VOL. 45 | NO. 49 | Friday, December 3, 2021
GUEST COLUMNIST
I was recently on a panel that discussed where free speech ends and dangerous speech begins.
TENNESSEE TITANS
The Tennessee Titans limp into their much-needed bye week on a two-game losing streak.
Timing is everything. Just ask Josh Reynolds.
As the Titans finally reach their bye week, they do so having played a record number of players through 12 games this season. Four new players suited up for the first time against New England, bringing the players-used total for the year to 86 with five games remaining.
UT SPORTS
The vibe around UT football was different from the moment Josh Heupel arrived and remained so through the end of his first regular season.
NEWSMAKERS
Kelley Meyerriecks has joined Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP as a senior attorney and will practice as part of the firm’s real estate team.
BRIEFS
Belmont University’s Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Program has been ranked No. 30 overall on the 16th annual “Top 50 Undergraduate Schools for Entrepreneurship” list.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
This has been a tough year to buy a new or used car in America. With COVID-19 factory shutdowns, semiconductor chip shortages, rising prices and supply chain issues, it’s been nothing but bad news for car shoppers.
PERSONAL FINANCE
We’re living longer on average, but the number of years we’re healthy hasn’t kept up. This lagging “health span” translates into more time living with serious illness and disabilities at the end of our lives.
CAREER CORNER
Have you tried lately asking someone if they are an introvert or an extrovert? It’s a reasonably straightforward question that typically comes with a simple answer – until now.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
2020 asked a lot of us. We faced new challenges and reckoned with old ones, and often the world’s problems collided with our own individual needs. Help – whether in donations or even just attention – might’ve been hard to give when you required some yourself.
EDUCATION
MEMPHIS (AP) — Rhodes College has announced the appointment of Jennifer M. Collins as the Memphis school's 21st president.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Five Tennessee state parks are seeking the public's input on what year-round outdoor activities they should swap in to replace aging swimming pools that won't be reopening.
COURTS
LONDON (AP) — Rohingya refugees sued Facebook parent Meta Platforms for more than $150 billion over what they say was the company's failure to stop hateful posts that incited violence against the Muslim ethnic group by Myanmar's military rulers and their supporters.
MEDIA
LONDON (AP) — Instagram on Tuesday launched a feature that urges teenagers to take breaks from the photo-sharing platform and announced other tools aimed at protecting young users from harmful content on the Facebook-owned service.
AUTO INDUSTRY
MILAN (AP) — Carmaker Stellantis announced a strategy Tuesday to embed AI-enabled software in 34 million vehicles across its 14 brands, hoping the tech upgrade will help it bring in 20 billion euros ($22.6 billion) in annual revenue by 2030.
TRANSPORTATION
DALLAS (AP) — American Airlines CEO Doug Parker will retire in March and be replaced by its current president, Robert Isom, as the airline seeks to rebuild after massive losses caused by the pandemic.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
MADRID (AP) — Spain's health ministry gave the go-ahead Tuesday for children between ages 5 and 11 to be vaccinated against COVID-19 amid a rise in coronavirus infections in recent weeks.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The European Union drug regulator gave its backing Tuesday to mixing different types of vaccines in initial vaccination and booster campaigns to battle the coronavirus.
As the omicron coronavirus variant spreads in southern Africa and pops up in countries all around the world, scientists are anxiously watching a battle play out that could determine the future of the pandemic. Can the latest competitor to the world-dominating delta overthrow it?
GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization's office for Europe said Tuesday that children in the 5 to 14 age group now account for the highest rates of reported COVID-19 infection in the region.
HONG KONG (AP) — The bustling, cosmopolitan business hub of Hong Kong may be losing its shine among foreign companies and expatriates with its stringent anti-pandemic rules requiring up to 21 days of quarantine for new arrivals.
NEW YORK (AP) — From big Wall Street banks to corner grocery stores, all private employers in New York City will have to require their workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the mayor announced Monday in the most sweeping vaccine mandate of any state or big city in the U.S.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit narrowed to $67.1 billion in October, the lowest in six months, after hitting a record high in September. A big rebound in exports helped to offset a much smaller rise in imports.
BEIJING (AP) — Global investors are watching nervously as one of China's biggest real estate developers tries to avoid a default on its $310 billion mountain of debt.
BEIJING (AP) — China's exports rose by double digits in November but growth declined, while imports accelerated in a sign of stronger domestic demand.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — In an abrupt reversal, an attorney for former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said his client will not cooperate with a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, citing a breakdown in negotiations with the panel.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is ready to warn Vladimir Putin during a video call Tuesday that Russia will face economy-jarring sanctions if it invades neighboring Ukraine as Biden seeks a diplomatic solution to deal with the tens of thousands of Russian troops massed near the Ukraine border.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia's military buildup on the border with Ukraine will be the top focus of talks between President Joe Biden and Russia's Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, but there are plenty of other thorny issues on the table as well, including cyberattacks, human rights, and US-Russian relations that a Kremlin spokesman says are overall in "a rather dire state."
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday marked the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor with a somber visit to the World War II Memorial in the nation's capital.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence is cooperating with the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, according to a person familiar with the matter.
WASHINGTON (AP) — California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, who was one of former President Donald Trump's most ardent loyalists in Congress, is leaving the House at the end of this year to join Trump's fledgling media company.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 6
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Proof the Tennessee Titans are healthier now than before their bye came in a roster announcement Monday. Seven-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Julio Jones and two others can start practicing with the team, a big step toward rejoining the active roster.
UT SPORTS
Purdue (8-4, Big Ten) vs. Tennessee (7-5, SEC), Dec. 30, 2 p.m.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials say a 12th county has a confirmed case of chronic wasting disease in deer.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department told relatives of Emmett Till on Monday that it is ending its latest investigation into the 1955 lynching of the Black teenager from Chicago who was abducted, tortured and killed after witnesses said he whistled at a white woman in Mississippi.
NEW YORK (AP) — Craig Wright, a computer scientist who claims to be the inventor of Bitcoin, prevailed in a civil trial verdict Monday against the family of a deceased business partner that claimed it was owed half of a cryptocurrency fortune worth tens of billions.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An eastern Missouri man pleaded guilty Monday to participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden pledged Monday that his social agenda legislation would deliver tangible savings on prescription drugs for all Americans. Relief that consumers have clamored for is now in sight, he asserted.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is looking to expand reporting requirements on all-cash real estate deals to help crack down on bad actors' use of the U.S. market to launder money made through illicit activity.
AUTO INDUSTRY
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Toyota is preparing to build a $1.3 billion electric vehicle battery plant near Greensboro, North Carolina, that will employ at least 1,750 people, government officials said Monday.
TECHNOLOGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — The elite Russian state hackers behind last year's massive SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign hardly eased up this year, managing plenty of infiltrations of U.S. and allied government agencies and foreign policy think tanks with consummate craft and stealth, a leading cybersecurity firm reported Monday.
MEDIA
NEW YORK (AP) — Regulators are looking into the deal that would bring Donald Trump's new social media company to the stock market, one that has attracted both legions of fans of the former president and people looking to make a quick profit.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The European Union's drugs agency on Monday recommended approving the use of an anti-inflammatory medicine to treat adults hospitalized with severe COVID-19.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City employers will have to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for their workers under new rules announced Monday by Mayor Bill de Blasio.
LONDON (AP) — One of the scientists behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is warning that the next pandemic may be more contagious and more lethal unless more money is devoted to research and preparations to fight emerging viral threats.
U.S. health officials said Sunday that while the omicron variant of the coronavirus is rapidly spreading throughout the country, early indications suggest it may be less dangerous than delta, which continues to drive a surge of hospitalizations.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has confirmed the first two cases of the omicron coronavirus variant in the country in travelers who returned from South Africa, health authorities said Monday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks closed solidly higher on Wall Street Monday, aided by a broad rally that includes travel-related companies that stand to benefit from more reopening of the economy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's business economists have sharply raised their forecasts for inflation, predicting an extension of the price spikes that have resulted in large part from bottlenecked supply chains.
BEIJING (AP) — China's central bank expanded the supply of money for lending Monday as Beijing tried to reassure its public and investors the economy can be protected if a troubled real estate developer's $310 billion mountain of debt collapses.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Insurance companies operating in Louisiana will be charged at least $100 million to pay the claims of two failed property insurers who went belly up in Hurricane Ida's aftermath. But the cost of dealing with the insolvent insurers ultimately will fall on the state after companies recoup the dollars through a series of tax credits.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. will stage a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing t o protest Chinese human rights abuses, the White House confirmed Monday, a move that China has vowed to greet with "firm countermeasures."
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the Supreme Court court weighs the future of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, a resurgent anti-abortion movement is looking to press its advantage in state-by-state battles while abortion-rights supporters prepare to play defense.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appears to have settled on a strategy to deal with a handful of Republican lawmakers who have stirred outrage with violent, racist and sometimes Islamophobic comments.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Bob Dole's casket will lie in state in the U.S. Capitol on Thursday as congressional leaders honor the former Republican presidential candidate and World War II veteran who served in Congress for 36 years.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bob Dole willed himself to walk again after paralyzing war wounds, ran for Congress with a right arm too damaged to shake hands, and rose through the Senate ranks to become a long-serving Republican leader and tough and tireless champion of his party.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3
SPORTS
DALLAS (AP) — Greg Sankey recalls a toast former Southeastern Conference Commissioner Roy Kramer gave at a gathering in 2015 to commemorate the tenure of Mike Slive, who was retiring after deftly leading the SEC for 13 years.
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Jeremy Swayman made 42 saves, Jake DeBrusk and Brandon Carlo scored, and the Boston Bruins beat the Nashville Predators 2-0 Thursday night.
SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — JaCobi Wood had 17 points as Belmont easily defeated Lipscomb 94-65 on Thursday night.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — The annual Nashville Unlimited Christmas concert to benefit homeless services provider Room in the Inn will take place on Tuesday, Dec. 7. This is the 22nd year for the concert at the downtown Christ Church Cathedral.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials say thousands of low-income families will be receiving a one-time payment of $950 through federal pandemic aid.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court concluded historic arguments over abortion, a federal appeals court signaled it might be willing to allow yet another restrictive ban to go into effect.
WASHINGTON (AP) — During his confirmation to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh convinced Sen. Susan Collins that he thought a woman's right to an abortion was "settled law," calling the court cases affirming it "precedent on precedent" that could not be casually overturned.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Arguments before the Supreme Court this week signaled that the conservative-leaning bench may dramatically limit abortion rights in the United States.
WASHINGTON (AP) — We've been here before, with the fate of abortion rights throughout the United States in doubt and awaiting a decision by the Supreme Court.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Bernie Sanders is asking the White House to cut back a big Medicare premium hike set to take effect in weeks and tied to a pricey Alzheimer's drug whose benefits have been widely questioned.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Honda is recalling nearly 725,000 SUVs and pickup trucks because the hoods can open while the vehicles are moving.
TECHNOLOGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — The phones of 11 U.S. State Department employees were hacked using technology from Israel's NSO Group, the world's most infamous hacker-for-hire company, a person familiar with the matter said Friday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Wall Street closed out a bumpy week with more losses on Friday following a mixed reading on U.S. jobs markets that investors said was tough to parse.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Growth in the services sector, where most Americans work, hit an all-time high in November, overtaking a record that was set the previous month.
WASHINGTON (AP) — America's unemployment rate tumbled last month to its lowest point since the pandemic struck, even as employers appeared to slow their hiring — a mixed picture that pointed to a resilient economy that's putting more people to work.
WASHINGTON (AP) — At first glance, the November jobs report was a sour one.
Starbucks is fighting an expanded effort to unionize its stores, even as a union vote proceeds at three of the coffee-chain's locations in Buffalo, New York.
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued to block graphics chip maker Nvidia's $40 billion purchase of chip designer Arm, saying the deal would create a powerful company that could hurt the growth of new technologies.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chinese companies will have to disclose more information about audits and whether they are controlled by a government or else leave U.S. stock markets under a rule approved by securities regulators.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday vowed to make it "very, very difficult" for Russian President Vladimir Putin to take military action in Ukraine, saying his administration is putting together a comprehensive set of initiatives to curb Russian aggression.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden looked out over an audience of government scientists and framed his latest plan for fighting COVID-19 as an opportunity to at last put an end to divisiveness over the virus, calling the politicization of the issue a "sad, sad commentary."
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has passed a stopgap spending bill that avoids a short-term shutdown and funds the federal government through Feb. 18 after leaders defused a partisan standoff over federal vaccine mandates. The measure now goes to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection has interviewed about 250 people so far, its chairman said Thursday, a staggering pace over just five months as lawmakers work to compile the most comprehensive account yet of the violent attack and plan to hold public hearings next year.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2
UT SPORTS
BOSTON (AP) — A former college track and field coach accused of setting up sham social media and email accounts in an attempt to trick women into sending him nude or semi-nude photos of themselves has been indicted on 15 counts, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
NASHVILLE AREA
Getting more bang for your buck used to be the mantra of dollar store shoppers everywhere, but times are changing - and prices are rising.
ENVIRONMENT
WASHINGTON (AP) — States, Native American tribes and U.S. territories will receive $7.4 billion in 2022 to improve water quality and access, the first installment from the infrastructure bill that President Joe Biden signed into law last month, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday.
EDUCATION
SEWANEE (AP) — The University of the South's vice chancellor and president has announced that he will resign later this month and would accept a position as U.S. ambassador to South Africa if offered it.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Historic Supreme Court arguments over abortion behind them, the justices soon will begin the work of crafting a decision that could dramatically limit abortion rights in the United States.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court heard arguments in which it was asked to overturn a nationwide right to abortion that has existed for nearly 50 years.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Former top officials at a Memphis charter school stole hundreds of thousands of dollars over several years, according to the Tennessee comptroller's office and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
AUTO INDUSTRY
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government threatened legal action Thursday over provisions of U.S. President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Act that would give subsidies of up to $12,500 for purchases of union-made, American-made electric vehicles.
DETROIT (AP) — Members of the United Auto Workers union have overwhelmingly approved picking their leaders by direct ballot elections, rejecting a system that many blamed for a bribery and embezzlement scandal in the union's top ranks.
TRANSPORTATION
BEIJING (AP) — China's aviation regulator cleared the Boeing 737 Max on Thursday to return to flying with technical upgrades more than two years after the plane was grounded worldwide following two fatal crashes.
TECHNOLOGY
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — There's a new Silicon Valley corporate name change on the block.
NONPROFITS
Black Friday and Cyber Monday may have seen slight declines this year, but GivingTuesday generated a new record for giving.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
BERLIN (AP) — Unvaccinated people across Germany will soon be excluded from nonessential stores, restaurants and sports and cultural venues, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Thursday, and parliament will consider a general vaccine mandate as part of efforts to curb coronavirus infections.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is set to kick off a more urgent campaign for Americans to get COVID-19 booster shots Thursday as he unveils his winter plans for combating the coronavirus and its omicron variant with enhanced availability of shots and vaccines but without major new restrictions.
PARIS (AP) — Greeks who are over age 60 and refuse coronavirus vaccinations could be hit with monthly fines of more than one-quarter of their pensions — a get-tough policy that the country's politicians say will cost votes but save lives.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week even though the U.S. job market has been rebounding from last year's coronavirus recession.
NEW YORK (AP) — OPEC and allied oil-producing countries decided Thursday to maintain the amount of oil they pump to the world even as the new omicron variant casts a shadow of uncertainty over the global economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
Starbucks is fighting an expanded effort to unionize its stores, even as a union vote proceeds at three of the coffee-chain's locations in Buffalo, New York.
HONG KONG (AP) — Southeast Asia's largest ride-hailing company Grab made its market debut Thursday, following a $40 billion merger in a special purpose acquisition company deal.
ALAMEDA, Calif. (AP) — Even Christmas trees aren't immune to the pandemic-induced shortages and inflation plaguing the economy.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union said Thursday that it has fined four major banks a combined $390 million for colluding in a foreign exchange spot trading cartel that allowed them to beat inherent risks in currency deals.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional leaders reached agreement Thursday on a spending bill that would keep the government running through mid-February, though a temporary federal shutdown was still possible this weekend as some Republican senators threatened to slow-walk passage because of the Biden administration's COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government could be heading for a temporary shutdown, with Republicans poised to stall a must-pass funding bill in their effort to force a debate in Congress on rolling back the Biden administration's COVID-19 vaccine mandates for some workers.
MOSCOW (AP) — The Kremlin voiced concern Thursday about a possible escalation of fighting in a separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine as the U.S. issued a strong warning to Russia to stay away from Ukraine.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection has voted to pursue contempt charges against Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who refused to answer the committee's questions — but the panel agreed to let him come back for another try.