VOL. 46 | NO. 52 | Friday, December 30, 2022
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate rose this week after falling for six straight weeks, adding to the challenges potential homebuyers face amid higher home prices and a limited supply of available houses.
TENNESSEE TITANS
Once the downward spiral of the 2022 season has finished, the Titans have some major decisions that need to be made.
Malik Willis has not been dealt the best of hands in his opportunities to start for the Tennessee Titans.
The Titans’ game with the Dallas Cowboys is essentially meaningless, except that it might be nice to end a five-game losing streak before the all-the-marbles showdown at Jacksonville in week 18.
UT SPORTS
Josh Heupel didn’t have to sell the vision of Tennessee football when securing his second recruiting class. Heupel had concrete evidence to provide.
NEWSMAKERS
Brian Masterson has joined Frost Brown Todd’s tax team as a partner.
BRIEFS
Gov. Bill Lee granted clemency to 16 people Dec. 22, including two inmates who will be eligible for parole.
GUEST COLUMNIST
The Chattanooga Times Free Press filed a lawsuit in December against the Chattanooga City Council over its use of private meetings to decide a significant issue, the new boundaries of city voting districts.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Storing a vehicle because it’s not needed is something that an owner might have to do at some point. It might be because it’s a sports car that the owner wants to protect from wintertime driving, or perhaps a vehicle that won’t be driven for months because of a vacation or military deployment. Whatever the reason, there’s a proper way to go about storing your vehicle.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Another holiday season is upon us, and if you have children, they’re likely racking up the gifts. These presents can range from toys to clothes to gift cards and even cash. The toys and clothes are easy to manage, but what are the rules when your children receive money for the holidays?
More than one in four retirees say they’re spending more than they can afford, an October 2022 survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute reports. With inflation at 7.1% in November, it’s not surprising that savings aren’t going as far as they used to. But there are ways to bring in extra income without taking on a full-time job.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
You’ve got big financial plans for 2023. Maybe they include buying a home or car, or getting a new travel rewards credit card to help pay for your next trip. There’s a key piece of these plans you may not have considered: building your credit score.
TENNESSEE TITANS
Joshua Dobbs has been a part of an NFL playoff team in his six-year career.
NASHVILLE PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Mattias Ekholm, Tommy Novak and Roman Josi each had a goal and an assist to lead the Nashville Predators to a 6-3 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night.
NASHVILLE AREA
Holland & Knight and Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis have agreed to a combination to be completed during the first quarter of 2023. The combined law firm will operate under the Holland & Knight name and will have nearly 2,000 attorneys in 35 offices across the U.S. and internationally.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee announced a new Department of Correction commissioner on Tuesday.
EAST TENNESSEE
KNOXVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee National Guard says it has used a military helicopter to rescue two hikers who were stranded on the Appalachian Trail.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — As members of the Proud Boys extremist group stormed past police lines and swarmed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, their leader cheered them on from afar, prosecutors say. "Do what must be done," Enrique Tarrio wrote on social media. "So what do we do now?" someone asked later that day in a Proud Boys encrypted group chat.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday finalized a rule change that broadens availability of abortion pills to many more pharmacies, including large chains and mail-order companies.
TRAVEL
DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines is trying to make travelers who were caught in its surge of canceled flights over the holidays feel a bit better about the airline by giving them 25,000 frequent-flyer points.
MEDIA
Twitter says it will ease up on its 3-year-old ban on political advertising, the latest change by Elon Musk as he tries to pump up revenue after purchasing the social media platform last year.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elon Musk is trying to slash expenses at Twitter as close to zero as possible while his personal wealth shrinks — and this apparently has included falling behind on rent payments at the company's offices.
TECHNOLOGY
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Tech companies of all sizes are showing off their latest products at CES, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics show.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks ended higher on Wall Street after a day of wavering as minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting of policymakers underscored how the central bank remains determined to keep rates high to crush inflation.
DALLAS (AP) — James "Buster" Corley, a co-founder of the restaurant and entertainment chain Dave & Buster's, has died. He was 72.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve officials suggested at their most recent meeting that a continuing streak of robust hiring could keep inflation elevated and was a key reason why they expected to raise interest rates this year more than they had previously forecast.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. job openings slipped in November but remained high, suggesting businesses are still determined to add workers, a blow to the Federal Reserve's efforts to cool hiring and wage gains.
Business software maker Salesforce is laying off about 8,000 employees, or 10% of its workforce, as major technology companies continue to prune payrolls that rapidly expanded during the pandemic lockdown.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York announced a $100 million settlement with Coinbase on Wednesday over what state officials called significant failures in the cryptocurrency trading platform's systems for spotting potential criminal activity.
LONDON (AP) — Irish regulators on Wednesday hit Facebook parent Meta with hundreds of millions in fines for online privacy violations and banned the company from forcing European users to agree to personalized ads based on their online activity.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans flailed through a second day of multiple balloting Wednesday, unable to elect their leader Kevin McCarthy as House speaker or come up with a new strategy to end the political chaos that has tarnished the start of their new majority.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republicans opposing Rep. Kevin McCarthy's bid to become the next House speaker generally have made their mark as part of the GOP's ultra-conservative wing, eager to pick a fight with leaders from both parties and rarely finding major bipartisan bills to be a good thing.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dozens of military veterans on Wednesday hand-delivered letters to top Republicans in the U.S. House, calling on them to publicly condemn political violence as the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol approaches.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Wednesday he intends to visit the U.S.-Mexico border in connection with his meeting next week in Mexico City with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said House Republicans' inability to unify behind a speaker candidate, which has prevented the chamber from beginning its legislative business, was "embarrassing" and "not a good look" for the country.
WASHINGTON (AP) — What was expected to be a day of triumph for House Republicans coming into the majority turned into chaos Tuesday as interparty fighting over who should lead them in their new reign ended with no speaker in the rostrum.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's visit to a notoriously dilapidated bridge connecting Ohio and Kentucky is a chance for him to showcase accomplishments and talk up the virtues of bipartisanship while rubbing shoulders with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
UKRAINE
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Unauthorized use of cell phones by Russian soldiers led to a deadly Ukrainian rocket attack on the facility where they were stationed, according to the Russian military, as it raised the death toll from the weekend attack to 89.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 3
COURTS
NEW YORK (AP) — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court Tuesday to charges that he cheated investors and looted customer deposits on his cryptocurrency trading platform as a judge set a tentative trial date for October.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Shares of Tesla tumbled more than 12% Tuesday on the first full day of trading since the company announced 2022 delivery numbers that fell short of targets.
EDUCATION
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. News & World Report will change how its rankings of law schools are calculated in response to a boycott by a number of top programs.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — CES, the annual tech industry event formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, is returning to Las Vegas this week with the hope that it looks more like it did before the coronavirus pandemic.
TRAVEL
LONDON (AP) — Commuters returning to work on Tuesday after the Christmas break were advised not to travel as tens of thousands of British rail workers stage a fresh round of strikes that will disrupt services all week.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks gave up an early gain and ended lower Tuesday, a lackluster first trading day of 2023 for Wall Street just days after it closed the books on its worst year since 2008.
A group of video game testers is forming Microsoft's first labor union in the U.S., which will also be the largest in the video game industry.
Forty-seven. That's how many days of child care Kathryn Anne Edwards' 3-year-old son has missed in the past year.
TOKYO (AP) — Major Japanese companies have grown more pessimistic about the economy, given higher costs and a weaker yen, according to a survey by Kyodo News.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany has recorded its highest annual inflation in more than 70 years, according to preliminary data released Tuesday by the country's Federal Statistical Office.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Failing to elect party leader Kevin McCarthy as the new speaker of the House, Republicans adjourned in disarray Tuesday night, ending a raucous first day of the new Congress but hoping to somehow regroup on Wednesday from his historic defeat.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are again claiming the Senate majority, but much of the chamber's focus Tuesday is on the top Republican as Mitch McConnell becomes the longest serving Senate leader in history.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden still wants former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who has been shadowed by a controversy over sexual harassment, to serve as his ambassador to India.
UKRAINE
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Emergency crews on Tuesday sifted through the rubble of a building struck by Ukrainian rockets, killing at least 63 Russian soldiers barracked there, in the latest blow to the Kremlin's war strategy as Ukraine says Moscow's tactics could be shifting.
MONDAY, JANUARY 2
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Quarterback Joshua Dobbs will make a second straight start Saturday night in Jacksonville with the Titans' playoff hopes on the line despite being signed Dec. 21 off Detroit's practice squad.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Doug Pederson's message to his team following a fourth consecutive victory was simple: keep being you.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — When lawyers argue before the Supreme Court, a small white light goes on to tell them when their time is almost expired and then a red light signals when they should stop. But arguments this term are extending well beyond the red light's cue.
NEW YORK (AP) — Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase are asking a federal court to throw out lawsuits that claim the big banks should have seen evidence of sex trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein, the high-flying financier who killed himself in jail while facing criminal charges.
AUTO INDUSTRY
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Tesla said Monday it sold a record 1.3 million vehicles last year, but the number fell short of CEO Elon Musk's pledge to grow the company's sales by 50% nearly every year.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Jan. 6 committee is shutting down, having completed a whirlwind 18-month investigation of the 2021 Capitol insurrection and sent its work to the Justice Department along with a recommendation for prosecuting former President Donald Trump.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Kevin McCarthy is set to face a case of deja vu come Tuesday. The political future of the 57-year-old will once again be at stake as Republican lawmakers decide if he should be elected as House speaker.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Eva Guzman's expenses have swelled, but she feels comfortable financially thanks to the savings she and her late husband stockpiled for a rainy day. Nevertheless, the 80-year-old retired library clerk in San Antonio limits trips to the grocery store, adjusts the thermostat to save on utilities and tries to help her grandchildren and great-grandchildren get what they need.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump began 2022 on a high. Primary candidates were flocking to Florida to court the former president for a coveted endorsement. His rallies were drawing thousands. A bevy of investigations remained largely under the radar.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Even as the House GOP leadership keeps silent, a veteran Republican lawmaker said Sunday that George Santos should consider resigning after the congressman-elect from New York admitted to lying about his heritage, education and professional career.
UKRAINE
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia deployed multiple exploding drones in another nighttime attack on Ukraine, officials said Monday, as the Kremlin signaled no letup in its strategy of using bombardments to target civilian infrastructure and wear down Ukrainian resistance to its invasion.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Go ahead and forget Tennessee's six-game skid, the franchise's longest since Ken Whisenhunt lost his head coaching job seven games into his second season in 2015.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys know they have some things to clean up. Starting a two-game road swing to wrap up the regular season with a victory is all that matters.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans face a very big decision with the AFC South title up for grabs in the regular-season finale in Jacksonville.
UT SPORTS
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — It was an Orange Bowl trip that helped usher in Clemson's current run of success. And maybe it'll be the start of something special at Tennessee, too.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville election officials made erroneous updates to voter lists for last month's election and failed to follow steps to make sure they were accurate, leading more than 430 Tennessee voters to cast ballots in the wrong races, the state's elections coordinator determined in a review released Friday.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials say eight people have died as of Thursday due to recent extreme weather conditions.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — When multiple pharmaceutical companies objected to Tennessee using their drugs to kill death row inmates several years back, the scramble to find lethal injection chemicals needed to carry out state-sanctioned executions grew frantic.
TRAVEL
DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines returned to a relatively normal flight schedule Friday, as the focus shifts to making things right with what could be well more than a million passengers who missed family connections or flights home during the holidays, and many of whom are still missing luggage.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration's contentious approval of a questionable Alzheimer's drug took another hit Thursday as congressional investigators called the process "rife with irregularities."
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Almost three years after officials announced the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Indonesia, the country's leader said Friday they are lifting all coronavirus-related restrictions nationwide.
ENVIRONMENT
ST. LOUIS (AP) — President Joe Biden's administration on Friday finalized regulations that protect hundreds of thousands of small streams, wetlands and other waterways, repealing a Trump-era rule that federal courts had thrown out and that environmentalists said left waterways vulnerable to pollution.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks are closing out 2022 with more losses, giving the S&P 500 its worst year since 2008.
Investors found few, if any, places to safely put their money in 2022, as central banks in the U.S. and around the globe raised interest rates for the first time in years to fight surging inflation, stoking fear of a global recession.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Billionaire investor Warren Buffett broke with his practice of staying out of local politics to urge his hometown of Omaha to abandon its planned streetcar project because he says it's too expensive and not as flexible as buses.
HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese technology giant Huawei says it has emerged from "crisis mode" after years of U.S. restrictions that have stifled its overseas sales, even though its revenue for 2022 failed to grow from a year earlier.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
Democrats in Congress released thousands of pages of former President Donald Trump's tax returns Friday, providing the most detailed picture to date of his finances over a six-year period, including his time in the White House, when he fought to keep the information private in a break with decades of precedent.
In one of its last acts under Democratic control, the House of Representatives on Friday released six years of former President Donald Trump's tax returns, dating to 2015, the year he announced his presidential bid.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Destroyed documents. Suggestions of pardoning violent rioters. Quiet talks among cabinet officials about whether then-President Donald Trump should be removed from office.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress has failed so far to create a path to residency for Afghans who worked alongside U.S. soldiers in America's longest war, pushing into limbo tens of thousands of refugees who fled Taliban control more than two years ago and now live in the United States.
UKRAINE
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ten months into Russia's latest invasion of Ukraine, overwhelming evidence shows the Kremlin's troops have waged total war, with disregard for international laws governing the treatment of civilians and conduct on the battlefield.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — A person familiar with the situation says that the Tennessee Titans will start Joshua Dobbs at quarterback Thursday night against the Dallas Cowboys instead of rookie Malik Willis.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee has not complied with its own lethal injection process ever since it was revised in 2018, resulting in several executions being conducted without proper testing of the drugs used, according to an independent review released Wednesday.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — For the Biden White House, a quartet of four female judges in Colorado encapsulates its mission when it comes to the federal judiciary.
AUTO INDUSTRY
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Owning Tesla stock this year has been anything but a smooth ride for investors.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Starting Jan. 1, many Americans will qualify for a tax credit of up to $7,500 for buying an electric vehicle. The credit, part of changes enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act, is designed to spur EV sales and reduce greenhouse emissions.
HEALTH CARE
BEIJING (AP) — Moves by several countries to mandate COVID-19 tests for passengers arriving from China reflect global concern that new variants could emerge in its ongoing explosive outbreak — and that the government may not inform the rest of the world quickly enough.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks rallied to a higher close on Wall Street as new jobless benefits data showed that the labor market remains strong.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Economists are baffled by a wider-than-usual divergence between long-term mortgage rates and the yield on the benchmark U.S. government bond that is driving a sharp rise in borrowing costs and helping to torpedo the U.S. housing market this year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people seeking unemployment benefits rose only slightly last week with the labor market remaining strong despite the Federal Reserve's efforts to cool the economy and hiring.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — It should be a time of triumph for Republicans ready to take back control of the House in the new Congress next week, but their leaders are struggling with an embarrassing distraction about one of their own: What to do about George Santos?
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Jan. 6 committee has dropped its subpoena against former President Donald Trump as it wraps up work and prepares to dissolve next week.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. State Department has approved the sale of an anti-tank mine-laying system to Taiwan amid the rising military threat from China.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin said Wednesday that he has a type of lymphoma that's a "serious but curable form of cancer" and he is beginning several months of treatment.
UKRAINE
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Multiple regions of Ukraine, including its capital, faced a massive Russian missile attack Thursday, the biggest wave of strikes in weeks targeting power stations and other critical infrastructure during freezing weather.
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Vildana Mutevelic huddled in her apartment with her two young children and elderly cousins. They had no heat, electricity or running water as artillery shells tore the roof off their building and almost took their lives.