The News Roundup for May 8, 2026

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🗓️ 8 May 2026

⏱️ 85 minutes

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Summary

President Donald Trump told PBS News this week that his offensive in the Middle East has a “very good chance of ending.” Just days later though, the U.S. traded fire with Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, threatening an already fragile ceasefire. The U.S. is still hoping for a “serious offer” from Iran on a proposal to end the war, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, even as the threat of escalation looms.

Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot in the upcoming Indiana primary. But his agenda certainly is. In late 2025, GOP state lawmakers resisted efforts by the White House to redraw Indiana’s congressional map. Now, Trump allies are running to unseat them.

The Trump administration has opened an investigation into Smith College, a women-only institution of higher education, over its 2015 decision to admit trans women as students.

And, in global news, the fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was tested this week when American forces launched “self-defense strikes” in the Strait of Hormuz after Iranian forces targeted three Navy destroyers, though none were struck.

These strikes come as Iran reviews the latest U.S. proposal to end the war which American officials hope will result in a “serious offer” from Iran, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

President Donald Trump claimed this week that the U.S. will be taking over Cuba “almost immediately.” The backlash from the island nation was swift, with Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel calling the American administration fascist.

On Monday, and despite the ceasefire, Israeli attacks killed 17 people in southern Lebanon.

We cover the most important stories from around the world in the News Roundup.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Naila, your host for this edition of the News Roundup. Just a quick heads up before we start the show,
0:05.3	the news is rapidly changing and things may have changed by the time you hear this episode.
0:10.2	Stay up to date with all the latest by listening to your local NPR member station and visiting npr.org.
0:26.3	I'm Naila Boodoo. It's the 1A Friday News Roundup.
0:34.6	Protests erupted at the Tennessee State Capitol yesterday over a new GOP-drawn congressional map that splits up a majority black district.
0:38.0	It's the latest fallout from last week's Supreme Court decision that further gutted the Voting Rights Act. We'll look at where redistricting fights are heating up later this
0:43.3	hour and talk about what we learn from both casts in this week's primaries. But first,
0:48.0	what a difference a day makes when it comes to President Trump in the Iran war? In the space of
0:53.1	just a few days, the president has said
0:54.8	the war is over, the war is close to over, and that a huge U.S. bombing could be around the corner.
1:01.8	Now, after an exchange of fire with Iran Thursday, President Trump says a ceasefire is still holding.
1:07.9	So where are we in actuality? And what does it mean here at home, where Americans are still feeling the war's big time increase in the price of gas? Here to help us understand that, along with the rest of the week's big stories, are Megan Scully, Congress editor for Bloomberg News. Hi, Megan. Hi. Arthur Delaney, senior reporter for Huff Post. Arthur, welcome. It's great to be here. And Elena Schneider, a national political reporter for notice.
1:29.1	Hi, Alina.
1:29.7	Hi, there. Arthur, can I just start with you? I went through a few things the president has said about Iran this week. What is the president saying about peace with Iran today? What do we know for sure? The most recent thing he said is that even though there have been some missiles going back and forth, apparently, in the Strait of Hormuz, that the ceasefire is still on.
1:52.3	And other than that, I'm not sure how reliable of a narrator the president is about what's happening over there.
1:59.0	It was less than a week ago that he said the U.S.
2:02.3	Navy would be escorting commercial ships through the strait. And apparently Saudi Arabia said
2:08.0	that they would not allow us to use their airspace, which would have been a crucial part of
2:12.2	that mission. And so that was off, like immediately. Right. And so that was a short-lived operation to get merchant ships through the state straight of hormones was actually called Project Freedom.
2:22.9	Megan, I think Arthur started describing that operation.
2:26.5	Why halt this so quickly?
2:27.5	So there were a lot of issues with the operation, including insurers of these ships saying there weren't enough Navy vessels to make
	...

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