Friday morning news: January 16, 2026

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U.S. to Iran: All options are on the table » President Trump is delaying his response to the killings of protestors in Iran.

WALTZ: He has made it clear all options are on the table to stop the slaughter. And no one should know that better than the leadership of the Iranian regime.

That’s Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, speaking at a UN Security Council emergency meeting on Iran, Thursday.

Demonstrations in Iran, sparked by a poor economy and frustrations with the country’s dictatorial leadership, have been going on for more than two weeks. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reports thousands of protestors have been killed in the Iranian regime’s crackdown.

WALTZ: Iran says it’s ready for dialogue, but its actions say otherwise.

Waltz says Trump is still considering a U.S. military intervention. But Israel and Arab countries in the Middle East are warning the White House such a move could destabilize the entire region.

Iran says if the U.S. launches a strike, it will retaliate.

Machado meets w/Trump, gives him her Nobel Prize » Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado met with President Trump and U.S. senators in Washington and told reporters she presented Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize medal.

MACHADO: I presented the president of the United States with the medal of the peace- the Nobel Peace Prize.

Machado says she presented Trump with the medal -which he has longed to be awarded himself- Thursday, to recognize his unique commitment to Venezuela’s freedom. It’s not clear if Trump accepted the medal.

Machado spent Thursday discussing her country’s future with Trump. The visit comes less than two weeks after a U.S. raid ousted Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro from power.

Trump has so far dismissed Machado as an immediate option to replace Maduro, instead opting to work with acting President Delcy Rodriguez, who was Maduro’s vice president.

Minneapolis mayhem latest » As the clashes between protestors and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents, rage on in Minneapolis, President Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and send in the military to restore order.

The Insurrection Act allows a president to deploy military assets to restore civil order. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says she’s talked with Trump about invoking it.

NOEM: He certainly has the constitutional authority to utilize that. Um, my hope is that this leadership team in Minnesota will start to work with us to get criminals off the streets.

Protests have been going on for more than a week now in response to an ICE agent’s fatal shooting of protestor Renee Good. The White House insists the shooting was in self defense because Good was driving a vehicle toward the agent at close range, actually striking him. Protestors dispute that the agent’s life was in danger.

A second, non-fatal shooting of a protestor has led to even more heated demonstrations this week.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz Thursday asked protestors to express their frustrations peacefully and asked Trump to back off his threat to send in the military.

Democrat state legislatures start ICE restriction push » Several Democrat-led state legislatures are now pushing for new restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.

Lawmakers in states like California and New Jersey are proposing bills with a wide variety of provisions, ranging from blocking state police from cooperating with ICE, to forbidding local and state officers from holding second jobs with the Department of Homeland Security.

Chris Swanson, who’s running in the Democratic primary for Michigan governor, says clashes between protestors and ICE in Minnesota have the nation on edge.

SWANSON: The country is uneasy. They are not at peace. There’s a better way to do all of this, and that’s not happening. And we continue to have these conflicts- this is not going to be the end of it.

Meantime, deep-red Tennessee is going the other direction. Lawmakers there are proposing bills in full support of President Trump’s immigration crackdown… including checking the legal status of people who apply for public benefits, professional licenses, or try to register vehicles.

Trump unveils new health care plan » He is calling it "The Great Healthcare Plan."

President Trump Thursday unveiled his administration's answer to rising healthcare costs.

At its core, the plan would create a policy sending payments directly to American families to cover their healthcare costs. That's instead of the current system, which sends federal subsidies to insurance companies on behalf of those families.

TRUMP: The government is going to pay the money directly to you. It goes to you. And then you take the money and buy your own health care. Nobody's ever heard of that before, and that's the way it is. The big insurance companies lose, and the people of our country win.

But critics say the plan falls short of addressing rising premiums. Trump called on Congress to quickly take up the plan and pass it.

Mortgage rates hit lowest level in three years » The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate is now the lowest it has been in more than three years.

The 30-year fixed rate mortgage dropped to just slightly over 6 percent. One year ago, that rate averaged more than 7 percent.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says the market still has a long way to go:

LEAVITT: President Trump knows America is strongest when it's a nation of owners, not renters, and he is determined to unlock that opportunity for as many Americans as possible.

The president has floated a number of ideas he says are designed to increase the purchasing power of potential homebuyers.

Those include blocking large institutional investors from purchasing houses and the idea of a 50-year mortgage to decrease monthly payments.

I'm Mark Mellinger.

Straight ahead: What happens when online narratives collide with real life; Maria Baer is here for Culture Friday. And later: What the film noir genre reveals about good, evil, and the human heart.

This is The World and Everything in It.

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