeastern Wyoming's granite mountains and sprawling sagebrush valleys, but worries what those views will look like in a few years. Wind energy is booming here.
ENVIRONMENT
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — As soon as Bridget Mosanya went to get a book from her bag to study, it started to rain. The power immediately went out, as it virtually always does in Nigeria, even if it is barely drizzling.
TRENDS
NEW YORK (AP) — Charitable giving in the United States declined in 2022 — only the third time in four decades that donations did not increase year over year — according to the Giving USA report released Tuesday.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks pulled back Tuesday in their first trading after a five-week rally carried Wall Street to its highest level since the spring of last year.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is, on many counts, a curious choice for President Joe Biden to honor with a state visit.
MONDAY, JUNE 19
ENVIRONMENT
YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — An American push to establish "green shipping corridors" is key to reducing carbon emissions from the shipping industry, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday while touring the port of Yokohama near Tokyo.
ECONOMY
TOKYO (AP) — Wages are rising in Japan more than they have in decades, at least for some workers. But so are prices, leaving many people feeling they must scrimp more than ever.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
BERLIN (AP) — Intel and the German government signed a deal Monday that will see the U.S. company spend more than 30 billion euros ($32.8 billion) to build a chip manufacturing site in the eastern city of Magdeburg, after Germany pledged to cover a third of the investment required.
PARIS (AP) — India's IndiGo airline is buying 500 passenger jets from European planemaker Airbus, the two companies said Monday, in a record-setting order that underscores surging demand for air travel fueled by the country's economic growth.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
NEW YORK (AP) — Lashing out after his arraignment on federal charges last week, Donald Trump took aim at President Joe Biden and Democrats with language that seemed to evoke another era: He was being persecuted, he said, by "Marxists" and "communists."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Just six days after the bipartisan deal on the debt limit became law, House Republicans proposed a slew of tax cuts, leading to charges of hypocrisy by Democrats in a squabble that shows two clashing visions for the U.S. economy.
BERLIN (AP) — Chinese Premier Li Qiang has started a visit to Germany and France that comes as Europe seeks to balance concerns over economic dependence on China and about its stance toward Ukraine and Taiwan with a desire to engage Beijing on issues such as climate change.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden ramps up his reelection effort this week with four fundraisers in the San Francisco area, as his campaign builds up its coffers and lays strategic foundations for 2024.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ammar Rashed has a stack of letters from U.S. troops attesting to his work during some of the most dangerous days of the Iraq War. But six years after he applied to immigrate to the United States under a program for interpreters who helped America, he is still waiting.
FRIDAY, JUNE 16
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones have advanced past an election hurdle after the two young Black lawmakers were expelled earlier this year for their gun control protest on the House floor, then reinstated by local officials days afterward.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Conservation groups have filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the nation's largest public utility from replacing a Tennessee coal-burning power plant with one using natural gas.
Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant has been suspended 25 games by the NBA — his second ban in four months — and Commissioner Adam Silver made clear Friday the star must stop his "alarming" habit of flashing guns on social media.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Recording Academy are making several changes to the Grammy Awards, including a rule that stipulates "only human creators" can win the music industry's highest honor in a decision aimed at the use of artificial intelligence in popular music.
TECHNOLOGY
The massive federal effort to expand internet access to every home in the U.S. took a major step forward on Friday with the announcement of $930 million in grants to shore up connections in remote parts of Alaska, rural Texas and dozens of other places where significant gaps in connectivity persist.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Shortly before setting out for Beijing, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday emphasized the importance of the U.S. and China establishing better lines of communication. He will be the highest-ranking member of the Biden administration to visit China.
NEW YORK (AP) — Daniel Ellsberg, the history-making whistleblower who by leaking the Pentagon Papers revealed longtime government doubts and deceit about the Vietnam War and inspired acts of retaliation by President Richard Nixon that helped lead to his resignation, has died.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Just a year ago, President Joe Biden signed the first significant piece of federal gun safety legislation in nearly three decades.
NEW YORK (AP) — Make that one less legal headache for Donald Trump.
BEIJING (AP) — China's government on Friday rejected as "far-fetched and unprofessional" a report by a U.S. security firm that blamed Chinese-linked hackers for attacks on hundreds of public agencies, schools and other targets around the world.
UKRAINE
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A delegation of leaders and senior officials from Africa arrived in Ukraine seeking ways to end the invaded country's nearly 16-month war with Russia and to ensure food and fertilizer deliveries to their continent, though an air raid in Kyiv during their Friday trip provided a reminder of the challenges they face.
ECONOMY
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The head of the International Monetary Fund on Friday praised the European Central Bank's decision to raise interest rates for the eighth time in a row and its pledge to keep going as long as needed to bring down high inflation.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Unionized UPS workers voted overwhelmingly on Friday to authorize a strike, setting the stage for a potential work stoppage if the package delivery company and Teamsters can't come to an agreement before their contract expires next month.
LONDON (AP) — British antitrust regulators cleared Amazon's purchase of robot vacuum maker iRobot on Friday, but the $1.7 billion deal still faces scrutiny in the United States and Europe.
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping said the United States and China can cooperate to "benefit our two countries" in a meeting Friday with Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates ahead of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a time of strained relations.
A union organizer who was fired by Amazon was reinstated by the company after she filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, according to the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.
ENERGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — A top Treasury Department official said Thursday that the cap on the price of Russia's oil is severely curtailing its greatest source of revenue as it wages war in Ukraine.
COURTS
NEW YORK (AP) — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried may face two criminal trials after a federal judge on Thursday granted a request by prosecutors to delay a trial on some of the charges until next year.
UT SPORTS
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The batting statistics for the eight College World Series teams suggest there will be home runs aplenty at Charles Schwab Field over the next 10 days.
THURSDAY, JUNE 15
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee quarterback Ryan Tannehill met DeAndre Hopkins for the first time during the three-time All-Pro's free agent visit with the Titans.
SCIENCE
BERLIN (AP) — The head of the United Nations launched a tirade against fossil fuel companies Thursday, accusing them of betraying future generations and undermining efforts to phase out a product he called "incompatible with human survival."
TECHNOLOGY
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — All major social media platforms do poorly at protecting LGBTQ+ users from hate speech and harassment — especially those who are transgender, non-binary or gender non-conforming, the advocacy group GLAAD said Thursday. But Twitter is the worst.
CYBERSECURITY
Suspected state-backed Chinese hackers used a security hole in a popular email security appliance to break into the networks of hundreds of public and private sector organizations globally, nearly a third of them government agencies including foreign ministries, the cybersecurity firm Mandiant said Thursday.
RELIGION
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Southern Baptist Convention has refused to welcome Saddleback Church back into its fold, rejecting an appeal by the California megachurch over its February ouster for having women pastors.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday preserved the system that gives preference to Native American families in foster care and adoption proceedings of Native children, rejecting a broad attack from some Republican-led states and white families who argued it is based on race.
NEW YORK (AP) — Two companies that sell top brands of household weedkiller will pay $6.9 million for allegedly making false and misleading claims regarding the safety of their products as part of a settlement with the New York attorney general's office announced on Thursday.
NEW YORK (AP) — A former Indiana congressman should spend no time in prison after his insider trading conviction, his lawyers told a judge Wednesday.
ECONOMY
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation may be cooling — just not yet fast enough for the Federal Reserve.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The U.S. Federal Reserve may have hit "pause" on interest rate hikes, but the European Central Bank still has its finger on "fast forward" as inflation plagues consumers with higher costs for everything from groceries to utility bills and summer vacations.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand's economy has dipped into recession as higher interest rates take their toll, new figures released Thursday show.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The union for thousands of West Coast dockworkers has reached a tentative agreement on a new contract, it was announced Wednesday, after more than a year of negotiations and several work disruptions that snarled shipping traffic at some of the largest ports.
BEIJING (AP) — China's consumer and factory activity weakened in May and record-breaking unemployment among young people in cities rose as an economic rebound following the end of anti-virus controls slowed.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI investigators who searched Harold Martin's Maryland property in the fall of 2016 found classified documents — including material at the top secret level — strewn about his home, car and storage shed.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is hosting executives from Live Nation, Airbnb and other companies at the White House on Thursday to highlight his administration's push to end so-called junk fees that surprise consumers.
To hear former President Donald Trump tell it, taking and withholding classified documents was perfectly consistent with federal law and a decade-old legal case involving former President Bill Clinton.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Moments after Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he hoarded classified documents and then conspired to obstruct an investigation about it, the Republicans in Congress had his back.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden told an audience of conservation and environmental groups Wednesday that their work has never been more important at a time when they are battling the greatest threat facing future generations.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The top Republican on the Senate Energy panel is calling for an investigation of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, after she told the committee she mistakenly provided false information about her family's stock holdings in testimony earlier this year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has rejected an effort to censure California Rep. Adam Schiff, turning aside a Republican attempt to fine the Democrat over his comments about former President Donald Trump and investigations into his ties to Russia.