VOL. 45 | NO. 4 | Friday, January 22, 2021
Top commercial real estate sales, December 2020, for Davidson County, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. long-term mortgage rates slipped this week while remaining at record-low levels.
TENNESSEE TITANS
Arthur Smith took the road less traveled in becoming an NFL head coach when he could have been on Easy Street.
This week’s conference championship games are interesting, particularly from a quarterback perspective.
NEWSMAKERS
Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP has announced the election of nine new partners: Tayo Atanda, Blake Bernard, John Bunge, Nathan Hertzog, Stacy Clark Hooper, Lindsay Jacques Irving, Nora Katz, Leanna Weinstein, and Josh Wood.
BRIEFS
Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP is launching its Black-Owned Small Business and Nonprofit Clinic. The firm has partnered with the Arts& Business Council of Greater Nashville and its Volunteer Lawyers & Professionals for the Arts program to provide accessible and affordable business-oriented legal services to Black-owned small businesses and nonprofits.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Every new year ushers in a new batch of cars, trucks and SUVs from just about every automaker. Some of these new models create little more than passing interest, while others threaten to burn out the internet with hype.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
You’ve got to clear the path. You know there’s a turret in your way and that could be tricky, but so was the jungle but you survived. Now you’ve got one goal in mind: killing minions.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Budgeting is a pain. But what’s more painful is a bill you can’t easily pay, debt that costs a fortune or not having enough money to retire.
CAREER CORNER
This week is a big one as the president will leave office as another in inaugurated. The transition of power in the United States has been quite a complicated matter.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
Setting money goals in 2020 was likely an exercise in futility. Maybe you’d been saving for a trip abroad, but the pandemic kept you at home. Or you wanted to save up for a down payment on a house, then the recession left you out of a job.
UT SPORTS
Danny White is embracing the opportunity Tennessee is giving him to rebuild a Power Five program and not even the prospect of potential NCAA punishment deterred him from taking the athletic director job.
SPORTS
ATLANTA (AP) — Hank Aaron, who endured racist threats with stoic dignity during his pursuit of Babe Ruth's home run record and gracefully left his mark as one of baseball's greatest all-around players, died Friday. He was 86.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee lawmakers on Friday finished tackling education issues that have surfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Republicans fumed that some districts still are not back in classrooms but declined to act on their proposal to withhold state funding for staying virtual.
NASHVILLE AREA
Meharry Medical College has announced a free three-part virtual Health Summit series to reimagine and advance health equity, particularly related to oral health.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee had 32 boating-related deaths in 2020, the most in 37 years, wildlife officials said.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of existing homes rose 0.7% in December, pushing the entirety of 2020 to a pace not seen in 14 years and providing one of the few bright spots for a U.S. economy mired in a global pandemic.
AUTO INDUSTRY
LONDON (AP) — Japanese carmaker Nissan confirmed Friday that it will maintain its operations in Britain in the wake of the post-Brexit trade deal between the country and the European Union.
TECHNOLOGY
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Google on Friday threatened to make its search engine unavailable in Australia if the government went ahead with plans to make tech giants pay for news content.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
Pfizer on Friday committed to supply up to 40 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine this year to a World Health Organization-backed effort to get affordable shots to poor and middle-income countries.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Testing wristbands are in. Mask-wearing is mandatory. Desks are socially distanced.
Fortune struck one man in the bakery aisle at the supermarket. Two others were working the night shift at a Subway sandwich shop. Yet another was plucked from a list of 15,000 hopefuls.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Anthony Fauci is back. In truth, the nation's leading infectious-diseases expert never really went away. But after enduring nearly a year of darts and undermining comments from former President Donald Trump, Fauci now speaks with the authority of the White House again.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed a pair of executive orders Friday aimed at offering a quick dose of relief to an economy still being hammered by the coronavirus. Both measures were largely stopgaps as Congress considers a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan from Biden. The orders aim to increase food aid, make it easier to claim government benefits, protect unemployed workers and point federal workers and contractors toward a $15 minimum wage.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The jackpot for the Mega Millions lottery game has grown to $1 billion ahead of Friday night's drawing after more than four months without a winner thanks to bad luck, poor odds and reduced play partially blamed on the coronavirus pandemic.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Finance Committee approved President Joe Biden's nomination of Janet Yellen to be the nation's 78th Treasury secretary on Friday, and supporters said they hoped to get the full Senate to approve it later in the day, making her the first woman to hold the job.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — CSX railroad reported relatively flat fourth-quarter earnings even though it hauled 4% more freight as the economy continued to rebound from last year's widespread virus-related shutdowns.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has directed law enforcement and intelligence officials in his administration to study the threat of domestic violent extremism in the United States, an undertaking being launched weeks after a mob of insurgents loyal to Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that she will send the article of impeachment against Donald Trump to the Senate on Monday, triggering the start of the former president's trial on a charge of incitement of insurrection over the deadly Capitol Jan. 6 riot.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Images of National Guard soldiers camped in a cold parking garage after being sent to protect Washington sparked new calls Friday for investigations of the U.S. Capitol Police, now facing allegations that the agency evicted troops sent to help after its failure to stop rioting mobs two weeks ago.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lloyd J. Austin, a West Point graduate who rose to the Army's elite ranks and marched through racial barriers in a 41-year career, won Senate confirmation Friday to become the nation's first Black secretary of defense.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Capitol Police are investigating an incident in which a Republican lawmaker was blocked from entering the House chamber after setting off a metal detector while apparently carrying a concealed gun.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is proposing to push back the start of Donald Trump's impeachment trial to February to give the former president time to prepare and review his case.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Seven Democratic senators on Thursday asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the actions of Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley "to fully understand their role" in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 21
UT SPORTS
Tennessee has hired UCF athletic director Danny White as the Volunteers' new athletic director just three days after the firing of football coach Jeremy Pruitt and athletic director Phillip Fulmer's retirement.
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Linebacker Henry To'o To'o, running back Eric Gray, linebacker Quavaris Crouch and offensive lineman Jahmir Johnson all entered the NCAA transfer portal Wednesday, two days after Tennessee fired coach Jeremy Pruitt and nine others.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville International Airport officials have sued a peer-to-peer car sharing company over claims that its offerings at the airport are unauthorized and illegal.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Federal prosecutors said a Tennessee man who carried flexible plastic handcuffs around the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 raid by Trump supporters is a danger to his community and a serious flight risk, and are asking that he be detained until trial.
MEDIA
Amazon won't be forced to restore web service to Parler after a federal judge ruled Thursday against a plea to reinstate the fast-growing social media app favored by followers of former President Donald Trump.
PARIS (AP) — Google has signed a deal with a group of French publishers paving the way for the internet giant to make digital copyright payments for online news content.
TRANSPORTATION
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's nominee for secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg, appeared on a smooth path to quick confirmation, pledging to senators on Thursday to help carry out the administration's ambitious agenda to rebuild the nation's infrastructure.
United Airlines said Wednesday that it finished one of the worst years in its history by losing $1.9 billion in the last three months of 2020, and it predicted more of the same in the first quarter of this year.
ENVIRONMENT
BERLIN (AP) — World leaders breathed an audible sigh of relief that the United States under President Joe Biden is rejoining the global effort to curb climate change, a cause that his predecessor had shunned.
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — President Joe Biden's administration announced plans Wednesday for a temporary moratorium on oil and gas leasing in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge after the Trump administration issued leases in a part of the refuge considered sacred by the Indigenous Gwich'in.
TORONTO (AP) — Construction on the long disputed Keystone XL oil pipeline halted Wednesday as incoming U.S. President Joe Biden revoked its permit on his first day in office.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home construction jumped 5.8% in December to 1.67 million units, a 14-year high that topped the strongest annual showing from the country's builders in 15 years.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — With a burst of executive orders, President Joe Biden served notice Thursday that America's war on COVID-19 is under new command, promising an anxious nation progress to reduce infections and lift the siege it has endured for nearly a year.
Some COVID-19 vaccination sites in New York City began canceling or postponing shots or stopped making new appointments Thursday amid vaccine shortages around the U.S. that President Joe Biden has vowed to turn around.
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders assessed more measures to counter the spread of coronavirus variants during a video summit Thursday as the bloc's top disease control official said urgent action was needed to stave off a new wave of hospitalizations and deaths.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is putting forth a national COVID-19 strategy to ramp up vaccinations and testing, reopen schools and businesses and increase the use of masks for travel.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Drugmaker Eli Lilly said Thursday its antibody drug can prevent COVID-19 illness in residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care locations.
GENEVA (AP) — The United States will resume funding for the World Health Organization and join its consortium aimed at sharing coronavirus vaccines fairly around the globe, President Joe Biden's top adviser on the pandemic said Thursday, renewing support for an agency that the Trump administration had pulled back from.
GENEVA (AP) — The Biden administration has taken quick steps to keep the United States in the World Health Organization and reinforce financial and staffing support for it — part of his ambition to launch a full-throttle effort to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in partnership with the world.
NEW YORK (AP) — Lani Muller doesn't have to visit a doctor's office to help test an experimental COVID-19 vaccine — she just climbs into a bloodmobile-like van that parks on a busy street near her New York City neighborhood.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Worried that the new coronavirus variants could result in another surge of deaths across the European Union and push hospitals to the verge of collapse, the 27-nation bloc's leaders will hold a video summit Thursday to assess such measures as further border restrictions, better tracking of mutations and improving coordination of lockdowns.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has inherited a badly damaged economy pulverized by the pandemic, with 10 million fewer jobs than a year ago and as many as one in 6 small businesses shut down.
U.S. stock indexes capped a day of choppy trading with a mixed finish Thursday, though solid gains by technology companies helped lift the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite to more record highs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell slightly last week to 900,000, still a historically high level that points to ongoing job cuts in a raging pandemic.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — With more than a trillion euros in stimulus still in the pipeline to the economy, the European Central Bank left its key bond-purchase program unchanged Thursday as the 19-country eurozone endures a winter economic slowdown due to the pandemic.
BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that she isn't abandoning a German-Russian gas pipeline project that faces U.S. sanctions, although it's likely to be an irritant in generally improved relations with the new administration.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-controlled Congress has easily passed legislation required to confirm retired Gen. Lloyd Austin as President Joe Biden's secretary of defense, brushing aside concerns that his retirement occurred inside the seven-year window that safeguards civilian leadership of the military.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats are pushing for a quick impeachment trial for Donald Trump over the riots at the Capitol, arguing a full reckoning is necessary before the country — and the Congress — can move on.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has confidence in FBI Director Chris Wray and plans to keep him in the job, the White House press secretary said Thursday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is proposing to Russia a five-year extension of the New START treaty limiting the number of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons, a U.S. official said Thursday.
Battered by criticism that the 2020 census was dangerously politicized by the Trump administration, the U.S. Census Bureau under a new Biden administration has the tall task of restoring confidence in the numbers that will be used to determine funding and political power.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, declaring that "democracy has prevailed" and summoning American resilience and unity to confront the deeply divided nation's historic confluence of crises.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Three new senators were sworn into office Wednesday after President Joe Biden's inauguration, securing the majority for Democrats in the Senate and across a unified government to tackle the new president's agenda at a time of unprecedented national challenges.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As newly inaugurated leaders often do, President Joe Biden began his tenure with a ritual call for American unity.