5 Big News Stories Overnight - Friday, May 15, 2026

U.S.: Supreme Court Maintains Widespread Access to Abortion Pills

WSJ reports:

The Supreme Court on Thursday maintained widespread access to a common abortion pill, allowing doctors to continue mailing the drug to patients without first seeing them in person. 

The decision, which came in a brief order on the high court’s emergency docket, keeps on hold an earlier lower-court ruling that would have curtailed access to the drug, mifepristone, which is the most common method of ending a pregnancy.

Two conservative justices—Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—dissented from the court’s decision to maintain access to the drug for now.

The high court acted on emergency appeals from two drugmakers that manufacture mifepristone, which is used in combination with another drug, misoprostol, to induce abortions. The companies rushed to the Supreme Court after the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on May 1 blocked mifepristone from being prescribed through virtual appointments and sent to patients by mail. 

PHOTO: USSC

United Kingdom: Streeting Resigns

Al Jazeera reports:

Britain’s Health Secretary Wes Streeting has resigned from the ruling Labour government, deepening a crisis that threatens to topple Prime Minister Keir Starmer after less than two years in office.

Hours after Streeting’s announcement on Thursday, Labour lawmaker Josh Simons said he would resign from ⁠his seat in parliament in a move designed to give Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham a ⁠chance to return to parliament and challenge Starmer.

China: Trump Gets Warning

The New York Times reports

As the leaders of the United States and China met in Beijing on Thursday, Xi Jinping had a much older rivalry on his mind.

The Chinese president invoked a warning from the Classical world, when the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta went to war, saying that the United States and China should beware the “Thucydides Trap” in their own relations.

Mr. Xi cited the concept, popularized in recent decades, as he warned that Beijing and Washington could enter an “extremely dangerous place” if President Trump sought to impede China as it asserted itself over Taiwan.

The trap referred to by Mr. Xi was named for Thucydides, the ancient Athenian general, whose account of the Second Peloponnesian War (431 B.C. to 404 B.C.) is considered one of the first written military histories.

Haiti gang clashes kill at least 78 in Port-au-Prince suburbs, UN says

France 24 reports:

Clashes between gangs in the suburbs of the Haitian capital have left at least 78 dead since Saturday, including 10 bystanders, according to a provisional toll released Thursday to AFP by the United Nations Office in Haiti (BINUH).

"Armed clashes between several gangs in the communes of Cite Soleil and Croix-des-Bouquets have left at least 78 dead and 66 wounded since May 9," BINUH said, adding that the fatalities included 10 "members of the population (five men, four women, and a young girl)."

Haiti, the poorest country in the Caribbean, is ravaged by gang violence. The situation has steadily deteriorated over the past two years. 

Violence since the weekend has displaced some 5,300 people. Several families are still trapped in the affected neighborhoods, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, citing local humanitarian organisations.

PHOT: Robin Canfield, Unsplash

U.S.: Cerebras pops 68% in Nasdaq debut, pushing the AI chipmaker’s market cap to $95B

CNBC reports:

Cerebras Systems soared 68% in its Nasdaq debut on Thursday, closing at $311.07 after selling shares at $185, well above the company’s expected range. That values the chipmaker at about $95 billion.

The company sold 30 million shares in its offering late Wednesday, raising $5.55 billion, the largest initial public offering for a U.S. tech company since Uber’s debut in 2019. If underwriters exercise their option to buy 4.5 million additional shares, total proceeds could reach $6.38 billion.

The stock opened at $350, peaked at $386 and then drifted lower in Thursday’s trading session.

Cerebras, based in Silicon Valley, is benefiting from the artificial intelligence boom, which has lifted wide swaths of the semiconductor space in recent months, with Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and Micron all notching triple-digit gains this year. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF has jumped 58% so far in 2026.