News - Friday, September 18, 2026

Maxwell Duryea was waiting for the sun to rise.

His 16 mm camera was pointed at birds perched on power lines in Chattanooga, an ordinary image at the beginning of an ordinary day. But Duryea had been warned about filming in some of the places he was visiting. Standing there with his camera could attract the wrong kind of attention.

Gin Phillips was on her stomach in a cave, crawling into a slot in a rock barely two feet high.

The Birmingham, Alabama, novelist had signed up for a three-hour wild caving expedition at Raccoon Mountain in Chattanooga, where walking wasn’t always an option. There were times when she crawled on her belly and scrambled on her hands and knees. At one point, she used her hands and feet to bridge her body across a chasm.

In today’s data-driven economy, communities are increasingly grappling with questions about data centers, from proposed developments to their impact on local housing, infrastructure and quality of life.

While data centers are not new, their role in everyday life has grown dramatically. The first U.S. data center was built in 1945 at the University of Pennsylvania for military research. Since then, advances in computing, the rise of the internet and the proliferation of smartphones have made data centers essential infrastructure supporting everything from online banking to artificial intelligence.

The Hamilton County Election Commission has approved ballots and early voting locations for the Nov. 3 state and federal general election.

The ballot includes races for governor, U.S. Senate and House, state Senate and House, as well as municipal elections in Collegedale, East Ridge, Lakesite, Red Bank, Ridgeside, Signal Mountain, Soddy-Daisy and Walden.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee will host its annual public reading of the U.S. Constitution on the courthouse steps of the Joel W. Solomon Federal Building, 900 Georgia Ave., Sept. 18, 11:30 a.m.-12:45 p.m. The public is invited to participate by reading one of 110 brief segments of the Constitution, assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. Participants may arrive at any time during the event while readings remain available. Information

Researchers from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Marmara University in Türkiye have received a U.S. design patent for a wearable device intended to help people with essential tremor.

Essential tremor is a neurological movement disorder that can cause involuntary shaking during voluntary movements, making everyday activities such as eating, drinking, writing and using a computer difficult.

The intimate setting of the Hunter Museum of American Art will once again become a stage for some of the world’s leading chamber musicians when String Theory at the Hunter launches its 18th season in October.

Presented in partnership with Lee University, the 2026-27 season will feature six concerts and 21 internationally acclaimed musicians, with programs ranging from Bach and Schubert to bluegrass, American spirituals and a Grammy-nominated contemporary percussion work.

Move over angry and frustrated Titans fans, you’re about to have some new company: Apathetic Titans fans.

If most Titans weren’t already apathetic based on the last four seasons, the team did very little to slow them from arriving at that point with their season opener on Sunday.

It might not be time to give up on Cam Ward, but it is officially time to be worried.

One game into his second season, the 2025 No. 1 overall pick is exhibiting some of the same concerns that dogged him during his rookie season.

Ward wasn’t accurate in his season debut, missing a handful of throws that simply had to be completed. He and the offense were ineffective and boring.

Can the Titans bounce back from an objectively awful opener to have a competitive game against an upper-echelon opponent like the Philadelphia Eagles? Here are some keys to the Titans getting their first regular-season win of the 2026 campaign.

First down

Fix the run defense. The Titans allowed the lowly Jets to run for 152 yards in the season opener, and while Breece Hall is a nice back, he’s not Saquon Barkley. Robert Saleh is big on rotating his defensive linemen to keep them fresh, but the drop-off when Jeffery Simmons wasn’t on the field in the opener was highly noticeable vs. the Jets.

Shopping for a used vehicle can be nerve-wracking, even for seasoned veterans. Regardless of how well you know the mechanical workings of the modern automobile, buying a used car is always a gamble. If you’re one who likes to minimize risk, buying a certified preowned model can reduce some of the uncertainty.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people applying for unemployment benefits dropped sharply last week, another sign that layoffs remain rare and most Americans enjoy job security.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims slid to 196,000, the fewest since mid-July and down from 206,000 the week before. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, dropped to 203,250.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A federal appeals court panel on Thursday was considering an attempt to resurrect new Missouri congressional districts backed by President Donald Trump, even though the U.S. Supreme Court blocked those districts from being used in the November election.

WASHINGTON (AP) — About six weeks ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh announced that a divided central bank was keeping its key interest rate unchanged.

But on Wednesday, the Fed's rate-setting committee unanimously agreed to a rate hike, and nearly all policymakers signaled that a second increase later this year would likely be appropriate.

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market rallied to its best day in six weeks Thursday after falling oil prices and easing pressure from the bond market helped Wall Street reverse many of its moves from the prior day.

The S&P 500 jumped 1.1% for just its second rise in the last nine days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 316 points, or 0.6%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1.7%.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Kennedy Center to provide 30 days' notice before making any major physical changes to the building, including demolishing it as President Donald Trump has threatened.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said his ruling would "avoid any confusion on that score given more recent events," including the sudden closure of the building to the public on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House said Thursday that it was withdrawing its nomination of Lance Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper, to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ensuring that an agency at the forefront of President Donald Trump's domestic agenda will remain without a Senate-confirmed leader for at least a while longer.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has approved visas for top Iranian officials, including the president and foreign minister, to attend next week's U.N. General Assembly high-level meeting in New York even as the two countries are locked in a stalemated war.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress has struggled to pass major legislation this year, putting off debates on annual spending, defense, cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence. But in its final weeks in session as the midterm elections approach, the Senate can agree on doing one thing — addressing college sports.

The College Football Playoff says it can't change the outcome of any games played during the regular season but notes that its selection committee relies on various measures beyond wins and losses.

The CFP issued its statement on Thursday, following the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee's announcement a day earlier that it also doesn't have the authority to overturn the result of No. 19 Michigan's controversial 13-12 victory over Western Michigan on Sept. 5.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A federal judge who blocked the creation of a $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" for compensating President Donald Trump's political allies wasn't swayed by a government attorney's assurances Friday that the administration has abandoned the concept.

NEW YORK (AP) — America: land of possibility. And also: land of suckers.

Our enduring belief that anything is possible — whether based in reality or not — has helped the nation become the world's largest economy. It has also led us to fall head over heels for hucksters and charlatans, again and again.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Killing endangered animals while logging a forest or building a dam would not be considered illegal unless the animals were specifically targeted, under a new interpretation of the Endangered Species Act by President Donald Trump's administration that marks a sea change in how the landmark environmental law is enforced.

GENEVA (AP) — The head of the U.N. health agency is hailing "encouraging signs" in the fight against an Ebola outbreak in one part of eastern Congo, while warning that case counts are rising fast in another as officials race to tamp down the virus.

Jon Stewart says he never really decided to focus his charity efforts on first responders and their families. It just happened.

The award-winning host of "The Daily Show" said he wanted to feel useful and support people who dedicated their lives to helping others.

LONDON (AP) — King Charles III on Thursday urged senior leaders from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and Nvidia to make sure that artificial intelligence remains under control and in the service of people and the planet.

The gathering in Scotland was convened to discuss how AI can benefit society, and comes at a pivotal moment for the technology as debate swirls around whether rapid advances will soon put it beyond the ability of humans to rein it in.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's central bank on Friday raised the benchmark interest rate to 1.25% from 1.0%, a 31-year-high.

The Bank of Japan has been trying to normalize monetary policy after decades of keeping interest rates near or below zero to try to encourage more borrowing and spending to counter deflation and pull Japan's economy out of the doldrums.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Todd Blanche is blurring traditional boundaries between politics and federal law enforcement with recent speeches at political events that mark a sharp departure from norms meant to protect the Justice Department from the appearance of partisan bias.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tensions are mounting between the Pentagon and Congress over the flow of information to lawmakers about the U.S. military's priorities, with both Democrats and Republicans accusing a Defense Department leader of being frustratingly opaque.

HENRICO, Va. (AP) — In-person voting for this year's midterm elections began Friday, ushering in the final six weeks for Americans to decide which party they trust to lead Congress through a cost-of-living crisis, a prolonged war in Iran and other pressing issues.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The top official at the U.S. Postal Service said Thursday that the agency has stopped work on developing a controversial computer system that was central to President Donald Trump's effort to limit mail voting after the Supreme Court rejected his executive order this week.

As President Donald Trump tries to convince voters that Democrats have let crime run amok, he's digging into the country's political past to reference one of the most controversial campaign advertisements that relied heavily on racist tropes.

During a campaign stop Wednesday in Gastonia, North Carolina, to stump for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley, Trump resurrected a 1988 George H.W. Bush presidential campaign ad featuring Willie Horton, a Black man convicted of rape and assault after his release through a Massachusetts prison furlough program.