Top 5 US news stories
May 21 2026
Spencer Pratt Surges Toward LA Mayoral Runoff
Colbert Signs Off as Streaming Ends Late-Night Era
Anthropic Revenue Doubles, Turns First Operating Profit
SpaceX Files IPO Targeting $1.5 Trillion Valuation
DOJ Charges Raúl Castro in 1996 Plane Downing Deaths
Spencer Pratt Surges Toward LA Mayoral Runoff
Spencer Pratt is amplifying a torrent of viral, AI-generated content — including one video his campaign said it did not produce that depicted Mayor Karen Bass as the Joker being pelted with tomatoes — to vault into contention in the Los Angeles mayoral primary, an unconventional playbook built on podcasts and social media rather than traditional campaigning. The 42-year-old reality television personality best known for "The Hills" launched his bid in January outside the burned shell of a Pacific Palisades commercial building after losing his own home in the January 2025 wildfires, accusing Bass and other officials of mismanaging the city and stalling fire recovery. The latest independent polling from Emerson College shows Bass leading the field, with Pratt and City Council member Nithya Raman competing for second place ahead of the June 2 nonpartisan primary. His campaign has leaned heavily on appearances on "The Joe Rogan Experience," "The Adam Carolla Show" and "All-In," while largely sidestepping traditional news outlets. Bass's allies have begun running digital ads labeling Pratt "too Republican for Los Angeles," a city where fewer than 15 percent of voters are registered Republicans and which last elected a GOP mayor in 1997. The top two finishers will advance to a November general election unless one candidate wins an outright majority.
WSJ
Colbert Signs Off as Streaming Ends Late-Night Era
Stephen Colbert will host his final episode of "The Late Show" on CBS Thursday night, closing the franchise David Letterman launched in 1993 and capping a long decline of the broadcast late-night television model. The cancellation reflects a structural collapse rather than a creative one: streaming surpassed broadcast and cable as the leading video distribution method for the first time in June 2025, ending the era of "monoculture" television in which tens of millions of Americans gathered nightly around a handful of network programs. Network late-night ad revenue fell roughly 50 percent in seven years, from $439 million in 2018 to $220 million in 2024, according to advertising data firm Guideline. CBS executives announced the cancellation in July 2025 as "purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night," unrelated to the show's performance or parent company Paramount. With Colbert's departure, the traditional late-night landscape is reduced to roughly where it stood before Letterman began the franchise, with Jimmy Kimmel and a handful of cable shows remaining.
NYT
Anthropic Revenue Doubles, Turns First Operating Profit
Anthropic told investors its revenue is on track to more than double to $10.9 billion in the second quarter, putting the artificial intelligence company on course for its first operating profit. The projections, disclosed as part of an ongoing funding round that could push the company's valuation above OpenAI's, show quarterly sales growing faster than Zoom did during the pandemic or Google and Meta did before their public offerings. Anthropic generated $4.8 billion in the first quarter and is projecting a $559 million operating profit in the June quarter, though it warned it may not remain profitable for the full year as it ramps up spending on model training and computing capacity. The company had previously told investors it did not expect a full-year profit until at least 2028. Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX are each moving toward public listings that could value them above $1 trillion, with OpenAI potentially filing IPO paperwork as soon as Friday.
WSJ
SpaceX Files IPO Targeting $1.5 Trillion Valuation
SpaceX on Wednesday filed an investor prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission, setting the stage for a stock sale next month that could raise $80 billion or more and value the company at $1.5 trillion or higher. The offering would eclipse Saudi Aramco's 2019 IPO, which raised $26 billion and stands as the largest on record. SpaceX is tracking to begin selling shares in mid-June under the Nasdaq ticker SPCX, with Goldman Sachs leading the offering alongside Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan. Chief Executive Elon Musk has outlined wide-ranging ambitions for the company, from rocket launches and satellite operations to a nascent artificial intelligence unit working to catch up with rivals, and eventual Mars colonization. The prospectus follows similar IPO preparations at OpenAI and Anthropic as investors anticipate a wave of trillion-dollar public listings in technology.
WSJ
DOJ Charges Raúl Castro in 1996 Plane Downing Deaths
Four months after U.S. Special Operations forces used a federal indictment to capture Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, the Justice Department on Wednesday charged Raúl Castro with murder and conspiracy to kill American citizens, raising the possibility that Washington could pursue similar action against the 94-year-old former Cuban president. The indictment, returned in Federal District Court in Miami, accuses the brother of Fidel Castro of orchestrating the 1996 downing of two civilian planes off the Cuban coast and carries a possible maximum penalty of life in prison. The charges mark a sharp escalation of the Trump administration's pressure campaign against the island's Communist government, which President Trump has openly sought to topple in recent months. The January Maduro operation established a template U.S. officials could now invoke against another aging Latin American leftist leader. The Justice Department did not say whether it intends to seek Mr. Castro's apprehension by force.
NYT
MAY 21, 1901: CONNECTICUT ENACTS FIRST AUTOMOBILE SPEED-LIMIT LAW
Connecticut becomes the first state to regulate motor vehicles, capping speeds at 12 mph in cities and 15 mph on country roads. The law also requires drivers to slow down—or stop entirely—when passing horse-drawn vehicles to avoid frightening the animals.
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