News - Friday, January 16, 2026

Hatchling chickens, newborn humans and startup businesses all have one thing in common: they need the right conditions and ample space to grow.

In the case of entrepreneurs bringing businesses to life, they must also be nimble and adapt to market conditions.

When Jennifer Lea opens her mind’s eye to her earliest memories, she finds herself on the rust-red soil of the Central African Republic, a deep-red sun fixed overhead like an all-seeing gaze, sprinting after a soccer ball as a horde of her brother’s friends races behind her.

Economic uncertainty driven by trade policy, persistent affordability challenges and elevated interest rates continue to weigh on the housing market, even as parts of the broader economy remain resilient, according to a national housing economist who addressed local builders this week.

The documentary “Labors of Love” will be screened in person at the Jewish Cultural Center at 3 p.m. as part of the Chattanooga Jewish Documentary Series. The 79-minute film, presented in English, explores the life and legacy of Henrietta Szold, a visionary and often under-recognized American Jewish leader who founded Hadassah, a Jewish women’s philanthropic organization. Beginning in 1912, Szold helped forge a vital link between American Jewish women and communities in Palestine. Tickets are $12. A small reception hosted by the local Hadassah chapter will precede the screening. Tickets, information

After a nationwide search, the Tennessee Aquarium has selected Mary Ann Beil as its new chief financial officer.

Beil will assume the financial responsibilities long held by Gordon Stalans, who has served as the Aquarium’s CFO for more than 30 years. Stalans will continue in his roles as vice president, chief operating officer and chief information officer as Beil begins her tenure.

Hamilton County property sales and mortgage activity remained strong in December 2025, with hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate transactions recorded during the final month of the year, according to the county’s latest sales and mortgages report.

December closed the year on a steady note. The latest report from the National Association of Realtors shows another month of gradual improvement in existing-home sales nationwide, the third increase in a row. Locally, more homes came to market and buyers kept moving, which created a setting in which shoppers had a bit more to consider and sellers still met qualified interest without the rush of earlier years.

As your parents grow older, it might be time to talk with them about financial and aging issues, which could involve difficult conversations.

You’ll want to be careful how you approach this. Mention ahead of time that you’d like to talk with them about their future plans and reassure them that you want to understand their wishes so their affairs will be taken care of as they would like.

The Hunter Museum of American Art has announced a slate of major exhibitions and installations for 2026 that will spotlight immersive contemporary work, historical memory and innovative uses of reclaimed materials, alongside significant loans from a nationally recognized museum collection.

The presence of balloons normally signals a joyous occasion. That’s not the case for the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team this season.

The UT coaching staff has been using balloons to help the Vols cut down on turnovers. During practice, 10 balloons are stationed near the court. Any time the Vols commit a turnover, one of the balloons is popped. After the 10th balloon is popped, the players all run.

The Tennessee Titans are nowhere near the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season. Yet, there are Titans influences on all 14 rosters of the playoff teams.

Between active players on the 53-man rosters, practice squad players and those on injured reserve, would you believe there are 54 players with at least some past tie to the Titans in this postseason? That’s enough to field a full active roster with an extra guy for a practice squad. 

As the Tennessee Titans coaching search is now officially in week two (or week 14, if you count from the day they fired Brian Callahan), the main point in the whole process has been how wide a net that general manager Mike Borgonzi has cast in searching for his guy.

Affordability is a hotter topic than ever in 2026. Many people are struggling to manage rising costs and live within their means, making it harder to justify splurging on things they want but don’t need. That applies to car shopping decisions too. 

MCLEAN, Va. (AP) — The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate is now down to its lowest level in more than three years.

The benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate eased to 6.06% this week, down from 6.16% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the rate averaged 7.04%.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A sprawling betting scheme to rig NCAA and Chinese Basketball Association games ensnared 26 people, including more than a dozen college basketball players who tried to fix games as recently as last season, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge Thursday cleared the way for a New York offshore wind project to resume construction, a victory for the developer who said a Trump administration order to pause it would likely kill the project in a matter of days.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday announced the outlines of a health care plan he wants Congress to take up as Republicans have faced increasing pressure to address rising health costs and a jump in insurance premiums after lawmakers let subsidies expire.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. forces in the Caribbean Sea have seized another sanctioned oil tanker that the Trump administration says has ties to Venezuela, part of a broader U.S. effort to take control of the South American country's oil.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote on social media that the U.S. Coast Guard had boarded the Motor Tanker Veronica early Thursday. She said the ship had previously passed through Venezuelan waters and was operating in defiance of President Donald Trump's "established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean."

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Kaiser Permanente affiliates will pay $556 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged the health care giant committed Medicare fraud and pressured doctors to list incorrect diagnoses on medical records to receive higher reimbursements, federal prosecutors said.

NEW YORK (AP) — Thursday was the final day to select an Affordable Care Act health insurance plan across much of the country, as the expiration of federal subsidies drives up health costs and lawmakers remain locked in a debate over how to address the issue.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The president was barely a year into his administration when a health care debate began to consume Washington.

On Capitol Hill, partisan divides formed as many Democrats pressed for guaranteed insurance coverage for a broader swath of Americans while Republicans, buttressed by medical industry lobbying, warned about cost and a slide into communism.

DETROIT (AP) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer offered a contrasting view of manufacturing in Detroit Thursday, two days after President Donald Trump defended his tariff strategy in the Motor City.

Whitmer, a term-limited Democrat who is in her last year as governor, said in a speech at the Detroit Auto Show that the administration's tariff strategy has hurt American auto manufacturing and is benefiting Chinese competitors. It's a message she has repeated over the past year as economic uncertainty has rippled across the automobile sector.

NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk's Grok keeps getting into trouble, and this time, more of the world's governments are trying to intervene.

First launched in 2023, Grok is Musk's attempt to outdo rivals such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini in building an AI assistant powered by a large language model, which is trained on vast pools of data to help predict the most plausible next word in a sentence. It's the main product of Musk's AI startup, xAI, which has been merged with his social media platform, X. Much like ChatGPT and Gemini, Musk's company has also folded AI image generation capabilities into the chatbot.

NEW YORK (AP) — A surging stock market and a flurry of deal making padded the profits of Wall Street's two big investment banks, which both saw a double-digit jump in profits in the fourth quarter.

Goldman Sachs's net earnings rose 12% from a year earlier, posting a profit of $4.62 billion, or $14.01 a share. Meanwhile Morgan Stanley said it earned $4.4 billion, or $2.68 per share, compared to a profit of $3.71 billion, or $2.22 per share, compared to a year earlier.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Several Middle Eastern allies of the United States have urged the Trump administration to hold off on strikes against Iran for the government's deadly crackdown on protesters, according to an Arab diplomat familiar with the matter.

STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) — Mikayla Blakes scored a season-high 38 points and No. 5 Vanderbilt won its school-record 18th straight game to open the season, beating Mississippi State 89-84 on Thursday night.

The Commodores are 5-0 in Southeastern Conference play for the first time since 1992-93, the season they opened 17-0. The 18-game winning streak is the longest in school history at any point in a season.

NASHVILLE (AP) — A federal judge denied a request Thursday for a preliminary injunction by five college football players seeking to play a fifth season this fall.

U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell wrote that the players did not make the case that they likely would succeed on their claim that the NCAA violates U.S. antitrust laws with its redshirt rule that restricts athletes to four seasons over five years.

NASHVILLE (AP) — As Democrats across the country propose state law changes to restrict federal immigration officers after the shooting death of a protester in Minneapolis, Tennessee Republicans introduced a package of bills Thursday backed by the White House that would enlist the full force of the state to support President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration commissioner's effort to drastically shorten the review of drugs favored by President Donald Trump's administration is causing alarm across the agency, stoking worries that the plan may run afoul of legal, ethical and scientific standards long used to vet the safety and effectiveness of new medicines.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A plan to slash drug review times at the Food and Drug Administration is sparking deep concerns among agency staffers and outside experts, with some saying the poorly defined effort is taking key decisions away from career scientists and placing them in the hands of political leadership.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Before President Donald Trump's administration started dismantling the Education Department, the agency served as a powerful enforcer in cases of sexual violence at schools and universities. It brought the weight of the government against schools that mishandled sexual assault complaints involving students.

DETROIT (AP) — At the North American International Auto Show, tires squeal as gearheads put shiny new vehicles through their paces on a pair of indoor tracks that sprawl across the event space. One of those tracks used to be set aside exclusively for electric vehicles as U.S. automakers sought to quickly build out the cars of the future.

BEIJING (AP) — Breaking with the United States, Canada has agreed to cut its 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department's investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has brought heightened attention to a key drama that will play out at the central bank in the coming months: Will Powell leave the Fed when his term as chair ends, or will he take the unusual step of remaining a governor?

HONG KONG (AP) — U.S. businesses are more concerned about China's slowing economy than trade friction, according to a survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China released Friday.

Of 368 companies responding to the survey, 64% viewed slowing growth in the world's second largest economy as their top worry, while 58% cited U.S.-China trade tensions as a key challenge.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan's premier on Friday hailed a new trade deal with the United States as the "best tariff deal" enjoyed by countries with trade surpluses with Washington, as meanwhile a Chinese official in Beijing condemned the accord.

The agreement cuts U.S. tariffs on Taiwanese goods to 15% in exchange for $250 billion in new investments in the U.S. tech industry. It is comparable to deals with the European Union and Japan worked out after President Donald Trump proposed sweeping tariffs for many U.S. trading partners.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — President Donald Trump suggested Friday that he may punish countries with tariffs if they don't back the U.S. controlling Greenland, a message that came as a Congressional delegation met Danish and Greenlandic lawmakers in Copenhagen and sought to lower tensions.

HAVANA (AP) — Tens of thousands of Cubans demonstrated Friday outside the U.S. Embassy in Havana to decry the killing of 32 Cuban officers in Venezuela and demand that the U.S. government release former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

They crowded into the open-air "José Martí Anti-Imperialist" plaza across from the embassy in a rally organized by the Cuban government as tensions between Cuba and the U.S. spike following the U.S. attack Jan. 3 on Venezuela.

NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly a year into his second term, President Donald Trump's work on the economy hasn't lived up to the expectations of many people in his own party, according to a new AP-NORC survey.

The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds a significant gap between the economic leadership Americans remembered from Trump's first term and what they've gotten so far as he creates a stunning level of turmoil at home and abroad.

DALLAS (AP) — Sen. John Cornyn stood in the shadow of the U.S.-Mexico border wall for a campaign event, but the Texas Republican didn't offer the kind of diatribe about illegal immigration that stokes his party's core and fueled Donald Trump's rise to the White House.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michael Ben'Ary was driving one evening last October when he paused at a red light to check his work phone. He was in the middle of a counterterrorism prosecution so important that President Donald Trump highlighted it in his address to Congress.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michael Ben'Ary was driving one of his children to soccer practice on an October evening last year when he paused at a red light to check his work phone. He was in the middle of a counterterrorism prosecution so important that President Donald Trump highlighted it in his address to Congress.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most American presidents aspire to the kind of greatness that prompts future generations to name important things in their honor.

Donald Trump isn't leaving it to future generations.

As the first year of his second term wraps up, his Republican administration and allies have put his name on the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center performing arts venue and a new class of battleships that's yet to be built.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said she presented her Nobel Peace Prize medal to President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday even as he has questioned her credibility to take over her country after the U.S. ousted then-President Nicolás Maduro.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has identified a host of athletic competitions it classifies as "major sporting events" — aside from soccer's 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games — that athletes and coaches will be allowed to travel to the U.S. to take part in despite a broad visa ban on nearly 40 countries.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is halfway home in approving government funding for the current budget year that began Oct. 1 after the Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a three-bill package.

Now comes the hard part. Lawmakers still must negotiate a spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security amid soaring tensions on Capitol Hill after the shooting of a Minnesota woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Tennessee man pleaded guilty on Friday to hacking the U.S. Supreme Court's filing system more than two dozen times, court records show.

Nicholas Moore, 24, of Springfield, also admitted that he illegally accessed records from AmeriCorps' computer servers and a Department of Veterans Affairs electronic platform.

A federal judge ruled Friday that work on a Virginia offshore wind project could resume, the third project this week to successfully challenge the Trump administration in court.

The administration announced last month it was suspending leases for at least 90 days on five East Coast offshore wind projects because of national security concerns. Its announcement did not reveal specifics about those concerns.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide the constitutionality of broad search warrants that collect the location history of cellphone users to find people near crime scenes.

The case involves what is a known as a "geofence warrant" that was served on Google in a police hunt for a bank robber in suburban Richmond, Virginia. Geofence warrants, an increasingly popular investigative tool, seek location data on every person within a specific location over a certain period of time.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear an appeal from global agrochemical manufacturer Bayer to block thousands of state lawsuits alleging it failed to warn people that its popular weedkiller could cause cancer.

The justices will consider whether the Environmental Protection Agency's approval of the Roundup weedkiller without a cancer warning should rule out the state court claims.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — OpenAI says it will soon start showing advertisements to ChatGPT users who aren't paying for a premium version of the chatbot.

The artificial intelligence company said Friday it hasn't yet rolled out ads but will start testing them in the coming weeks.

DETROIT (AP) — Chinese automakers have been making inroads around the world with growing sales of their high-tech, stylish and affordable electric vehicles. That has had competitors concerned even before Canada this week agreed to cut its tariffs on EVs in exchange for concessions on Canadian farm products.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration and a bipartisan group of governors on Friday tried to step up pressure on the operator of the nation's largest electric grid to take urgent steps to boost power supplies and keep electricity bills from rising even higher.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has spent his second term bulldozing elected and appointed officials who resist him or refuse to bend to his demands. But he may have met his match in Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday said he would like to keep his top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, at the White House rather than potentially nominate him to replace Jerome Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to pardon former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez, a White House official said Friday.

Vázquez pleaded guilty last August to a campaign finance violation in a federal case that authorities say also involved a former FBI agent and a Venezuelan banker. Her sentencing was set for later this month.