News - Friday, October 16, 2026

Kelsey Grammer has spent decades bringing fictional characters to life. Now, the award-winning actor wants to make sure Americans don’t forget the real people who helped shape their country.

During an appearance Oct. 10 at Chattanooga’s Coolidge National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, Grammer discussed his plans to direct a Civil War drama about a Union soldier whose descendants are seeking a posthumous Medal of Honor. He also revealed that he’s developing a mobile app designed to reconnect Americans with their history.

Kelsey Grammer has spent more than four decades entertaining audiences, most famously as psychiatrist Frasier Crane on “Cheers” and “Frasier.” But these days, the Emmy-winning actor is pursuing projects that reflect another long-standing passion: American history.

Thrasher Elementary School on Signal Mountain is working with Chattanooga’s Coolidge National Medal of Honor Heritage Center to develop what could become the nation’s first Medal of Honor elementary school designation, an initiative that could eventually serve as a model for schools across the country.

At 40 years old, James Marcum found himself alone on a Colorado mountainside, struggling to breathe as crushing pain gripped his chest.

The Chattanooga cardiologist had been skiing with friends when an artery supplying blood to his heart suddenly went into spasm, cutting off circulation and causing a clot to form. Marcum immediately recognized the symptoms of a heart attack.

What will be known for the rest of this generation as the Long Horn Restaurant building has undergone its second makeover, this time bringing a touch – or, more accurately, a full-on body slam – of casual Mediterranean cuisine to the North Shore.

The Chattanooga Public Library is hosting The Tivoli Foundation: Your Ticket to History, an exhibit celebrating the history and restoration of Chattanooga’s Tivoli Theatre. The exhibit opened Oct. 10 on the first floor of the Downtown Library and will remain on display through Feb. 26, 2027.

Tennessee Realtors has named Travis Close the 2026 Realtor of the Year.

The award, presented during the association’s annual Fall Convention in Memphis, recognizes the member who best represents the character and professional profile of a Realtor.

John P. Franklin Funeral Home will host its annual festival Sunday, 2-4 p.m. in the funeral home parking lot, 1101 Dodds Ave. The free event will feature food, music, dancing and activities for all ages. Families, neighbors and friends are invited to attend.

The appraisal is an important part of many real estate transactions, but it can also be one of the least familiar steps for buyers and sellers. With changes underway in appraisal reporting, this is a good time to understand what might look different and what questions to ask.

Finishing your estate plan is a big step, but failing to notify the people involved can lead to confusion and complications when it’s time to use it. Since the events that bring those plans into action, such as an accident, serious illness or hospitalization, rarely come with a warning, talking with your family about your estate plan before a crisis occurs can provide clarity and help reduce uncertainty, conflict and stress later.

Tennessee stands at a fork in the road, faced with a vexing choice: Should the state stop trying to kill people or just get better at it? Opinion appears sharply divided.

Two botched executions using lethal injection protocols got us here. In May, officials fumbled for an hour without being able to establish an IV line for Tony Carruthers, resulting in a one-year reprieve for his death sentence.

As the Tennessee Titans ended the 2026 preseason, new head coach Robert Saleh told reporters he would stake his job on Cam Ward being a success.

“This kid’s not going to fail. Obviously, I put my job on that one, but he’s not going to fail. He’s special,” Saleh said Aug. 30.

When the Titans took Cam Ward No. 1 overall in last year’s draft, they probably had no idea the results would be like this after 22 games.

Based on his results at three different collegiate stops – Incarnate Word, Washington State and Miami – Ward was the NCAA’s all-time leader in career touchdown passes with 158. 

The reopening of Chattanooga’s Walnut Street Bridge is serving as the inspiration for a new exhibit at the Jewish Cultural Center that looks beyond bridges as physical structures to explore the connections they can represent.

“Bridge,” on display through Nov. 20, uses artwork to examine the ways bridges can connect generations, cultures and traditions while also representing passages from fear to safety, barriers to communication and the divide between seeing a need and responding to it.

DeWayne Brown II may have felt a little lonely last spring as his former University of Tennessee men’s basketball teammates either graduated or transferred. At one point, Brown was one of only two returning scholarship players remaining, along with sophomore guard Troy Henderson.

Fall is typically when automakers release the majority of their models for the new year. Most will be continuations of prior designs, but there’s also a good number that are all-new or getting major redesigns. 

If you’re thinking about buying a new vehicle in the next six months, it might be useful to know which ones have major changes or offer notable breakthroughs. To give you an inside scoop on what’s coming in the next few months, the automotive experts at Edmunds have picked five vehicles that promise to be well worth the wait.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday rejected a lawsuit from John Brennan that sought to force the Justice Department to preserve investigative records so that the former CIA director can challenge any eventual criminal case against him as a selective and malicious prosecution.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — At least eight states are suing artificial intelligence giant OpenAI, saying the company's popular chatbot model violated state consumer protection laws by hurting children and deceiving adults.

The company's chatbot model, ChatGPT, is giving dangerous medical advice, encouraging paranoia and coaching people to hurt others or commit suicide, Iowa's lawsuit said. At the same time, the chatbots are pretending to be agreeable and compassionate while preying on the vulnerable, according to the lawsuit.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration sued California election officials Thursday, asking a judge to bar the state from counting mail-in ballots for next month's midterm elections from people the federal government has identified as "likely" noncitizens until their status can be confirmed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI employees fired for their roles in the investigation of President Donald Trump's retention of classified documents at his Florida estate sued on Thursday to get their jobs back, calling their terminations unlawful acts of "political retribution."

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials are moving ahead with a plan to allow specialty pharmacies to produce certain peptides, a class of largely unregulated injections that have become popular among followers of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other wellness influencers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Open enrollment for Medicare plans begins Thursday and enrollees will face a slew of changes that go into effect in 2027.

During the enrollment period, which ends Dec. 7, people will have the opportunity to choose between traditional Medicare and privately run Medicare Advantage plans in their area, as well as prescription drug plans. Those changes go into effect on Jan. 1.

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV met with a top aide on Thursday and resumed working from the hospital, as doctors reported his lung had recovered well from surgery to remove a cancerous nodule.

Leo's post-operative tests remained within normal levels and his physiotherapy session Thursday involved full mobility exercises, with the pope going about his daily activities independently, said the update from Leo's personal doctor, Dr. Luigi Carbone, and the head of thoracic surgery at Gemelli hospital, Dr. Stefano Margaritora.

WASHINGTON (AP) — High gas prices are intensifying inflation and vacuuming up more of Americans' dollars, yet consumers are still digging deep to spend, powering the economy, at least for now.

A slew of economic data Thursday showed that inflation accelerated last month as more expensive oil and gas began to lift prices in other parts of the economy, including shipping and warehousing, before the increases reach most Americans.

NEW YORK (AP) — Don't count out U.S. shoppers when it comes to shelling out money for the winter holidays despite higher fuel prices and other financial pressures.

The nation's largest retail trade group said Thursday that it expects American consumers will collectively spend $1.01 trillion this November and December, which would be 4.2% more than during the same months last year.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Wholesale inflation rose more than expected last month on a big jump in fuel costs as rising prices become a bigger economic challenge for millions of Americans, and a growing political problem for Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes muscled higher following a shaky day of trading.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3% Thursday after erasing an early-morning loss and pulled closer to its all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1.1%, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.1%.

WASHINGTON (AP) — New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia defended her legal background and justified her truncated inaugural briefing as she navigates a rocky first week as the president's chief spokeswoman.

Zacharia sat down for an interview Thursday with the conservative Human Events outlet. In it, she said she did not have time to get fully prepared ahead of her first briefing on Tuesday and that it was always the plan to keep it short because President Donald Trump would field questions from journalists later that morning.

The Indianapolis Colts need Jonathan Taylor to become a big-play threat again.

He's gone 12 straight games without rushing for 100 yards. He's been held scoreless two of the last three weeks. And after he was held to a season-low 45 yards in last week's loss at Pittsburgh, the Colts will do everything they can to get him running right Sunday.

NASHVILLE (AP) — Macklin Celebrini scored the only goal of a shootout to give the San Jose Sharks a 3-2 victory over the Nashville Predators on Thursday night.

Mason Marchment and Will Smith scored, and Alex Nedeljkovic made 33 saves to help the Sharks snap a two-game losing streak. Nedeljkovic has won both of his starts this season.

NEW YORK (AP) — Sean "Diddy" Combs has been moved to a federal prison in Pennsylvania after reports that the hip-hop mogul was living the high life and was injured in a fight at his New Jersey lockup, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Friday.

SAO PAULO (AP) — A judge of Brazil's top electoral court ruled on Thursday that Meta must adopt measures to immediately secure equal treatment of the two presidential candidates ahead of an Oct. 25 runoff.

The ruling comes shortly after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is running against Flávio Bolsonaro, filed a complaint that accused the tech company that owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp of using biased algorithms and AI restrictions to favor opposition candidate Bolsonaro ahead of the election.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The only English words 4-year-old Alaisha Sandoval knows are courtesy of "Peppa Pig," but that could soon change.

The Trump administration is proposing that Head Start programs teach exclusively in English, rejecting the federal early-childhood program's practice of incorporating the languages students speak at home. Alaisha's father, Hansel Alejandro Sandoval, smiled when he heard the news: The policy, he said, would help open his daughter's world.

CHICAGO (AP) — Tesla has unveiled its new Roadster sports car, which can thrust itself up in the air. But drivers shouldn't expect to take it for a spin anytime soon.

Elon Musk's car company this week debuted the latest bells and whistles of its second generation Roadster — chief among them, as shown off at a Thursday event, are a set of cold gas thrusters and a "multi-mode" suction system that can fling the car in the air for short spurts and spin the vehicle mid-flight.

HONG KONG (AP) — China on Friday said it plans to restrict or ban exports of 40 technologies that span artificial intelligence, chips and solar power as its technology race with countries including the United States intensifies.

The Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology jointly published a draft document with the proposed updates for China's catalog of technologies subjected to export bans or restrictions.

The United States is making an unprecedented attempt to revive three shuttered nuclear plants to meet rising energy demand, including from large-scale data centers.

No commercial nuclear reactor is known to have resumed generating electricity after beginning the decommissioning process that takes one out of service, though some reactors have restarted after long outages.

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV's recovery from lung surgery has progressed so normally that the Vatican on Friday stopped providing morning updates confirming he had woken up and had breakfast, even as questions swirled about what his cancer means for the future of his young pontificate.

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump says he wants voters to pretend that he's on the ballot in this year's midterm elections.

His rivals are doing their best to help his case.

Democratic candidates and their allies have spent more than $163 million since Sept. 1 on television advertising that mentions the Republican president, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from AdImpact, which charts media spending.

BANGKOK (AP) — Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh said Friday he won't prejudge what the U.S. central bank will do about interest rates at its upcoming meetings in October and December.

The Fed increased its key interest rate by a quarter-point to about 3.9% in September, its first increase in three years, and stubbornly elevated U.S. inflation will likely lead it to hike that rate again in coming months to slow spending and help cool price pressures.

BANGKOK (AP) — Guardrails are urgently needed to contain potential risks from the boom in artificial intelligence, the head of the International Monetary Fund said Friday, likening the technology to a Formula 1 race car that might go off the track and run people over.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Investments in pharmaceutical companies made on behalf of President Donald Trump increased significantly after he returned to the White House last year, with his portfolio adding millions of dollars in stock in firms that benefited from a Republican-backed law that shields certain medications from Medicare price negotiations, according to a report from congressional Democrats.

CALGARY, Alberta (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned Thursday that the United States is trying to break Canada so it can "own us" as he urged oil-rich Alberta not to begin a process toward separation in Monday's referendum.

The NCAA sued the governor of Ohio on Friday, three days after he signed an executive order giving the state's universities the option of allowing athletes who graduated from high school in 2022 to play a fifth year of college ball in defiance of the NCAA's new eligibility rule.

The NCAA has passed many controversial rules in its long history but few have led to as much angst as the one approved over the summer giving athletes five years to play five seasons.

The change has resulted in confusion, lawsuits and the once unthinkable notion of players leaving college, signing with professional teams and then turning around to head back to college.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Katie Zacharia is departing as White House press secretary, a person familiar with the matter said Friday, after a short and rocky tenure that was defined by questions about her professional background and lack of polish in fielding questions from journalists.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Tennessee Titans went from winless to party time in a jiffy Sunday.

And why not?

The defense shut down mistake-prone Indianapolis in the second half, the special teams made two game-changing plays in the fourth quarter and Joey Slye made two field goals in the final 2 1/2 minutes to rally the Colts from a 13-0 halftime deficit for their first win of the season, 26-20.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indianapolis Colts co-owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon sent a clear, concise message in January — make the playoffs or changes would be made.

Six weeks into the season, the pressure is mounting with the Colts holding a 2-4 record after a second-half collapse against previously winless Tennessee.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The Southeastern Conference fined Tennessee $500,000 on Sunday for allowing fans to storm the field following a 26-10 victory over then-No. 6 Alabama.

The fine will be paid to Alabama in accordance with SEC policy, which provides for a $500,000 penalty for violations involving access to competition areas in all SEC-sponsored sports.

Just when you thought the SEC and Big Ten were the biggest and baddest conferences in the land, along comes the Big 12 with three teams in the top 10 of The Associated Press Top 25 and the ACC with the No. 1 team.

Five of the top seven teams lost Saturday, the most on one day in a regular season since the AP rankings started 90 years ago. In all, eight Top 25 teams lost in Week 7.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider whether Congress had the constitutional authority to impose a ban on distilling spirits in private homes more than 150 years ago.

Plaintiffs challenging the prohibition on home distilling claim the 1868 law is an antiquated relic of Reconstruction-era politics. They argue that Congress overstepped its taxation powers when it enacted the home distilling ban as part of a tax reform measure designed to curb fraud by commercial distillers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear an appeal in a disputed adoption case involving an Afghan child orphaned in a U.S. Army raid.

The child's relatives appealed to the high court after a U.S. Marine who helped evacuate them from Afghanistan took custody of the girl despite State Department efforts to reunite her with her Afghan family.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an effort to revive a plea deal for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The agreement would have spared Mohammed the risk of execution in exchange for his guilty plea and a sentence of life in prison without parole.

WASHINGTON (AP) — District and federal court judges in Washington are used to handling some of the nation's thorniest issues, from complex deportation cases to the fates of Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot defendants and more.

But in the nearly two years since President Donald Trump returned to office, they have been adjudicating a litany of cases challenging construction projects he initiated to remake the nation's capital at a breakneck speed. Judges accustomed to parsing the Constitution are now being forced to decide how many trees may be cut down or whether paint tests can proceed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order aimed at bolstering federal research on women's health, a move pushed by first lady Melania Trump, the White House confirmed on Monday.

The order, first reported by USA Today, will create a new women's health division at the National Institutes of Health and a task force at the White House focused on the issue.

NEW YORK (AP) — Halley Froehlich was sure she'd spend her scientific career in the United States. Her family has been in America since the 1700s.

But over the past two years, delayed federal grants and fears about the future motivated her to pack her life into boxes. She moved to Finland with her husband and daughter and is continuing her research — studying how fish, shellfish and seaweed that humans eat are responding to climate change — at the University of Helsinki.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Indigenous leaders from across the Amazon are taking their fight against illegal mining, drug trafficking and deforestation to a United Nations conference in Vienna starting Monday.

More than a dozen Indigenous representatives from Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador are participating in the Oct. 19-23 U.N. conference on transnational organized crime, known as COP13.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A National Guard member was shot and injured while trying to break up a fight in the nation's capital, and the person suspected of firing the gun also was shot in an exchange with guard members, police said Monday.

The shooting happened at about 11:10 p.m. Sunday as seven or eight guard members in a parked van were monitoring the fight on a sidewalk in southeast Washington, in the Eastern Market neighborhood, said Jeffery Carroll, interim chief of the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Fifth-generation Kansas farmer Glenn Brunkow describes this time of year as "go time," when farmers are combining fields, hauling crops to town and moving livestock from summer pastures to their winter homes.

But this harvest season, they're doing it with diesel prices more than $2.50 per gallon higher than a year ago, adding to financial pressures from rising costs, unpredictable markets and shrinking profits.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander adults have become more disillusioned with President Donald Trump and Republicans as the Nov. 3 midterm elections approach, according to a new AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll, giving Democrats a substantial edge on major issues like the economy and health care.

HONG KONG (AP) — China said Monday its economy grew 4.5% in the July-September quarter from a year ago fueled by robust exports, moving closer to meeting its official annual growth target for the year as trading partners seek to balance their trade deficits with the country.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump Tower had just opened and "The Art of the Deal" was three years from publication when 38-year-old Donald Trump suggested he could negotiate Russian arms control better than Ronald Reagan.

"It would take an hour-and-a-half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles," Trump told The Washington Post in 1984. Of dealmaking prowess, he said, "You either have it, or you don't."

NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Titans bought themselves some much-needed breathing room with their first victory this season and first with coach Robert Saleh.

Now the key is telling the truth about what coaches and players see on film that needs fixing, which is easier after a win.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Arch Manning remains the starting quarterback for No. 19 Texas despite the Longhorn's offensive struggles in consecutive losses, coach Steve Sarkisian said Monday.

"There's no doubt about it, Arch can play better for us, but he's our starter," Sarkisian said in his weekly news conference. "We need to see a better version of him this week."

Florida will start the men's college basketball season where it ended it two seasons ago: No. 1.

The Gators were the overwhelming pick to top the preseason AP Top 25 on Monday, receiving 47 of the 59 first-place votes from a panel of national media. It is the first time that coach Todd Golden's bunch has resided on top since the final poll in 2025, after they had beaten Houston to deliver the school its third national championship.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a case about the role race plays in middle school admissions, three years after a majority on the high court struck down affirmative action in college admissions.

The case involves admissions to four selective middle schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, a diverse suburb of Washington, D.C. A group of parents said in a lawsuit that the district's admissions policy to four magnet schools is designed to boost the admission of Black and Latino students while disadvantaging Asian American kids.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday questioned the Trump administration's claims surrounding its efforts to redevelop a historic Washington golf course, challenging its contention that a recent tree-cutting spree did not indicate work was moving forward on the project, which is temporarily blocked by a court order.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang urged Germany's makers of cars and industrial machines to quickly adopt artificial intelligence to "re-engineer" the country's struggling business model by tapping its wealth of manufacturing data and expertise.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A former OpenAI engineer charged with secretly installing a recording device in a conference room to glean company details had been "mere days" away from absconding to Saudi Arabia before his arrest, federal prosecutors said in new court filings.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a deep, dark part of the Gulf of Mexico, the number of marine animals plummeted by about 60% in the years following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, a new study found.

In a crucial part of the Gulf between the light surface and the darkest depths, where the BP-operated well failed and dumped 134 million gallons of oil, the number of fish found dropped by 63.5% from the year after the spill to 2015. Crustaceans, including shrimp and krill, a key food for whales, went down 62%, and larger animals like squid and octopuses fell 59.7%, according to a study published Monday in the journal PNAS.

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry bounced back on Wall Street Monday and recovered some of their steep losses from last week, but the rest of the market and stocks worldwide were shaky.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, coming off its worst week since June, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.1% because it's full of technology stocks. The majority of U.S. stocks outside of AI and tech fell, though, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average swung between losses and gains before finishing with a drop of 36 points, or 0.1%.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) — The Los Angeles Lakers waived guard Dalton Knecht on Monday in their final roster cutdown for the regular season.

Knecht was the Lakers' first-round pick in 2024, and he briefly appeared to be a star in the making early in his rookie season. The 2024 SEC Player of the Year at Tennessee scored 37 points while hitting nine 3-pointers against Utah in November of that year in the highlight of a nine-game stretch in which he averaged 18.9 points per game.

A battery system installed in a Buffalo, New York, apartment building will store excess energy when it's plentiful and power the building when the grid is strained and electricity is costly. The manufacturer and state officials hope it will show that larger batteries can safely operate where people live and work.

HONG KONG (AP) — China hit back Tuesday at a U.S. ban on the use of Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek's products by federal civilian agencies and warned of retaliatory measures as the two AI powers race to develop the technology.

LONDON (AP) — Online services for a number of U.K. banks in and around London were disrupted by a Google Cloud outage Tuesday.

The cloud outages began just after 2 a.m. Eastern, or 6:08 a.m. GMT, but appeared to have been largely solved about six hours later.

Come Election Day, a Quaker leader will travel from the nation's capital to her home state of Ohio. A Christian minister and a Jewish rabbi will stand vigil outside a polling place in Arizona. A Buddhist nun will offer support to voters in Wisconsin.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are set Tuesday to announce a $25 million program to encourage the public to blow the whistle on suspected fraud in the federal government as they ramp up an existing effort to end the abuse of federal programs and dollars.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union laid out a plan on Tuesday to increase its footprint in the Arctic as global warming, conflict and competition for energy resources and critical minerals pose fresh challenges.

The EU move comes after threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to take control of Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark, and after he left Iceland uneasy by posting a map with the colors of the American flag over both islands.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is hoping that $5,000 checks can juice Republican turnout in November's midterm elections — but even some of his devoted fans are doubting that government payouts would arrive.

"I mean, I guess it's good for some people. I really don't care," said Jamie Alvarez, who attended Trump's recent Alaska rally in a red, white and blue outfit. "I don't feel like your vote should be bought. I feel like you should vote for who you feel is going to do the best job."

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Voters in oil-rich Alberta province overwhelmingly backed remaining in Canada, with early referendum results Tuesday delivering a boost to Prime Minister Mark Carney's push for national unity amid U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war and annexation threats.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S.-Ukraine alliance is careening toward a possible breaking point, with Moscow strengthened by President Donald Trump's recent rejection of new Russia sanctions and Kyiv undermined by disruptions in satellite support for its drones during the war.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia unleashed another missile and drone blitz of civilian areas in Ukraine, killing at least seven people, officials said Tuesday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy scrambled to ensure more American and European help during a visit to Norway.