VOL. 45 | NO. 3 | Friday, January 15, 2021
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. long-term mortgage rates rose this week in an indication that the long period of record-low rates could soon be over.
TENNESSEE TITANS
For those who have followed the Titans in their 20-plus years in Nashville now, you know what a thorn the Baltimore Ravens have been for this franchise.
The four downs segment will be a little different this week since the Titans don’t have an opponent to plan for, thanks to their playoff loss to Baltimore. Instead, our focus will shift to the four remaining games in the NFL Divisional Round.
NEWSMAKERS
Patterson Intellectual Property Law has elected Scott M. Douglass to a shareholder of the firm.
BRIEFS
Amazon has partnered with the Nashville Children’s Theatre for its 90th anniversary season, allowing the organization to expand its reach and offerings to students across Tennessee.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
The immense popularity of small SUVs means that every manufacturer competing in this space has to bring its A-game.
PERSONAL FINANCE
None of us knows everything we need to know about money, so we may turn to experts for help. But some money professionals who offer advice are not qualified to do so – nor are they required to put our interests ahead of theirs.
CAREER CORNER
As the pandemic continues to rage on in the United States, many of us have felt locked indoors. We’ve felt isolated. It’s been lonely. It’s scary.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
As you lay the groundwork for 2021 financial resolutions, take inventory of your credit cards to see if they’re still in line with your goals and priorities.
UT SPORTS
Fulmer retiring as part of shakeup
The Tennessee football program is starting over yet again, this time after coach Jeremy Pruitt and nine others were fired Monday for cause when an internal investigation found what the university chancellor called "serious violations of NCAA rules."
VANDERBILT SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Vanderbilt's women's basketball program has decided to end its season after struggling with a depleted roster.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — As their state faced one of its toughest months of the pandemic, Tennesseans watched Gov. Bill Lee's rare primetime address to see whether new public restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus might be coming.
ENVIRONMENT
TORONTO (AP) — The premier of Canada's oil-rich province of Alberta wants President-elect Joe Biden to give the Canadian government a chance to make the case for the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline to be built.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
NEW YORK (AP) — Coronavirus deaths are rising in nearly two-thirds of American states as a winter surge pushes the overall toll toward 400,000 amid warnings that a new, highly contagious variant is taking hold.
GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization chief on Monday lambasted drugmakers' profits and vaccine inequalities, saying it's "not right" that younger, healthier adults in wealthy countries get vaccinated against COVID-19 before older people or health care workers in poorer countries and charging that most vaccine makers have targeted locations where "profits are highest."
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
BALTIMORE (AP) — When Joe Biden entered the White House as vice president, the economy was cratering. Job losses were mounting. Stocks were crashing. Millions of Americans were in the early stages of losing their homes to foreclosure as the housing bubble burst.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden is set to nominate Rohit Chopra as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, tapping a progressive ally of Sen. Elizabeth Warren to helm the agency whose creation she championed.
GENEVA (AP) — Organizers of the World Economic Forum are expecting leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa for a virtual gathering next week — after COVID-19 canceled the annual in-person event of Davos, Switzerland.
BEIJING (AP) — China eked out 2.3% economic growth in 2020, likely becoming the only major economy to expand as shops and factories reopened relatively early from a shutdown to fight the coronavirus while the United States, Japan and Europe struggled with rising infections.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Veterans of President Donald Trump's failed reelection campaign had key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally that spawned a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to an Associated Press review of records, undercutting the grassroots image pushed by groups involved in the event.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The lead prosecutor for President Donald Trump's historic second impeachment began building his case for conviction at trial, asserting on Sunday that Trump's incitement of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol was "the most dangerous crime" ever committed by a president against the United States. A Senate trial could begin as soon as this week, just as Democrat Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th president.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. defense officials say they are worried about an insider attack or other threat from service members involved in securing President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, prompting the FBI to vet all of the 25,000 National Guard troops coming into Washington for the event.
WASHINGTON (AP) — So what does a 50-50 Senate get President-elect Joe Biden?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Kamala Harris will make history on Wednesday when she becomes the nation's first female vice president — and the first Black woman and the first woman of South Asian descent to hold that office. But that's only where her boundary-breaking role begins.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 15
TENNESSEE TITANS
ATLANTA (AP) — The Atlanta Falcons agreed to terms with Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Arthur Smith on Friday to become the team's head coach.
VANDERBILT SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea has added three more people to his initial coaching staff.
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Filip Forsberg has been known to pinpoint his wrist shot with almost surgical precision. This one was so good it stirred up everyone on the bench — even the physicians.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee's GOP-dominant Legislature on Friday approved a contentious decision that would drastically overhaul the state's Medicaid program, casting quick votes this week in hopes of making it difficult for incoming President-elect Joe Biden's administration from overturning the deal.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal watchdogs launched a sweeping review of how the FBI, the Pentagon and other law enforcement agencies responded to the riot at the U.S. Capitol, including whether there were failures in information sharing and other preparations that left the historic symbol of democracy vulnerable to assault by a mob of President Donald Trump's supporters.
TRANSPORTATION
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Two major railroad workers unions have asked the Department of Homeland Security to beef up security on Amtrak and other passenger lines, including by creating a no-ride list akin to the no-fly list that prevents people identified as risks from boarding planes.
MEDIA
Major social platforms have been cracking down on the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories in the leadup to the presidential election, and expanded their efforts in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. But Apple and Google, among others, have left open a major loophole for this material: Podcasts.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Getting 100 million shots in Americans' arms in his first 100 days is only the beginning of his coronavirus plan, President-elect Joe Biden declared Friday. Lasting impact, he said, will come from uniting the nation in a new effort grounded in science and fueled by billions in federal money for vaccination, testing and outbreak sleuths.
Uncertainty over the pace of federal COVID-19 vaccine allotments triggered anger and confusion Friday in some states, with officials worried that the shipments they expected won't be coming through.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The global death toll from COVID-19 topped 2 million Friday, crossing the threshold amid a vaccine rollout so immense but so uneven that in some countries there is real hope of vanquishing the outbreak, while in other, less-developed parts of the world, it seems a far-off dream.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer confirmed Friday it will temporarily reduce deliveries to Europe of its COVID-19 vaccine while it upgrades production capacity to 2 billion doses per year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The line stretched nearly a block long. Nobody was grumbling about the wait.
AMSTERDAM (AP) — The European Union's drug regulator said Friday that COVID-19 vaccine documents stolen from its servers in a cyberattack have been not only leaked to the web, but "manipulated" by hackers.
ATLANTA (AP) — The coronavirus vaccines have been rolled out unevenly across the U.S., but four states in the Deep South have had particularly dismal inoculation rates that have alarmed health experts and frustrated residents.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden has picked a former Food and Drug commissioner to lead vaccine science in his drive to put 100 million shots into the arms of Americans in his administration's first 100 days and stem the COVID-19 pandemic.
MADRID (AP) — While most of Europe kicked off 2021 with earlier curfews or stay-at-home orders, authorities in Spain insist the new coronavirus variant causing havoc elsewhere is not to blame for a sharp resurgence of cases and that the country can avoid a full lockdown even as its hospitals fill up.
LONDON (AP) — Britain's government has banned travel from South America and Portugal to ensure a new variant of COVID-19 found in Brazil doesn't derail the country's vaccination program, although there are no signs the variant has reached the U.K.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street closed out its first losing week in three with another drop on Friday after reports showed the pandemic is deepening the hole for the economy, as Washington prepares to throw it another lifeline.
NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's largest retail trade group said Friday that holiday sales soared 8.3%, far exceeding its forecast even as the coronavirus kept shoppers away from physical stores.
SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — U.S. industrial production rose 1.6% in December, a third straight monthly gain, but remains below its pre-pandemic level.
NEW YORK (AP) — Americans cut back on spending in December for the third-straight month as a surge in virus cases kept people away from stores during the critical holiday shopping season.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. wholesale prices rose 0.3% in December led by a the biggest jump in energy costs since June.
PARIS (AP) — French oil and gas company Total said it has decided to withdraw from energy association American Petroleum Institute because it disagrees on climate-related policies.
BALTIMORE (AP) — The $1.9 trillion rescue plan unveiled by President-elect Joe Biden offers the chance to sculpt the U.S. economy toward the Democrats' liking: a $15 minimum wage, aid to poor families and federal dollars going to public schools.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — JPMorgan Chase & Co., the nation's largest bank by assets, said its fourth quarter profits jumped by 42% from a year earlier, as the firm's investment banking division had a stellar quarter and its balance sheet improved despite the pandemic.
LONDON (AP) — The British economy looks set to fall back into recession after official figures on Friday showed that it shrank by 2.6% month-on-month in November, when much of the country was in a second coronavirus lockdown.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered no clues Friday on her plans to send President Donald Trump's impeachment to the Senate for trial, but made it clear that Democrats intend to move swiftly on Joe Biden's legislative priorities, including funding for coronavirus vaccines and relief aid.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence has called his soon-to-be successor Kamala Harris to offer his congratulations, according to two people familiar with the conversation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré is being tapped to lead a security review of the U.S. Capitol in the wake of last week's deadly insurrection.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will leave Washington next Wednesday morning, ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, according to a person familiar with the planning who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision had not been made public.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped nine of her most trusted allies in the House to argue the case for President Donald Trump's impeachment.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Now that the House has impeached President Donald Trump for the second time, Speaker Nancy Pelosi must figure out the best strategy for arguing the case before the Senate.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden is nominating New York emergency department commissioner Deanne Criswell to serve as the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator and has tapped former CIA deputy director David Cohen to return to the agency in the same role he served during the Obama administration.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Donald Trump's supporters massed outside the Capitol last week and sang the national anthem, a line of men wearing olive-drab helmets and body armor trudged purposefully up the marble stairs in a single-file line, each man holding the jacket collar of the one ahead.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chuck Schumer is used to drinking from a firehose. But the incoming Senate majority leader has never taken on such a torrent of challenges, with the opening days of both the Biden administration and Democratic control of the Senate coming at the very moment an impeachment trial gets underway.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 14
TENNESSEE TITANS
NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Jets completed their in-person second interview with Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Arthur Smith on Thursday as their search for a head coach continues.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — A statue of country music icon Dolly Parton could be added to the Capitol grounds in Nashville, Tennessee, if one state lawmaker gets his way.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Former Gov. Bill Haslam's top deputy is joining the office of newly installed U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty as his state director.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee State University and a new global campus based in Atlanta will work together with the Historically Black Colleges and Universities community to offer leadership and career development programming, the school said.
EDUCATION
ATLANTA (AP) — Apple and a major utility are each giving $25 million to launch a learning center and business incubator for students of historically Black colleges and universities, part of an outpouring of giving to such schools in the wake of the summer's protests over racial injustice.
TECHNOLOGY
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Encrypted messaging apps Signal and Telegram are seeing huge upticks in downloads from Apple and Google's app stores. Facebook-owned WhatsApp, by contrast, is seeing its growth decline following a fiasco that forced the company to clarify a privacy update it had sent to users.
MEDIA
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey defended his company's ban of President Donald Trump in a philosophical Twitter thread that is his first public statement on the subject.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — A new government report says gas mileage for new vehicles dropped and pollution increased in model year 2019 for the first time in five years.
DETROIT (AP) — The number of people killed on the nation's highways rose 4.6% in the first nine months of 2020 despite coronavirus lockdowns that curtailed driving early in the year.
DETROIT (AP) — Tesla Inc. is balking at recalling about 159,000 vehicles with potentially defective touch screens, so U.S. safety regulators are moving to force the company to take action.
TRANSPORTATION
Airlines and airports say they are stepping up security before next week's presidential inauguration, with Delta, United and Alaska saying they will prohibit passengers flying to the Washington area from putting guns in checked bags.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Flights were delayed when an air traffic control center near Jacksonville, Florida, had to close down for several hours for extensive cleaning after an employee tested positive for COVID-19.
Federal safety officials said Wednesday they stepping up enforcement against unruly airline passengers after confrontations on flights to and from Washington, D.C., around the time of the riot at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid insurrection and impeachment, the Supreme Court's big news Thursday was a decision in a bankruptcy case. Wednesday brought arguments over the Federal Trade Commission's ability to recapture ill-gotten gains.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
The rapid expansion of COVID-19 vaccinations to senior citizens across the U.S. has led to bottlenecks, system crashes and hard feelings in many states because of overwhelming demand for the shots.
As vaccinations continue across the U.S., some companies are offering financial incentives to encourage their workers to get the shots.
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — A coronavirus action plan being unveiled by President-elect Joe Biden centers on a mass vaccination campaign and closer coordination among all levels of government.
WUHAN, China (AP) — A global team of researchers arrived Thursday in the Chinese city where the coronavirus pandemic was first detected to conduct a politically sensitive investigation into its origins amid uncertainty about whether Beijing might try to prevent embarrassing discoveries.
State leaders around the U.S. are increasingly pushing for schools to reopen this winter — pressuring them, even — as teachers begin to gain access to the vaccine against the raging pandemic.
WUHAN, China (AP) — The WHO team of international researchers that arrived in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on Thursday hopes to find clues to the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese authorities began enforcing an 11-day nationwide shutdown and round the clock curfew Thursday, hoping to limit the spread of coronavirus infections spinning out of control after the holiday period.
Germany has too many loopholes in its coronavirus lockdown rules, the head of the country's disease control agency said as figures published Thursday showed the highest number of daily deaths since the start of the pandemic.
PARIS (AP) — As the wan winter sun sets over France's Champagne region, the countdown clock kicks in.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
A late slide in several Big Tech stocks left major indexes lower on Wall Street, even as small-company stocks marched to another record high.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell sought Thursday to tamp down any concerns that the Fed might soon withdraw some of its support for the U.S. economy and stressed that any such pullback would be signaled far in advance.
NEW YORK (AP) — Petco, the pet store chain, went public again Thursday, hoping to cash in on people's obsessions with their furry pets.
SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) — Google has completed its $2.1 billion acquisition of fitness-gadget maker Fitbit, a deal that could help the internet company grow even stronger while U.S. government regulators pursue an antitrust case aimed at undermining its power.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people seeking unemployment aid soared last week to 965,000, the most since late August and a sign that the resurgent virus has likely escalated layoffs.
Delta Air Lines closed the books on a disastrous 2020 with a comparatively small fourth-quarter loss, and executives expect a few more rocky months before — they hope — widespread coronavirus vaccinations and testing might salvage something of the upcoming summer travel season.
BEIJING (AP) — China on Thursday demanded Washington drop a ban on cotton and tomato imports from its Muslim northwest over complaints they are produced by forced labor, which a spokesman dismissed as the "lie of the century."
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's impeachment trial could begin on Inauguration Day, just as Democrat Joe Biden takes the oath of office in an ever-more-extraordinary end to the defeated president's tenure in the White House.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials say Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy has approved bringing in 21,000 National Guard members to Washington, D.C., to assist with security surrounding the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Constitution says the chief justice is to preside at the impeachment trial of a president. But what about an ex-president?
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House for a historic second time, charged with "incitement of insurrection" over the deadly mob siege of the U.S. Capitol in a swift and stunning collapse of his final days in office.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has been impeached by the House days before leaving office, becoming the first American president to be impeached twice.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Now that President Donald Trump has been impeached by the House of Representatives a second time, keeping him from holding office again could be Congress' next step.
WASHINGTON (AP) — All through downtown Washington, the primary sound for several blocks was the beeping of forklifts unloading more fencing.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pointedly did not rule out that he might eventually vote to convict the now twice-impeached President Donald Trump, but he also blocked a quick Senate impeachment trial.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The scene in the U.S. Capitol seemed jarringly disconnected. Inside the House chamber, the nation's lawmakers spoke with solemnity about democracy, the rule of law and the words of Abraham Lincoln as they undertook a vote to remove the president from office.
WASHINGTON (AP) — His place in the history books rewritten, President Donald Trump endured his second impeachment largely alone and silent.