Top-ranked Alabama and third-ranked Ohio State convincingly won college football playoff semifinals on Friday. Alabama dominated the Rose Bowl, defeating No. 4 Notre Dame 31-14. Quarterback Mac Jones threw for 297 yards, receiver DeVonta Smith caught three touchdown passes, and running back Najee Harris ran for 125 yards to lead Alabama. In the Sugar Bowl, Ohio State defeated No. 2 Clemson 49-28, as quarterback Justin Fields set a Sugar Bowl record with six touchdown passes. Ohio State running back Trey Sermon ran for 193 yards.

For the first time since Donald Trump became president, Congress has overridden one of his vetoes. In a special New Year's Day session, the Senate voted 81-13 to override Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The House voted to override the veto on Monday.

New jobless claims fell to the lowest level in four weeks, according to the Labor Department. Despite economists in a Dow Jones poll expecting the number to rise to 828,000, the number of new applications dropped 19,000 to 787,000 for the week ending Dec. 26.

Luke Letlow, a Republican recently elected to Congress in a Dec. 5 runoff for Louisiana’s 5th District, died Tuesday of COVID-19 complications at age 41. He was admitted to the hospital in Monroe, La., on Dec. 19 after testing positive for the coronavirus. Doctors eventually transferred him to a larger facility in Shreveport and placed him in intensive care. He had no known underlying health conditions. He leaves behind a wife and two young children.

President-elect Joe Biden said some leaders in the Trump administration aren’t working enough with his incoming administration in transition efforts. In remarks before the press from Wilmington, Del., Biden said some agencies have exhibited “exemplary cooperation” in transition efforts. But he singled out political leaders at the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget for dragging their feet. “We just aren’t getting all the information we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas,” he said.

Police said a Friday explosion in downtown Nashville, Tenn., that injured at least three people was intentional. Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said officers early on Christmas morning came across a recreational vehicle blaring a recorded message that a bomb would explode in 15 minutes. The blast set cars on fire, mangled trees, and rocked a building that houses an AT&T telephone exchange, causing outages as far away as Kentucky.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday gave its final go-ahead to the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. The move comes after an independent advisory board gave its approval on Thursday. The shot was the first coronavirus vaccine in the FDA’s approval pipeline. The agency could approve a version from Moderna Inc. next week and one from Johnson & Johnson early next year.