Top 5 US news stories
May 8 2026
U.S. Heads Toward Depopulation as Fertility Stalls, AEI Paper Warns
Trump Says Iran Ceasefire Holds After U.S. Strikes
Tennessee GOP Adopts Map Eliminating Memphis Democratic Seat
Vance Warns AI CEOs as White House Targets Anthropic's Mythos Model
NCAA Tournament Will Expand to 76 Teams Next Season
U.S. Heads Toward Depopulation as Fertility Stalls, AEI Paper Warns
A new American Enterprise Institute working paper by demographer Nicholas Eberstadt argues that U.S. fertility has not exceeded the replacement rate since 2007 and now stands at 1.6 births per woman, putting each new birth cohort on track to be 22% smaller than its parents'. The pattern is global, with roughly two-thirds of the world's population living in countries with sub-replacement fertility per the UN Population Division, but the paper focuses on the American case. The Congressional Budget Office projects U.S. deaths will exceed births by 2030, with population peaking around 2056, though Eberstadt notes plausible lower-immigration scenarios — including a composite using the Census Bureau's "low immigration" series — under which depopulation could begin as early as 2036. He argues that ingenuity-driven economic growth means a shrinking, aging society can still prosper, citing Japan's record 70 million-strong labor force and continued life-expectancy gains across advanced economies.
The paper contends, however, that the United States is poorly positioned for the demographic stress test ahead and in some respects less prepared than a generation ago. Eberstadt flags six warning lights. Labor force participation has stagnated, with prime-age male work rates near Great Depression levels and roughly 7 million prime-age men out of the workforce entirely. U.S. life expectancy now trails every affluent non-formerly-Communist peer despite the highest per-capita health spending, and more than one in four households hold less than $25,000 in net worth. Chronic federal deficits are projected to reach 9% of GDP by 2056 as interest payments alone approach 7%, while U.S. business-climate rankings have fallen across four major indices. The country's immigration system has also swung between open-border enforcement under the Biden administration and aggressive crackdowns under the current Trump administration. Eberstadt concludes that reforms in each area would be worthwhile on their own merits but become urgent if depopulation arrives on the earlier end of plausible scenarios.
AEI
Trump Says Iran Ceasefire Holds After U.S. Strikes
President Donald Trump said the ceasefire with Iran remains in place after U.S. forces launched strikes in response to attacks on American warships, casting fresh doubt on negotiations between Washington and Tehran aimed at ending hostilities. Speaking to reporters at the National Mall's Reflecting Pool, Trump described Iran's attacks on U.S. destroyers as "a trifle" and said a deal "might not happen, but it could happen any day," adding that he believes Iran wants the deal more than he does. According to U.S. Central Command, the destroyers USS Truxton, USS Rafael Peralta and USS Mason were attacked with multiple missiles, drones and small boats, though no American vessels were hit. U.S. forces responded with what officials called self-defense strikes against Iranian missile and drone launch sites, command-and-control locations, and surveillance positions. CENTCOM said it does not seek escalation but remains positioned and ready to protect American forces.
Washington Post
Tennessee GOP Adopts Map Eliminating Memphis Democratic Seat
Tennessee Republicans adopted a redistricting plan Thursday designed to give the GOP an additional congressional seat, part of a broader scramble by Republicans nationally to improve their position ahead of this fall's elections. The vote followed a Supreme Court decision last week that weakened the Voting Rights Act and gave Republicans wider latitude to reshape majority-Black districts that have routinely elected Democrats. Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, championed the map and is expected to give it final approval. The Memphis-area majority-Black district being eliminated has long been represented by Rep. Steve Cohen, a White Democrat who is the lone Democrat in Tennessee's nine-member House delegation.
Washington Post
Vance Warns AI CEOs as White House Targets Anthropic's Mythos Model
Vice President JD Vance told the heads of major artificial-intelligence companies on an April call that new models capable of finding software vulnerabilities autonomously — including Anthropic's Mythos — could enable cyberattacks on small-town banks, hospitals and water plants that local governments are unequipped to handle. Participants included OpenAI's Sam Altman, Anthropic's Dario Amodei, SpaceX's Elon Musk, Alphabet's Sundar Pichai and Microsoft's Satya Nadella, according to people familiar with the matter. The call followed a White House briefing that helped spark Vance's concern, and it set in motion an administration response that marks a shift from earlier rhetoric about winning the AI race against China and removing barriers to deployment. The White House is weighing an executive order to create a formal oversight process for the most-advanced models, and administration officials have asked Anthropic to hold off on expanding access to Mythos to additional companies and operators of critical digital infrastructure. National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross has been tapped to lead the response, which could include further measures on model safety and limits on how private companies dictate government use of their tools.
WSJ
NCAA Tournament Will Expand to 76 Teams Next Season
The NCAA announced Thursday that both the men's and women's tournaments will expand from 68 teams to 76 next season, the most significant change to the men's bracket since 1984-85, when the field grew from 53 to 64, and to the women's bracket since 1994, when it expanded from 48 to 64. The 64-team format has remained the basis of March Madness for decades, with only minor adjustments — a 65th men's team added in 2001, three more in 2011, and the women's expansion to 68 in 2022. Under the new structure, the 12 lowest-seeded at-large teams and 12 lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers will compete in what the NCAA is calling the "March Madness Opening Round." The change ends years of debate over expansion and is set to take effect in the 2026-27 season.
The Athletic
MAY 8 1963: AMERICAN MOVIEGOERS GET FIRST LOOK AT JAMES BOND IN “DR. NO”
The first James Bond film released in the United States introduced audiences to Ian Fleming’s super-spy 007, played by then little-known Scottish actor Sean Connery. The movie established many of the franchise’s trademarks, including the gun-barrel opening, fast-paced action, glamorous “Bond girls,” and Bond’s signature vodka martinis “shaken, not stirred.”
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