Top 5 US news stories
February 4 2026
US Fighter Jet Shoots Down Iranian Drone After Aggressive Approach to Aircraft Carrier
Trump Signs Spending Deal to End Government Shutdown Amid Conservative Republican Opposition
Plastic Surgeons Recommend Halting Gender Transition Procedures for Patients Under 19 Citing Research Gaps
AI Advancements Trigger Software Stock Selloff as Investors Fear Competitive Disruption
Russia Resumes Energy Strikes on Ukraine Day Before Peace Talks
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US Fighter Jet Shoots Down Iranian Drone After Aggressive Approach to Aircraft Carrier
The US military shot down an Iranian drone that aggressively approached the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier 500 miles from Iran's southern coast on Tuesday, escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran ahead of scheduled nuclear talks. An F-35 fighter jet destroyed the Shahed-130 drone in what US Central Command described as a self-defense action after the aircraft unnecessarily maneuvered toward the ship with unclear intent despite de-escalatory measures. In a separate incident hours later, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces threatened to board and seize a US-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. The confrontations risk antagonizing President Donald Trump, who has been weighing military action against Iran, though officials from both countries are planning to meet Friday to discuss Iran's nuclear program and other issues. An IRGC-affiliated news agency said the drone was carrying out a routine and lawful mission.
FT
Trump Signs Spending Deal to End Government Shutdown Amid Conservative Republican Opposition
President Trump signed a spending package on Tuesday to end a partial government shutdown and reopen major parts of the federal government, though the agreement funds the Department of Homeland Security only through next week as negotiations continue over immigration enforcement restrictions. The House passed the measure on a bipartisan 217-214 vote after Speaker Mike Johnson haggled with hard-line conservative holdouts for nearly an hour to secure a bare majority, with 21 Republicans opposing the deal and most Democrats—193 of 214—voting against funding for DHS and ICE. The spending fight erupted when the fatal shooting of an American citizen by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis torpedoed an earlier bipartisan agreement, prompting Senate Democrats to demand limits on Trump's deportation campaign in exchange for homeland security funding. The president reached the compromise with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, but conservative Republicans expressed dissatisfaction with the concessions included in the deal.
NYT
Plastic Surgeons Recommend Halting Gender Transition Procedures for Patients Under 19 Citing Research Gaps
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommended Tuesday that its members refrain from performing gender transition procedures on patients until they reach age 19, citing a lack of quality research on long-term outcomes and emerging evidence of treatment complications and potential harms. The new position breaks with most major US medical associations, which endorse a range of treatments for adolescents and teenagers struggling with gender dysphoria, including puberty-blocking drugs, hormone therapies, and in rarer cases, surgeries such as mastectomies. The shift comes amid mounting opposition to such care at the state and federal levels.
NYT
AI Advancements Trigger Software Stock Selloff as Investors Fear Competitive Disruption
Fears that artificial intelligence will displace traditional software products sent shockwaves through the stock market Tuesday, with investors questioning whether AI tools from developers like Anthropic will erode the competitive advantages of established software companies. The selloff intensified after Anthropic announced new legal automation tools for its Cowork assistant, triggering steep declines in companies providing legal research and databases, with Thomson Reuters plunging 16%, Legalzoom.com falling 20%, and London Stock Exchange dropping more than 12%. The downturn spread through the broader software market by afternoon trading, with PayPal declining 20%, Expedia Group down 15%, EPAM Systems falling 13%, Equifax dropping 12%, and Intuit losing 11%. A pair of S&P indexes tracking software, financial-data and exchange stocks lost a combined $300 billion in market value as investors targeted companies potentially vulnerable to disruption from AI models that can autonomously complete coding projects, data analysis, and other tasks. Adobe and Salesforce also fell sharply amid concerns about AI's impact on their businesses, though software companies argue that writing code is often the easiest part of building platforms based on trust and proprietary data.
WSJ
Russia Resumes Energy Strikes on Ukraine Day Before Peace Talks
Russia struck Ukrainian power plants with missiles across multiple regions on Tuesday as temperatures plunged to minus-13 degrees Fahrenheit in Kyiv, ending a short-lived informal "energy cease-fire" one day before scheduled peace talks with Ukraine. The attacks targeted energy infrastructure in at least six regions and broke a pause that officials had called a confidence-building gesture for negotiations, which have entered a new phase with Russian and Ukrainian officials meeting face to face for the first time in months. President Trump had asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt attacks for a week on Thursday, and Putin's press secretary confirmed a pause lasting only until Sunday. The revived strikes are part of Russia's major winter campaign intended to freeze Ukrainians into submission.
NYT
February 4 2004: Facebook launches
A Harvard sophomore named Mark Zuckerberg launches The Facebook, a social media website he had built in order to connect Harvard students with one another. By the next day, over a thousand people had registered, and that was only the beginning. Now known simply as Facebook, the site quickly ballooned into one of the most significant social media companies in history.
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