Nightly News Roundup for May 1, 2026

Donald Trump mailed Congress a form letter declaring the Iran war terminated — the same afternoon he threatened to bomb Tehran into gravel — skirting a War Powers Act deadline that required congressional approval he never sought; the national debt crossed 100 percent of GDP for the first time since 1946, the Congressional Budget Office projecting 120 percent by 2035 as the federal government spends $1.33 for every dollar it collects against a $1.9 trillion deficit; Spirit Airlines moved toward liquidation — the first major U.S. carrier to fold since 2008 — after a Trump administration $500 million rescue loan collapsed alongside creditor talks and a week of presidential ambivalence; the Supreme Court gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais, dismantling minority redistricting protections and sending advocates scrambling to rebuild civil rights law one state legislature at a time, with Mississippi on the to-do list; the Senate unanimously banned members and staff from betting prediction markets on outcomes they directly legislate, a reform that stops at the Senate door while the House, the White House, and the rest of official Washington remain free to wager on their own decisions; and the 152nd Kentucky Derby runs Saturday, fifty thousand gamblers in borrowed finery betting borrowed money on twelve hundred pounds of animal they've never met, legalized corruption wearing a fascinator. The memo filed. The debt compounds. Post time tomorrow. Tape rolls.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.