INDUSTRY EVENTS
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INDUSTRY NEWS
The Center for Investigative Reporting has filed a lawsuit in federal court under the Freedom of Information Act to get access to records held by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a division of the Treasury Department.

Land fraud in Arizona started before it was even a state.
A confederate soldier from Missouri tried to claim 12 million acres that would have spanned from Phoenix to Silver City, New Mexico, in the 1880s. 

Effective January 1, Florida's notary laws are changing. In general terms, remote notarization will now be permitted, meaning that if certain criteria are met and the statutory protections are in place, the notary will no longer have to physically (in person) witness the person sign the instrument requiring notarization, but rather notarization can be accomplished through a video feed and recording.

The Appellate Division, First Department, for the second time, upheld the NYDFS title insurance regulations and dismissed the case in full.

[Adverse Possession and Saturday Night Live]

Last night Eddie Murphy reprised one of his most familiar Saturday Night Live roles — the cheerful, pedantic and shifty Mr. Robinson — in a fan-service-filled sendup that is timely in light of the Fred Rogers biopic, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, in theaters now.

LEGAL NEWS
Who doesn’t love an underdog story? In this case, developers. Often builders must buy several homes to make way for projects, and given what they can offer, the strategy generally works.

On December 20, 2019, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (Marvin Isgur presiding) entered a memorandum opinion and order finding that midstream gathering agreements created covenants running with the land under Oklahoma law that could not be rejected by bankrupt debtors.

In the second half of this year, the Massachusetts Appeals Court decided three cases in which a party claimed adverse possession or prescriptive rights in real estate. 

TECHNOLOGY & SOCIAL MEDIA
In 2017 I decided to find out what would happen if I trained a neural net on 240 Christmas carols (collected by The Times of London and reader/neural net hobbyist Erik Svensson). The result? A neural net that was very confused about how Christmas works:

The real estate developer behind California’s tough new privacy law — the strictest in the U.S. — wants to further strengthen it when it becomes effective Jan. 1, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday (Dec. 29).

"The biggest difference between then and now, is that people didn't really think about what companies were collecting on us," says Chris Jordan, CEO of Fluency, a data analysis company. "We weren't worried about privacy. Now we are."

TITLE AGENCY & PEOPLE IN THE NEWS
Former University at Albany pitcher Stephen Woods Jr. saw his life change dramatically with a text he received on Dec. 12.

Title Agents Go Nationwide
For agents interested in growing their businesses by expanding into multiple states, we’re here to make the process simple and profitable. We offer you one point of contact to streamline your options and solutions...

OTHER TRENDING NEWS
Hating life is a bit of a misnomer it seems: in the media, in education, in every aspect of our lives, we’re shown visions of a perfect world, one where everyone is happy and life is a decades-long dream. Unfortunately, it isn’t.

In director Clint Eastwood’s new movie “Richard Jewell,” the protagonist is represented by a feisty libertarian lawyer who teaches him to fight back against the system.

The New Year's Song Explained
"Auld Lang Syne" is sung or played at New Year's celebrations, but the traditional tune is used around the world for other purposes. The original is Scottish, and few of us know the original words -or even the modern English words. Here's a video that tells you everything you need to know about "Auld Lang Syne."   

Marianne Mathieu, NTP
Vice President/National Agency Accounts
Fidelity National Financial
(347) 987-0677