HigherIQ — Friday, January 9, 2026

Hey there, it's Friday, January ninth, twenty twenty-six. Today we're talking jobs and what they mean for the Fed, a Supreme Court case that could upend America's entire tariff regime, a fatal shooting in Minneapolis that's become a flashpoint in the immigration debate, Russia deploying its most advanced missile yet near NATO's border, a fragile peace taking shape in Gaza, and a look at what all the tech executives at CES this week keep calling "physical AI." Let's start with money. The Bureau of Labor Statistics just released December's jobs numbers, and they paint a picture of an economy that's not collapsing but definitely not thriving. The U.S. added just fifty thousand jobs last month, making twenty twenty-five the worst year for hiring since the pandemic and the second worst since the global financial crisis. Unemployment ticked down slightly to four point four percent, but that drop is partly a statistical artifact from seasonal adjustments, so don't read too much into it. The real story is that companies aren't firing people, but they're also barely hiring. Some economists are calling it a "jobless boom" or even a "hiring recession" where GDP growth looks solid on paper but actual job creation feels anemic to workers trying to enter or re-enter the market. Wages rose about three point eight percent over the year, which sounds decent until you factor in that it's slightly hotter than the Fed wants to see. Food services and healthcare carried the gains while retail lost jobs. For the Federal Reserve, this puts them in an awkward spot. They cut rates three times last year, but now they're seeing wage growth that could reignite inflation sitting alongside job creation that's historically weak. The Atlanta Fed's GDP tracker is pointing to over five percent annualized growth for the fourth quarter, which means the economy is producing more with fewer workers. Great news for corporate profits, complicated news for everyone else. Speaking of complicated, the Supreme Court was expected to rule today on whether President Trump has the authority to impose sweeping tariffs using a nineteen seventy-seven emergency powers law that was never intended for trade policy. They didn't. The Court issued just one opinion this morning, and it wasn't on tariffs. Markets had been bracing for a potential bombshell, and now they'll keep waiting. Here's what's at stake: lower courts have already ruled that the President exceeded his authority by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to slap import taxes on nearly everything from nearly everywhere. The administration used emergency powers originally designed for sanctions during national security crises to justify tariffs aimed at trade deficits and fentanyl trafficking. During oral arguments back in November, justices across the ideological spectrum seemed skeptical. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent acknowledged the ruling could be a "mishmash" and insisted the administration has backup plans. They do have other legal pathways to maintain tariffs, but IEEPA was by far the cleanest tool in the chest. If the Court strikes it down, the administration loses negotiating flexibility, and hundreds of thousands of importers who've paid over a hundred thirty billion dollars in IEEPA duties could start filing for refunds. Customs already set up an electronic refund system with a February deadline to register. Either way, the average tariff rate has jumped from around two and a half percent before Liberation Day to about seventeen percent now, and most analysts expect it to stay elevated regardless of what the Court decides. Now to Minneapolis, where a fatal shooting has become the latest flashpoint in America's immigration debate. On Wednesday, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a thirty-seven-year-old U.S. citizen and mother, during an immigration enforcement operation. The accounts of what happened diverge sharply. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Good drove her vehicle toward officers in what Secretary Kristi Noem described as an attempt to cause serious harm. The agent who fired, Jonathan Ross, had reason to take vehicle threats seriously. Last June, Ross was dragged more than a hundred yards by a fleeing driver during an arrest, suffering serious injuries including deep lacerations that required over thirty stitches. The driver in that case, who had prior convictions for sexually abusing a minor, was later convicted of assault on a federal officer. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey disputes the federal account, saying he watched the video and believes it doesn't support claims of self-defense. Minnesota officials say the FBI agreed to a joint investigation with state authorities, then reversed course and blocked them from accessing evidence. Good's family describes her as a poet and caregiver who had just dropped her six-year-old son at school before the encounter. The shooting comes amid the largest immigration enforcement operation ever deployed to a single city, with roughly two thousand federal agents in the Twin Cities. The surge followed viral social media allegations about Somali daycare centers receiving federal funds fraudulently. State investigators who looked into the claims say compliance checks found children present at all but one facility, which had closed years earlier. Governor Walz declared today a Day of Unity. Schools closed for the week. Wherever you stand on immigration enforcement, the core tension is real: federal agents say they need the ability to protect themselves during operations, while local officials and residents say they're witnessing tactics that feel more like occupation than law enforcement. The FBI investigation will ultimately determine what happened, but the trust gap between federal and local authorities may take much longer to resolve. From one border conflict to another. Russia launched a hypersonic Oreshnik missile at western Ukraine overnight, striking near the city of Lviv, just miles from Poland and NATO territory. It's only the second time Moscow has deployed this weapon, which Putin claims travels at Mach ten and is immune to air defenses. Ukrainian officials say the missile carried what appeared to be inert or dummy warheads and hit a state enterprise workshop, causing what one official called minor structural damage. But the message wasn't really about destruction. Russia says the strike was retaliation for an alleged Ukrainian drone attack on one of Putin's residences, a claim U.S. intelligence disputes. The Kremlin frames the Oreshnik as proof of Russian military superiority and a warning that escalation options remain on the table. Western officials see it differently. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called the strike a clear escalation meant as a warning to Europe and the United States, and the leaders of Britain, France, and Germany jointly condemned it as unacceptable. The missile can carry nuclear warheads, though this one didn't. Whether you interpret the launch as a demonstration of strength or an attempt to manufacture leverage amid stalled peace talks, it underscores that the war in Ukraine continues to carry risks that extend well beyond its borders. On the other side of the world, a different kind of fragile progress. President Trump is expected to announce the Gaza Board of Peace next week, a body that will include around fifteen world leaders and be chaired by Trump himself. The board will supervise a new technocratic Palestinian government, oversee reconstruction, and manage the gradual disarmament of Hamas. Netanyahu met yesterday with Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian diplomat and former UN Middle East envoy, who's been tapped to serve as the board's day-to-day administrator. The October ceasefire has largely held, though both sides accuse the other of violations. Israel says its strikes respond to Hamas provocations. Palestinian health officials say over four hundred people have been killed since the ceasefire began, many of them civilians. Hamas has released all living hostages and the remains of all but one deceased captive. The U.S. is pushing to begin phase two of the peace plan even before Hamas fully disarms or returns the final hostage's remains. Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and several European nations have signed on to participate. The hope is that international oversight will keep reconstruction moving while marginalizing militant factions. Critics worry the board could become another layer of bureaucracy that delays aid while doing little to address underlying grievances. Whether it works depends entirely on execution, and on whether all parties can tolerate the compromises that peace requires. A quick detour through domestic policy. The EPA is moving forward with plans to rescind the twenty-oh-nine endangerment finding, the legal foundation that allows the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. If finalized, this would eliminate all tailpipe climate standards and return decisions about vehicle emissions to pre-Obama rules. The administration argues the original finding stretched the Clean Air Act beyond what Congress intended and that the resulting regulations have driven up vehicle costs while pushing consumers toward electric vehicles many don't want or can't afford. Industry groups like the American Trucking Association say the rollback returns the country to common-sense policy that lets the market, not mandates, drive innovation. Environmental groups counter that removing these standards could add billions of tons of climate pollution over the coming decades and lead to thousands of additional deaths from degraded air quality. Several states with their own climate targets warn they'll face impossible choices if federal standards disappear. Lawsuits are inevitable on both sides. The Supreme Court will likely have the final say. And finally, if you've been following CES this week, you've heard one phrase over and over: physical AI. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made it the centerpiece of his keynote, describing a future where AI models trained in virtual environments deploy as robots, autonomous vehicles, and factory systems that operate in the real world. He announced new chips, new partnerships with Siemens and Mercedes-Benz, and declared that the ChatGPT moment for physical AI is here. Meanwhile, Intel is trying to stage a comeback with government help. The Trump administration recently secured a ten percent stake in the struggling chipmaker, making the federal government one of Intel's biggest shareholders. Supporters call it a smart investment in domestic manufacturing and supply chain security. Critics see it as industrial policy that picks winners and exposes taxpayers to market risk. Either way, the AI race is reshaping not just what technology can do, but how governments think about their role in the economy. That's a lot to process on a Friday. The throughline might be this: institutions we thought we understood, the Fed, the Supreme Court, federal law enforcement, international borders, are all being tested simultaneously. The outcomes are uncertain, but the stakes are becoming clearer every day. Stay informed, stay curious, and we'll see you tomorrow.