A U.S. House of Representatives committee will meet on Tuesday to discuss former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, which it obtained late last month after a long court fight, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee’s closed-door meeting will come just two weeks before Republicans are set to assume the majority in the House, which they narrowly won in November’s midterm elections.

That leaves the Democrats little time to decide what, if anything, to do with Trump’s returns before losing the power to set the committee’s agenda.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the committee’s favor last month. The committee formally announced a meeting on Tuesday, relating to “documents protected under the Internal Revenue Code” without specifying Trump.

Trump was the first presidential candidate in decades to not release his tax returns during either of his campaigns for president.

Ways and Means Democrats have said they need to see Trump’s records to assess whether the Internal Revenue Service is properly auditing presidential tax returns and to gauge whether new legislation is needed.

Questions remain about what the committee will do with Trump’s taxes after the gavel goes to the Republicans in January.

The documents are still subject to federal confidentiality restrictions, but Democratic lawmakers could make some details public, possibly after a vote by the full House.

The Pentagon’s new push to investigate reports of UFOs has so far not yielded any evidence to suggest that aliens have visited Earth or crash-landed here, senior military leaders said on Friday.

However, the Pentagon’s effort to investigate anomalous, unidentified objects — whether they are in space, the skies or even underwater — led to hundreds of new reports that are now being investigated, they say.

But so far they have seen nothing that indicates intelligent alien life.

“I have not seen anything in those holdings to date that would suggest that there has been an alien visitation, an alien crash or anything like that,” said Ronald Moultrie, under secretary of defense for intelligence and security.

Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Pentagon’s newly formed All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), did not rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial life and said he was taking a scientific approach to the research.

“I would just say that we are structuring our analysis to be very thorough and rigorous. We will go through it all,” Kirkpatrick said, speaking at the first news conference since AARO was established in July.

“And as a physicist, I have to adhere to the scientific method, and I will follow that data and science wherever it goes.”

AARO’s mission focuses on unexplained activity around military installations, restricted airspace and “other areas of interest” and is aimed at helping identify possible threats to the safety of U.S. military operations and to national security.

A government report last year documented more than 140 cases of what the U.S. military officially calls “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or UAPs, observed since 2004.

All but one of the listed sightings – an instance attributed to a large, deflating balloon – remain unexplained, subject to further analysis, the report said.

For the other 143 cases, the report found that too little data exists to conclude whether they represent some exotic aerial system developed either by a U.S. government or commercial entity, or by a foreign power such as China or Russia.

The 2021 report included some UAPs revealed in previously released Pentagon video of enigmatic objects exhibiting speed and maneuverability exceeding known aviation technology and lacking any visible means of propulsion or flight-control surfaces.

Kirkpatrick said several hundred more cases have been documented since then. The exact figure will be disclosed soon, but a senior Navy official said in May the total number of reported cases had already reached 400.

Congress focused on the new Pentagon push in its annual defense policy bill, which it passed this week. The legislation, which has not yet been signed by President Joe Biden, calls for the Pentagon to prepare a report looking at the historical record of the U.S. government related to UFOs, or unidentified flying objects, going back to 1945.

“That is going to be quite a research project,” Kirkpatrick said, acknowledging that Congress sought to ensure that AARO researches all records — even ones so highly classified that few people know about them.

The Air Force conducted a previous investigation called Project Blue Book, ended in 1969, that compiled a list of 12,618 sightings, 701 of which involved objects that officially remained “unidentified.”

In 1994, the Air Force said it had completed a study to locate records relating to the 1947 “Roswell incident” in New Mexico. It said materials recovered near Roswell were consistent with a crashed balloon, the military’s long-standing explanation, and that no records indicated that there had been the recovery of alien bodies or extraterrestrial materials.

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Federal Reserve policymakers may need to lift U.S. borrowing costs above the peak 5.1% they penciled in just this week, and keep them there perhaps into 2024 to squeeze high inflation out of the economy, three of them signaled on Friday.

The hawkish messages, delivered in separate appearances by New York Fed President John Williams, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, and Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester, underscore the U.S. central bank’s determination to do what it takes to ease price pressures that erode wages and strain household budgets, despite what analysts say could be a million or more jobs lost in the process.

They also stand in stark contrast with expectations expressed in financial markets. Traders on Friday leaned into bets that the Fed policy rate will peak below 5% and the Fed will start cutting rates in the second half of 2023 to cushion what the New York Fed’s own internal model suggests will be an economic downturn.

New York Fed chief Williams said he’s not expecting a recession, but told Bloomberg TV “we’re going to have to do what’s necessary” to get inflation back to the Fed’s 2% target, adding that the peak rate “could be higher than what we’ve written down.”

The Fed this year has raised rates from near zero in March to a range of 4.25%-4.5% in the steepest round of rate hikes since the 1980s, the last time it battled fast-rising prices. Inflation by the Fed’s preferred measure is currently running at 6%, three times its 2% target.

Earlier this week as policymakers delivered the latest rate hike they also published projections that signaled nearly all of them see the need to lift rates still further, to at least a 5%-5.25% range, in coming months.

That view surprised investors who earlier in the week had been heartened by data showing a second straight month of cooling inflation that some took to suggest the Fed’s round of rate hikes was near being done.

On Friday, the broad S&P 500 stock-market index closed down about 2% on the week as the Fed’s more hawkish stance sunk in. Bond traders meanwhile appear to be quite convinced the Fed will indeed beat inflation.

Fed policymakers have welcomed inflation’s recent deceleration, driven by easing supply chain problems and higher interest rates restraining the housing market.

But they are also uneasily eyeing the strong labor market as a source of persistent price pressure.

U.S. employers have added hundreds of thousands of jobs each month and the unemployment rate is at a low 3.7%. Workers are in short supply, particularly after millions retired early on in the pandemic, and wage growth is running well beyond what the economy can sustain, policymakers say.

“I don’t quite know why markets are so optimistic about inflation,” San Francisco Fed’s Daly said, adding that it may be because markets are pricing in an ideal scenario. Central bankers, she said, are positioning policy for what she said were still “upside” risks to the inflation outlook.

Central bankers have become increasingly blunt that bringing inflation down will require a labor market slowdown that they will not try to offset with interest-rate cuts until they are confident they have beaten back inflation.

Over the past several rate-hiking cycles, the Fed raised rates and kept them there for an average of 11 months before cutting them.

“I think 11 months is a starting point, is a reasonable starting point. But I’m prepared to do more if more is required,” Daly said, adding that exactly how long will depend on the data. She said her own forecast for rates is in line with the 5.1% peak rate expected by the majority of her colleagues.

The Fed has signaled “ongoing” rate hikes ahead, and Daly’s remarks suggests she sees rates staying high into the first couple of months of 2024 – even as the Fed predicts the unemployment rate will rise to 4.6%, an increase that analysts say could mean the loss of 1.5 million or more jobs.

As of last month, central bank staff economists viewed the risks of recession against continued growth as roughly even, minutes from the Fed’s November policy meeting show.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the New York Fed said its internal economic model sees a 0.3% decline in overall activity next year and flat growth in 2024, with a return to positive growth the year after.

Fed policymakers this week forecast GDP growing about a half-a-percent next year.

While not a recession per se, such slow growth means an unexpected shock could easily trigger an outright contraction for a couple of quarters, Cleveland Fed’s Mester told Bloomberg TV.

She identified herself as one of seven of the Fed’s 19 Fed policymakers who see rates needing to rise even higher than the 5.1% median in the Fed’s projections published this week.

In his news conference after the end of the Dec. 13-14 policy meeting, Fed Chair Jerome Powell nodded to the challenges that higher unemployment, if not necessarily a recession, would pose.

“I wish there were a completely painless way to restore price stability,” he said. “There isn’t, and this is the best we can do.”

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Harrison Ford as Jacob Dutton and Helen Mirren as Cara Dutton in “1923.”

James Minchin III/Paramount+

• “1923,” the latest spinoff of “Yellowstone,” premieres December 18 exclusively on Paramount Plus.
• Harrison Ford stars as Jacob Dutton in a story set around 100 years before “Yellowstone.”
• A Paramount Plus subscription costs $5/month with ads, or $10/month for ad-free streaming.

“1923” premieres December 18 on Paramount Plus. The highly anticipated Western series comes from creator Taylor Sheridan and is the third installment in the “Yellowstone” franchise.

Set approximately 100 years before “Yellowstone,” “1923” stars Harrison Ford as the patriarch of the Dutton family in the 1920s. The series explores the history of the powerful family and their ranch in Montana amid the challenges brought by Prohibition, Western Expansion, and the early impact of the Great Depression.

Check out the trailer for ‘1923’

Harrison Ford (“Raider of the Lost Ark”) and Helen Mirren (“The Queen”) headline the cast of “1923” as ranchers Jacob and Cara Dutton. Their nephews Jack, John, and Spencer Dutton are played by Darren Mann (“Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”), James Badge Dale (“24”), and Brandon Sklenar (“Midway”), respectively.

How to watch ‘1923’

You can watch “1923” on Paramount Plus starting December 18. As part of a special simulcast event, the premiere of “1923” will also air on the Paramount Network cable channel on December 18 at 9 p.m. ET after the mid-season finale of “Yellowstone.” 

Following a one-week break for Christmas, new episodes of “1923” will then drop every Sunday exclusively on Paramount Plus. A Paramount Plus Essential plan costs $5/month with limited ads and full access to the service’s on-demand catalog. For ad-free viewing, you need a Paramount Plus Premium Plan for $10/month. With this option, you also get livestreaming access to your local CBS station.

As part of a limited-time promotion, new Paramount Plus members can get an annual membership to either plan for 50% off, which brings the price down to $25 for a full year of the Essential plan or $50 for a year of the Premium plan.

The Paramount Plus app is available on most smart TVs, mobile devices, and media players from major brands like Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, and Fire TV. Check out the full list of supported devices on the Paramount Plus website.

Can I watch ‘1923’ for free?

You can watch “1923” for free if you sign up for a Paramount Plus trial. The streaming service offers a one-week free trial to new subscribers. 

Since “1923” is following a weekly release model, you’ll need to wait until February 12 to sign up for the Paramount Plus trial in order to watch the entire first season at no cost.

How many episodes will ‘1923’ have?

The first season of “1923” will feature a total of eight episodes. New episodes will drop weekly on Sundays at 3 a.m. ET on Paramount Plus. That said, episode two will be delayed until the week after Christmas, so following the premiere on December 18, new episodes won’t return until January 1.

“1923” is expected to debut its season one finale on February 12 at 3 a.m. ET, exclusively on Paramount Plus.

Is ‘1923’ a sequel to ‘1883’?

Yes, “1923” is both a sequel to the Paramount Plus series “1883” and a prequel to the original series “Yellowstone.” The Harrison Ford show is set approximately 40 years after “1883” and a century before “Yellowstone.”

In addition to “1923,” “1883,” and “Yellowstone,” the franchise is also set to get two more spinoffs: “1883: The Bass Reeves Story” and “6666.”

Has ‘1923’ been renewed for more seasons?

“1923” has already received a two-season order from Paramount Plus. The series will consist of two seasons with eight episodes each. An exact release date for season two has not been announced yet.

Facebook Marketplace scams can manifest in a variety of ways.

Reuters/Dado Ruvic

• If you are buying or selling items on Facebook Messenger, beware of scammers.
• Completing transactions locally is always safer, but if you are mailing an item, use a tracking number and don’t send the product until you receive payment.
• Here are 10 of the most common Facebook Messenger scams and how to avoid and report them.

While Craigslist and eBay are still phenomenally popular, there’s a relatively new online swap meet on the internet. Facebook Marketplace has recently become a go-to destination for people to buy and sell personal goods, in large part because Facebook doesn’t charge any sort of fee for the service.

Common Facebook Marketplace scams and how to avoid them

Unfortunately, Marketplace’s popularity also makes it an attractive destination for scams. Thankfully, if you know what to look for, scammers aren’t hard to detect. Arm yourself with knowledge about the most common signs of Facebook Marketplace scams so you can buy and sell safely. 

Facebook Marketplace is an extremely popular site to buy and sell goods.

Dave Johnson/Insider

You’re asked to send the item before you receive payment

If you’re the seller, the absolute first rule of any online transaction is not to send the item before you receive payment. Scammers often concoct convoluted rationales, but don’t get bogged down in dramatic storytelling or complicated backstories — treat this like a simple transaction. When you have money in hand, you release the product for sale. 

If it’s too good to be true, it probably is

One of the cardinal rules of any online transaction is that if a deal sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is. Whether it’s non-working electronics or counterfeit designer clothing, beware of anything that’s for sale for a fraction of the proper retail price. The safest way to ensure you’re not being ripped off is to pick up the item locally, in person, and inspect it carefully before paying.

Test electronics before paying

While you can make a successful purchase by having an item shipped to you, there’s some risk in that approach. Especially if you’re buying something electronic, it’s a good idea to complete the transaction in person, so you can verify that the item actually works. Turn on the phone, tablet, laptop, game console, or other gadget and make sure it holds a charge and you can successfully boot it all the way up. 

Never refund an overpayment

This scam is as old as the hills: Someone sends you an overpayment — usually in the form of a check — and, for some convoluted reason, asks you to refund the overage. If you do this, you’ll find that the check will eventually bounce. You’ll have lost the item you’re selling, sent them some of your own money, and to add insult to multiple injuries, you’re liable to your bank for the bounced check fee. Never accept an overpayment; it’s 100% guaranteed to be a scam. 

Never send back codes texted to your phone

This insidious scam starts when the other party suggests moving the conversation from Marketplace to text messaging. Soon thereafter, he or she will say that in order to “prove you’re real,” you’ll be texted a code. Send the code to the other person, and you can proceed with the sale. Danger! This code can be any number of things, such as a two-factor authorization code that’ll let the other party take over one of your own accounts. Or it might be the authorization code to set up a new Google Voice number, which the other party can use to run even more scams, except now their number will be linked to your phone, not theirs. There’s no reason why you’d ever have to “prove you’re real,” especially by forwarding some sort of code. 

Beware of fake rentals

Using Facebook Marketplace to rent an apartment? Be very careful — it’s easy to create a fake listing for a property that isn’t really for rent. Or just happens to be for rent, but not through this Marketplace seller. Always verify the veracity of a rental by contacting the property listing manager independently of Facebook before handing over any money or even completing a rental agreement, which is chock full of requests for personal and private information. 

Be especially wary of rental property, and never give anyone money (or even complete a rental agreement) until you verify you’re talking to someone authorized to rent the property.

Dave Johnson/Insider

Don’t agree to a bait and switch

You’re trying to buy something on Facebook Marketplace, but when the seller gets back to you, it’s already sold. That’s okay, though, because they have a similar item instead. Sometimes that might be okay — it’s your call — but this is a classic bait and switch scheme designed to entice you to want one product but get you to later agree to a much less appealing one.  

Prevent claims of lost packages

If you ship an item to a buyer, do it smartly. Always use a tracking number so you can dispute any claims that a package has been lost or was never shipped. If you’re the buyer, be sure to insist on getting a tracking number so you can confirm the item is enroute and know when it arrives. 

Don’t trust a payment receipt provided by the buyer

If you’re selling an item, you should work with a common online payment system like PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle. And if you’re new to online payments, don’t accept the word of the buyer that they’ve made the payment (or an image of a receipt they’ve texted to you). The point of using a solution like PayPal is that you get an instant verification that payment has been received — you don’t need to take the word of the buyer.

Use an app like Venmo or Paypal in which you can instantly see that you’ve been paid, and don’t give away your item until you can confirm the sale for yourself.

Dave Johnson/Insider

Giveaways are often phishing scams

Free is always great, right? Often, people who are moving, for example, are motivated to get rid of household stuff and are happy to offer many items for free. But beware of online giveaways in which you need to fill out a form to get something for free. These are fraught with danger because they are often little more than phishing schemes designed to harvest your personal and confidential information. 

How to report a Facebook Marketplace scam

If you think you are dealing with a scam on Facebook Messenger, you should stop communicating with the buyer or seller and report the incident to Facebook. 

If you encounter a listing on Facebook that you think is a scam, open the listing and then click the three-dot menu to the right of the Share button. In the dropdown, choose Report listing.

You can report listings that appear to be scams.

Dave Johnson/Insider

If you have a listing and a potential buyer appears to be a scammer, you can also report that individual to Facebook. Open your listing and, in the list of Messages click the conversation with the potential scammer. Click the three dot menu and then click Report Buyer. Click Scam, and then follow the instructions to submit your scam report.

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Taylor Russell and Timothee Chalamet in “Bones and All.”

Amazon

• “Bones and All” is a horror-romance film about two young lovers fleeing across America. 
• The critically acclaimed movie stars Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet.
• You can rent “Bones and All” to watch at home from Amazon, Apple TV, Google, and Vudu for $20.

After playing exclusively in theaters for just under 30 days, “Bones and All” is now available to watch at home. The new horror-romance film costs $20 to rent from digital retailers like Amazon, Apple TV, Google, and Vudu. 

Maren (Taylor Russell) is a young woman who lives on the outskirts of society due to her cannibalistic impulses. She meets a jaded drifter named Lee (Timothée Chalamet), who has the same violent desires. Together, they embark on a journey through the backroads of America in search of identity and meaning, falling in love and having their connection tested along the way.

Check out the trailer for ‘Bones and All’

The movie is directed by award-winning filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, whose previous directorial credits include the 2018 horror movie “Suspiria” and the 2017 coming-of-age romance “Call Me By Your Name.” That latter film also starred Timothée Chalamet in one of the lead roles.

How to watch ‘Bones and All’

You can watch “Bones and All” at home by renting it from digital retailers like Amazon, Apple TV, Google, and Vudu. The film currently costs $20 to stream in up to 4K UHD quality.

With a digital rental, you’ll get a 30-day window to start watching the film and then 48 hours to finish the movie after you hit play. If you’d rather own the film, we expect it to become available for digital purchase by January 31, which is when the movie arrives on Blu-ray.

Apps for digital retailers are available on most mobile devices, smart TVs, and streaming players from major brands, including Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, and Chromecast. You should check each retailer’s website to ensure your device is supported before making a purchase. 

What is ‘Bones and All’ based on?

“Bones and All” is based on the book of the same name by author Camille DeAngelis. The novel was released in 2015 and is available in paperback, Kindle, and Audiobook editions.  

Is ‘Bones and All’ worth watching?

“Bones and All” currently holds an “83% Certified Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics agree that the film presents a unique and compelling romance, but its graphic subject matter is not for the faint of heart. 

This movie is for fans of first loves and drama, who can also stomach a fair amount of blood and violence along the way. 

When will ‘Bones and All’ be available on Blu-ray?

“Bones and All” will be released on Blu-ray on January 31. The Blu-ray will also include a digital code to redeem a streaming copy of the film. You can preorder the Blu-ray now from Amazon.

You can recap your entire year on BeReal.

Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

• Your BeReal Recap video shows every single photo you posted on BeReal this year.
• To find your BeReal Recap, head to the app’s Memories page and get in the waiting list.
• Your BeReal Recap video will be available until the end of January 2023, unless you save it to your device.

2022 is quickly coming to an end, which means it’s time to reminisce about everything you did this year — and all the time you spent posting photos on BeReal.

BeReal just added a Recap feature that makes a video using every photo you posted on the app this year. Once you watch it, you can immediately save the video or share it with your friends.

Here’s how to find your BeReal Recap and share it.

How to find your BeReal Recap

This feature is available in both the iPhone and Android versions of BeReal.

1. Open BeReal and tap your profile picture in the top-right corner.

2. On your profile screen, tap View all my Memories.

3. At the bottom of the Memories page, tap the icon that looks like a computer monitor with sparkles on it.

Tap the new icon at the bottom of the Memories page.

BeReal; William Antonelli

4. Tap Generate my 2022 video recap.

Now comes the weird part: The waiting list. After you tap the generate button, BeReal will put you in a queue before you can see your video. 

There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the system — I was placed in spot #16,195 but got my recap in less than a minute. But other users are reporting longer wait times.

In any case, feel free to close BeReal while you wait. When your Recap video is ready, you’ll get a notification.

You’ll have to queue up for your Recap video.

BeReal; William Antonelli/Insider

Once you get your Recap video, head back to BeReal and navigate to the Memories page again to watch it.

Important: Your BeReal Recap video consists of every BeReal photo you’ve taken flashing by very quickly. If you have any medical issues related to flashing lights or contrasting light and dark patterns, such as photosensitive epilepsy, be careful when watching.

When the video is over, tap the white Share video recap button to save the video to your phone, or share it with your friends.

A rout in global equities extended on Friday and government bond markets came under fresh selling pressure as hawkish tone from central bankers and weak data stoked recession fears.

The selling spilled over into commodities markets, where oil prices dropped over $2 per barrel. Gold prices faced their biggest weekly loss in four weeks after the Federal Reserve indicated it was not done hiking rates.

The dollar rose in choppy trading.

The Fed was one of a slew of central banks that jacked up interest rates and signalled that the fight to tame inflation this week.

Euro zone bond yields jumped a day after the European Central Bank pledged further monetary tightening to fight inflation. U.S. yields also rose, catching up with the global bond sell-off.

U.S. shares extended their slide, after data showed U.S. business activity contracted further in December, but softening demand helped to significantly cool inflation.

The data “confirmed Wall Street’s fears that the economy is quickly headed towards a recession,” said Edward Moya, senior analyst with OANDA.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 0.85% to 32,920.46, the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 1.11% to 3,852.36 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) 0.97% to 10,705.41.

European shares posted their largest weekly loss since September, with the STOXX 600 index (.STOXX) ending down 1.2%, skidding to a weekly loss of nearly 3.3%.

MSCI’s world stock index (.MIWD00000PUS) lost 1.1% and touched its lowest level in over a month.

S&P Global’s flash purchasing managers index showed eurozone economic activity contracted for the sixth consecutive month in December, although the deceleration also eased to its slowest pace in four months.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei index closed at its lowest in more than a month (.N225) and MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) was set for its worst week in two months.

The dollar index edged 0.23% higher, while the euro <EUR=> was down 0.3%.

This week’s hawkish message from central bankers brought an abrupt end to optimism that peak interest rates are on the horizon.

“Central banks delivered a blow to markets that were rebounding in anticipation of policymakers turning dovish on inflation and interest rates,” said Sunil Krishnan, head of multi-asset at Aviva Investors.

The ECB delivered a 50-bps hike like the Fed. Both opted for a smaller increase this time, but flagged there were more increases to come.

Its hawkish message prompted a second day of heavy selling across European bond markets where yields on benchmark German 10-year bonds jumped , .

The yield on Germany’s rate-sensitive two-year bond rose as high as 2.503% on Friday, , its highest since 2008.

“We now expect the ECB to go to 3.25% (including 50 bps in March) and the Fed to 5.25% which argues for persistent pressure on yields and spreads,” said Christoph Rieger, head of rates and credit research at Commerzbank.

In China, where markets are churning around an uncertain reopening, relief at the apparent resolution of a long-running accounting access dispute with the United States was not enough to bolster sentiment.

Meanwhile, Japan’s manufacturing activity shrank at the fastest pace in more than two years in December, while U.S. retail sales fell more than expected in November.

In commodities, the spot gold prices rose 0.88% by 4:17 p.m. EST (2117 GMT), but were poised for their biggest weekly loss in four weeks.

Gold futures settled up 0.7% at $1,800.20 per ounce. Interest rate hikes increase the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding bullion.

Oil prices dropped, with Brent crude futures settling at $79.04 per barrel, down 2.4% and U.S. crude finished down 2.4% at $74.29 per barrel.

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