Heavy Weather: At least eight people were killed yesterday as tornadoes ripped through Mississippi and Tennessee. A dozen tornadoes touched down and thunderstorms rolled over the Southeast as tornado warnings were issued in more than a dozen states

Hundreds of flights were cancelled and severe storms could continue today. There could be more travel delays.

Temperatures will peak in the East today, hitting the 60s and low 70s in some areas. Snow is expected to fall in much of the western mountains, including the Cascades, Siskiyous, Sierras, Wasatch, and the Rockies.

Late Payment: Buried in the giant spending bill, Congress voted to pay up to $4.4 million to each of the Americans taken hostage in the American embassy in Iran in 1979 and held for 444 days.

Thirty-seven of the 53 hostages are still alive.

Previously the hostage lawsuits had been blocked in the courts and Congress never voted to give them restitution. The breakthrough came when a Paris-based bank was fined $9 billion for violating the economic sanctions against Iran, Sudan, and Cuba. Some of that money will be used to pay the hostages.

Nation: Kentucky’s new governor Matt Bevin has ordered that the names of county clerks not be included on marriage licenses to protect the sensibilities of clerks who have a religious objection to same sex marriage. Kentucky is the state where Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis went to jail rather than issue a marriage license to gay couples as required by law.

When I’m 64: For the first time the entire musical catalogue of The Beatles will be available at midnight tonight on streaming sites around the world. The sites include Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, Google Play, Microsoft Groove, Amazon Prime, Rhapsody, and Slacker.

The Beatles have always been cautious about new technology. The CD and iTunes were around for years before the Beatles released in those media. Rolling Stone reports that The Beatles have signed up just at the moment when streaming music looks like the format of the future.

Small Screen: The Wall Street Journal reports that the Walt Disney Company is looking to divorce from the Fusion Network, the joint venture with Univision aimed at a young and hip Hispanic audience. The network has struggled to get an audience.

Fusion was launched in 2013 in cooperation with ABC News, which is owned by Disney, and Univision. It lost $35 million last year and Disney just hates losing money. They are particularly worried now by the phenomenon of “cord cutting” in which people are cutting their cable service. The ESPN cash machine is beginning to sputter.

GunBeat: The National Basketball Association begins airing tomorrow, on Christmas Day, a series of television advertisements featuring NBA stars talking about gun violence. It’s a big step for a professional sport to enter one of the country’s most contentious debates. It’s not just “Say No to Drugs.” The ads don’t talk about gun control, but they do talk about death at the point of a gun.

Behind the scenes in partnership with the NBA is the organization Everytown for Gun Safety, founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to counter the power of the National Rifle Association’s uncompromising defense of gun ownership.

Kathleen Behrens, the NBA’s president of social responsibility said, “We know far too many people who have been caught up in gun violence in this country and we can do something about it.”

Crime Beat: “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Terese Giudice was released from prison yesterday, thereby lowering her value to the tabloids. She was sent up after pleading guilty to fraud. Her husband Joe is in line to serve 41 months now that Terese is home with the kids. So we have that to look forward to.

Merry Christmas: At 7:15 am Eastern Santa Time, NORAD reports that Santa was last seen at McMurdo Station, Antarctica and was headed for Suva, Fiji and Noumea, New Caledonia. Merry Christmas to all.

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