VOL. 45 | NO. 48 | Friday, November 26, 2021
TENNESSEE TITANS
It was a performance Ryan Tannehill will certainly want to distance himself from as soon as possible.
The Titans’ six-game winning streak crashed with a thud with Sunday’s loss to Houston, extending a curious trend of playing well against the league’s better teams and stumbling against the bottom-feeders like the Texans and the New York Jets.
After stubbing their toe against Houston, the Titans now head to New England to face one of the hottest teams in the league in the Patriots.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have placed backup quarterback Logan Woodside on the reserve/COVID-19 list, their second player put on that list in three days.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have waived 2012 NFL MVP Adrian Peterson after three games in a flurry of roster moves Tuesday.
UT SPORTS
As soon as the ball nestled into Alontae Taylor’s arms, Robin and Mike Maddux jumped from their seats inside Neyland Stadium and headed for the exits.
NEWSMAKERS
Bass, Berry & Sims has added seven experienced health care attorneys to its national health care practice, including Travis Lloyd as a member in Nashville. The other six will be based in the firm’s Washington D.C. office.
BRIEFS
Capgemini officials have announced the global IT consulting firm will invest $20.1 million to establish operations in Nashville.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
If ever there is a vehicle segment ready for a shake-up, it’s the minivans. For three years running, Edmunds’ experts have considered the Honda Odyssey one of the top-rated in the class. The Odyssey set the minivan bar high with supreme versatility, car-like driving and thoughtful features.
PERSONAL FINANCE
You can now manage most aspects of your money without ever consulting another human being. You can budget, borrow, save, invest, buy insurance, prepare your tax return and create a will – among many other tasks – by using apps, websites and software.
CAREER CORNER
Thanksgiving of 2020 was a special kind of torture. We’d all been isolated for months, and it didn’t feel safe to be around loved ones yet. The gloom accentuated the early sundowns and the cold nights.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
The seating chart for the next team-building went up last week, and your jaw’s already clenched.
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have added rookie linebacker Monty Rice to an injured reserve list now at 18 with the team at its bye.
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Filip Forsberg scored four goals and Juuse Saros made 27 saves for his first shutout of the season, leading the Nashville Predators to a 6-0 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday night.
STATEWIDE
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky's attorney general won a preliminary court order Tuesday to block President Joe Biden's coronavirus vaccination mandate for federal government contractors and subcontractors.
REGION
OAK RIDGE (AP) — Federal regulators will review an application to build a low-power test nuclear reactor in Tennessee.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court's three liberal justices suggested Wednesday that it would severely damage the court's legitimacy if it agrees to reverse the decades-old abortion decisions that declared a nationwide right to end pregnancies.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — When then-California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the nation's first law requiring women on boards of publicly traded companies, he suggested it might not survive legal challenges.
ENVIRONMENT
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A proposal to replace an oil pipeline that was shut down in 2015 after causing California's worst coastal spill in 25 years is inching though a government review, even as the state moves toward banning gas-powered vehicles and oil drilling.
MEDIA
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. lawmakers are putting forward proposals to curb social media giants by limiting their free-speech protections against legal liability.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
Tourism businesses that were just finding their footing after nearly two years of devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic are being rattled again as countries throw up new barriers to travel in an effort to contain the omicron variant.
Washington (AP) — The Biden administration is moving to toughen testing requirements for international travelers to the U.S., including both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, amid the spread of the new omicron variant of the coronavirus.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan continued its aggressive stance against a new coronavirus variant on Wednesday, asking international airlines to stop taking new reservations for all flights arriving in the country until the end of December in a further tightening of already strict border controls.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union has decided against holding a special remote summit of the bloc's leaders on the omicron coronavirus variant for the time being, an official said Wednesday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — U.S. manufacturing activity grew at a faster pace in November with producers trying to keep up with demand amid ongoing supply shortages and delays.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — As Americans shop for the holidays, they will likely see a swarm of offers to get their gifts now but pay for them later in fixed monthly installments.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection will vote on pursuing contempt charges against a former Justice Department official Wednesday as the committee aggressively seeks to gain answers about the violent attack by former President Donald Trump's supporters.
MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Moscow would seek Western guarantees that would preclude any further NATO expansion and deployment of its weapons near Russia's borders.
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Barely 3 months after the chaotic U.S.-run troop evacuation from Afghanistan, NATO foreign ministers met Wednesday to debate a rapidly compiled report on the lessons to be learned from the military organization's 18-year security presence in the conflict-ravaged country.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet separately with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts on Thursday on the margins of a meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, at a time of tension over Russian military deployments on Ukraine's borders.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville will name its newest high school after civil rights leader the Rev. James Lawson.
EAST TENNESSEE
GATLINBURG (AP) — An oral history of a deadly wildfire that began in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and devastated Gatlinburg in 2016 will be easily accessible to the public beginning on Tuesday.
HEALTH CARE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Chattanooga-based Erlanger Health System is once again suing Tennessee's Medicaid program, known as TennCare, arguing that the state continues to underpay some hospitals that treat the neediest patients.
COURTS
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama woman who says she was falsely arrested for shoplifting at a Walmart and then threatened by the company after her case was dismissed has been awarded $2.1 million in damages.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday directed the Justice Department to disclose certain redacted passages from special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report that relate to individuals who were investigated by prosecutors but not ultimately charged.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices rose briskly in September, another sign that the housing market is booming in the aftermath of last year's coronavirus recession.
AUTO INDUSTRY
BERLIN (AP) — Automakers Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis announced agreements with U.S. company Factorial Energy on Tuesday to help develop solid-state battery technology that they hope could make electric cars more attractive to a mass market.
MEDIA
Newly named Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has emerged from behind the scenes to take over one of Silicon Valley's highest-profile and politically volatile jobs.
LONDON (AP) — The United Kingdom's antitrust watchdog has blocked Facebook's acquisition of Giphy and ordered the social network to sell off the GIF-sharing platform, saying the deal hurts social media users and advertisers by stifling competition for animated images.
TRANSPORTATION
LONDON (AP) — British airline easyJet said Tuesday that it is already seeing some impact on demand from the new omicron variant of the coronavirus in the days since it was first identified.
EDUCATION
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A jury convicted the former dean of Temple University's business school on charges related to a scheme to falsely boost the school's rankings.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has decided that National Guard members who refuse COVID-19 vaccination will be barred from federally funded drills and training required to maintain their Guard status.
LONDON (AP) — New measures to combat the new omicron variant of coronavirus took effect in England on Tuesday, with face coverings again compulsory in shops and on public transportation, as the government said it would offer all adults a booster dose of vaccine within two months to bolster the nation's immunity.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's national and state leaders will decide Thursday on new measures to tackle a sharp rise in coronavirus infections, officials said after the country's outgoing and incoming chancellors conferred with governors.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Government health advisers on Tuesday weighed the benefits and risks of a closely watched drug from Merck that could soon become the first U.S.-authorized pill for patients to take at home to treat COVID-19.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Enforcement began Monday in Los Angeles for one of the strictest vaccine mandates in the country, a sweeping measure that requires proof of shots for everyone entering a wide variety of businesses from restaurants to theaters and gyms to nail and hair salons.
LONDON (AP) — The emergence of the new omicron variant and the world's desperate and likely futile attempts to keep it at bay are reminders of what scientists have warned for months: The coronavirus will thrive as long as vast parts of the world lack vaccines.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's highest court on Tuesday rejected complaints against curfews and other restrictions imposed by federal legislation earlier this year in areas where the coronavirus was spreading quickly — a decision that could help the country's leaders as they struggle to tackle a sharp rise in infections.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Already unnerved by the newest coronavirus variant, Wall Street's losses deepened on Tuesday after the head of the Federal Reserve said it will consider shutting off its support for financial markets sooner than expected.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer confidence fell to a nine-month low in November, clipped by rising prices and concern about the coronavirus.
LONDON (AP) — Consumer prices across the 19 countries that use the euro currency are rising at a record rate as a result of a huge spike in energy costs this year, official figures showed Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell took a sharp and unexpected turn Tuesday toward tightening credit for consumers and businesses in the face of mounting concerns about high inflation.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden visits a Minnesota community college Tuesday to highlight how his $1 trillion infrastructure law will create jobs and help train workers.
LONDON (AP) — China, which is increasingly flexing its muscles around the world, is one of the biggest threats to Britain and its allies, and a "miscalculation" by Beijing could lead to war, the head of the U.K.'s foreign intelligence agency said Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Days after firebrand conservative Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado was harshly criticized for making anti-Muslim comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat whom she likened to a bomb-carrying terrorist, the two spoke by phone.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Before last year's presidential election, Facebook ads targeting Latino voters described Joe Biden as a communist. During his inauguration, another conspiracy theory spread online and on Spanish-language radio warning that a brooch worn by Lady Gaga signaled Biden was working with shadowy, leftist figures abroad.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — No NFL team needs its bye week as much as the Tennessee Titans.
Two kicks that clanged off the same upright. A missed tackle that turned a short pass into a 41-yard touchdown. Three fumbles in New England territory, and an interception in the end zone.
NASHVILLE SC
CHESTER, Pa. (AP) — Andre Blake made two spectacular saves, Nashville missed on two penalty kicks and the Philadelphia Union won a shootout Sunday to advance to Major League Soccer's Eastern Conference final for the first time in franchise history.
PREDATORS
DENVER (AP) — Mikko Rantanen changed positions, but not his game. He's still piling up the goals and assists.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has turned away an emergency appeal from employees at the largest hospital system in Massachusetts who object to the COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Both sides are telling the Supreme Court there's no middle ground in Wednesday's showdown over abortion. The justices can either reaffirm the constitutional right to an abortion or wipe it away altogether.
WASHINGTON (AP) — When the Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday over whether Mississippi can ban abortions after 15 weeks, the justices will be focused on an issue that has dominated the term. Not only is there Mississippi's call to overrule Roe v. Wade, but justices are already considering a Texas law banning abortion at roughly six weeks and written to make it difficult to mount legal challenges against it.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A passenger on a Spirit Airlines flight from Fort Lauderdale to Nashville allegedly punched a flight attendant and pulled another attendant's hair before being subdued, police said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper claims in a lawsuit against the Defense Department that material is being improperly withheld from his use as he seeks to publish an "unvarnished and candid memoir" of his time in President Donald Trump's Cabinet.
MEDIA
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who was the social platform's first CEO in 2007 until he was forced out the following year, then returned to the role in 2015, is once again out of the job — this time, he says, by choice.
AUTO INDUSTRY
TOKYO (AP) — Nissan said Monday it is investing 2 trillion yen ($17.6 billion) over the next five years and developing a cheaper, more powerful battery to boost its electric vehicle lineup.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
BRUSSELS (AP) — The World Health Organization says the global risk from the omicron variant of the coronavirus is "very high" based on early evidence, and it could lead to surges with "severe consequences."
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden called the new coronavirus variant omicron a cause for concern but "not a cause for panic" Monday and said he was not considering any widespread U.S. lockdown. He urged Americans anew to get fully vaccinated, including booster shots, and return to face masks indoors in public settings to slow any spread.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Taking an act-now-ask-questions-later approach, countries around the world slammed their doors shut again to try to keep the new omicron variant at bay Monday as more cases of the mutant coronavirus emerged and scientists raced to figure out just how dangerous it might be.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious diseases expert, blasted Sen. Ted Cruz for suggesting that Fauci be investigated for statements he made about COVID-19 and said the criticism by the Texas Republican was an attack on science.
GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization on Monday is pushing for an international accord to help prevent and fight future pandemics amid the emergence of a worrying new omicron COVID-19 variant.
LONDON (AP) — The independent body advising the British government on the rollout of coronavirus vaccines will likely decide Monday whether to expand the booster program to younger age groups following the discovery of the new omicron variant.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — The stock market steadied itself Monday following a slide last week brought on by the newest coronavirus variant.
NEW YORK (AP) — A new union election for Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama will be held based on objections to the first vote that took place in April.
NEW YORK (AP) — Americans are spending freely and going back to store shopping, knocking out some of the momentum in online sales from last year when Americans were making many of their purchases exclusively via the internet.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection will vote Wednesday to pursue contempt charges against a former Justice Department official, seeking criminal charges against a defiant witness for a second time after holding former White House aide Steve Bannon in contempt last month.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26
NASHVILLE SC
NASHVILLE (AP) — Hany Mukhtar scored his second goal of the game in the 74th minute and Nashville defeated Orlando 3-1 on Tuesday night.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — The annual Christmas celebration at the Tennessee Capitol will take place next Monday and tours of the governor's mansion begin Dec. 10, according to an announcement from Gov. Bill Lee and first lady Maria Lee.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. mortgage rates were mixed this week.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. sales of new homes edged up 0.4% last month, coming in below expectations as housing prices continued to climb.
TECHNOLOGY
LOS ANGELES (AP) — NASA launched a spacecraft Tuesday night on a mission to smash into an asteroid and test whether it would be possible to knock a speeding space rock off course if one were to threaten Earth.
ENVIRONMENT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats and climate activists generally supported President Joe Biden's decision to release a record 50 million barrels of oil from America's strategic reserve, even as the move appeared to contradict his long-term vision of combating climate change.
NEW YORK (AP) — When President Joe Biden ordered the release of 50 million barrels of oil from America's strategic reserve to help reduce energy costs, he was taking aim at a growing burden for millions of Americans embarking on Thanksgiving travel.
TRANSPORTATION
DALLAS (AP) — Determined to reclaim Thanksgiving traditions that were put on pause last year by the pandemic, millions of Americans will be loading up their cars or piling onto planes to gather again with friends and family.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration's vaccine mandate for millions of federal workers seems to be working, with no apparent disruption to law enforcement, intelligence-gathering or holiday travel.
LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal on Wednesday reported its highest number of new daily COVID-19 infections since July amid a surge in cases across Europe, though hospitalizations are rising more slowly in the country where 86% of people are vaccinated.
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Slovakia's government on Wednesday approved a two-week national lockdown amid a record surge of coronavirus infections.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will require essential, nonresident travelers crossing U.S. land borders, such as truck drivers, government and emergency response officials, to be fully vaccinated beginning on Jan. 22, the administration planned to announce.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Wall Street capped another wobbly day of trading Wednesday with an uneven finish for the major stock indexes ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits plummeted last week to the lowest level in more than half a century, another sign that the U.S. job market is rebounding rapidly from last year's coronavirus recession.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer spending rebounded by a solid 1.3% in October despite inflation that over the past year has accelerated faster than it has at any point in more than three decades.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy slowed to a modest annual rate of 2.1% in the July-September quarter according to the government's second read of the data, slightly better than its first estimate. But economists are predicting a solid rebound in the current quarter as long as rising inflation and a recent uptick in COVID cases do not derail activity.
Samsung said it plans to build a $17 billion semiconductor factory outside of Austin, Texas, amid a global shortage of chips used in phones, cars and other electronic devices.
BERLIN (AP) — German business confidence has dropped for the fifth consecutive month amid persistent supply-chain bottlenecks and a resurgence of coronavirus infections in Europe's biggest economy, a closely watched survey showed Wednesday.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A group of thieves smashed windows at a department store at a luxury mall in Los Angeles, triggering a police pursuit just days after high-end stores throughout the San Francisco Bay Area were targeted.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
NANTUCKET, Mass. (AP) — President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he is nominating Shalanda Young to lead the White House budget office and Nani Coloretti to serve as Young's deputy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — It took half a year but Democrats have driven President Joe Biden's $2 trillion package of social and climate initiatives through the House. It gets no easier in the Senate, where painful Republican amendments, restrictive rules and Joe Manchin lurk.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — General Motors is forming a joint venture with Posco Chemical of South Korea to build a North American battery materials plant as it brings more steps in the electric vehicle supply chain under its umbrella.
America needs to rethink and reduce the way it generates plastics because so much of the material is littering the oceans and other waters, the National Academy of Sciences says in a new report.