VOL. 45 | NO. 9 | Friday, February 26, 2021
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
Over a closing table this week, Brandon Miller, a founding member of Wagon Wheel Title, waxed brilliantly on his observations as a residential real estate closing attorney. During its 15-year of existence, Wagon Wheel has blossomed into one of the leading title companies in Nashville with Miller witnessing numerous closings for properties located in all geographical areas of Greater Nashville.
REAL ESTATE
Top residential real estate sales, January 2021, for Davidson County, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. long-term mortgage rates rose this week but remain near historic lows as the pandemic-hobbled economy strains toward recovery with more Americans getting vaccinated against the coronavirus.
NEWSMAKERS
Wealth Strategies Partners’ Paul Allen, CFP®, MS, has been named to Forbes’ 2021 list of America’s Best-in-State Wealth Advisors. This marks the second time that he has received this prestigious recognition.
BRIEFS
Noble Investment Group has announced the opening of its new LEED-certified Element Nashville Vanderbilt West End.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Lacie Romano, a Los Angeles resident, is stuck paying for a vehicle she no longer needs. Like many Americans, her situation has been upended by the pandemic.
PERSONAL FINANCE
As airlines slashed flights and furloughs appeared inevitable in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Mike Catania sensed there would be little need for a service that helped airline crews find short-term housing.
CAREER CORNER
We’ve now been living in a pandemic for almost one year. And just when it seemed things couldn’t get any stranger, the last two weeks happened.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
The pandemic-related recession has altered many job descriptions. For Haley Jones, a 24-year-old resident of Michigan, the coronavirus changed the needs of her company, and as she adapted to meet them her responsibilities were no longer confined to her marketing specialist role.
MIDSTATE
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) — Some soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division are heading to Florida to help with the vaccination effort there.
EDUCATION
KNOXVILLE (AP) — The University of Tennessee at Knoxville is naming residence halls after two Black trailblazers.
COURTS
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance has agreed to pay $92 million in a settlement to U.S. users who are part of a class-action lawsuit alleging that the video-sharing app failed to get their consent to collect data in violation of a strict Illinois privacy law.
AUTO INDUSTRY
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Volkswagen said Friday it made better than expected profit of 8.8 billion euros ($10.7 billion) after tax in 2020 despite the pandemic. The world's No. 2 automaker said the rapid recovery of China, its largest single market, and resilient sales of luxury vehicles helped the bottom line.
MEDIA
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Facebook announced on Friday preliminary agreements with three Australian publishers, a day after the Parliament passed a law that would make the digital giants pay for news.
TRANSPORTATION
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal officials are seeking a $27,500 civil penalty against an airline passenger who allegedly struck a flight attendant who asked the passenger and a companion to leave the plane after a dispute over wearing a face mask.
United Airlines will pay more than $49 million to avoid criminal prosecution and settle civil charges of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service in the delivery of international mail.
LONDON (AP) — The parent company of British Airways and Iberia on Friday said it lost 6.9 billion euros ($8.3 billion) last year as the pandemic caused a near-total collapse in international air traffic, and called for digital passes to help revive travel.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian media report that a Boeing 777 plane made an emergency landing in Moscow in the early hours of Friday after the pilot reported a problem with the engine.
Federal regulators have imposed $5.4 million in civil penalties against Boeing for violating terms of a $12 million settlement in 2015, and the aircraft maker has agreed to pay another $1.21 million to settle two current enforcement cases.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is sounding the alarm that recent gains against the coronavirus may be stalling.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation is poised to get a third vaccine against COVID-19, but because at first glance the Johnson & Johnson shot may not be seen as equal to other options, health officials are girding for the question: Which one is best?
BEIJING (AP) — The thrills and chills of the big screen are back big-time in the world's largest film market.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Violet light bathed the club stage as 300 people, masked and socially distanced, erupted in gentle applause. For the first time since the pandemic began, Israeli musician Aviv Geffen stepped to his electric piano and began to play for an audience seated right in front of him.
LONDON (AP) — Britain's Queen Elizabeth II is encouraging people to be vaccinated against COVID-19, saying the shot is quick, harmless and will help protect others against the disease.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
A choppy day on Wall Street ended with stocks mostly lower Friday, helping push the S&P 500 to its second straight weekly loss.
NEW YORK (AP) — Yes, it's possible to have too much of a good thing, and that's exactly why stock markets around the world are getting so unsettled.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is expected to pass a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package late Friday that includes $1,400 checks for most Americans and billions of dollars for schools, state and local governments and businesses.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bouncing back from months of retrenchment, America's consumers stepped up their spending by a solid 2.4% in January, the sharpest increase in seven months and a sign that the economy may be poised to sustain a recovery from the pandemic recession.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A $1.9 trillion package aimed at helping the country rebuild from the pandemic seemed headed toward House passage Friday, even as Democrats searched for a way to revive their derailed drive to boost the minimum wage.
NEW YORK (AP) — Costco will increase its starting wage to $16 an hour, surpassing most of its main competitors.
Home-sharing site Airbnb posted a $3.9 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2020 as it suffered from the pandemic downturn in travel and recorded one-time costs for becoming a public company.
Meal delivery company DoorDash said its revenue more than tripled last year thanks to pandemic-driven demand, but it still lost money because it spent more heavily on marketing and expanding its business.
NEW YORK (AP) — Best Buy said Thursday that it laid off 5,000 full-time store workers earlier this month, even as the company's sales soared during the pandemic as homebound people bought laptops, TVs and other gadgets.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's Birkenstock, known for its upmarket sandals, said Friday it is selling a majority stake to private equity firm L Catteron and affiliates including Financière Agache, the family investment company of French billionaire Bernard Arnault.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration defended the U.S. military airstrikes in Syria as legal and appropriate Friday, saying they took out facilities that housed valuable "capabilities" used by Iranian-backed militia groups to attack American and allied forces in Iraq.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed legislation Friday that would create about 1.5 million acres of new wilderness and incorporate nearly 1,200 miles of waterways into the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System as Democrats move to protect more public lands — with President Joe Biden's blessing.
HOUSTON (AP) — President Joe Biden heard firsthand from Texans clobbered by this month's brutal winter weather on Friday as he made his first trip to a major disaster area since he took office.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Less than a month after excoriating Donald Trump in a blistering floor speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he would "absolutely" support the former president again if he secured the Republican nomination in 2024.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States launched airstrikes in Syria on Thursday, targeting facilities near the Iraqi border used by Iranian-backed militia groups. The Pentagon said the strikes were retaliation for a rocket attack in Iraq earlier this month that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a U.S. service member and other coalition troops.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25
NASHVILLE AREA
Southwest Airlines will begin nonstop service from Nashville International Airport to Destin/Ft. Walton Beach on May 6.
Metro Public Health Department officials have reviewed and approved a plan for fans to attend the upcoming SEC men’s basketball tournament at Bridgestone Arena. The plan for the tournament, which begins March 10, includes 20 percent of seating capacity (3,400) which is consistent with what the attendance that will be allowed for Nashville Predators games in March.
VANDERBILT SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Vanderbilt guard Scotty Pippen Jr., the Southeastern Conference's second-leading scorer, snapped a 32-game start streak Wednesday night because of an unspecified injury.
TENNESSEE TITANS
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Jurrell Casey's stint in Denver lasted just three games.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Legislation to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls' sports would likely result in vulnerable students being marginalized while also harming Tennessee's ability to recruit athletes and businesses, the state's only openly gay Republican lawmaker recently warned his fellow GOP colleagues.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee's Department of Health announced that it will soon lift its state-specific visitation restrictions for long-term care facilities.
EDUCATION
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee State University has joined the IBM-HBCU Quantum Center, the nation's first quantum education and research initiative for historically Black colleges and universities, the school said.
MEDIA
Twitter is branching out from advertising to find more ways to make money — both for itself and for its most prolific users, whether those are businesses, celebrities or regular people.
NEW DELHI (AP) — India on Thursday rolled out new regulations for social media companies and digital streaming websites to make them more accountable for the online content shared on their platforms, giving the government more power to police it.
COURTS
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York prosecutor has obtained copies of Donald Trump's tax records after the Supreme Court this week rejected the former president's last-ditch effort to prevent them from being handed over.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department's internal watchdog is reviewing a former Boeing engineer's allegations that he was unfairly investigated by the FBI on suspicion that he was spying for China, according to correspondence and court filings reviewed by The Associated Press. It's the latest challenge related to secretive surveillance powers used in some terrorism and espionage cases.
TRANSPORTATION
Federal auditors say U.S. regulators didn't understand a flight-control system that played a role in two deadly crashes of a Boeing jet and must improve their process for certifying new planes.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Qantas Airways does not expect to resume international travel apart from New Zealand until late October after the Australian population is vaccinated for COVID-19, the airline's chief executive said on Thursday.
REAL ESTATE
SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — The number of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes declined again with the number of properties for sale not matching the surging demand in the U.S.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — Days after marking a solemn milestone in the pandemic, President Joe Biden is celebrating the pace of his efforts to end it.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Anthony Fauci says if a coronavirus vaccine is available, regardless of which one, take it.
NEW YORK (AP) — February is usually the peak of flu season, with doctors' offices and hospitals packed with suffering patients. But not this year.
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders are gathering Thursday to try to inject new energy into the bloc's lagging coronavirus vaccination efforts as concern mounts that new variants might spread faster than authorities can adapt.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
A rout in technology companies pulled the Nasdaq down 3.5% Thursday, the biggest loss for the tech-heavy index since last October.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's pick to be the top U.S. trade envoy promised to work with America's allies to combat China's aggressive trade policies, indicating a break from the Trump administration's go-it-alone approach.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket goods shot up 3.4% in January, pulled up by surge in orders for civilian aircraft. A category that tracks business investment posted a more modest gain, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell sharply last week in a sign that layoffs may have eased, though applications for aid remain at a historically high level.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The economy grew at a 4.1% pace in the final three months of 2020, slightly faster than first estimated, ending a year in which the overall economy, ravaged by a global pandemic, shrank more than in any year in the past seven decades.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are closing ranks against Democrats' proposed $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, even as the White House seemed to rule out a procedural Senate power play to protect one provision most treasured by progressives: a minimum wage hike.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is formally expanding a $3 million financial relief fund that it quietly launched earlier this month, to help people struggling to make ends meet during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Investor Warren Buffett's right-hand man says the U.S. stock market is overvalued, but he doesn't know when the bubble will burst.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street's GameStop saga can't stop. At the very least, it won't stop.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm won Senate confirmation Thursday to be energy secretary and will be a key Cabinet member trying to fulfill President Joe Biden's commitment for a green economy as the United States fights to slow climate change.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A gathering of conservatives this weekend in Florida will serve as an unabashed endorsement of former President Donald Trump's desire to remain the leader of the Republican Party — and as a forum to fan his false claim that he lost the November election only because of widespread voter fraud.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The acting U.S. Capitol Police chief was pressed to explain Thursday why the agency hadn't been prepared to fend off a violent mob of insurrectionists, including white supremacists, who were trying to halt the certification of the presidential election last month, even though officials had compelling advance intelligence.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-led House is poised to pass a bill that would enshrine LGBTQ protections in the nation's labor and civil rights laws, a top priority of President Joe Biden, though the legislation faces an uphill battle in the Senate.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and his team are getting the numbers wrong when they talk about the enormity of the mounting COVID-19 death toll and the looming climate change threat.