VOL. 46 | NO. 39 | Friday, September 30, 2022
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
Rates hit 6.99% this week, Mike Garretson of Wesley Mortgage reports. While the name Wesley Mortgage is familiar mainly through their sponsorship on Titans Radio, the faces are those that have dominated the Nashville market for years through Franklin American Mortgage.
TENNESSEE TITANS
The Tennessee Titans are again going to have to learn to live without Taylor Lewan, maybe for good.
The lack of contributions from Titans 2020 draft class has been well-documented. Only cornerback Kristian Fulton, a second-rounder, remains on the 53-man roster, and defensive lineman Larrell Murchison (fifth round) is hidden away on the practice squad.
The 1-2 Titans finally jumped into the win column and now they try to take their act on the road and at rival Indianapolis (Noon CDT on Fox). Tennessee is already beset by injuries, but the Titans need to jell quickly as four of the next five games (plus a bye week) are away from Nissan Stadium.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Derrick Henry got right back to business against the Indianapolis Colts.
NEWSMAKERS
With an extensive background in international accounting and licensed as both a lawyer and CPA, Jarett “Jerry” Decker hopes to bring his global and legal experience to bear as the new Joey A. Jacobs Chair of Excellence in Accounting and Professor of Practice within MTSU’s Jennings A. Jones College of Business.
BRIEFS
Every county in Tennessee experienced lower unemployment rates in August, data released by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development reveals.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
There’s no denying the impact that smartphones and tablets have had on modern vehicles. Look into just about any new car and you’ll find a touch screen and maybe even a bank of capacitive touch buttons that seek to approximate the function of mechanical buttons.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
Juan Pinon, an electrical engineer in McAllen, Texas, struggled with credit card debt for years. It wasn’t until he confided in his sister that he began to turn things around.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
It’s just beyond your reach.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Researchers have identified several factors besides money that contribute to a happier retirement, including good health, strong relationships and a sense of purpose.
SPORTS
Neyland Stadium is selling out again and fans already are trying to plan how to paint a visiting stadium orange and white to cap Tennessee's regular season.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Sebastian Ferreira's two goals helped lead the Houston Dynamo to a 2-1 victory over Nashville on Sunday.
The new world of college athletes getting paid for endorsements has created a rapidly expanding pop-up industry: Brand new nonprofits that set up athletes to promote charities for a fee.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Elon Musk wants Twitter again — and Twitter is game. The billionaire Tesla CEO has proposed to buy the company at the originally agreed-on price of $44 billion, bringing the tumultuous, monthslong saga another step closer to a conclusion.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A former Tennessee state trooper has gone missing after he was sentenced for a misdemeanor assault conviction on a charge that he pulled the face mask off a protester during the COVID-19 pandemic in August 2020.
REMEMBRANCE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Stars and fans react to the death of Loretta Lynn, who died Tuesday at her home at 90.
HURRICANE IAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will visit hurricane-ravaged Florida with a pledge that federal, state and local governments will work as one to help rebuild homes, businesses and lives — putting politics on mute for now to focus on those in need.
INVESTIGATIONS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to step into the legal fight over the classified documents seized during an FBI search of his Florida estate, escalating a dispute over the powers of an independent arbiter appointed to inspect the records.
JANUARY 6TH HEARINGS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hours after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election, the leader of the Oath Keepers extremist group was discussing how to push President Donald Trump to go further in his fight to cling to power, according to messages shown to jurors Tuesday in his U.S. Capitol attack trial.
ENERGY
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The OPEC+ alliance of oil-exporting countries on Wednesday will debate a potentially large cut in the amount of crude it ships to the global economy — a move that could help Russia weather a looming European ban on oil imports and raise gasoline prices for U.S. drivers just ahead of national midterm elections.
INTERNATIONAL
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Three scientists were jointly awarded this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for developing a way of "snapping molecules together" that can be used to design better medicines.
BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) — U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss pledged Wednesday to ride out the turmoil unleashed by her tax-cutting economic agenda, saying the "disruption" will pay off in a wealthier, more efficient Britain.
TECHNOLOGY
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The founder and CEO of a software company targeted by election deniers was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of stealing data on hundreds of Los Angeles County poll workers.
TRAVEL
Business travel used to mean sending employees from their home office to somewhere else — to meet with clients or coworkers at other offices. But for many remote-first companies, it now means the opposite: Bringing employees together from their far-flung homes to work and meet in person.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4
NASHVILLE (AP) — Loretta Lynn, the Kentucky coal miner's daughter whose frank songs about life and love as a woman in Appalachia pulled her out of poverty and made her a pillar of country music, has died. She was 90.
ELECTION 2022
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nearly two months after far-right conservative Andy Ogles secured the Republican nomination in a reconfigured congressional district that cuts into left-leaning Nashville, the former rural county mayor has largely vanished from the public arena.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is highlighting his administration's efforts to protect access to abortion as he marks 100 days since the Supreme Court overturned a national right to the procedure and Democrats hope the issue will galvanize their voters ahead of the midterm elections.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Four people have applied for a circuit court vacancy in Tennessee's 20th Judicial District, which includes Davidson County.
TRAVEL
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government is scrapping another of its responses to the pandemic.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking up an Alabama redistricting case that could have far-reaching effects on minority voting power across the United States.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Onion has some serious things to say in defense of parody.
REGION
ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia prosecutor investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his allies broke the law trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state is seeking search warrants in the case, a sign that the wide-ranging probe has entered a new phase.
TECHNOLOGY
The Biden administration unveiled a set of far-reaching goals Tuesday to align artificial intelligence-powered tools with what it called the values of Democracy and equity, including guidelines for how to protect people's personal data and limit surveillance.
UKRAINE
LYMAN, Ukraine (AP) — The bodies of Russian soldiers were lying in the streets of a key eastern Ukrainian city on Tuesday, evidence of a hasty retreat that marked a new military defeat for Moscow as it struggles to hang on to areas it illegally annexed last week.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan on Tuesday ordered the Russian consul in the northern city of Sapporo to leave the country within six days in retaliation for Moscow's expulsion of a Japanese diplomat last month for alleged espionage.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 3
WASHINGTON (AP) — The founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group and four associates planned an "armed rebellion" to keep President Donald Trump in power, a federal prosecutor contended Monday as the most serious case yet went to trial in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A longtime prison reform advocate has agreed to a settlement with Tennessee prison officials over their use of solitary confinement for pretrial detainees.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A tour bus carrying country music singer and songwriter Hardy and three others was involved in a crash that injured everyone on board.
ELECTION 2022
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal officials are warning ahead of the November midterms that Russia is working to amplify doubts about the integrity of U.S. elections while China is interested in undermining American politicians it sees as threats to Beijing's interests.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — New vehicle sales in the U.S. are expected to have fallen slightly in the third quarter, even with improvement in September. But there are warning signs that consumers' appetite for expensive new cars, trucks and SUVs may be waning.
TECHNOLOGY
Twitter wants a Delaware court to order Elon Musk to buy the social media service for $44 billion, as he promised back in April. But what if a judge makes that ruling and Musk balks?
Kim Kardashian has agreed to pay $1.26 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that she promoted a cryptocurrency on Instagram without disclosing she'd been paid $250,000 to do so.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NEW YORK (AP) — Apple Music is about to cross a huge milestone, offering its eye-and-ear-popping 100 millionth song on the streaming service.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says it won't intervene in a lawsuit in which Dominion Voting Systems accused MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell of defamation for falsely accusing the company of rigging the 2020 presidential election against former President Donald Trump.
HEALTH CARE
MINNETONKA, Minn. (AP) — UnitedHealth Group said Monday that it completed its acquisition of Change Healthcare, closing the roughly $8 billion deal a couple weeks after a judge rejected a challenge from federal regulators.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. regulators on Friday unveiled their plan to allow foreign baby formula manufacturers to stay on the market long term, an effort to diversify the nation's tightly concentrated industry and prevent future shortages.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A much-debated drug for Lou Gehrig's disease won U.S. approval Thursday, a long-sought victory for patients that is likely to renew questions about the scientific rigor behind government reviews of experimental medicines.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has appointed a new commissioner of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A contentious charter school operator linked to a conservative Michigan college has dropped its appeals in Tennessee seeking to open three schools there, despite local school boards rejecting their initial request.
COURTS
NEW YORK (AP) — The New York attorney general's lawsuit accusing Donald Trump and his company of fraud has been assigned to a state court judge who repeatedly ruled against the former president in related subpoena disputes — including holding him in contempt, fining him $110,000 and forcing him to sit for a deposition.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made her first appearance on the Supreme Court bench in a brief courtroom ceremony Friday, three days before the start of the high court's new term.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A jury was selected Thursday in the seditious conspiracy case against the founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group and four associates in the highest profile prosecution stemming from the Capitol riot to reach a trial.
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Former executives and directors of Pacific Gas & Electric have agreed to pay $117 million to settle a lawsuit over devastating 2017 and 2018 California wildfires sparked by the utility's equipment, it was announced Thursday.
BANKING
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen plan to use this year's Freedman's Bank Forum to highlight how federal coronavirus pandemic relief program funds have helped support Black- and minority-owned businesses.
TRANSPORTATION
O'FALLON, Mo. (AP) — Parts of the Mississippi River are so low from weeks of drought that barge traffic is being limited at the worst possible time — as crop harvests begin.
TECHNOLOGY
VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — A year after its first rocket launch failed, a new aerospace company was unsuccessful early Friday in its second attempt to place multiple satellites into orbit.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Wall Street closed out a miserable September on Friday with the S&P 500's worst monthly skid since March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic crashed global markets.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard said Friday that U.S. interest rates will likely have to remain high for an extended period to combat inflation, capping a week of tough rhetoric by Fed officials.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumers spent a bit more in August than the previous month, a sign the economy is holding up even as inflation lifts prices for food, rent, and other essentials.
Walt Disney World and other tourist attractions in central Florida appeared to have avoided severe damage from Hurricane Ian. But many businesses on the state's southwestern coast were hammered and face a long rebuilding process.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan is providing a major U.S. chipmaker a subsidy of up to 46.6 billion yen ($322 million) to support its plan to produce advanced memory chips at a Hiroshima factory, the Japanese trade minister said Friday.
The value of an internship is unmistakable. It teaches marketable skills, it builds professional networks, and it helps students test-drive careers.
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Liz Truss and her Treasury chief met with the independent Office of Budget Responsibility on Friday amid efforts to ease concerns about unfunded government tax cuts that have unleashed turmoil on financial markets.
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union energy ministers on Friday adopted a package of measures to ease an energy crisis, including a levy on windfall profits of fossil fuel companies, but an agreement on capping natural gas prices that is supported by a majority of countries remained off the table.
BEIJING (AP) — Growth in Chinese factory activity was weak in September, export orders fell and employers cut jobs, two surveys showed Friday, adding to pressure on lackluster economic growth.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-led House passed a short-term spending bill on Friday that finances the federal government through mid-December and provides another infusion of military and economic aid to Ukraine as lawmakers acted to avert a partial government shutdown set to begin after midnight.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Thursday approved antitrust legislation targeting the dominance of Big Tech companies by giving states greater power in competition cases and increasing money for federal regulators.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday told visiting leaders from more than a dozen Pacific Island countries that the U.S. was committed to bolstering its presence in their region and becoming a more collaborative partner as they face the "existential threat" of climate change.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The new director of the federal Bureau of Prisons vowed Thursday that "the buck stops with me" when it comes to fixing the crisis-plagued agency, ticking off a list of top priorities, from solving a staffing crisis to ending widespread misconduct.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, stood by the false claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent during an interview Thursday with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, the panel's chairman said.
UKRAINE
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia pounded Ukrainian cities with missiles, rockets and suicide drones, with one strike reported to have killed 25 people, as it moved Friday to annex Ukrainian territory and put it under the protection of Moscow's nuclear umbrella despite international condemnation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and its allies hit back at Russia's annexation of four Ukrainian regions on Friday, slapping sanctions on more than 1,000 people and companies including arms supply networks as President Joe Biden warned Vladimir Putin he can't "get away with" seizing Ukrainian land.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused the West of sabotaging Russia-built natural gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea to Germany, a charge vehemently denied by the United States and its allies. Nordic nations said the undersea blasts that damaged the pipelines this week and have led to huge methane leaks involved several hundred pounds of explosives.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia planned to annex more of Ukraine on Friday in an escalation of the seven-month war that was expected to isolate the Kremlin further, draw more international punishment and bring Ukraine extra military, political and economic support.
THURSDAY, SEPT. 29
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The parallel "special master" process spawned by the FBI search of Donald Trump's Florida estate has slowed the Justice Department's criminal investigation and exposed simmering tensions between department prosecutors and lawyers for the former president.
BOSTON (AP) — A former eBay Inc. executive was sentenced on Thursday to almost five years in prison for leading a scheme to terrorize the creators of an online newsletter that included sending live spiders, cockroaches, a funeral wreath and other disturbing deliveries to their home.
CHICAGO (AP) — Survivors of the mass shooting at a suburban Chicago Independence Day parade and family members of those killed filed 11 lawsuits Wednesday against the manufacturer of the rifle used in the attack, accusing gun-maker Smith & Wesson of illegally targeting its ads at young men at risk of committing mass violence.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has picked two new judges to serve on district criminal courts.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says it will continue providing live audio broadcasts of arguments in cases, even as it welcomes the public back to its courtroom for a new term that begins Monday.
Senior executives of JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines argued in court Wednesday over JetBlue's controversial partnership with American Airlines that the Biden administration is seeking the thwart.
REAL ESTATE
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Homeowner equity climbed to record highs in the first half of this year, though its rate of growth is slowing as the housing market cools.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates rose this week for the sixth straight week, marking new highs not seen in 15 years, before a crash in the housing market triggered the Great Recession.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — At-risk people who received a single dose of the monkeypox vaccine in U.S. efforts against the virus appeared to be significantly less likely to get sick, public health officials announced Wednesday, even as they urged a second dose for full protection.
AUTO INDUSTRY
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Shares in luxury carmaker Porsche AG rose on their first day of public trading after German parent company Volkswagen raised 9.4 billion euros ($9.1 billion) for one of the largest initial public offerings in European history.
ENERGY
FELDHEIM, Germany (AP) — Europeans are opening their energy bills with trepidation these days, bracing for hefty price hikes as utility companies pass on the surging cost of natural gas, oil and electricity tied to Russia's war in Ukraine. Many are trying to conserve by turning down the heat and shutting off lights this winter.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany plans to spend up to 200 billion euros ($195 billion) helping consumers and businesses as surging energy prices due to the war in Ukraine are pushing Europe's largest economy into a looming recession.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The economy shrank in the first half of this year, the government confirmed in a report Thursday, underscoring fears of a broad-based slowdown that could lead to a recession.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Tens of millions of small U.S. companies will be required to provide the government with details on their owners and others who benefit from them under a regulation finalized Thursday that's intended to peel back the layers of ownership that can hide unlawfully obtained assets.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Battered by surging consumer prices and rising interest rates, the U.S. economy shrank at a 0.6% annual rate from April through June, the government announced Thursday, unchanged from its previous second-quarter estimate.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits dropped last week, a sign that few companies are cutting jobs despite high inflation and a weak economy.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida's property insurance market was already in peril. Now comes Hurricane Ian.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Thursday approved sharply scaled-down legislation targeting the dominance of Big Tech companies by giving states greater power in antitrust cases and increasing money for federal regulators.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday said "our entire country hurts" along with the people of Florida after Hurricane Ian flooded communities across the state, knocked out power, forced people into shelters and raised fears of a "substantial loss of life."