Top 5 US news stories
May 7 2026
Iran Strikes Damage 228 Structures at U.S. Bases Across Middle East
Texas Man Charged in Shooting Near Vance Motorcade
Judge Refuses to Return Seized Fulton County 2020 Ballots
AI Frenzy Lifts Toilet Maker Into Tech Rally
Ted Turner, CNN Founder and Cable TV Pioneer, Dies at 87
Iran Strikes Damage 228 Structures at U.S. Bases Across Middle East
A Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery has found that Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East since the war began, including hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft, and key radar, communications and air defense equipment. The destruction is far larger than the U.S. government has publicly acknowledged. Air-attack risks rendered some bases too dangerous to staff at normal levels, and commanders moved most personnel out of Iranian missile range at the start of the conflict, according to officials. Since fighting began Feb. 28, seven service members have died in strikes on U.S. facilities — six in Kuwait and one in Saudi Arabia — and more than 400 troops have suffered injuries as of late April. While most of the wounded returned to duty within days, military officials said at least 12 sustained injuries classified as serious.
Washington Post
Texas Man Charged in Shooting Near Vance Motorcade
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged a Texas man in connection with a shooting near the Washington Monument that occurred just after a motorcade carrying Vice President JD Vance passed Monday afternoon. According to court documents filed in U.S. District Court in D.C., Michael Marx, 45, of Midland, Texas, was spotted by a plainclothes Secret Service agent who suspected he was concealing a handgun in his waistband. When uniformed officers approached and gave verbal commands, Marx ran, drew the weapon, and fired toward an officer and a juvenile passerby, who was struck in the leg. Officers returned fire, hitting Marx in the hand, left arm and abdomen, and recovered a Sig Sauer P365 nearby. Authorities said Marx made hostile statements toward officers and the White House while being treated. He faces charges of assaulting federal officers with a dangerous weapon, using and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, and unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, stemming from a 2011 Florida drug-trafficking conviction.
Washington Post
Judge Refuses to Return Seized Fulton County 2020 Ballots
A federal judge on Wednesday rejected a request to return more than 600 boxes of voting material seized by the FBI in January from Fulton County, Georgia, where Atlanta is located, allowing a Justice Department investigation related to the 2020 election to proceed. U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee, a Trump appointee, ruled against the county's effort to recover the materials. Boulee described the circumstances surrounding the raid on the county's election warehouse as in many ways unprecedented, but found that officials had not met the high legal bar required for a court to intervene in an ongoing criminal probe. He acknowledged that the seizure was not perfect but said the county had not demonstrated its rights were callously disregarded, either through a lack of probable cause or in how the search was carried out. The seized material includes the original ballots cast in 2020, when Trump lost the state of Georgia to Joe Biden.
Washington Post
AI Frenzy Lifts Toilet Maker Into Tech Rally
Investor enthusiasm for companies supplying materials to the artificial intelligence build-out is fueling a sharp rally in shares of chip makers and a widening list of unconventional beneficiaries, including a 175-year-old glass manufacturer, a heavy machinery giant, and Japan's leading toilet maker. Toto, known for its bidet Washlets, also produces ceramics used in semiconductor components and recently said sales of its electrostatic chucks more than doubled year over year; shares are up 22% in May and more than 50% for 2026, even as the Middle East war threatens to lift production costs. The trend has also drawn companies attempting to reposition themselves toward AI, including Allbirds, the casual sneaker brand long popular with tech workers, which renamed itself NewbirdAI in April and saw shares jump 582% in a single day, and former karaoke firm Algorhythm Holdings, which surged 222% after announcing an AI logistics pivot. Some investors compared the rebrandings to dot-com-era online pivots.
WSJ
Ted Turner, CNN Founder and Cable TV Pioneer, Dies at 87
Ted Turner, the media titan who helped shape modern cable television and ushered in the era of 24-hour news with the launch of CNN, died Wednesday at age 87, according to a spokesman. Turner inherited a billboard advertising company from his father and built it into Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting System, a television and movie giant he sold to Time Warner in 1995. He stayed with the company through its January 2000 merger with America Online before leaving in 2003. Beyond media, Turner was a competitive sailor, a major U.S. landowner, a conservationist, and a philanthropist whose giving helped set a model for billionaire generosity. His rivalries with media figures including Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone during the 1980s and 1990s helped bring cable TV into the mainstream and triggered an expansion of channels, investment, and subscribers.
WSJ
MAY 7, 2004: MARINE BIOLOGIST RICHARD THOMPSON COINS THE TERM “MICROPLASTICS”
In a landmark paper in the journal Science, Thompson reveals vast amounts of tiny plastic fragments and fibers contaminating oceans and marine habitats, and names them “microplastics.” His findings raise urgent questions about how these particles spread, what chemicals they release and how they may harm wildlife and human health.
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