The raid on the office in central Madrid is another blow to the party of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose Socialists have been hammered by a series of corruption scandals.

“We respect the justice system, we will collaborate with the courts and there is the commitment in the Socialist Party that if there are new episodes of improper behavior, we will act with the same firmness we always have,” Sánchez said in a news conference in Rome.

Sánchez, Spain's leader since 2018, brushed off calling early elections, which will have to take place next year at the latest.

The Civil Guard told The Associated Press that the search was strictly limited to a probe led by National Court judge Santiago Pedraz into the possible wrongdoing of Socialist party member Leire Díez and others.

The case against Díez started in 2025 when audio recordings appeared in Spanish media of her apparent involvement in attempts to discredit a member of the Civil Guard’s anti-corruption unit. Further reports linked her to alleged attempts to influence the work of state prosecutors. The judge's probe is targeted on seeing if she received payments to allegedly carry out these efforts.

The Socialist party said she was acting on her own. Diez, who has left the party, has denied wrongdoing.

Legal woes mount for Spain's Socialists

A statement issued by the court on Wednesday said that judge Pedraz ordered the Civil Guard to “confiscate diverse documentation and electronic archives in an investigation of a ring designed to destabilize judicial processes that were affecting the ruling party.”

The judge said that in addition to Díez, he is now also probing the alleged involvement of former Socialist heavyweight Santos Cerdán — who is already under investigation in a separate corruption case — as well as a former member of the regional government of Andalusia, a police officer, a business owner and two lawyers. The judge is investigating them on suspicions of bribery, making false testimony, forging commercial documents, influence peddling, and corruption.

The searches add to a growing list of legal cases that are hounding Spain's Socialists.

Last week a separate court said it was investigating former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in connection with a government airline bailout. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Last year, both Cerdán and José Luis Ábalos, transport minister under Sánchez, were placed under investigation on allegations they played a part in a kickback ring that started during the COVID-19 pandemic, which they have denied.

Sánchez says cases won't knock his government off course

Sánchez’s wife and brother are also being probed over allegations of influence peddling, which both have denied.

Sánchez has called the cases against his family a “smear campaign.” But the corruption case against his former cohorts led him to ask the nation for “forgiveness.”

His minority government depends on the support of a junior coalition partner, which for now has stuck with it despite the judicial actions.

Sánchez, who has stood out on the international stage for his progressive stances that have earned the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump, has not been directly linked to any of the scandals.

The search of his party's offices came while Sánchez was in the Vatican for an audience with Pope Leo XIV, who is set to visit Spain from June 6-12. The prime minister said he delayed his news conference so that he could be informed of the searches before speaking to reporters.

While acknowledging the “seriousness” of the events in Madrid, Sánchez insisted Wednesday that the cases of corruption “do nothing to stain the work of this government that, with progressive parties, is working for a social and economic transformation.”

The villagers entered the cave in Xaisomboun province on May 19, but heavy rain triggered flash flooding that blocked the exit and trapped seven people, according to Lao and Thai rescue teams involved in the operation.

Bounkham Luanglath of the Lao organization Rescue Volunteer for People, which has been working closely with local authorities in the rescue efforts, told The Associated Press that five people were found safe and alive but two more are still missing, and the search for them will continue.

“I’m still shaking. Our team made it happen,” he said in a voice message.

A video posted by a Thai rescue group involved in the mission appeared to show the moment divers emerged from the water and discovered the trapped villagers. In the footage, the villagers, each wearing a headlamp, were sitting on a rock surrounded by floodwater.

Other videos showed rescuers inside and outside the cave cheering, jumping around and hugging each other in joy after the discovery.

Rescue workers from neighboring Thailand arrived at the site over the weekend. Those helping out include divers from several nations who took part in the complicated 2018 rescue in northern Thailand of 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach who were trapped for more than two weeks in a cave before being safely extricated.

The cave is located in a rugged, remote area in Xaisomboun province’s Longcheng district, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital, Vientiane. Rescuers at the scene have detailed on social media the challenging mountainous terrain and heavy rain that has hampered their work.

Videos shared online by Thai rescuers showed that reaching the cave’s entrance requires a steep hike on foot of roughly 4 kilometers (2.5 miles). The entrance is also steep and rocky, and barely wide enough for a single person at a time to climb through.

There has been no official confirmation on why the villagers went into the cave. However, Bounkham has said that the cave was frequented by local residents looking for gold, even though authorities had repeatedly warned them against entering the cave because of safety concerns.

The crash happened around 4 a.m. Wednesday on Interstate 10 at Woodlawn Avenue, which is located near Fredericksburg Road.

A San Antonio police officer said a person was pronounced dead at the scene, and the interstate is expected to be closed for a while.

Drivers are encouraged to take an alternate route.

This is a developing story. Check back later for updates.

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Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz and the Israeli military said the strikes, which were carried out on Tuesday, killed Mohammed Odeh.

Family members of a man called Mohammed Odeh said he was killed in the strike, but did not confirm he was the leader of the military wing. Hamas has not commented.

Katz called him “one of the architects” of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that triggered over two years of war in Gaza and said it was the fourth time Israel has killed the head of Hamas’ military wing since that massacre. Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the previous head, was killed on May 16.

At least five people were killed and 12 injured in Tuesday's strike on the eve of Eid al-Adha, a major Muslim holiday, according to local hospitals.

“We pledged to eliminate everyone who led the October 7 massacre and this is what we will do: they are all bound to die, everywhere,” Katz wrote on X on Wednesday. “We pledged that Hamas will not hold civilian or military rule.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is preparing for elections in the fall, also threatened that Israel will target everyone involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

A grim Eid in Gaza

The attack came as Muslims prepared for Eid al-Adha, normally a joyous time of family gatherings and large meals.

The holiday once again is subdued this year in Gaza, where the vast majority of people remain displaced and live in tents or temporary shelters after a devastating war. Around 90% of Gaza’s more than 2 million people have lost their homes, according to U.N. estimates, with most of them now sheltering in huge tent camps with rat infestations and pools of sewage. They are dependent on aid to survive.

Eid al-Adha, or “Feast of Sacrifice,” is an Islamic holiday celebrated by millions of Muslims across the globe. The four-day holiday, which begins during the Hajj pilgrimage, also is known for being a joyous occasion during which families gather, and children are given new clothes and gifts.

“This is not Eid ... we’re dead,” said Mahmoud Saqer, a displaced man from Khan Younis, who described people as being distressed by the ongoing human suffering and killings in the territory.

In Khan Younis and Gaza City, amid destroyed buildings, including a ruined mosque, people gathered for Eid prayers with few signs of celebration beyond a few clusters of balloons lining one street. Tahrir al-Khatib said the joy that accompanies Eid has been silenced in Gaza.

“There’s no Eid. My children were killed. Eid is only for the people who lost no one,” said Ayda Al-Banna, a displaced women from Gaza City, who prayed Eid prayers with her granddaughter.

Fragile ceasefire holds in Gaza

A ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas in October remains fragile. Israeli attacks have killed more than 880 Palestinians since the ceasefire took effect. Israel says its attacks are in response to violations by Hamas or threats to its soldiers, but Palestinian health officials says scores of civilians have been among the dead. Four Israeli soldiers have also been killed during this period in Gaza.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks in October 2023, which killed some 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza says over 72,803 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire. The ministry, part of Gaza’s Hamas government, does not give a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths. ___

Associated Press writer Fatma Khaled contributed from Cairo.

Crews are erecting an octagon-shaped cage on the South Lawn that will host next month's UFC bout, helping mark the nation's 250th anniversary — and President Donald Trump 's 80th birthday.

Online renderings depict what the completed, wire-mesh-fence-ringed fight space is expected to look like ahead of the June 14 event. It will be ringed by a red, white and blue stage under a towering arch featuring stars and stripes patterns and two large screens carrying the action live.

The cage and stage will themselves be surrounded by thousands of temporary seats, including ringside space for a full marching band that can set the entire scene to blaring music.

The project is part of a series of events celebrating the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence's signing on July 4, 1776. Other planned functions include an IndyCar race that will pass by the White House and the Great American State Fair taking place on the National Mall.

Trump has said that the finished UFC project will feature “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House.” Additional large screens broadcasting the fights will be set up in a park at the nearby Ellipse, and the UFC has said it plans to issue as many as 85,000 free tickets to accommodate spectators at both locations.

“I have never seen anybody want anything so much as people want those tickets,” Trump said recently of demand to attend the UFC fight, adding, “That's gonna be something.”

The card has been panned by fans online as underwhelming, featuring just two championship fights. Brazil’s Alex Pereira will meet France’s Ciryl Gane for the interim UFC heavyweight title. Then Spanish-Georgian lightweight champion Ilia Topuria takes on interim champ Justin Gaethje, one of just two Americans who currently hold even a share of the UFC’s 11 championship belts.

The octagon and surrounding structures are the latest project in the White House building boom Trump is leading.

The president's other efforts to leave his mark include tearing up part of the Rose Garden to make room for a patio space reminiscent of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, affixing partisan plaques to the wall of the colonnade for a Presidential Walk of Fame, redoing the bathroom attached to the Lincoln Bedroom and renovating the Palm Room, placing new flag poles on the north and south lawns and demolishing the entire East Wing for a sprawling ballroom.

The president also wants to repaint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building beside the White House and build a 250-foot arch at the nearby Lincoln Memorial — the same monument where weigh-ins for the upcoming UFC fight are scheduled to take place, bout organizers say.

Jared McCain — getting the call with Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell both sidelined — scored 20 in his first playoff start for the defending NBA champion Thunder, who lead the Western Conference finals 3-2.

Chet Holmgren scored 16 points and 11 rebounds for the Thunder, while Isaiah Hartenstein had a 12-point, 15-rebound night in Oklahoma City.

Stephon Castle scored 24 points for San Antonio, which got 22 points from Julian Champagnie and 20 points from Victor Wembanyama — who was held to 4-of-15 shooting.

Keldon Johnson scored 15 off the bench for San Antonio, which missed 29 of its 41 3-point tries.

Game 6 is Thursday in San Antonio. If there’s a Game 7, it’ll be back in Oklahoma City on Saturday — and while this series winds down, the New York Knicks are waiting to see who emerges.

The Knicks will play the Thunder-Spurs winner in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on June 3, with that series starting in the Western Conference city.

Oklahoma City scored 40 points in the second quarter to take control and kept the lead the rest of the way.

“We just played to who we were tonight,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.

It took nearly 10 minutes for the first free throws to be awarded. But when the parade to the foul line started, it didn’t stop.

The teams combined to make 29 free throws in the second quarter alone, the most in the second quarter of any NBA game since the bubble playoffs nearly six years ago. It wasn’t a one-sided thing — the Spurs were 15 for 17 in the quarter, the Thunder 14 for 14.

Oklahoma City went up by 20 in the third, before San Antonio closed within eight. The Spurs might have had some chances to cut even further into the deficit, but were fuming — and rightly so, it seemed — over some missed calls in the final minute of the quarter.

A tip-in try by San Antonio’s Luke Kornet with about 56 seconds left was knocked off the rim by Oklahoma City’s Cason Wallace and should have been goaltending. And on the next Spurs’ possession, an out-of-bounds call that should have gone their way — replays showed the ball went out off of Holmgren — did not. Spurs coach Mitch Johnson tried to challenge the call, got ignored, then got a technical foul for arguing.

After all that, Oklahoma City’s lead was 101-91 going into the fourth.

___

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

As he prepares to huddle with his top aides, Trump is projecting confidence that he's closing in on a deal that will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and provide him a credible argument that Iran’s nuclear capability has been diminished enough to declare victory, winding down a conflict that's been politically unpopular for Republicans.

But as things stand, Trump also risks finding closure to his war of choice comes with an unsatisfactory ending.

The emerging deal puts off many critical issues to be resolved later and has already exposed the Republican president to fierce criticism — even from some of his own supporters — that Iran's hard-line leaders will emerge from the conflict battered but emboldened. It all comes to a head just as the midterm elections to determine control of Congress come into focus and as Republicans worry that rising costs and fuel prices are darkening the American electorate's mood.

Talks were further complicated after U.S. forces carried out what the Pentagon called “defensive” strikes on missile launch sites and mine-laying boats in southern Iran on Monday. The U.S. said it acted with “restraint” in light of the weekslong ceasefire, while Iran decried the action as a sign of “bad faith and unreliability.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that talks with Iran on reopening the strait and extending the ceasefire — a period that the administration says could be used to hash out the finer details of a nuclear agreement — will take several more days. “He’s either going to make a good deal or no deal,” Rubio told reporters.

Trump took to social media on Tuesday to grumble that even if Tehran were to offer a complete surrender, the media would paint the end of the conflict as Iran scoring “a Masterful and Brilliant Victory."

Some Trump backers are skeptical

While Trump insists a deal is within reach, there appears to be daylight between the U.S. and Iran on several key issues. The president is also facing scrutiny from Republican allies, including Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas, who have said the terms seem too favorable to Tehran.

They're balking at aspects of the deal that have emerged publicly that they say too closely resemble the nuclear agreement reached with Iran by Democratic President Barack Obama, which Trump scrapped during his first term.

Under the potential deal, Tehran would agree to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium — a key Trump demand — in return for sanctions relief. That's according to two regional officials and one senior Trump administration official, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations.

One regional official, with direct knowledge of the negotiations, said how Iran would give up the uranium would be subject to further talks during a 60-day period. Some would likely be diluted, while the rest would be transferred to a third country, the official said.

Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran has not publicly committed to giving up its uranium.

Trump on Monday said in a Truth Social post that the uranium, which is believed to be buried under nuclear sites battered by U.S. airstrikes last year, would either be turned over to the U.S. or “destroyed in place or, at another acceptable location, with the Atomic Energy Commission, or its equivalent, being witness to this process and event.” The comment signals a softening of Trump's previous insistence that the U.S. take control of Iran's uranium stockpile.

How Trump's plan affects Israel's war in Lebanon

Another key issue unresolved is whether the ceasefire will also cover Israel’s operations against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group in Lebanon. Iran has insisted that Lebanon must be covered by any ceasefire agreement negotiated with the United States.

The administration appears to leave some wiggle room on the Lebanon question. The emerging memorandum of understanding calls for a ceasefire between the U.S. and its allies against Iran and its proxies, such as Hezbollah, but also underscores Israel's right to act against imminent threats and in self-defense.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday announced that the Israeli military is “deepening its operation” in Lebanon.

Jonathan Conricus, a former spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, said Israel expects that Iran would quickly move to direct any sanctions relief to restore its military capability and boost proxy groups, including Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza.

“We’re not done fighting, because the Iranian regime isn’t done,” said Conricus, who is a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank.

‘Stunned silence’ as Trump ties Abraham Accords to Iran deal

Trump on Monday said any agreement to end the Iran war should include a requirement for several additional countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan, to join the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-brokered agreements from Trump’s first term aimed at normalizing diplomatic and economic relations with Israel.

Trump’s optimism that the other Middle Eastern and majority Muslim countries could soon sign on to the accords might be overly ambitious.

For example, Saudi Arabia, the most significant power in the Arab world and long seen as the biggest prize for the normalization effort, has insisted that establishing a guaranteed path to a Palestinian state remains a precondition. It's something that Israel vehemently opposes.

Trump made the Abraham Accords push during a call with leaders of Mideast allies over the weekend.

Barbara Leaf, a retired U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and senior State Department official during President Joe Biden's Democratic administration, said officials from Gulf countries who were on the call told her that Trump's pitch was greeted by “stunned silence." A person familiar with the call disputed that characterization. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity about the private conversation.

Leaf, a distinguished diplomatic fellow at the Middle East Institute, said that Middle Eastern allies of the United States recognize that Iran will likely use any money from sanctions relief to bolster its military capabilities. Still, they have been supportive of Trump pursuing an end to the conflict.

“They see no other way out,” Leaf said of American allies in the region. “And they see no other way out because of many of these early mistakes that the president and the administration made in conducting the war.”

___

AP writers Matthew Lee and Darlene Superville in Washington, Samy Magdy in Cairo and Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

• Avoid these notorious roadways prone to flooding during heavy rain in San Antonio
• Find the latest on the storms here from KSAT’s meteorologist, including forecasts, warnings and watches and an interactive radar.

Bexar County low-water crossing status

Read more about the map below and find the full version at BEXARflood.org.

About the map above, via Bexarflood.org:

“Each dot on the map indicates a location of a Bexar County HALT sensor - HALT stands for High water Alert Lifesaving Technology. The sensors detect rising water and send real time information to this website: green means the road safe, yellow means the water is rising and red means the road is closed. By subscribing to alerts through this website, you can receive text or email alerts when low water crossings you choose to monitor have water over the road.

“Bexar County has installed more than 150 HALT systems in our community to warn drivers to turn around with either flashing lights or a combination of flashing lights and gates.

“The map was developed through a partnership between Bexar County, the City of San Antonio and the San Antonio River Authority. These partners monitor local weather and road conditions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

• Get weather alerts based on your location from the free KSAT 12 Weather app. Click to download on iPhone OR click to download on an Android phone.

Hill Country and statewide road closures

Read more about the map below and find the full version at DriveTexas.org.

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Read more: CPS Energy offers power outage tips

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Texas voters settled unfinished business from the March Primary on May 26, when they decided who would be on the ballot for the November general election or who would take office next year.

The marquee matchup on that ballot was the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate between incumbent John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

On Election Day, Paxton secured the Republican nomination, easily defeating Cornyn, the Associated Press projects.

Paxton will face Democratic nominee James Talarico, an Austin-area state representative and former San Antonio teacher who won his primary bid against U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

Another seat both parties had their eyes on is the newly-drawn Congressional District 35. Republicans and Democrats both want this seat formerly held by Greg Casar, who was drawn out of the district in last year’s redistricting. Casar will seek re-election in District 37.

On the Republican side, Carlos De La Cruz defeated John Lujan with 58% of the vote on May 26. De La Cruz, an Air Force veteran and brother to U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz (District 15), was endorsed by President Donald Trump.

On the Democratic side, Johnny Garcia defeated Maureen Galindo with 64% of the vote.

Garcia is a now-former spokesperson for the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office.

In Bexar County, the race for the Democratic spot on the ballot for District Attorney is down from eight to two: Luz Elena Chapa and Jane Davis.

That race is too close to call as of 5 a.m. Wednesday, May 27.

The winner of this runoff will face Republican Ashley Foster in November, along with any independent candidate who makes it onto the ballot. The winner of that contest will take over from outgoing District Attorney Joe Gonzales, who is not seeking re-election after two tumultuous terms in office. Gonzales has endorsed Jane Davis as his successor.

Get more election results on our homepage and Vote 2026 page. Be the first to know by downloading our newsreader app or signing up for breaking news email alerts.

Find election results on the Vote 2026 page.

He wasn’t the best player on the floor Tuesday night.

That was not the only reason why the Spurs fell to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 5 of the West finals — there were many — but it was certainly among them. Wembanyama, who has had 41-point and 33-point outings in winning efforts during the series, never seemed to get fully rolling and the Spurs lost 127-114.

Now down 3-2 in the series, they’ll try to extend the matchup — and save their season — in Game 6 at San Antonio on Thursday night.

Wembanyama scored 20 points, his lowest of the series, and only a 12-for-12 effort from the foul line helped him get there in Game 5. He was 4 for 15 from the floor, missing all five of his 3-point tries, never seeming to get into any sort of rhythm.

“He’s got to take more than 15 shots, even with the free throws,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said in his postgame news conference in Oklahoma City. “He’s going to have to score more than 20 points, for sure. ... OKC did a good job. We’ve got to do a better job.”

Wembanyama did not speak with reporters after the game.

The first halves have told much of the story. In San Antonio’s two wins in this series, Wembanyama has gone 7-for-15 and 6-for-11 from the field. In the three losses, his halftime shot numbers — 2-for-4, 2-for-5 and 2-for-6, the last of those what he did in the first two quarters on Tuesday.

Wembanyama offered an impassioned speech to teammates during a timeout barely two minutes into the third quarter, after the Thunder opened an 18-point lead. And it worked — to a point. Oklahoma City scored again to get the lead up to 20, but the Spurs closed within eight later in the third.

It seemed like there was hope. But the Spurs didn’t get any closer. The deficit was 10 going into the fourth, the Spurs scored only two points in the first 4:02 of the final quarter, and whatever momentum that seemed like it was building after Wembanyama’s timeout speech appeared to be gone.

And on a night in which the Thunder just kept throwing different bodies — Isaiah Hartenstein, Chet Holmgren, Jaylin Williams, Alex Caruso and more — along with different looks at Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 French star just didn’t have enough answers.

“It’s a team defense,” Thunder guard Jared McCain said. “We talked about it. We made adjustments to it. We know that when he gets going, their whole team gets going.”

Obviously, the Spurs know what’s coming from the Thunder on Thursday — more of the same. San Antonio has two days to figure out how to counter.

“I think they sent so many bodies towards him, it’s hard at times,” Spurs guard Stephon Castle said. “I think he just wants to make the right play and wants to win. ... He’s our best player. We need him to be aggressive. I feel like him being aggressive opens up shots for other guys.”

___

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

University president Lawrence Schovanec wrote in a letter to the Texas Tech community that the school would appeal the ruling. Sorsby also has a court hearing scheduled in Lubbock County District Court next Monday on his request for a temporary injunction that would allow him to play for the Red Raiders this season.

“We believe that given the facts and the context of Brendan’s case, the NCAA’s ruling should be reversed or modified,” Schovanec wrote. “As a generation of college athletes face the legalization and rapid proliferation of sports betting in our country, gambling addiction is rising to the point of epidemic among college aged men in particular.”

Sorsby was one of the top players to enter the transfer portal after last season. At stake is the multimillion-dollar deal the Texas native signed with the Red Raiders for what was supposed to be his final season of college football.

Athletic director Kirby Hocutt said he expected Tech’s appeal to the NCAA being submitted by the end of this week.

“We believe the right thing to do is to not ruin this young man’s college career for something that happened four years ago,” Hocutt said Tuesday while attending the Big 12 spring meetings in Frisco, Texas. “There’s penalties for everything that you do, and we would accept that and expect that, but at the same time, let’s help this young man who has been very vulnerable and has admitted to some wrongdoings. Let’s give him a second chance and help him.”

Schovanec said the 22-year-old Sorsby last week completed an inpatient gambling addiction treatment program and is preparing to return to campus. The quarterback can participate in offseason activities with the Red Raiders.

Schovanec noted the NCAA’s stated mission includes the lifelong well-being of athletes and to promote a “culture of care” for their mental health.

“Brendan himself has been open about his struggle with severe gambling addiction, and we believe his vulnerability deserves to be met with the full weight of this institution’s support,” Schovanec wrote. “Our foremost priority in contemplating Brendan’s future with Texas Tech is his continued health and well-being.”

Hocutt said Tech wants to help Sorsby and hopes that “the NCAA would look at it from a different lens than they traditionally have.”

In his lawsuit seeking an injunction, Sorsby acknowledged that in his first year at Indiana, he wagered between $5 and $50 on the Hoosiers football team to win and made prop bets on teammates to exceed statistical predictions. He said he did not bet on the one game in which he played. Sorsby said he never bet on a game involving Cincinnati after he transferred there in 2024, but he continued to bet on other sports.

According to Schovanec, Sorsby will receive ongoing treatment, monitoring and support at the school. He will receive outpatient clinical care, participation in group and individual therapy, mentor resources, treatment for his related anxiety disorder and active monitoring of his technological devices. He also will have a custodian to oversee his personal finances and and periodic compliance checks.

“This is not a symbolic commitment,” Schovanec wrote. “Each element reflects our conviction, and Brendan’s, that nothing matters more right now than his continued recovery. It is our duty to provide that support and that is support we are uniquely well-positioned to provide.”

___

AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

• STORMS SOUTH OF SA: Another round of storms affecting southern counties
• RAINFALL: Totals from last night’s storms averaged 1-2″
• QUIETER PATTERN AHEAD: We’ll get a chance to dry out next few days

FORECAST

THIS MORNING

After a busy overnight, another round of storms is moving west to east across the southern part of our viewing area. This activity will stay mainly south of San Antonio. However, some light rain could briefly push into the city for a time this morning. This area of storms will push east of us by mid-morning.

THIS AFTERNOON

Skies will begin to clear around midday and we’ll see quite a bit of sun by late afternoon. Still, highs today will only reach the low-80s. It will be humid thanks to yesterday’s rainfall.

RAINFALL TOTALS/DAMAGE REPORTS

Most of the San Antonio picked up at least 1″ of rainfall overnight. Higher totals were noted across Kendall County and parts of Frio County. Thankfully, damage reports, so far, have been minimal. If you sustained any damage, make sure and upload your pictures to KSAT Connect.

QUIETER WEATHER AHEAD

Thursday and Friday will generally be dry. The Saturday night through Monday timeframe brings a chance for isolated showers and storms (30%).

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A U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict appeared more nominal by the day, complicating efforts at a broader peace in the Iran war as Tehran wants an agreement to include an end to the fighting in Lebanon.

The Litani River has been a de facto boundary in Lebanon, with large areas to the south under Israeli military control despite the ceasefire that's been in place for over a month.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after meeting with his defense minister and senior military officials that Israel will expand its operations in Lebanon.

“The (Israeli Defense Forces) are operating with large forces on the ground and seizing strategic areas,” he said, adding that Israel is trying to fortify an area of southern Lebanon under its control, which it says is necessary to protect residents in its northern border towns from Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks.

Israeli strike kills 12

Meanwhile, an Israeli security official said the military had called up an additional battalion to Lebanon, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Israel's military said it struck more than 100 Hezbollah sites across southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley area overnight, adding that it targeted storage facilities, command centers and observation points used to attack Israeli troops and residents in northern Israel.

One strike hit the eastern village of Mashghara, killing 12 people including several members of the same family, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said.

Israel in recent days has intensified strikes in the city and province of Nabatiyeh, just north of the river. On Tuesday it warned city residents to leave.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, said it launched several rocket, artillery and exploding drone attacks on Israeli troops and vehicles mobilizing along the river toward the Nabatiyeh villages of Yohmor al-Shaqif and Zawtar al-Sharqieh. Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said the militant group repelled attacks along the river banks.

Elsewhere in eastern Lebanon, Israel struck an area near the Qaraoun Dam, the country's largest along the Litani River. The Litani River Authority said there was no direct damage to the dam.

Beirut, the Lebanese capital, has been spared from strikes since the start of the ceasefire, but Israel's latest moves have caused fear.

“By just saying a few words on TV, (Netanyahu) causes everyone to panic and flee their homes,” said Tony Aboud in Beirut’s bustling Hamra district. “I don’t know what’s going to happen and how long we can live like this.”

Lebanon hopes for an agreement that will see Israeli withdrawal

The Lebanese government, which came to power on a platform of reform and disarming Hezbollah and other armed groups, hopes that the direct talks with Israel — which Hezbollah opposes — will lead to a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops.

Israel says it will not withdraw until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat to residents of its northern towns. Hezbollah has vowed to fight until Israel stops its daily airstrikes and withdraws its troops from Lebanon.

In recent weeks, Hezbollah has boasted that it is using new fiber-optic drones that Israeli troops have struggled to intercept, hitting both Israeli forces and northern Israeli villages.

Israel has told people there not to gather in large numbers.

“What this requires of us now is to increase the blows, to increase the intensity. We will smite them hip and thigh,” Netanyahu said Monday.

Over 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced in the war, sparked when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel on March 2 in solidarity with Iran, two days after the Iran war began.

At least 3,213 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since the start of the war, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, with over 9,700 wounded.

According to Netanyahu’s office, 23 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon, and two civilians have been killed in northern Israel, the vast majority by drones.

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Associated Press writers Sam Mednick and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Koral Saaed in Herzliya, Israel, and senior video producer Malak Harb in Beirut contributed to this report.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton secured the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate on Tuesday night, easily defeating four-term Sen. John Cornyn, the Associated Press projects.

Paxton was out to an early lead, and the Associated Press called the race within an hour of polling places closing.

Here’s a look at how people across the Lone Star State voted.

Following an extensive career in the Texas Legislature, Paxton was elected as Texas Attorney General in 2014 before announcing his U.S. Senate bid in April 2025. Cornyn, the incumbent, was first elected to the seat in 2002.

Cheers rang through the ballroom at Paxton’s election night party when the race was called, and he took the stage to supporters chanting his name. He quickly gave credit to Trump.

“When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me and abandon the people of Texas, he didn’t listen,” Paxton said. ”President Trump is the leader of our party, and his endorsement is the most powerful force in politics.”

When Paxton announced his run for U.S. Senate, Paxton told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that it was “time for a change in Texas.”

Paxton will face Democratic nominee James Talarico, an Austin-area state representative and former San Antonio teacher who won his primary bid against U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

Talarico launched his campaign last September. He previously told KSAT that his experience as a public school teacher on San Antonio’s West Side shaped his views for his campaign.

According to his campaign website, Talarico is pushing for economic equality, specifically the gap between billionaires and Americans struggling to make ends meet.

U.S. senators are elected for six-year terms.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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In early European trading, Germany's DAX gained 0.7% to 25,359.59, while the CAC 40 in Paris added 0.5% to 8,215.74. Britain's FTSE 100 slipped 0.1% to 10,484.65.

The future for the S&P 500 edged 0.1% higher while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2%.

The boom in artificial intelligence drove heavy buying of computer chipmakers and other technology companies after the latest rally on Wall Street, led by a 19.3% gain for Micron Technology. It was the strongest force lifting the S&P 500 on Tuesday after analysts at UBS led by Timothy Arcuri raised their 12-month price target for the stock to $1,625 from $535. Micron closed at $895.88.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 also initially was lifted by gains for tech-related shares given but closed nearly unchanged at 64,999.41. It topped 66,000 earlier in the day.

Computer chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron's shares rose 2.1% and testing equipment maker Advantest gained 4.1%.

Analysts are forecasting continued strength in demand for computer memory and that has been pushing share prices in South Korea and Taiwan to records this year.

The Kospi in Seoul gained 2.3% to 8,228.70, as Samsung Electronics' shares gained 2.3%.

In Taiwan, the Taiex surged 1.7%.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 1.1% to 25,328.23 and the Shanghai Composite index shed 1.3% to 4,093.73.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 picked up 0.7% to 8,717.70 and in India the Sensex fell 0.1%.

On Tuesday, U.S. stocks rose to records as the S&P 500 climbed 0.6% after trading resumed following Monday’s Memorial Day holiday. The Nasdaq composite rallied 1.2% and the Dow industrials dipped 0.2%.

U.S. stocks were catching up with climbs for others around the world the day before, when President Donald Trump said negotiations with Iran on ending the war were “proceeding nicely.”

“It looks like geopolitical tensions are no longer bothering investors as much as they did in previous weeks. Iran’s explicit dissatisfaction regarding the progress in talks over its nuclear program — or even US strikes — didn’t reverse hopes that the war will end soon,” Ipek Ozkardeskaya of Swissquote said in a commentary.

Markets have rallied on hopes for a swift end to the war, but the situation remains unclear as fighting has continued in the region.

Oil prices have been at the center of financial markets' action since the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February. The ensuing war has closed the Strait of Hormuz and kept oil tankers pent up in the Persian Gulf instead of delivering crude to customers worldwide. That in turn has driven up oil’s price and sent a wave of painful inflation around the world.

U.S. households have been feeling discouraged about the economy because of accelerating inflation, and a report on Tuesday said consumer confidence edged downward in May, though the number was not as bad as economists expected. It followed a report on Friday that said sentiment among U.S. consumers hit its lowest level on record.

Early Wednesday, the price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, fell $3 to $93.89 a barrel. The price for a barrel of U.S crude oil fell $2.94 to $91.89.

Lower oil prices helped pull yields down in the U.S. bond market, which eased the pressure on Wall Street. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.47% from 4.56% late Friday.

The U.S. dollar rose to 159.33 Japanese yen from 159.30 yen. The euro rose to $1.1644 from $1.1631.

Camp leaders say they tell residents to wash their hands before eating — with soap for the lucky ones who have it. For the rest, the advice is to use oatmeal or sand.

“My fear is that we are here with nothing to protect ourselves. We have no protection, no water or soap, and we live near garbage," Francine Leve Janguzi, a resident of the so-called ISP camp told The Associated Press, as she opened an empty tap in a sea of tarpaulin roofs.

Supplies are being rushed to Ituri province as aid groups and healthcare workers try to stem an outbreak of the infectious disease that has been declared a global health emergency.

But front-line responders are concerned the disease might spread to the large displacement camps located near Bunia, where thousands of people are crammed into limited space, without access to basic hygiene.

“Eastern DRC’s years of conflict and displacement have left health systems on their knees, and that makes containing this outbreak all the harder,” said Heather Kerr, Congo director with the International Rescue Committee.

Almost a million people have been displaced from their homes by conflict in Ituri, according to the U.N.

That means this Ebola outbreak is “unfolding in communities already facing insecurity, displacement and fragile healthcare systems,” said Gabriela Arenas, a regional coordinator at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

The majority of residents of the ISP camp — which owes its name to its proximity to the Higher Pedagogical Institute, or Institut Superieur Pedagogique in French — were forced to leave their villages in the Djugu territory following attacks by CODECO, one of the multiple armed groups which operate in the region.

“I’ve been here for eight and a half years. Now we’re hearing about Ebola,” camp resident Janguzi said. “Look at the state of where we’re sleeping. We don’t have any help whatsoever. We don’t have soap or water, yet we’re told to wash our hands regularly and be clean.”

There is no vaccine or treatment for the rare Bundibugyo type of Ebola, which has been spreading undetected for weeks in eastern Congo. Standard tests struggle to detect the Bundibugyo.

Over 1,000 suspected cases and at least 220 deaths had already been recorded as of Tuesday, including seven confirmed cases in Uganda. But the World Health Organization and aid groups on the ground say the outbreak is much larger.

Ebola is a highly contagious virus and can be contracted from bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. The disease it causes is rare but severe and often fatal. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and unexplained bleeding or bruising.

Eastern Congo has for years seen attacks by dozens of separate rebel and militant groups, some of them with links to foreign countries or the extremist Islamic State group.

The Rwanda-backed M23 rebels are in control of parts of the region. While the Congolese government still largely controls the northeastern Ituri Province, the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak, that control is tenuous. The Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan Islamist group linked to IS, is one of the dominant rebel groups there and responsible for violent attacks against civilian targets.

Before the outbreak, humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders said in an assessment that the insecurity in Ituri had worsened recently, causing doctors and nurses to flee and leaving overwhelmed health facilities and in some parts, “catastrophic conditions.”

Gérard Maki, a community leader in the camp, told AP the disease is very frightening. "I’ve learned that there’s no cure, which is why it scares me. ... Our government should also do everything possible to find a solution to this disease.”

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Pronczuk reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Jean-Yves Kamale contributed to this report from Kinshasa.

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For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

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The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The space agency outlined the first phase of its moon base plans on Tuesday, awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to four U.S. companies.

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin will provide a pair of landers to deliver moon buggies to the lunar surface, at a spot near the moon’s south pole. These so-called lunar terrain vehicles will be built by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost. Firefly Aerospace, which landed successfully on the moon last year, will deliver the first drones to the moon.

All this hardware is ideally supposed to arrive before the first Artemis astronauts land on the moon, planned for as early as 2028.

During April's Artemis II mission, four astronauts flew around the moon, traveling deeper into space than the Apollo moon crews did during the late 1960s and early 1970s. For next year's Artemis III, another team of astronauts will practice docking NASA's Orion capsule in orbit around Earth with the lunar landers being developed for crews by Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX.

NASA is targeting Artemis III for mid-2027, with a landing by two astronauts following as soon as 2028. The moon base's second phase, from 2029 into the early 2030s, will start building up the permanent infrastructure, including a power grid. As for when the base will be ready to support astronauts for extended periods in specialized permanent habitats, that's expected sometime in the 2030s, during the third phase.

“Then we'll be able to say, 'Hey, we're permanently here and we're not giving it up,'” said NASA's moon base program executive Carlos Garcia-Galan.

Garcia-Galan envisions a moon base sprawling over hundreds of square miles, with a perimeter marked by drones, dubbed MoonFall, stationed at the corners.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said these territory markers are meant to be respectful of other countries' spacecraft and equipment that might be nearby. He expects reciprocity in the matter.

The goal of the moon base is to encourage a lunar economy while conducting scientific research and laying the foundation for a Mars expedition, Isaacman stressed.

“For those waiting patiently, the grand return is close at hand and we will not slow down,” Isaacman said. “We are really just getting started.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Video posted on social media by U.S. Southern Command shows a boat speeding through water before exploding into flames. Southern Command said it “immediately notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivors.”

The Trump administration’s campaign of blowing up alleged drug-trafficking vessels in Latin American waters, including the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, has gone on since early September and killed at least 194 people in total. The military has not provided evidence that any of the vessels were carrying drugs.

The Pentagon watchdog said last week that it will evaluate whether the U.S. military followed an established targeting framework when carrying out the attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats. The six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle include a military commander’s intent, target development, analysis, decision, execution and assessment.

The Pentagon inspector general’s office said the review was “self-initiated.” It will not probe the legality of the strikes, which have drawn intense scrutiny from some Democratic lawmakers and military legal scholars.

The Trump administration says the U.S. is at war against the Latin American drug cartels, which it says are responsible for the scourge of fatal drug overdoses plaguing many American communities.

The Golden Knights limited the Avalanche's high-powered offense all series and then suffocated it Tuesday night.

That defense, aided by goals from Stone and Cole Smith, led to a 2-1 victory and an unthinkable sweep of Colorado for the Knights' third final in nine seasons.

“It's by far our best game," said Vegas coach John Tortorella, whose team was 30-1 at Caesars Sportsbook at the beginning of the series to sweep. “(Checking is) something we've been concentrating on, and I think we've gotten better and better through the rounds. But tonight's game was our best checking effort, and that's a hell of a hockey team we played over there.”

The Golden Knights will get a break while they watch to see whether Carolina or Montreal emerges from the Eastern Conference Final.

This is a crushing end for an Avalanche team that won the Presidents' Trophy and had blown through the playoffs with an 8-1 record. Chicago in 2013 was the last team to claim the Presidents’ Trophy and the Stanley Cup in the same season.

“We ran into a buzz saw in Vegas,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “I think they deserved the credit. It’s not a knock on how hard they played, but they’re a well-oiled machine right now, peaking at the right time. I look at their series and man-to-man they’re playing at the top of their game. We’ll have to regroup and reassess and reflect on our season and the series and go from there.”

With several Las Vegas Raiders players looking on, including quarterbacks Kirk Cousins and Fernando Mendoza, the Golden Knights got on the scoreboard when McNabb delivered a perfect pass to Stone. Not known for elite skating ability, Stone nevertheless got behind the Avalanche, caught the puck and scored.

“I'm not winning a ton of races,” Stone said. “I think I can create angles to get into those positions. That's probably why I've had quite a few breakaways in my career.”

That was the only goal until Smith tipped in Dylan Coghlan's shot from the point with 5:45 left for a critical two-goal margin.

Carter Hart stopped 20 shots, coming within 2:03 of his first playoff shutout in six years.

Gabriel Landeskog ended that shutout, one of the few highlights of the night for the Avalanche, who went the final 14:23 of the second period without a shot on goal and more than 25 minutes with just one shot.

Hart said he thought the Golden Knights defense “100%” frustrated the Avalanche.

“I think once we scored that first goal, in the second and third period we just kind of locked it down and kept pressure on them,” Hart said. “We did a great job. We had some huge blocks tonight.”

It wasn't just this night. Colorado center Nathan MacKinnon, who led the NHL with 53 goals in the regular season, failed to hit the back of the net in any of the four games. Martin Necas, who had 100 points, totaled just two in this series.

The Avalanche averaged a league-high 3.63 goals during the regular season and in the first two rounds upped that to 4.11. Against the Golden Knights? It was 1.75.

“I think you look back at the four games, there are definitely times where we found our game,” Landeskog said. “I think the problem was we found ways to lose hockey games. I think over the course of the regular season, in the first two rounds, it was the opposite. Even if we didn’t have our A-game, we were finding different ways to win hockey games, and against this good of a hockey team in the Golden Knights, they’ll make you pay for your mistakes.”

Mackenzie Blackwood, making his first start in the series, gave the Avalanche a chance to win with several dazzling saves en route to 24 saves overall. His best stop came late in the second period when he lunged to glove a power-play shot from Pavel Dorofeyev.

The journey to the final isn't quite the Cinderella story of the Golden Knights’ first team that made the Stanley Cup Final in 2018 before losing in five games to Washington, but Vegas’ voyage to this point was far from expected.

The Golden Knights faced the possibility of not making the playoffs for just the second time in franchise history when management fired coach Bruce Cassidy, who led the club to the 2023 title, with eight games left in the regular season.

In came Tortorella, who validated the controversial decision by leading Vegas to a 7-0-1 record to close the regular season and then series victories over Utah and Anaheim. Then the Golden Knights faced an Avalanche team on a roll and without any sign of slowing down.

At least until facing Vegas.

Bednar searched for answers against the Golden Knights, even changing goalies on Tuesday. The Avalanche also dealt with injuries to their top two players this series — reigning Norris Trophy winner Cale Makar and MacKinnon, a Hart Trophy finalist.

The Golden Knights had their own injury issues, winning the first two games of the series without Stone.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Another nine people were injured, some severely, in the spill at Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. in Longview. The cause remained unclear.

“At the moment we are not aware of any rescues that are yet to be made," Cowlitz Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein said during a Tuesday evening news conference in which officials repeatedly referred to the situation as a recovery effort.

That effort would not resume until Wednesday morning, when emergency responders planned to work on stabilizing the collapsed tank, which still had about 90,000 gallons (more than 340,000 liters) of a chemical brew known as “white liquor" inside, and then search for the missing, Goldstein said.

The severity of the injuries ranged from minor to critical, with some suffering burns or inhalation injuries, authorities said. Among those injured was a responding firefighter.

Officials said they would only work during daylight hours because there was a risk of the tank leaking more caustic liquid and potentially collapsing.

“We don’t know until we know, hopefully tomorrow, how we can stabilize the tank. Do we remove the product first? Do we stabilize the tank first or the vice versa?” Goldstein said.

Authorities said there was no threat to the public.

Community waits for more information

At a community vigil Tuesday night, dozens gathered at a local park to pray, light candles and embrace teary-eyed loved ones.

Crystal Moldenhauer, a Longview resident who served on the school board, said she has friends who work at the plant and remained unaccounted for. She described the stress of the day as people called and texted each other trying to figure out what happened.

“We’re all still waiting for answers,” she said. “There’s families that have been torn apart, and we don’t know why.”

Two upset parents who said their two sons worked at the plant interjected at the end of the news conference, saying they hadn’t been contacted. While officials including Gov. Bob Ferguson, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez addressed those gathered, no one from the company spoke at the news conference.

Some people waited at the company’s visitor entrance earlier Tuesday, seeking information about loved ones. They declined to comment to an Associated Press reporter. At a nearby union hall that was serving as a family assistance center, three women shared a tearful embrace before heading inside. Others coming and going were also in tears.

Facility is central to the community

The Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. facility is a pulp and paper mill and liquid packaging plant along the Columbia River in Longview, a city of about 38,000 that has had a relationship with the paper and lumber industries since its founding by a Kansas City timber baron in the 1920s.

The facility, which employs about 1,000 people and dates to 1953, makes material for tissues, printing paper, cups, plates, cartons and other goods. It is located in an industrial zone shared by other timber, paper and chemical businesses, and it remains central to the community.

“The people who are responders here have friends and relatives that work on site,” Cowlitz Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein noted. “It is something that is impactful, and we have support networks to support the workers as well as the emergency responders.”

Officials initially reported that the tank had a capacity of 80,000 gallons (303,000 liters), but later revised that number to say it was holding about 900,000 gallons (3.4 million liters) of the "white liquor.” That's nearly enough to fill a typical Olympic-sized swimming pool one and a half times. The liquid, which consists mainly of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide, is used with heat to break down wood to make kraft paper, a durable material used in packaging, shopping bags and other products.

Cause is not yet known

It was too early to determine the cause of the implosion, Goldstein said.

Following the tank's rupture, the white liquor spilled into a drainage ditch, said Brittny Goodsell, a state Ecology Department spokesperson. The department sent a team to evaluate the impacts, Goodsell said.

“I know there’s a lot of questions about how all of this happened and I want to assure you that we will all continue to pressure to get answers to those questions,” Murray said during the Tuesday evening news conference. “This community deserves that.”

The implosion came as thousands of residents of Southern California remained evacuated Tuesday due to a damaged chemical tank at an aerospace plant. All evacuation orders were lifted Tuesday night.

Just over 40 people died between January 2021 and mid-October 2023 as a result of hazardous chemical incidents, according to a paper released by a network of environmental justice organizations in late 2023.

Previous health and safety violations

Safety complaints were filed against Nippon Dynawave on March 4 and May 6. The state’s labor and industries department said on X that both are unrelated to the current situation and remain open. The former was an anonymous complaint about a valve on an aqua ammonia clarifier tank, according to the department, which noted that “it was not the tank that imploded.” The other was opened about a sinkhole created by a drain that failed, according to the department.

Nippon Dynawave, a subsidiary of Japan-based Nippon Paper Group, has been fined a total of $3,400 for three separate health and safety violations found by Washington Department of Labor and Industries inspectors since the start of 2021, according to the department’s online database.

In one inspection, the company was cited because face coverings were not worn by every employee when required. In another, the inspector determined that an employee was exposed to the risk of falling while working on a platform more than 4 feet (1.2 meters) off the ground.

In the third incident, the department determined that equipment involved in a work-related accident — an amputated finger — was moved from its original position before the state’s investigation into the accident was complete.

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Boone reported from Boise, Idaho. Associated Press reporters Gene Johnson and Hallie Golden in Seattle and Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed.

French is poised to face Democrat state Rep. Jon Rosenthal in the November general election. A Democrat has not held a seat on the railroad commission in decades. 

“I am deeply grateful for the support of TX Republicans across our state.  Our campaign focused on defending oil and gas, and putting America First—and that’s exactly what I will continue fighting for as we turn our attention to radical Democrat Jon Rosenthal,” he said in a social media post.

The race for the typically under-the-radar office emerged on Tuesday as one of the closest contests of the night, with French leading with early voters but Wright narrowing the gap as the Election Day vote trickled in. French declared victory before midnight, up by a margin of less that 2 percentage points.

If he wins in November, he will join the three-commissioner panel presiding over the railroad commission, a century-old regulatory institution tasked with overseeing the state’s oil and gas industry, an immense enterprise that produced nearly half of all U.S. oil last year. 

A former Tarrant County GOP chairman, French espouses some of the most extreme views among Texas Republican officials, even as the party has pivoted further to the right in recent years. Earlier this year, French called on his party to more openly embrace Islamophobia and said the U.S. should deport 100 million people, nearly a third of the country’s population and a number that suggests he wants to deport U.S. citizens.

He has drawn the ire of members of his own party for his unapologetically offensive posts on social media often using slurs to refer to people with mental disabilities and LGBTQ+ people. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called on him to resign from his county chairmanship after French posted a social media poll asking whether Jews or Muslims were a bigger threat to America.

Patrick, Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, all endorsed his opponent.

The race attracted a flood of money, not typical of the down ballot contest. Donors from across the political spectrum and the private sector have helped the two Republicans fundraise more than $3 million dollars since February. The contributions showed a split across ideological lines, with big oil companies and trade groups throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars at the incumbent. French’s benefactors, in turn, were prolific conservative megadonors who have used their wealth in past elections to advance conservative causes in Texas. The Texas Freedom Fund for the Advancement of Justice, a political action committee funded by oil tycoons Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, spent about a million dollars on his campaign — more than 60% of his war chest. 

At the outset of the race, French, whose campaign website says he is an energy adviser for a company in the Middle East, said the railroad commission and Wright allowed China and Islam to overtake Texas oil fields. Under the commission, he said diversity efforts ran rampant. 

Throughout the race, he accused Wright of allowing “Sharia law” within the agency, and nicknamed him “Jihadi Jim.“ 

The six-year term coincides with a period of uncertainty and instability for the Texas oil and gas industry. Oil prices have fluctuated dramatically. Energy companies have laid off thousands of workers. Wright must also shepherd its regulators amid growing concerns about industry wastewater, which could stand to disrupt production and wreak environmental damage should the state fail to find a solution. The commissioners will oversee a $593 million budget, the highest in years. 

During his career, Newhouse served as president of the Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey, and head of Advance Publications' newspaper group, which he navigated into the internet age.

“You reveled in his company. He filled you with energy and humor when you felt doubtful and weak,” Anna Wintour, the global editorial director of Vogue and Conde Nast's chief content officer, said in an obituary released Tuesday night by the Newhouse family.

Newhouse, who lived in New York, spent nearly 50 years overseeing the 35 newspapers of Advance Publications, the media business started by his late father, Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr., in 1922. His older brother, S.I. Newhouse Jr., was chairman of the company and oversaw Conde Nast magazines. He died in 2017.

Louis D. Boccardi, retired president and CEO of the AP, said Newhouse was an extraordinary chairman for the cooperative.

“His voice was never the loudest in the room, but it was often the wisest,” Boccardi said. Newhouse was instinctively private, but behind that, Boccardi said, was a generous man, at home anywhere and curious about everything.

“He could come across as self-effacing and deferential, but in Don's skilled hands those were qualities that made him an enormously strong and effective leader,” Boccardi said.

A man who didn't chase the spotlight

Newhouse, born in 1929, was known for staying out of the public eye. A reporter once asked him to list the biggest chances he took in his career. The answer: “Inviting your questions.”

The usually reserved Newhouse did step into the spotlight when he took on the role of chairman of the Newspaper Association of America from 1993 to 1994 and then chairman of the AP board of directors from 1997 to 2002. He had served on the AP board for nine years before becoming its chairman.

“My dad believed in the journalistic mission of the AP,” said Michael Newhouse, Donald E. Newhouse's son. He added that his dad and the publication's then-CEO would travel around the world to meet AP journalists.

"He was a smart and shrewd businessman but as thoughtful and kind a man as you'll find. Being in his presence was always a joy,” said Doug Clifton, editor of one of Newhouse's papers, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, from 1999 to 2007.

Newhouse attended Syracuse University but never graduated, heading into the family's newspaper business instead. In 2016 he finally received a degree from the school and gave its commencement address.

Newhouse would regularly visit his newspapers but left the ultimate authority of running them to his publishers.

"Each of our newspapers operates independently, with publishers who are strong, who set policy for their individual organizations and who have the authority and responsibility of carrying out the policies they set," he said in 1993 when taking over as chairman of the newspaper association.

Newhouse was known for spending money to make sure that papers got the best stories. Jim Willse, editor of The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., from 1995 until 2010, said they “added staff, modernized the design, took on investigations and other major projects.”

Newhouse's philosophy of spending money to produce quality coverage and a hands-off approach toward his editors led to many successes. From 2001 to 2012, Advance’s newspaper group was awarded a dozen Pulitzers.

Many of those newspapers were able to thrive and remain profitable because they dominated their market, but Newhouse said he was very much aware of what he called the “dramatically changing media landscape” and how people get their news.

“The 15th-century revolution was epitomized by the printing of the Gutenberg Bible; ours by Ted Turner's cable news network and by web-based news sites — news in real time from anywhere to everywhere,” he said in 2004 at the rededication of a communications school named after his father at Syracuse University.

Three years later, he told one of his papers, The Post-Standard of Syracuse, N.Y., that newspapers can survive “by producing content that is relevant, interesting, accurate and entertaining for newspapers and the internet.”

He steered through financial struggles

Yet the papers did ultimately struggle financially.

Advance was known in the industry for a pledge that employees who weren't in a union would have jobs regardless of economic downturns or technological advances. In 2009, the company announced that the pledge would be withdrawn.

The company also moved away from daily publishing of several papers. In 2012, it announced that the Post-Standard; The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, Louisiana; the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and the Birmingham News, the Press-Register of Mobile and The Huntsville Times, all in Alabama, would cease daily publication and would only offer print editions on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Those changes were accompanied by hundreds of layoffs.

“His conservative approach left both the papers and its employees somewhat unprepared for the realities of the internet,” said Thomas Maier, who wrote a 1994 biography of the family.

Newhouse's eldest son, Steven, spearheaded the company's growth on the Internet and on mobile devices. Steven Newhouse is currently co-president of Advance Publications.

“My dad spent his life in the newspaper business and was devoted to it, built it up and enjoyed many good years. When it became more challenging, he was first in line to work through, finding solutions to keep the local journalism franchise going,” he said.

While Newhouse was dedicated to Advance, his true passion was his family. His daughter, Katherine Mele, said his favorite pastime was 3-mile (4.8-kilometer) walks with them.

In addition to his children, Newhouse is also survived by his grandchildren. His wife, Susan, died in 2015.

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Associated Press reporter Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

Breaux, a former teacher and the director of the Texas Education Policy Institute, completed her victory on Tuesday after forcing Vo into a runoff in the March primary. In that election, Vo led Breaux by just 3 votes out of 9,992 cast, each garnering 38% in the four-way race.

In an emotional speech to supporters, Breaux thanked her supporters for declaring that they wanted “something different.”

Breaux was first elected to the Alief ISD Board of Trustees in 2017. Alief is a diverse community in southwest Houston and Harris County.

About half of Alief ISD lives in HD 149, making up nearly three-quarters of the House district’s population.

Breaux’s priorities include increasing teacher pay and investing in small businesses and the workforce. She has also called for local infrastructure improvements to prevent flooding and increase public safety.

At an event ahead of the March primary, Breaux said she ran because she felt the community was being “left out” of discussions in Austin with Vo as their representative.

Vo was first elected to the Texas House by just 33 votes in 2004, defeating longtime Rep. Talmadge Heflin, a Houston Republican and then-chair of the House Appropriations Committee. Since then, Vo has been considered a public school champion but has not been a vocal presence on the House floor, unlike some prominent colleagues.

In Texas Monthly’s 2021 edition of the state’s “Best and Worst” lawmakers, the magazine named him part of the “furniture,” inconsequential members who are “scarcely distinguishable from their desks, chairs, and spittoons.”

Last year, Vo spoke on the House floor against a bill prohibiting the sale of land to people and entities from certain countries, arguing he would not have been able to buy a house in Texas when he fled Vietnam.

Breaux was endorsed by the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board and the Texas AFL-CIO, as well as Houston City Council members Martha Castex-Tatum and Tiffany Thomas and state Rep. Ron Reynolds, a Missouri City Democrat who chairs the Texas Legislative Black Caucus.

She will face Republican Dave Bennett, an engineer and small business owner, in November. Although the district is relatively blue (former Vice President Kamala Harris carried the district by 11 points in 2024 while Vo was reelected by 14 points), Gov. Greg Abbott endorsed Bennett amid his pledge to spend millions to turn Harris County “dark red.”

Breaux became the second challenger to beat a Democratic incumbent this primary cycle. In Tarrant County, 27-year-old Grand Prairie City Council Member Junior Ezeonu defeated Grand Prairie Rep. Chris Turner, a former chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus who was first elected in 2008. Ezeonu won amid a surge of Democratic turnout across the state during that March primary, thanks largely to the competitive U.S. Senate contest between Dallas U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and the eventual winner, Austin state Rep. James Talarico.

Also in North Texas, two-term Dallas state Rep. Venton Jones held off auditor Amanda Richardson after she kept him to 48.7% in the March primary.

Other runoffs across the state will likely decide the look of the Texas House, given how one-sided the districts are.

In Houston’s District 131, State Board of Education member Staci Childs defeated SBOE member Lawrence Allen Jr. in the Democratic runoff to succeed Allen’s mother, retiring Rep. Alma Allen. The winner will face Republican Scott Whitmarsh in November.

In Austin, former assistant education secretary Montserrat Garibay defeated former City Council member Kathie Tovo in the Democratic runoff for District 49. She’ll face Green candidate Arshia Papari in the race to succeed Rep. Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee.

San Antonio ISD educator Adrian Reyna defeated scandal-ridden former Bexar County Constable Michelle Barrientes Vela in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Ray Lopez in District 125. Reyna will face Republican Rick Martinez in November.

On the Republican side, former Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart defeated Kelly Peterson in the District 126 runoff. Abbott endorsed Stanart while Peterson was backed by retiring Rep. Sam Harless, R-Spring. Stanart will face Democrat Stefanie Bord and independent Lisa Emerson.

In a bellwether battleground in South Texas, Republican activist Gary Groves will face Democrat Julio Salinas, both of whom were elected as their party’s nominees Tuesday. Republicans hope to continue their gains among Hispanic voters and flip the seat with the retirement of Rep. Bobby Guerra, D-Mission. The 14-year veteran was reelected by 6.9 points in 2024 despite President Donald Trump carrying the district by 1.6 points — a 7-point swing from Trump’s 2020 result there.

Groves was supported by Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC, a longtime kingmaker in Texas Republican politics, defeating attorney Sergio Sanchez in their runoff.

Salinas, a former staffer in the Legislature, was endorsed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont. At 26, he would be the youngest state representative, and he received much of his financial support from Leaders We Deserve, a PAC to elect young progressives founded by gun control activist David Hogg. Salinas defeated Victor “Seby” Haddad, a McAllen city commissioner since 2019 who touted his local government and small business ties.

In a seat Democrats hope to flip, voters nominated educator Oziel “Ozzie” Ochoa Jr. to face Rep. Janie Lopez, R-San Benito, in District 37. Ochoa defeated law student Esmeralda “Esmi” Cantu-Castle in their runoff.

While a Tornado threat is over for San Antonio, flooding may continue until Wednesday morning commute.

>> Click here for the latest forecast

A KSAT crew captured vehicles submerged on Ninth Street near downtown San Antonio.

KSAT Weather Authority meteorologist Justin Horne captured video of a lightning strike that ignited a tank battery fire east of Pearsall on Tuesday afternoon. Watch the full video below:

KSAT Connect users also shared videos of lightning strikes and flooded areas Tuesday night.

It appeared that the minibus drove through the closed crossing barrier, officials said. A security camera showed the bus, carrying nine people, was moving when the train hit it. The collision happened during morning rush hour near Buggenhout town, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of the capital, Brussels.

The bus driver and an escort were killed along with two children aged 12 and 15, said Lisa De Wilde, spokesperson for the East Flanders public prosecutor’s office. She said the injured children were hospitalized in serious condition.

De Wilde told journalists the cause of the crash hadn't been established.

“What we do know is that the barrier was closed and the red light was on,” she said.

Federal Police spokesperson An Berger said the minibus driver appeared to have plowed through the barrier. Infrabel said the crossing was working correctly.

The train had been traveling at an estimated 120 kph (75 mph) as it approached the crossing and had “no time to brake," said Frédéric Sacré, a spokesperson for Belgian rail operator Infrabel.

“The impact was extremely violent,” Sacré told the RTBF public broadcaster.

An Associated Press journalist at the scene said the bus was toppled on its side with its front section crushed. The train was relatively unscathed.

It was believed about 100 passengers were aboard the train and that none were hurt. Rail traffic in the area was halted. Local officials stood for a minute's silence after a news conference.

In a post on social media, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said he was “deeply moved by the horrific accident in Buggenhout. My thoughts go out to the affected families.”

Children played basketball and rode bicycles at a school not far from the scene.

——

Cook reported from Brussels. Mike Corder contributed to this report from The Hague, Netherlands.

Amy Reasons Copes was arrested following a weekend “family dispute,” Cibolo Green Elementary Assistant Principal Shaunte Gomez wrote in a letter to families, that “had nothing to do with the school.”

Gomez said Reasons Copes resigned Tuesday evening and is no longer employed by the district. The district said it will cooperate with authorities.

Amy Jane Reasons Copes, 52, was booked Sunday into the Bexar County jail, records show, on a Class A misdemeanor charge of assault causing bodily injury to a family member.

Former Cibolo Green principal Adam Schwab will serve as substitute principal for the final week of school, the letter said.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic violence, there is help for you. KSAT has a list of resources on its Domestic Violence webpage, which also explains how to identify different types of abuse.

If it’s an emergency, text or call 911. For wrap-around services, including the Battered Women and Children’s Shelter, call Family Violence Prevention Services at (210) 733-8810.

You can also contact the Bexar County Family Justice Center, which also provides wrap-around services at (210) 631-0100.

Read also:

• North East ISD names lone finalist for superintendent
• Bexar County Sheriff encourages struggling parents to ask for help after father breaks 2-month-old’s femur

Steyer — a former hedge fund manager turned liberal activist — has spent or booked more than $195 million in ads for broadcast TV, cable and radio with the tally still growing, according to data compiled by advertising tracker AdImpact.

His torrent of ads have opened the one-time presidential candidate to criticism that he is trying to buy the governor's chair, and his ad total represents more than 20 times the amount spent by his nearest rival, fellow Democrat Xavier Becerra, as the two duel for a spot in the November election.

Nationally, no one is close.

In Georgia, Republican health care executive Rick Jackson has spent about $83 million on advertising in his primary race for governor, which is headed for a June runoff, ranking him second. The third place spot is held by his Republican rival, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who has President Donald Trump’s endorsement and has spent nearly $31 million on ads, according to AdImpact.

Following Jones was Democratic U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, who spent over $28 million on advertising in a failed bid for U.S. Senate.

Trying to ‘buy the governor’s office?'

Katie Porter, a former U.S. House member who is among seven established Democrats in the California race, has repeatedly criticized Steyer for dipping into his personal fortune to keep ads in front of voters with scant competition from rivals.

“She isn’t spending hundreds of millions of dollars of personal wealth trying to buy the governor’s office,” her campaign wrote in an email to supporters.

In raw numbers, Steyer ad blitz has eclipsed the 2010 record set by Republican Meg Whitman, who spent $178.5 million in total on a losing bid for governor, much of it her own money. At the time, it was the costliest campaign for statewide office in the nation’s history. When adjusted for inflation, however, Whitman still holds the state record, but that represented spending for the full election, not just the primary.

A crowded field with no clear leader

Steyer's record-level output has lifted him into contention in the crowded race but he's not breaking away from the field. He's among a leading group of several candidates — including Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton — as the campaign heads toward a June 2 primary. Mail voting started earlier this month.

Still, Steyer's cash advantage is giving him a publicity edge as the contest enters its crucial final days. He's kept up a steady flow of advertising and online posts questioning Becerra's credentials and record, with Becerra, a former state attorney general and Biden administration health secretary, lacking the funds to reply in kind.

One Becerra ad sought to connect with voters who might be getting bleary-eyed from the cascade of Steyer advertising. It used tranquil scenes of Joshua trees, waves curling on a beach and soaring redwoods with a gentle prod, “You can stop the endless Tom Steyer ads. Vote Xavier Becerra.”

Steyer’s financial edge has allowed him to stretch the boundaries of his campaign far beyond traditional TV and radio ads, with steady posts on online platforms like YouTube and Instagram. The New York Times reported that his campaign paid a progressive Texas influencer $100,000 to help Steyer win the election. The Sacramento Bee reported that Becerra, too, had hired an influencer.

Many voters have been slow to vote in a race without a star candidate and no clear leader. More than 50 names will be on the ballot. California uses a “top two” primary system that puts all candidates on one ballot, with only the top two vote-getters advancing to November, regardless of party.

"In a race this close, it all matters," said Democratic consultant Andrew Acosta.

Money doesn't always make the difference

History shows that money doesn’t always translate into votes.

Billionaire developer Rick Caruso spent over $100 million in 2022 in his bid to become Los Angeles mayor, much of it his own money, but he was handily defeated by Mayor Karen Bass, who spent a fraction of Caruso’s total. Billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent more than $1 billion of his own money on his 2020 presidential bid before dropping out. And Steyer’s money was unable to lift him into contention in the 2020 presidential contest, when he dropped out early in the year after a poor finish in the South Carolina primary.

Democratic San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan's campaign for governor was supported by independent committees bankrolled with millions of dollars from tech leaders and venture capitalists, yet he failed to gain traction in the race.

Steyer has never held elected office.

In a 2019 interview with The Associated Press, Steyer was asked what he would say to people who think he’s trying to buy the presidency.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Steyer said at the time, before adding, “I’m never going to apologize for succeeding in business. That’s America, right?”

The contest is unfolding as California struggles with a long-running homeless crisis, wildfire insurance shortages, projected budget shortfalls and housing costs that are out of reach for many working-class families. Voters, meanwhile, are saddled with growing everyday bills for groceries, utilities and gas.

The AdImpact data does not include ads on some popular streaming services like Hulu and YouTube or mail advertising.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn tried for more than a year to show Donald Trump and Texas Republicans that he and the president were on the same team.

Cornyn posted a photo of himself reading Trump's “The Art of the Deal.” He proposed legislation to rename a stretch of interstate in Trump's honor. Perhaps most glaringly, the Senate institutionalist who long supported the filibuster reversed his position in a failed effort to advance voting restrictions that are a priority for the president.

None of it worked. On Tuesday, Cornyn became the latest in a line of Republicans who lost their primaries after falling out of favor with a president with little tolerance for dissent and a seemingly insatiable appetite for retribution. The four-term senator lost by double digits to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who Trump endorsed last week as “a true MAGA Warrior.”

Cornyn, on the other hand, “was VERY disloyal to me,” Trump wrote on social media.

Trump's intervention in the Texas runoff came after weeks of successfully backing primary challengers in Indiana, Louisiana and Kentucky as revenge against incumbents who broke with his agenda.

Cornyn’s attempt to avoid the same fate made even some of his supporters wince.

“You look at the positions he took to please the president and the groveling and whatever,” said former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, a Republican and Trump critic who didn't seek reelection during the president's first midterm in 2018. “It was rather painful to watch.”

Cornyn started early with ad touting pro-Trump voting record

Cornyn's loss wasn't for a lack of political gymnastics and astronomical campaign spending.

His campaign began running an advertisement last summer — part of an astounding nearly-$100-million air war by the senator and allied groups — with Cornyn looking into the camera and saying, “I voted with President Trump 99% of the time.”

On Cornyn's campaign homepage, Trump and Cornyn stand side-by-side with thumbs pointed upward in an image aimed at projecting solidarity. Deeper in the website, the category titled “The Trump-Cornyn Record” notes the senator's role securing votes for Trump's signature 2017 tax cut bill.

Cornyn has also been championing provisions in Trump's signature tax-and-spending legislation to finance work on the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The senator had dismissed the project as “naive” during Trump's 2016 campaign. But in January, he stood along a section of completed wall in Texas' Rio Grande Valley touting the measure's $11 billion for Texas contractors' work at “the direction of the president of the United States, to whom I am very grateful.”

Cornyn's 2023 dismissal of Trump's return glares in background

Cornyn's praise for his party's leader and president were not unusual, but they clash with a statement Cornyn made in May 2023, when Trump was mounting his presidential comeback campaign.

“Trump’s time has passed him by,” he told reporters. “I don’t think President Trump understands that when you run in a general election, you have to appeal to voters beyond your base.”

Trump would go on to easily win the nomination and carry every battleground state in the general election.

Cornyn would hew closely to the president for the first 16 months of his second administration, hoping at the outside chance of his endorsement or to keeping him from weighing in at all.

But Trump did not forget the past slights.

“John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough,” he wrote on social media while endorsing Paxton.

Smaller gestures, and one big one

Cornyn has playfully worked to promote Trump fandom, last year posting a picture on social media of himself thoughtfully peering into the pages of Trump's 1987 memoir and business advice book, “The Art of the Deal.”

In a more obvious gesture, he proposed designating a section of a U.S. highway from the Texas Gulf Coast to Montana as “Interstate 47,” to honor a 47th president with a well-documented love of naming things after himself. In a news release about the proposal, filed just over two weeks before Tuesday's runoff, Cornyn said it would be known as the “Trump Interstate.”

The more tectonic shift occurred in March, after Trump had teased a possible endorsement of either Cornyn or Paxton in the runoff.

Paxton swiftly said he would consider dropping his candidacy if the Republican-controlled Senate lifted the filibuster and passed the SAVE America Act, a series of voting restrictions that Trump has described as an essential part of his agenda.

The following week, Cornyn wrote an op-ed in the New York Post — Trump's favorite hometown newspaper — backing away from his previous support of the filibuster. He vowed to “support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary” to get the bill “through the Senate and on the president's desk for his signature.”

Flake watched with unease.

“I know John and his long-held positions on the filibuster and the Senate’s institutions,” he said. “No office is worth that.”

___

Bedayn reported from San Antonio. Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres ruled in February, after Timothy Hudson was initially arrested and charged as a juvenile, that the 16-year-old could live with an uncle and be electronically monitored. But after the case was transferred to adult court, prosecutors requested that Hudson be held in custody until the case's conclusion.

Hudson has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse. Minors are rarely prosecuted in federal court. Hudson’s federal public defenders have declined to comment on the charges.

Hudson's stepsister, Anna Kepner, had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November with her family, including Hudson. Before the ship was scheduled to return to Florida, her body was found concealed under a bed in a room she was sharing with Hudson and another teen, a criminal complaint said.

The cause of Kepner's Nov. 6 death was determined to be mechanical asphyxia, which is when an object or physical force stops someone from breathing.

Kepner's father, Christopher Kepner, previously released a statement, saying the family was placing “trust in the justice system to pursue the truth with care and integrity.”

“The situation is deeply painful and complex for the entire family,” Kepner said.

Anna Kepner was a high school cheerleader at Temple Christian School in Titusville, Florida, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of Orlando. At her memorial service in November, family members encouraged people to wear bright colors instead of the traditional black “in honor of Anna’s bright and beautiful soul.”

Trump endorsed Paxton last week, calling him a “true MAGA warrior." Paxton's victory in Tuesday’s runoff makes Cornyn — who was first elected to the Senate in 2002 — the first Republican senator from Texas to lose the party’s nomination for reelection.

Cheers rang through the ballroom at Paxton's election night party when the race was called, and he took the stage to supporters chanting his name. He quickly gave credit to Trump.

“When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me and abandon the people of Texas, he didn’t listen," Paxton said. "President Trump is the leader of our party, and his endorsement is the most powerful force in politics.”

Cornyn's loss followed primaries this month where Trump successfully backed challengers to Republican lawmakers who had displeased him in Louisiana, Kentucky and Indiana, a sign of his enduring influence among primary voters.

The candidates that Trump endorsed in those states are expected to easily win against Democratic opponents. However, the president’s decision to boost Paxton, who won Tuesday with a sliver of the Republican base who shrugged off his past scandals, may be a bigger gamble in the general election.

Democrats are hopeful that their nominee, state Rep. James Talarico, has a rare opportunity to win a statewide race in Texas — and help the party retake control of the Senate — with Paxton as his opponent.

Tuesday’s runoffs also decided Democratic U.S. House nominees for districts in Dallas and Houston that overwhelmingly support Democrats, and a San Antonio-area seat the party wants to flip.

‘I will be the Democrats’ No. 1 target'

In Austin on Tuesday night, Cornyn gave a short concession speech tinged with emotion to a room of only reporters.

“Tonight we’ve come up short,” Cornyn said, adding that he’d support Paxton in the general election. “I’ve always supported the Republican ticket, and I intend to do so again.”

Cornyn said in 2023 as Trump was running to return to the White House that his time “has passed him by," a statement that came back to bite him. He also was an early critic of Trump’s plan for a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico — a project he now supports.

Cornyn had the backing of Senate GOP leaders who said he would be the stronger general election candidate against Talarico, which was also the senator's argument to voters before Tuesday.

That's not lost on Paxton, who said in his speech that “without a shadow of a doubt, I will be the Democrats’ No. 1 target in November.”

Talarico's campaign hit back Tuesday night on the social platform X, highlighting what they — and some Republicans — see as Paxton's weakness, including an FBI investigation and impeachment for corruption in which he was later acquitted.

The primary was long and costly

Cornyn led Paxton in the March 3 primary but failed to win a majority. That was after Cornyn and his supporters waged a monthslong advertising campaign, mostly attacking Paxton over ethical and personal questions.

The two-term attorney general was acquitted on corruption charges in a 2023 impeachment trial, where allegations of extramarital affairs surfaced. Paxton’s wife filed for divorce last year, citing “biblical grounds.”

It gave Cornyn fodder for an ad campaign that, along with allied groups, spent roughly $109 million between the primary and runoff elections.

Immediately after the primary, Trump promised to endorse but didn’t act until after early voting began last week.

“Ken Paxton has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a fighter, and knows how to win,” Trump wrote in a social media post endorsing him.

Retired Dallas-area resident David Jacobson, 70, said Trump's endorsement was a factor in his decision to back Paxton on Tuesday. While Cornyn has for the most part been a strong Trump supporter, Jacobson generally thinks most politicians have remained in office too long.

“Maybe it’s time for a change,” he said after voting.

Linda Williams said she voted for Cornyn, calling him “the lesser of two evils.” She thought Cornyn had a better chance to beat Talarico this fall.

“Because Paxton is a crook," Williams said after voting in Plano, outside Dallas.

Trump snubbed Cornyn amid retribution campaign

Trump, in his endorsement, poked at Cornyn, saying he “was not supportive of me when times were tough” and that “John was very late in backing me.”

Cornyn said Tuesday on Fox News Radio's “The Brian Kilmeade Show” that the president's ire was misplaced. He said, “grifters” are "claiming that I am opposed to the president's agenda, and I think that’s caused some confusion with the president himself. But I’ve been supportive.”

Some GOP strategists have argued that a Paxton nomination would cost millions of dollars more to promote in the fall, when money could be spent defending Republican seats in more competitive states. Democrats need to gain a net of four seats to take the majority. Cornyn had the support of Senate GOP leaders.

Democrats choose US House nominees

Newly elected Rep. Christian Menefee defeated veteran Rep. Al Green in Texas' 18th District, dispatching a longtime House incumbent who was one of Trump's most outspoken critics. The Republican-led Texas Legislature redrew the district when it approved a new House map last year. The new map led to a runoff between incumbents and marks the end of a dizzying series of elections in the Houston area.

Former Rep. Colin Allred beat U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson in the Dallas-area 33rd District's Democratic primary runoff. Johnson was elected to the seat in 2024, the year Allred lost his U.S. Senate challenge to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred was running for Senate again this cycle but dropped his bid and instead sought a return to the House.

Near San Antonio, Johnny Garcia won the Democratic primary for Texas’ 35th District against against Maureen Galindo, a candidate who has expressed antisemitic views. While Texas lawmakers redrew the district to help Republicans, Democrats view it as within reach and didn't want Galindo's past comments to impede them.

Garcia will face Republican Carlos De La Cruz, who defeated John Lujan in the GOP primary.

___

This story has been corrected to show that voter David Jacobson is 70, not 71.

___

Bedayn reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press reporter Jamie Stengle contributed from Sasche, Texas.

The crisis that began Thursday had forced 50,000 people to evacuate in and around the Orange County city of Garden Grove. A crack that formed by chance on the tank relieved pressure and helped avert a catastrophic explosion, allowing most evacuees to return home over the Memorial Day weekend. Authorities announced they were lifting the final orders after the temperature on the tank remained stable for four hours without intervention from sprinklers.

“All residents will go home,” Orange County Fire Authority Division Chief Craig Covey said during a meeting that grew raucous at times as residents questioned why the chemical was allowed in a densely populated area and urged city officials to hold the company that operates the tank accountable.

The tank contains methyl methacrylate, which is highly flammable. Health officials have assured residents that no contamination or fumes were released, and that they will keep monitoring the air for several months and checking the sewer and storm drains. Exposure to the chemical can cause serious respiratory problems, neurological issues and irritation to the skin, eyes and throat, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The tank at GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems, which makes cockpit windows, canopies and windshields, contains 6,000 to 7,000 gallons (22,700 to 26,500 liters) of the chemical.

Separately, an implosion of a chemical tank Tuesday at a pulp and paper mill in Washington state killed one worker and left nine others accounted for, with authorities saying they were working on recovery efforts. Nine others were injured.

Residents call for accountability

Angry residents spoke at the city council meeting after the crisis interrupted Memorial Day plans, graduation ceremonies and daily life in central Orange County, which is made up of a cluster of cities including Garden Grove.

Karen Nguyen, a 29-year-old Garden Grove resident, said she will be able to go home now that the evacuation order is being lifted but is concerned about what the chemical might do to her three cats, which already have health issues. She told the city council she wants stricter regulations to ensure nothing like this happens again, and she doesn’t want to see these plants in her community.

“They’re not welcome in our neighborhood,” she said.

Bobbi-Lee Smart said she was evacuated from her home in nearby Anaheim but many of her neighbors were too poor to get out. She said this never should have happened as the company had a record of violations. She demanded the city take action.

“Please shut them down, please take care of our residents," she said.

Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein pledged to hold the company accountable.

In a statement earlier Tuesday, GKN said it was working closely with authorities.

“We apologize for the ongoing disruption this incident is causing, and our priority remains the safety of our neighbors and our community,” the statement said.

GKN agreed to pay state regulators more than $900,000 in 2025 to settle violations involving recordkeeping, permitting issues and nitrogen oxide emissions, according to a report on the South Coast Air Quality Management District website.

Authorities scrambled to minimize risk

Crews at the California plant had worked to ensure two nearby tanks were neutralized and would not be affected by the compromised tank, Orange County Fire Capt. Brian Yau said.

The tank overheated because a valve on the cooling system failed that kept it at 50 degrees, (10 degrees Celsius), Covey said.

Crews sprayed water on the tank until the interior temperature stabilized to 92 F (33.3 C), down from 100 F (37.7 C) over the weekend, the fire department said earlier Tuesday. A sprinkler system was used to douse the tank, and the company said its technical specialists and firefighters removed insulation from the tank to help cool it.

Officials will remain to continue monitoring, he said.

So far testing has found no contamination, officials said.

Orange County Health Director Regina Chinsio-Kwong tried to reassure people returning home over the holiday weekend, saying "you should feel comfortable going home even if you’re across the street from that new zone line.”

Isabel Mendez, 34, said she broke out in a rash on her face and had tingling lips and a sore throat while she was getting ready to leave after an evacuation order was issued Thursday. Her symptoms disappeared a few hours later, she said. She was among the last people allowed back to her home, which is a mobile home close to the site of the leak.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District will monitor the air for several months and the EPA will be checking sewer and storm drains for spills, Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen said.

The California crisis is reminiscent of a 2014 chemical spill in Charleston, West Virginia when storage tanks failed. The disaster inspired a new state law requiring more inspections and registrations of aboveground storage tanks.

___

This story has been updated to correct a quote’s attribution to Orange County Fire Authority Division Chief Craig Covey not TJ McGovern, an interim fire chief of the Orange County Fire Authority.

___

Weber reported from Los Angeles and Bellisle from Seattle. Associated Press journalists Leah Willingham in Boston; Jamie Stengle in Dallas; and Ethan Swope in Garden Grove, California, contributed to this report.

FORECAST HIGHLIGHTS

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FORECAST

TIMING OF STORMS LATER TODAY

• Storms are ongoing, capable of heavy rain and lightning. Watch live radar and coverage in the video above.
• Street flooding and power outages will be possible.
• Heavy rain will peak end around midnight, however, showers and storms could linger through sunrise Wednesday. Street flooding will be a concern and the Wednesday morning commute could be affected.

WEDNESDAY

It’ll be cooler and cloudier Wednesday, with only a small 30% chance of redevelopment in the afternoon.

REST OF THE WEEK

It’ll be warmer for the rest of the week, apart from an occasional isolated storm chance.

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Avery was live from The Rock at La Cantera, while John Paul was with fans at the Frost Bank Center.

Tipoff for Game 5 is set for 7:30 p.m. at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City. The series is tied 2-2 after the Spurs beat the Thunder 103-82 Sunday at the Frost Bank Center.

The winner of the Spurs-Thunder series will face the New York Knicks in the 2026 NBA Finals.

More Race For Seis coverage on KSAT:

• ‘We’ve got to fly them to OKC’: Kornet prays with nuns before Game 4 blowout win over Thunder
• Where to watch Spurs game tonight in San Antonio for free
• SCHEDULE: NBA sets TV broadcasts, tipoff times for Spurs-Thunder Western Conference Finals

It turned out to be a genius move.

McCain scored 20 points — 18 of them coming in the second half — and the host Thunder beat the San Antonio Spurs 127-114 in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals on Tuesday night, a victory that put the reigning NBA champions one win away from a return trip to the NBA Finals.

“We just thought he could give us some good stuff, just based on where we are right now with a couple guys out,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “He was really good. ... Great mental toughness. I never take it for granted when somebody steps into a role like that in a game like this, but certainly not surprised. He's got great moxie and confidence and he showed that tonight.”

Williams was downgraded to out by the Thunder for Game 5 about an hour before game time Tuesday. after being listed as questionable throughout the day because of his ongoing issues with a strained left hamstring.

Mitchell, who typically starts in Williams' place, was ruled out earlier by the Thunder with a strained right soleus.

And that created a moment for McCain — who delivered. He wasn't shy, either, with his 19 shot attempts in Game 5 tying Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for the most on the Thunder.

“Coming into this game, I just literally wanted to play as hard as I can on the offensive end and rebound and everything else will flow," McCain said after the game on NBA TV — where he disclosed that Daigneault hinted Monday that he'd be the starter, then confirmed it to him Tuesday. “Everything else comes together.”

McCain was making the first playoff start of his career. He averaged 8.8 points in 12 playoff games off the bench for the Thunder entering Tuesday.

It's unknown how long he'll remain in the starting five. Game 6 is Thursday in San Antonio, but his effort Tuesday certainly was one heck of an audition.

Williams returned for Game 1 of the West finals, scoring 26 points in 37 minutes in Oklahoma City’s 122-115 double-overtime loss. He had four points in seven first-quarter minutes in Game 2, including an alley-oop dunk with 2:12 left in the period, and hasn't played since.

Williams has now missed 58 of the Thunder’s 95 games this season, including playoffs. Of those absences, 19 were for a right wrist issue and the other 39 were related to his hamstrings — the right one costing him 30 games during the regular season, the left one now costing him nine during the playoffs.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA

Jared McCain — getting the call with Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell both sidelined — scored 20 in his first playoff start for the defending NBA champion Thunder, who lead the Western Conference finals 3-2.

Chet Holmgren had 16 points and 11 rebounds for the Thunder, while Isaiah Hartenstein had a 12-point, 15-rebound night in Oklahoma City.

The Thunder, who were held to 82 points in a Game 4 loss two days earlier, had 82 points on Tuesday before the third quarter was 3 1/2 minutes old.

“We obviously played a lot better, in terms of our process and then also the outcome,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “It's a playoff series. If you look at any playoff series that goes to six games, at least, there's going to be some tough games. We had a tough game the other night. This team does a great job of just coming back in the next day in a very neutral way, taking whatever the lessons are, applying them forward and getting into the next opportunity.”

Stephon Castle scored 24 points for San Antonio, which got 22 points from Julian Champagnie and 20 points from Victor Wembanyama — who was held to 4-of-15 shooting.

Keldon Johnson scored 15 off the bench for San Antonio, which missed 29 of its 41 3-point tries.

“It just felt like it was a little bit of everything in terms of we did not put ourselves in position enough to be successful on each possession,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “And so, to beat a team of this caliber, in their building, with the stakes, we'll need to be a lot better to give yourself a chance.”

Game 6 is Thursday in San Antonio. If there's a Game 7, it'll be back in Oklahoma City on Saturday — and while this series winds down, the New York Knicks are waiting to see who emerges.

The Knicks will visit either the Thunder or Spurs in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on June 3.

Oklahoma City scored 40 points in the second quarter to take control and kept the lead the rest of the way.

“We just played to who we were tonight,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.

It took nearly 10 minutes for the first free throws to be awarded. But when the parade to the foul line started, it didn't stop.

The teams combined to make 29 free throws in the second quarter alone, the most in the second quarter of any NBA game since the bubble playoffs nearly six years ago. It wasn't a one-sided thing — the Spurs were 15 for 17 in the quarter, the Thunder 14 for 14.

Oklahoma City went up by 20 in the third, before San Antonio closed within eight. The Spurs might have had some chances to cut even further into the deficit, but were fuming — and rightly so, it seemed — over some missed calls in the final minute of the quarter.

A tip-in try by San Antonio's Luke Kornet with about 56 seconds left was knocked off the rim by Oklahoma City's Cason Wallace and should have been goaltending. And on the next Spurs' possession, an out-of-bounds call that should have gone their way — replays showed the ball went out off of Holmgren — did not. Johnson tried to challenge the call, got ignored, then got a technical foul for arguing.

“They just said they didn't see me,” Johnson said.

After all that, Oklahoma City's lead was 101-91 going into the fourth. The Thunder kept a double-digit lead for all but 25 seconds of the final quarter — a huge turnaround from a 21-point loss in San Antonio on Sunday.

“We definitely got better from the last game,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

A temperature of 35.1 degrees Celsius (95.2 degrees Fahrenheit) was recorded at London's Kew Gardens, Britain's Met Office weather service said, breaking the 34.8 C (94.6 F) record set a day earlier at Kew. The provisional readings smashed the long-standing record of 32.8 C (91.4 F) set in 1922 and matched in 1944.

London also recorded a rare “tropical night,” defined as one in which the temperature does not fall below 20 C (68 F).

Records also fell in France, where temperatures reached 36 C (97 F) on Monday in the country's southwest and widely remained above 20 C at night.

The national weather service, Météo-France, said a “heat dome,” with heat held in place by a high-pressure weather front, was producing temperatures more than 10 degrees Celsius above what is usual for this time of year.

Unpredictable and extreme weather is becoming more frequent as Earth warms. Experts say unprecedented and deadly weather extremes that sometimes strike at abnormal times and in unusual places are putting more people in danger.

“We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that heat wave events such as this have been made more likely and more severe due to climate change arising from our emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases,” said Peter Thorne, director of the ICARUS Climate Research Centre, at Maynooth University, in Ireland.

“But, nevertheless, many of the records being set, particularly in the U.K. and France, are mind-bogglingly crazy,” he said.

After a long weekend that sent people in Britain flocking to beaches, pools and shady parks, London commuters sweltered on Tuesday in subway carriages without air conditioning. Trains to and from the busy Waterloo station were disrupted by a report of smoke on the tracks.

In Scotland, firefighters worked through the night to douse a grass fire that sent smoke billowing from Arthur’s Seat, the rocky hill that looms over Edinburgh.

The U.K. Health Security Agency issued an amber health alert for large parts of the country through Thursday, warning of a potential health risk, particularly among older people, at the hottest times of the day. The U.K. is used to moderate temperatures and many homes, schools and businesses do not have air conditioning.

At least four teenagers died in apparent drownings in U.K. lakes and reservoirs, and a 60-year-old man died in the sea in southwest England, authorities said.

French government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said there have been reports of at least seven deaths potentially related to high temperatures, including five drownings and two deaths in sports competitions.

The early heat wave has struck before the annual summer window when lifeguards watch over bathers at popular beaches, increasing risks.

On France’s Atlantic seaboard, where magnificent beaches have powerful riptides, officials reported a rash of emergencies in the surf, with two drowning deaths on Sunday at popular resorts in the Gironde region in the southwest.

The top regional administrator, Sophie Brocas, urged beachgoers “to exercise the utmost caution.”

The unseasonable heat extended to Spain, where weather service spokesperson Rubén del Campo said: “We find ourselves with temperatures we normally see in the middle of the summer now in the month of May.”

He said Seville hit 38 C (100 F) over the weekend, while large parts of the Iberian Peninsula saw temperatures 5 to 10 degrees Celsius higher than normal.

And in Rome, temperatures were expected to reach 32 C (89.6 F) on Tuesday.

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Associated Press writers John Leicester in Paris and Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain, contributed to this report.

Goodwin defeated Marcos Vélez and in November will face Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the popular GOP leader who is sitting on more than $30 million in his campaign coffers and won his own primary in March by the widest margin since he became the state’s second-highest executive 11 years ago.

“Tonight, Texans chose a politics rooted in decency, dignity, and the belief that our state belongs to all of us,” Goodwin said. “Now, we keep going, for public schools, affordable housing, accessible healthcare, clean water, and a Texas that is kinder, safer, and more hopeful.”

Goodwin and Vélez advanced to the runoff after neither secured more than 50% of the vote during the March primary. 

On the campaign trail, Goodwin pitched herself to voters as a public schools advocate who will also fight for affordability, healthcare access and water infrastructure. Vélez, meanwhile, cast himself as a blue collar union leader who has a finger on the pulse of a working class that wants a lieutenant governor focused on affordability.

Goodwin will face an uphill battle to unseat Patrick, a close ally of President Donald Trump who has steadily pushed the Texas Senate, which he presides over, ever to the right. Most of the job’s authorities are derived from the rules passed by senators at the beginning of each legislative session. 

Should Goodwin oust Patrick, the Legislature’s upper chamber would likely still be controlled by a GOP majority that would likely overhaul the position’s responsibilities and powers — shaking up power dynamics in Austin. 

Goodwin and Vélez clashed several times but perhaps most notably about Vélez’s indirect support from Texas Majority PAC, the Texas Democratic Party’s campaign arm that does not get involved in primaries as a general rule. The group is funded by George Soros.  

TMP appeared to give the steelworkers union leader more than $500,000 by donating to a PAC called Houstonians for Working Families that then contributed to Vélez via direct donations as well as a launch video that cost $25,000. TMP’s executive director, Katherine Fischer, also contributed $500, according to the most recent campaign finance reports filed with the state ahead of Tuesday’s election. 

TMP also gave $400,000 to a group called Relentless PAC, which a day later gave a $388,000 in-kind contribution to Vélez.

Goodwin knocked the group, roasting it for supporting Vélez, who in an interview with The Houston Chronicle editorial board could not name his state representative when asked by Goodwin. 

Still, a week out from election day, Goodwin outgunned Vélez financially — reporting $145,994 cash on hand to his $81,589.

The livestream took place at 7:30 p.m. on KSAT Plus and YouTube, leading up to the Nightbeat on KSAT 12 and streaming on KSAT Plus.

Arthur, Zuniga and our team of KSAT 12 reporters will bring you the latest from watch parties across the state, as well as analysis from the ‘Power Panel’ of experts.

Panelists for the livestream include:

• Demonte Alexander, CEO of Citizens Reach and a military veteran
• Kevin Wolff, former Bexar County Precinct 3 commissioner

More Vote 2026 coverage on KSAT:

• What to know about voting early in the 2026 Texas primary runoff election in Bexar County
• Texas primary runoff: Key races on the May 26 ballot
• Election Day guide: Polling locations, races and voting rules in Bexar County

Paxton was endorsed by President Donald Trump last week, and his victory showcased the president’s power over his party as he seeks to punish Republicans he sees as insufficiently loyal.

Paxton will run against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in November.

Democrats also voted to choose U.S. House nominees on Tuesday at the polls.

Here is the Latest:

House Majority PAC congratulates Garcia’s win over candidate condemned for antisemitic remarks

“Mike Johnson and Republican leadership wasted millions of dollars supporting an avowed antisemite, and failed,” House Majority PAC spokesperson Katarina Flicker said in a statement. “HMP is proud to support Johnny Garcia, and we look forward to seeing the GOP dummymander backfire in November.”

A super PAC that backed Galindo, Lead Left, was accused by Democrats of being funded by Republicans.

Galindo has made several remarks that were condemned by national Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as antisemitic and unwelcome in the party.

Allred is getting his old House seat back

Allred left the House to run for U.S. Senate in 2024, when he lost a challenge to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz.

He was running for Senate again this cycle but dropped his bid on the same day Rep. Jasmine Crockett announced she was running.

He then said he would run again for the House. He defeated Rep. Julie Johnson, who had replaced him in Washington.

Trump celebrates Paxton’s win and touts his endorsement

The president posted a graphic depicting himself and Paxton on his social media platform, Truth Social, with the words “Ken Paxton wins! Endorsed by President Trump!”

Trump’s picks dominated their runoff elections. Each Trump-backed congressional candidate won their runoff with double-digit margins, continuing Trump’s winning streak with his endorsements.

Republicans’ Senate campaign arm attacks Talarico without mentioning GOP runoff candidates

“A state President Trump won by nearly 14 points isn’t going to elect James Talarico — a radical leftist who thinks God is nonbinary and that Texas should be a welcome mat for illegals,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Samantha Cantrell in a statement.

“He is the most dangerous flank of the far left. Texas isn’t swapping brisket for open borders,” she added.

Cornyn is a former chair of the NRSC. He was endorsed by Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Sen. Tim Scott, the current NRSC chair.

Johnny Garcia wins the Democratic primary for Texas’ 35th US House District

National Democrats stepped in to help Garcia win House nomination as the party was seeking to defeat Garcia’s rival, Maureen Galindo, who has repeatedly expressed antisemitic views.

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called her comments “disgusting” and said it shouldn’t be near “our politics.” Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Suzan DelBene also weighed in.

Republicans redrew the 35th District to help the GOP win more House seats, but Democrats think they may have a chance to flip it. They worried that if Galindo won, her past comments would hurt the party.

Cruz congratulates both Paxton and Cornyn after divisive Senate runoff contest

Texas’ junior U.S. senator said Paxton “has my full support and endorsement as the Republican nominee” in a social media post. He called Paxton a “fearless conservative who spent years taking on Texas’s toughest battles as attorney general” and said he expected Paxton to prevail in the general election.

“I look forward to fighting alongside him,” Cruz wrote.

Cruz then he went on to commend Cornyn’s years of service.

“I also want to congratulate and thank my friend Senator John Cornyn for his many years of dedicated service to Texas and our country. It has been an honor to serve alongside him for over a decade.”

He then called on Texans to oppose Talarico’s Senate race, arguing the Texas Democrat “is radical, dangerous, and does not represent the values, ideas, or principles of the Lone Star State. Defeating him is critical.”

Paxton supporter: His ‘warts’ will not be an issue

Rick Swarts, a Paxton supporter who drove from his home in Austin to see the candidate, isn’t worried that the ethical and personal questions the attorney general faces will do any damage to him in the general election.

“James Talarico is such a weak candidate, any warts Paxton has will not be an issue,” Swarts said outside the ballroom where Paxton’s supporters were celebrating. “He always lands on his feet. Like Trump.”

Swarts said Talarico is so out-of-step with mainstream voters, “Beto O’Rourke is going to look like a hardcore conservative when it’s all over.” O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman, ran a competitive Senate race against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018.

Paxton ends his speech

The victor finished his remarks much like they began.

“Thank you for making history,” he said, before wading into the crowd to shake hands and greet supporters.

Paxton attacks Talarico as a ‘radical’ and urges Republicans to unify ahead of general election

“This campaign is not about red versus blue. It’s about so much more. My opponent is the most extreme radical the Democrats have ever nominated,” Paxton told the crowd.

“The reality is James Talarico is going to be nothing more than a Texas-faced puppet for Chuck Schumer and the national Democrats,” Paxton warned.

Paxton also predicted Talarico is “going to raise more money than any Democrat in America” and urged his followers to donate to his campaign.

“If Republicans lose this state, we lose the country,” Paxton warned.

Paxton takes the stage

“Tonight we just made history,” he told cheering supporters.

The state attorney general paid tribute to Trump for his endorsement despite the objections of Senate Republican leaders.

“When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me and abandon the people of Texas, he didn’t listen,” Paxton said. “Instead he gave his complete and total endorsement. President Trump is the leader of our party and his endorsement is the most powerful force in politics.”

Paxton draws Trump comparisons at victory party

Aidan Shull, in a cowboy hat and jeans, called Paxton “a really good change of pace.”

The 21-year-old Paxton supporter was attending the candidate’s watch party-turned celebration with his fiancee, Brooke Peters.

“He’s not new but he feels new. It’s very similar to Trump 2016,” he said. “He’s giving us hope for change at a time when we really need it in Washington.”

Peters credited Paxton for his long list of lawsuits as attorney general as proof he cares about people.

“He’s very strong-headed. We’ve seen what he’s done, and he’s gone after people,” the 19-year-old said. “And he’s going to keep doing that for Texas.”

Talarico wastes no time launching attacks on Paxton as ‘corrupt’

Within minutes of Paxton being declared the winner of the Republican primary runoff for U.S. Senate, the Democrat called him “the most corrupt politician in America” in a social media post.

“He embodies the broken system we’re running against,” Talarico wrote on X. In another post, he invited Cornyn’s supporters to vote for him.

“You have a place in our campaign,” Talarico wrote.

Cornyn says he ‘kept the faith’

“Serving others is a high purpose. And while much about politics is ugly, we choose to serve through the good, the bad and the ugly,” Cornyn said of his time in office.

He cited a speech from President Teddy Roosevelt about “fighting in the arena” and a verse from the New Testament that reads: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

Cornyn says he’ll support Paxton in the general election

“Tonight we’ve come up short,” Cornyn said to the gathered reporters. “A few years ago, I had a friend of mine say, ‘You know what makes God laugh?’ he said, ‘When we make plans.’”

Cornyn thanked his campaign staff and family, and said he’s spent his career building the Republican Party in Texas and the U.S. Senate.

“I’ve always supported the Republican ticket,” he said, “and I intend to do so again.”

Club for Growth backs Paxton and attacks Talarico

The conservative organization endorsed the Texas attorney general on Tuesday night and released an advertisement arguing that Talarico is out of step with Texan culture.

“Texas is a conservative state and deserves a real conservative in the Senate. Ken Paxton has consistently stood up against Democrats and the establishment in Austin to defend the rule of law and freedoms for every Texan,” said a statement from Club for Growth PAC President David McIntosh. He argued Talarico “has spent his career promoting woke gender ideology, fighting against meat consumption, and opposing the values Texans cherish.”

The ad includes multiple videos of Talarico’s past comments on faith, activism and gender, including one clip where the state representative said he sounded “like a crazy person” and another where he said that people should “try to reduce our meat consumption” to fight climate change.

Cornyn’s unusual watch party goes quiet as race is called

The room was full of journalists and no supporters, so as the race call that Paxton won went out, the only sounds were fingers tapping at keyboards and television reporters shuffling in front of cameras to prepare to go live.

Then the murmur of those reports filled out the silence. Cornyn is expected to speak shortly.

Paxton’s supporters celebrate

Cheers rang through the ballroom as Van Halen’s “Jump” throbs through Paxton’s election night party, while the stage filled with people holding the candidate’s campaign signs.

Paxton wins Republican Senate primary runoff

The win also marks another victory for Trump, who endorsed Paxton as part of his effort to dislodge GOP officeholders he views as less than devout in their support of him.

Cornyn is now the first Republican senator from Texas to lose the party’s nomination for reelection.

Paxton will face Talarico in November. It’s the matchup that Democrats wanted, and some in the GOP are nervous about how much it will cost to try to keep the seat in Republican hands.

Cheers at Paxton event when Texas comes on screen

A cheer erupted among the roughly 50 supporters of the Texas attorney general in the Plano hotel ballroom when the large TV screen flashed to CNN’s coverage of the Republican Texas Senate runoff.

The crowd is awaiting returns for their candidate in his challenge of four-term Republican Sen. John Cornyn, snacking on tacos and drinking beer.

The mood is festive and upbeat, as Paxton staff have projected optimism, especially in light of Trump’s endorsement of Paxton a week ago.

Cowboy hats and boots, on women and men, are common, as are suits and cocktail dresses in the Dallas-Plano Marriott at Legacy Town Center in the upscale shopping and dining area near Dallas where Paxton is expected to speak later.

Cornyn’s watch party isn’t typical

That’s because it’s almost exclusively journalists packed in an austere hotel meeting room in downtown Austin. There aren’t crowds of excited supporters or the pomp of champagne glasses and white tablecloths. A few small campaign signs are stuck to the walls, and a lone podium is backdropped by a screen emblazoned with the candidate’s name.

The senator is expected to enter the room to speak once the race is called. Otherwise, reporters are milling around chairs, going live on their television channels and reloading the voting results online.

Most polls are closed

Most of Texas is in the Central time zone, where polls closed at 7 p.m. local time, or 8 p.m. ET.

A far western part of the state is in the Mountain time zone, so polls there will close an hour later, at 9 p.m. ET.

Angela Paxton doesn’t endorse in Texas Senate race

The Texas state senator posted several endorsements on social media for the Republican primary runoff. But there was no mention of the U.S. Senate campaign between her husband, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.

Angela Paxton was a key fixture in Ken Paxton’s previous campaigns. She stood by him throughout his Texas Senate impeachment trial in 2023 and allegations of an extramarital affair. But she’s now seeking a divorce and has cited “biblical grounds” among her reasons for the split.

Angela Paxton urged Republicans to vote in several statewide offices, including the one her husband is leaving behind.

Democrat votes for Paxton to boost Talarico’s chances

Jessica Shaw, 46, who swung out of a polling place in a brightly colored dress in the hot Austin sun, had a strategy in mind.

“I voted for Ken Paxton because I think he is most likely to lose against Talarico,” she said, because Paxton is “such a morally bankrupt person” that he’ll turn general election voters away.

It’s an argument that Cornyn has made frequently on the campaign trail, saying he’s the better contender to face Talarico. In this case, a registered Democrat agreed.

“If this strategy doesn’t work and (Paxton) wins” in the general election, said Shaw, who then raised her hands in a shrug. “Something needs to change, or I think people will move out of Texas.”

Shaw gave a parting message before loading into her Volvo: “Vote against Trump at all costs!”

Cornyn voter: Trump’s endorsement 'doesn’t have any effect'

Debbie Burdeaux strode out of the Haggard Library in Plano sporting a fresh “I voted” sticker. Her choice in the Texas Republican Senate runoff? John Cornyn.

“Because he’s done a good job for this state, and I am not a fan of Paxton,” she said.

Trump endorsed the four-term incumbent senator's opponent, Paxton, last week.

“I don’t have a problem with Trump,” she said. “But he doesn’t have any effect on my vote.”

Burdeaux, a 69-year-old retired substitute teacher and geologist, expressed what others who have voted for Cornyn have said in this precinct: a strong distaste for Paxton.

Some Republicans have said Paxton's previous scandals could discourage GOP voters from backing him in November.

“He is a disgrace,” Burdeaux said. “I want nothing to do with him.”

Trump’s endorsement is enough for this Paxton voter

Paul Olson was quick to say why he voted for Paxton: “He’s conservative and backed by Trump.”

The 72-year-old retired finance executive elaborated a little, saying, “I just think he represents more of what middle-class America needs.”

Olson said he was perturbed that Cornyn, the incumbent, had been airing ads projecting himself as a Trump devotee despite Trump’s endorsement of Paxton.

“He claims he’s got Trump’s backing, and he most certainly doesn’t,” he said.

Olson was among a steady stream of voters arriving over the noon hour at the Haggard Library in Plano.

Confident in his choice, Olson still expressed some worry that some conservatives might be less inclined to vote in November if costs for daily expenses, most notably fuel, remain elevated.

“If they end this war soon, then good. Energy drives the cost of everything, and prices will settle,” he said. “But they have to end this war quickly.”

‘He’s just a toady for Trump’

Lee Rodriguez, a 76-year-old registered independent, said he planned to vote for Cornyn outside a polling place in Austin, Texas, mainly because he is a “stable person; he’s willing to reach across the aisle.”

To Rodriguez, that’s in stark contrast to Paxton, who “is too corrupt” and an “extremist,” he said, echoing Cornyn’s talking points about past Paxton scandals, including allegations of an affair.

Trump’s endorsement of Paxton reaffirmed his fears that “he’s just a toady for Trump,” said Rodriguez, who did not vote for Trump in 2024.

Cornyn ‘definitely the lesser of two evils’

Linda Williams walked into the steamy, sundrenched parking lot outside of Haggard Library in Plano, outside of Dallas, on Tuesday around noon.

“Paxton is a no-go!” she said of the state attorney general, but was little more enthused about Cornyn, for whom she voted and who is fighting for his political future in the Republican Senate runoff.

“It was definitely the lesser of two evils,” the 73-year-old, retired administrative support staffer from Plano said.

“Cornyn has not been the check on Trump we need. He used to be more respectable,” Williams said. “But the way he has coddled Trump and bragged about voting with him? It’s an embarrassment.”

It was all out of Williams’ sense of pragmatism.

“At least he’ll have a better chance against Talarico,” she said with reference to the Democratic nominee, state Rep. James Talarico.

“Because Paxton is a crook.”

Trump is wrapping up a month of reshaping the GOP

This has been a big month for Republican primaries and Trump’s influence over his party.

On May 5, he successfully campaigned against five out of seven Indiana state senators who rejected his redistricting plan there.

On May 16, he helped dislodge Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who voted to convict Trump in the Jan. 6 impeachment trial five years ago. Cassidy finished third in the primary, failing to make the runoff, while Trump’s choice, Rep. Julia Letlow, finished first.

On May 19, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost his primary to Ed Gallrein, who Trump endorsed. Massie had frustrated the president by voting against his signature tax legislation and pushing to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.

If Paxton wins, it would be a dramatic punctation mark on the month.

Paxton’s supporters brush off years of scandals

The attorney general has faced an impeachment effort and criminal investigations, but his supporters say they’re not concerned.

“He’s had his flaws, but so have we; we all make mistakes,” said Daniel Vega, 18, adding, “He’s repented; let’s move on.”

Others said they appreciated his aggressive conservative politics.

“He’s a fighter. He’s a person of action. He’s proven that as attorney general,” said Jeffrey Sonnier, 72.

Cornyn and his allies have dumped money into the race

Throughout the campaign, Cornyn has had the cash advantage. The senator and his allies have spent roughly $90 million in advertising, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

That includes more than $20 million since the March 3 primary.

Paxton is supported by a single super PAC, and combined they’ve spent about $10.5 million on advertising. Roughly $6.1 million has been spent since March 3.

KSAT anchors Myra Arthur and Ernie Zuniga will be live on election night Tuesday, covering key primary runoff races. The livestream will take place at 7:30 p.m. on KSAT Plus and YouTube.

When District 125 State Representative Ray Lopez announced his retirement in 2025, a half dozen candidates filed to run for his seat in 2026: four Democrats and two Republicans.

Public school teacher and advocate Adrian Reyna defeated former Bexar County Constable Michelle Barrientes Vela, according to the Texas Election Results, during the May 26 runoff election to face up against Republican Ricardo “Rick” Martinez in November.

In State Senate District 19, Republicans Marcus Cardenas (44%) and Robert Marks Jr. (32%) will face off one more time for the opportunity to take on incumbent Democrat Roland Gutierrez in November.

Cardenas, a San Antonio small business owner, has never run for public office. Marks ran for the Schertz City Council in 2024. According to his campaign website, he is retired.

Election day is May 26. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Get more election results on our homepage and Vote 2026 page. Be the first to know by downloading our newsreader app or signing up for breaking news email alerts.

Find election results on the Vote 2026 page.

The Democrats were forced into an unusual race between predecessor and successor after Republicans redrew Texas’ district map to boost GOP chances to maintain congressional control. 

The 32nd District, which Johnson currently represents and Allred previously represented, is now solidly Republican, pushing Johnson into the left-leaning 33rd District that Kamala Harris would have won by more than 30 points — had its boundaries existed in 2024.

District 33 contains about a third of the residents from the candidates’ former congressional district and is currently represented by Rep. Marc Veasey, who decided not to seek reelection. 

Allred, a civil rights lawyer and former professional football player, first served in Congress from 2019 to 2025 after unseating 11-term Republican Pete Sessions. He left his seat to run for Senate against Ted Cruz and lost decisively in the 2024 midterms. 

In July 2025, Allred launched another bid for Senate, but dropped out and pivoted to a congressional run after the September entry of state Rep. James Talarico and an unexpected bid from Rep. Jasmine Crockett. He said his change, which came on the last day for candidates to file, was to avoid a Democratic runoff and maximize their chances of winning in November. 

He finished ahead of Johnson in the March 3 primary by about 11 points. The nearly three months leading up to the runoff grew prickly between the two candidates, who each found campaign fodder in the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. 

Allred blasted Johnson’s previous investments in Palantir, a technology company that has worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Johnson criticized Allred’s congressional voting record, which included support for immigration-related bills where he broke from his party, including one denouncing the Biden administration’s handling of the border. 

Allred has called to abolish ICE amid the Trump administration’s mass deportations and immigration crackdown, shifting its responsibilities to other federal agencies like the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency and Customs and Border Protection. 

He was also the only Democrat in Texas who was supported by an AI super PAC. Jobs and Democracy PAC, which focuses on AI regulation, spent almost $400,000 on his behalf. One of Allred’s priorities is export controls on computer chips and semiconductor technology to increase AI innovation. 

The candidates split support from big-name Democrats. Rep. Jasmine Crockett endorsed Allred at the end of April, while Johnson was backed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Allred will face Patrick Gillespie, who defeated John Sims in the Republican runoff, in November in the left-leaning district.

In a letter sent to more than 250 companies, members of the Black Caucus urge them to condemn the redistricting efforts, which the lawmakers describe as “coordinated efforts to silence Black voices at the ballot box.” Some of the companies had cosigned their own message to Congress five years ago urging lawmakers to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a Democratic proposal to restore and update the Voting Rights Act.

That 2021 coalition, Business for Voting Rights, was backed by many of the country’s most valuable and influential companies, including Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Tesla, Salesforce, Target, PayPal, Intel and Starbucks.

Tuesday's letter is the latest effort by the Congressional Black Caucus and its allies to gather support for preventing more Republican-led states from redrawing their legislative maps in ways that would dilute Black political representation. Several states have moved to eliminate congressional districts represented by Black Democratic lawmakers after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month that severely weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

“Corporations that have profited from Black consumers, relied on Black workers, and amassed wealth in part from Black communities cannot look away while Black political power is dismantled in plain sight,” Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Black Caucus, said in an interview.

Clarke described the letter as “putting corporate America on notice,” but she said the caucus was not seeking an adversarial relationship with corporations. Among those receiving Tuesday's letter were companies based overseas that have a significant presence in the U.S.

The caucus last week called for Black athletes to boycott public universities in states that are gerrymandering their congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers. The 59-member Congressional Black Caucus consists entirely of Democrats, including more than a third from Southern states.

Some lawmakers have said mass protests and federal legislation might be necessary to undo the efforts underway in Republican-led states. Any new federal voting rights law would almost certainly require Democrats to secure majorities in both chambers of Congress and win the presidency.

It is unclear how companies will respond to the demands. One firm, the outdoor clothing company Patagonia, said that it had received the caucus' letter and endorsed its message.

“A healthy business depends on a healthy democracy,” said Corley Kenna, an executive at Patagonia. “Patagonia stands with those who work to increase representation and defend free and fair elections.”

The Associated Press reached out for comment to dozens of companies that were sent a letter by the caucus, but did not receive a response from most firms. Microsoft declined to comment.

“Many companies that previously issued statements after the murder of George Floyd, pledged billions toward racial equity initiatives, and spoke forcefully in defense of democracy following January 6 now face a defining test of whether those commitments were rooted in principle or convenience,” the caucus' letter states.

It also represents the latest instance of the caucus expressing frustrations with corporate America. A 2024 Black Caucus report noted that lawmakers were “troubled that some corporations that made pledges in 2020 have taken several steps in the opposite direction,” such as rolling back or failing to follow through on pledges to diversify their workforces.

“We understand who the occupant in the White House is and the reality of Republicans being in charge,” Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada said of the caucus’ message. “But what corporate America also understands is that there will be a shift at some point.”

The letter calls on companies to publicly condemn the redistricting plans, meet with Black Caucus members to discuss corporate America's role in protecting voting rights and disclose their political donations to Republican politicians in states that are redistricting their congressional maps.

President Donald Trump last year kicked off the unusual mid-decade round of congressional redistricting when he pushed Texas lawmakers to redraw their maps in a way that would add Republican seats. Democratic-led California responded, but it has been mostly Republican states redrawing their lines since as the party tries to maintain its majority in the U.S. House during this year's midterm elections.

The effort was supercharged by the Supreme Court decision, which allowed even more Republican states to redraw congressional maps that previously had protected minority communities.

Horsford, who chaired the Black Caucus during President Joe Biden's Democratic administration, said the caucus is demanding that companies “stand on the side of democracy, fairness and equal representation.”

“This is about power, who holds it and what it’s used for,” he said. “And when you’re diluting Black economic and political power, we need to know where these companies stand in this moment, and what side of history they’re on.”

Garcia will face Republican Carlos De La Cruz, who won his party’s runoff, in the November general election. De La Cruz, brother of Rep. Monica De La Cruz, defeated state Rep. John Lujan.

Galindo, who finished first in the primary, called for an ICE detention center to be turned into a prison for American Zionists and said Jews run Hollywood and worship the “synagogue of Satan.” Democrats, including Texas Reps. Al Green, Greg Casar and Texas Senate Democratic nominee James Talarico, all condemned Galindo’s comments, and Republicans blasted the party for antisemitism. 

Lead Left PAC, a pop-up group formed in early May that hasn’t had to disclose its donors, spent nearly $1 million on Galindo to create TV ads and mailers. Its website metadata initially linked to Republican donation platform WinRed, Punchbowl News reported, causing Democrats to denounce it as GOP meddling. 

In an ad, Garcia called Galindo “MAGA’s favorite,” saying her comments would make her the easiest Democrat to beat. Galindo has repeatedly blasted Garcia for his position as a cop and taking money from pro-Israel groups. 

Galindo said in an Instagram post on May 21 that she never said she wants people in internment camps. However, she doubled down on her comment about the ICE facility, saying she wants it turned into a “prison for the billionaire Zionists who have profited off genocidal prison state materials and trafficking.

Texas’ 35th District is one of several targeted by Texas Republicans last year to increase GOP congressional representation. Its current representative, Casar, was drawn out of the seat, paving the way for four Democrats and 11 Republicans to run in the March primary election. 

The new district boundaries contain less than 10% of its former constituency and now cover parts of San Antonio and outlying eastern areas in Bexar, Guadalupe, Wilson and Karnes counties. 

If the updated lines had existed in 2024, the district would have gone to Donald Trump by about 10 points, though the nonpartisan Cook Political Report gives congressional Republicans a four-point advantage. Still, Democrats have set their sights on overcoming the GOP gerrymander that created the Hispanic-majority district, believing they can capitalize on a leftward shift of Hispanic voters since Trump took office.

Throughout his campaign, Garcia pitched himself as an “old-school, law-and-order” Democrat that he argued was necessary to beat a Republican challenger. Some of his priorities include increasing federal grant funding for local law enforcement, ending Trump’s tariffs and preventing members of Congress from stock trading.  

He was backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who put him on their “2026 Red to Blue” list, the centrist Democratic caucus Blue Dog Coalition and Democratic Majority for Israel PAC, a group that backs pro-Israel Democrats. 

In a news release, Blue Dog Action congratulated Garcia on his victory and said he “will keep this seat blue in November.” 

De La Cruz, a retired Air Force veteran who finished behind Lujan in the primary, was bolstered by Trump’s endorsement ahead of the primary and was fundraised by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. AI and cryptocurrency super PACs also poured a combined more than $2 million into pro-De La Cruz spending. 

De La Cruz’s win against Lujan is also notable because Lujan was one of the Republicans in the Texas Legislature who carved out the district at the president’s request. Part of Lujan’s current constituency overlaps with the new congressional boundaries.

Some of De La Cruz’s priorities include strengthening border security, AI innovation and rolling back clean energy regulations to make costs more affordable for consumers.

Johnny Garcia defeated Maureen Galindo in the Democratic Texas Congressional District 35 runoff election, the Associated Press projects. The race was called by AP at 9:35 p.m. Tuesday.

Carlos De La Cruz secured the Republican Texas Congressional District 35 nomination over John Lujan, the AP projects. The race was called by AP at 9:40 p.m. Tuesday.

According to the Associated Press, roughly two-thirds of all votes have been counted in this race.

Find more election coverage on the Vote 2026 page.

KSAT anchors Myra Arthur and Ernie Zuniga will be live on election night Tuesday, covering key primary runoff races. The livestream will take place at 7:30 p.m. on KSAT Plus and YouTube.

A new-look U.S. congressional district will have a new face representing it by the start of next year.

The state’s 35th congressional district formerly encompassed portions of San Antonio’s West Side, East Side and downtown areas as well as parts of four counties along Interstate 35 — Caldwell, Comal, Hays and Travis.

After it was redrawn by state lawmakers last year, the new 35th congressional district now occupies south, east and northeast Bexar County in addition to Guadalupe, Karnes and Wilson counties.

As a result of the changes, Rep. Greg Casar, who currently holds the seat in District 35, announced a run for the redrawn Austin-centric 37th Congressional District after Rep. Lloyd Doggett announced his retirement. On March 3, Casar (80.75% of the vote) won the Democratic primary against Esther Fleharty (19.25%).

With Casar vying for a Central Texas seat, 15 Democratic and Republican hopefuls announced their candidacies for the March primary. Only two candidates remain in each party’s May runoff.

Republican primary runoff

Current state Rep. John Lujan (33%) was the top vote-getter in the March 3 Republican primary.

Lujan represents Texas House District 118, which also occupies similar areas of Bexar County as the new District 35. He turned Texas House District 118, a historically blue district, red in a 2021 special election.

Lujan held on to the seat during the 2022 midterms and again during the 2024 general election. He also earned the endorsement of Governor Greg Abbott.

Air Force veteran Carlos De La Cruz did not finish far behind Lujan in second place (26.81% of the vote). According to his campaign website, De La Cruz said he was inspired to serve in the Air Force following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

De La Cruz also secured his own high-profile endorsement ahead of the March primary: President Donald Trump. He is also the brother of current Rep. Monica De La Cruz, who ran unopposed in U.S. Congressional District 15’s Republican primary.

Democratic primary runoff

New blood is set to take center stage in the Democratic runoff after a tight race in March.

All four candidates on the ballot earned at least 20% of the vote. However, Maureen Galindo (29.2%) and Johnny C. Garcia (27.1%) stood above the fray.

Galindo is running for office for the second time in as many years. In 2025, Galindo was a candidate for the District 1 council member seat in San Antonio eventually won by Sukh Kaur. Galindo garnered 3% of the vote in that race.

Garcia announced his candidacy last October for the congressional seat after an extensive career in law enforcement. He spent the last seven years as a spokesperson for the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office.

In recent weeks, Galindo and Garcia have been locked in a public fight over alleged antisemitism and who would best represent Jewish voters.

Garcia has since secured endorsements, including from Houston-area Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico.

Get more election results on our homepage and Vote 2026 page. Be the first to know by downloading our newsreader app or signing up for breaking news email alerts.

Find election results on the Vote 2026 page.

The 37-year-old Kimbrel came on in the eighth inning of the Rays' 6-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles. He struck out Leody Taveras and Jeremiah Jackson before giving up a single on a soft grounder by Colton Cowser. Kimbrel then retired Blaze Alexander on a groundout.

The Rays placed right-hander Jesse Scholtens on the 15-day injured list with a right wrist strain to make room for Kimbrel on the active roster.

The New York Mets designated Kimbrel for assignment last Friday after the nine-time All-Star allowed 10 runs over 15 innings in 14 appearances. He signed a free agent contract with the team in January.

Kimbrel has 440 saves with 10 teams in his 17-year career. He won a World Series with Boston in 2018 and was the 2011 NL Rookie of the Year.

The Rays have the AL's best record at 34-18, but their bullpen's ERA of 4.40 entering Tuesday night ranked 21st in the majors.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

The Associated Press called the race for Paxton shortly after 8 p.m., about an hour after most polls closed in Texas.

Paxton’s win, coming on the heels of an eleventh-hour endorsement from President Donald Trump, will reverberate nationally. The result is a triumph for Paxton and his wing of the GOP, which prioritizes politicians’ zeal for destroying the left over traditional values like statesmanship and dealmaking.  And it’s a massive blow to the Republican old guard in Texas and the political establishment in Washington, who were firmly behind Cornyn amid concerns about Paxton’s electability in November. 

The outcome sets up a general election matchup between Paxton and Austin state Rep. James Talarico. Democrats have made no secret of their preference for Paxton, who they believe can be beaten due to the baggage he carries from a line of political and personal scandals. Paxton has run and won three times statewide, but Talarico will be by far his best-funded and most prominent opponent, and the first he will face running atop the ticket.

The attorney general received Trump’s backing a week before election day, providing him with a significant boost after both candidates spent a year lobbying for it. Paxton’s victory further demonstrates Trump’s iron grip on his party and the consequences Republicans can face for even mild criticism of a president who demands loyalty. And it sends a chilling message to the Republican establishment, which has now lost one of its most powerful senators and best fundraisers.

In a cycle that has already seen notable incumbents in both parties go down nationally, Cornyn’s loss is a political earthquake.

Cornyn has been an elected official for over 40 years, rising from district judge to Texas Supreme Court justice to Texas attorney general to the U.S. Senate. His election as attorney general put the office under GOP control for the first time since Reconstruction, setting the agency on its path to becoming a laboratory of right-wing legal activism. 

First elected to the Senate in 2002, Cornyn ascended the GOP ranks, serving as Senate Republican whip — the number two position in the conference — from 2013 to 2019. 

The senior senator had never lost a race in his career. He successfully navigated the transition from the Bush era, when he was first federally elected, to the tea party to the first Trump era of Republican politics, which felled many of his Senate contemporaries around the country. 

But the staid, even-keeled senator, a mainstay in Washington who reached the upper echelons of Senate power, could not survive a challenge from Paxton, a MAGA darling who led the unsuccessful legal effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

In a concession speech early Tuesday evening, Cornyn did not mention Paxton by name but reiterated his pledge to support “the Republican ticket.” He also quoted Teddy Roosevelt — “It’s not the critic that counts … The credit belongs to the man who’s actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and blood and sweat” — and the Apostle Paul: “I fought the good fight. I finished the race, I kept the faith.”

Cornyn also ticked through his accomplishments in office, from contributing to the passage of “historic tax reform bills” to removing red tape to “helping put hundreds of conservative judges on the federal bench.”

The attorney general was once indicted for felony securities fraud (charges that were later dropped) and impeached by the Texas House for corruption and abuse of office (and acquitted by the Senate), and he has come under fire for alleged infidelity and an accumulation of assets during his time in office. 

But Paxton, after his acquittal by the Republican-controlled Texas Senate in 2023, has inspired fervent support from a MAGA base that sees him as a victim of political persecution in much the same light as Trump. He wielded that clout to target GOP lawmakers who voted for his impeachment, backing numerous primary challengers in 2024 who took out Republican incumbents in the Legislature.

Tonight, he defeated one of the most successful politicians in Texas GOP history and a key figure in the Republican establishment in Washington. Had Cornyn won the primary and gone on to serve a fifth term, he would have set a Texas senatorial record for longevity. Instead, he becomes the first senator in Texas history to lose to a member of his own party since Ralph Yarbrough in 1970.

Onstage at his victory party in Plano, Paxton took the stage to cheers from supporters and elected officials in his camp. He praised Trump for endorsing him against the advice of Republicans in Washington. And he soaked in the gravity of the moment.

“Tonight, we just sent a Texas-sized message to Washington,” Paxton said.

Cornyn is the second sitting U.S. senator to lose a primary this month, following Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who failed to qualify for a Republican runoff earlier this month. Prior to this year, only two senators had lost primaries in the past 15 years — Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana and Luther Strange of Alabama. Their successful primary challengers both went on to lose the general election.

Many of the Republicans who have been chased out of Congress in the past few cycles were either moderates or members who had crossed Trump, especially those who voted to impeach or convict him in the wake of January 6, such as Cassidy. But Cornyn does not fall into that category. He has been a reliable conservative vote throughout his career. His two biggest strays from MAGA orthodoxy recently were supporting aid to Ukraine and voting in favor of a bipartisan gun safety bill in the wake of the 2022 Uvalde school shooting.

And as Trump’s endorsement post made clear, Cornyn irked the president when he cast doubts on Trump’s electability in 2023 — far from a unique position. As Trump put it, “He was not supportive of me when times were tough.” 

Paxton, by contrast, was one of two elected officials to attend Trump’s presidential campaign launch announcement in 2022, a demonstration of the ironclad loyalty he has shown the president.

The result is also a massive defeat for the Republican establishment in Washington, including Majority Leader John Thune, which has spent tens of millions on Cornyn’s behalf. For months, Cornyn, Thune and allies have made the case, both to voters and to the White House, that a Paxton candidacy would endanger Republicans’ chances in both the Senate race and down-ballot contests, especially the U.S. House races in Texas that could decide the balance of the lower chamber.

Minutes after the race was called for Paxton, the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan elections forecaster, shifted their Texas Senate race rating one tick to the left, from “likely” to “lean” Republican.

Tuesday’s runoff also demonstrates the limits of money in politics. Cornyn significantly outraised Paxton throughout the race, and pro-Cornyn forces outspent the pro-Paxton side by a factor of close to nine to one overall, and over three to one during the runoff. 

The deluge of spending certainly helped, erasing Paxton’s double-digit polling lead from early in the race and powering Cornyn to a narrow first-place finish in the March primary. But Cornyn’s money machine ran up against the realities of runoffs, which have smaller electorates where hardened partisans make up a larger share of the vote, and the fact that Paxton — and his ethical baggage — was already well-known to voters. Trump’s last-second endorsement helped seal the deal.

Cornyn and his allies in Washington have argued that Paxton is a risky general election candidate whose checkered history and weak fundraising will force the GOP to spend potentially over $100 million in Texas — money they’d rather deploy to swing states like Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina. Groups like the National Republican Senatorial Committee — the Senate GOP’s campaign arm — have attacked Paxton in intense personal terms, funding ads going after his divorce and calling his behavior “repulsive and disgusting.”

As Paxton’s victory appeared imminent, the NRSC put out a statement bashing Talarico, but making no mention of the nominee the group has been deeply opposed to.

“A state President Trump won by nearly 14 points isn’t going to elect James Talarico — a radical leftist who thinks God is nonbinary and that Texas should be a welcome mat for illegals,” NRSC regional press secretary Samantha Cantrell. “He is the most dangerous flank of the far left. Texas isn’t swapping brisket for open borders.”

Daniel Hayworth, Paxton’s son-in-law and a pastor at a non-denominational church in Central Texas, led a prayer at Paxton’s watch party in which he said, “We ask that your hand of blessing would be upon the campaign as they continue on to fight against James Talarico, who twists your word and spits upon your name.”

Cornyn and his allies, including Thune, routinely made the electability case to Trump, encouraging him to endorse Cornyn to avoid a costly runoff. After Cornyn finished 1.5 percentage points ahead of Paxton in the primary, the senior senator seemed to be on the precipice of achieving it. The next day, the president pledged to endorse one of the candidates in short order, accompanied by a call for the one he did not pick to drop out.

But Trump’s endorsement, when it finally came more than two months later, was for Paxton. Paxton previously offered to consider dropping out if the Senate passed the SAVE America Act, a voting restrictions bill that Trump has called his top legislative priority but is doomed in the Senate because it requires 60 votes for passage. Cornyn, already a cosponsor of the bill, indicated openness to ditching the legislative filibuster in order to pass it. But Paxton pushed the idea more aggressively, and Trump, who said in his endorsement that he appreciated Paxton’s commitment to terminating the filibuster, chose to back Paxton.

Texas’ top statewide elected officials, including Sen. Ted Cruz, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, stayed mum on the race. 

Paxton’s win will compel an awkward reconciliation between the now-GOP nominee and the party organizations that have spent months trying to keep him off the November ballot and criticized him in sharply personal terms, saying his treatment of his family was “truly repulsive and disgusting.” And if Paxton wins the general election, he’ll be part of a Senate Republican Conference that’s been loyal to Cornyn and hostile to Paxton’s candidacy.

Paxton told CNN last week that he wanted to “cooperate” with Washington Republicans and that he is “ready to unite.”

Talarico, meanwhile, issued a statement welcoming Cornyn’s supporters into the Democratic tent, foreshadowing the skirmish in the coming months to win over the highly coveted voting bloc.

“I want to thank Senator John Cornyn for his years representing our state,” Talarico said. “ We don’t agree on everything, but we both still believe in public service. To Senator Cornyn’s supporters: you have a place in our campaign.”

Cornyn, for his part, told radio host Mark Davis before the primary that if Paxton won, he would “vote for the Republican.”

Club for Growth, a deep-pocketed GOP group, endorsed Paxton as the first results trickled in Tuesday night, accompanying it with a two-minute ad bashing Talarico.

“Ken Paxton has consistently stood up against Democrats and the establishment in Austin to defend the rule of law and freedoms for every Texan,” said Club for Growth PAC President David McIntosh.  “Meanwhile, James Talarico has spent his career promoting woke gender ideology, fighting against meat consumption, and opposing the values Texans cherish.”

While Cornyn will not be on the ballot in November, he’ll continue to serve in the Senate through early January. He will return next week to a Republican conference at odds with the White House over ballroom funding and the Department of Justice’s $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund. Trump’s Paxton endorsement, which went over like a lead balloon in the upper chamber, recently heightened the tension. 

Retiring senators and those running for reelection in swing states have hamstrung some of Trump’s priorities in recent months. On his podcast last week, Cruz speculated that Cornyn might join the renegade caucus. 

“If Cornyn loses, I can imagine he’s going to be pissed as well,” Cruz said. “If you’ve got a three-vote majority, and you have four or five [GOP] senators who are pissed at the president, that ain’t easy.”

After a year of bitter infighting, the party will need to come together to defeat Talarico — and Paxton will need to attract Cornyn voters, some of whom have indicated in polling that they’d sit out the contest or even vote for Talarico if Paxton is the nominee. 

Texas Republicans said in interviews that they expect the party will be able to unite over their opposition to the Austin Democrat in time for the general election.

“It’s a bruising primary, it’s a bruising runoff,” Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Midlothian, said in an interview in mid-May. “There’s going to be some hard feelings for awhile, and then we got four months to get it back together. Texans generally do rally around in a very strong way once it’s over.”

But even with the runoff over, the ugliness of it — including the tens of millions the Cornyn camp spent attacking Paxton — could resonate into the fall.

“The fact that John Cornyn will have spent tens of millions of dollars on his own, plus tens of millions of dollars from outside groups, questioning the morality and the ethics of Ken Paxton is a huge down payment on the Democrats’ November campaigns,” said Josh Blank, the research director of the Texas Politics Project.

Talarico has exponentially outraised Paxton, creating an open question about whether Republican money — much of which was behind Cornyn — will come through for the attorney general. 

MAGA Inc., the main Trump-aligned super PAC which is sitting on a nearly $350 million war chest, could be tapped to fill the fundraising gap. 

After Trump’s endorsement came down last week, Paxton began pivoting to the general election, asking a crowd in Katy what nickname he should call Talarico. General election polling has shown a tight contest between the two, with Talarico ahead in numerous surveys.

Talarico’s message throughout the campaign has urged voters to reject a corrupt political system that he says benefits corporations and the ultra-wealthy — a message that dovetails somewhat with Cornyn’s attacks on Paxton’s rising net worth while in office.

But in an interview on Fox last week, Paxton noted that he had won three general elections before and said he planned to ensure Talarico is thoroughly scrutinized for the electorate. The Austin Democrat’s politics, especially his social views, are far outside the norm for Texas, Paxton argued, adding, “Once Talarico’s been vetted, I am convinced that Texans will reject what he’s pushing.”

— Kayla Guo and Alejandra Martinez contributed to this report.

The race, like others in recent weeks, proved the GOP’s continued loyalty to President Donald Trump, as “MAGA Mayes” pummeled Roy for saying Trump engaged in “clearly impeachable conduct” on Jan. 6, 2021, and supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ failed 2024 presidential bid.

This is the first open race for attorney general in more than a decade, after Attorney General Ken Paxton decided to challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. Under Paxton, the agency has become the linchpin of a national effort to push conservative causes through the courts, an effort Middleton and Roy both vowed to continue.

Middleton came from behind to beat Roy’s name ID lead during the primary, thanks in large part to the millions he put into television ads and mailers, promoting his loyalty to the president. While Trump didn’t endorse in the race, Middleton touted the president’s previous positive comments about him, promising to work hand-in-hand with the Trump administration on conservative goals.

He also ran on his record of passing hard-right legislation, including limiting what bathrooms trans people can use, barring trans people from sports teams that align with the gender they identify as, and putting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

Roy offered a nearly identical ideological vision for the agency, promising to use it to go after Muslim organizations, left-leaning district attorneys and election fraud. After entering the race as the presumptive frontrunner on name recognition alone, he faced an uphill climb over his relationship with Trump and the MAGA movement.

Roy, a fourth-term Austin congressman, former federal prosecutor and top aide to Paxton at the attorney general’s office, criticized Middleton as inexperienced and unprepared for the job. Middleton is a licensed attorney, but has worked exclusively for his family oil business. He says he has practiced civil law as part of his work.

A cadre of GOP donors stepped up in the homestretch to help Roy get that message out, making the most expensive attorney general’s race in U.S. history all the more costly. Roy outspent Middleton on ads during the runoff, although Middleton spent more during the entire cycle.

Roy carved a solitary path in Congress as a conservative firebrand with an uncompromising commitment to small government. He delayed and derailed priority legislation, clashed frequently with party leaders and took on often quixotic battles with fellow conservatives over spending limits and constitutional law.

Roy’s tension with Trump, and GOP leadership, showed he had the independence necessary to be Texas’ next attorney general, he said, often citing Trump’s comment from last summer saying Roy is “not easy, but he’s good.”

“There’s no greater compliment that [Trump] could give me,” Roy said at a campaign stop earlier this month. “The guy that we praise for the Art of the Deal, the guy that we think is so strong in negotiating with other countries, to say that I’m not easy, but I’m good? That’s what I want in our attorney general, whether it’s me or someone else.”

While Trump’s approval ratings have bottomed out nationally, he remains extremely popular among Texas Republicans, with 82% approving of the job he’s doing as of April.

“Roy has had a problem there, and he chose to lean into those conflicts and use that as potentially as a strength,” said Joshua Blank, research director at the Texas Politics Project. “But if recent races are any guide, deviation from the president is not of any value in the Republican primary.”

Middleton will now face his former colleague, Dallas state Sen. Nathan Johnson, in November. Johnson beat out former Galveston mayor Joe Jaworski on Tuesday night, securing his chance to try to reclaim the agency for the Democrats.

Johnson has promised to restore the agency’s non-partisan functions, like child support enforcement and consumer protection. He’s also said he will stand with blue state attorneys general in pursuing litigation against the Trump administration.

In a joint statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Israel Katz, said the strikes had targeted the new leader of Hamas' military wing. They identified him as Mohammed Odeh and called him “one of the architects” of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that triggered over two years of war.

The strike came less than two weeks after Israel killed the previous head of Hamas' military wing, Izz al-Din al-Haddad.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas. The bodies of the dead were taken to Gaza's Shifa Hospital, which confirmed the deaths.

The attack came on the eve of Eid al-Adha, normally a joyous time of family gatherings and large meals.

The holiday once again is subdued this year in Gaza, where the vast majority of people remain displaced and live in tents or temporary shelters after a devastating war.

A ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas last October remains fragile. Israeli attacks have killed more than 880 Palestinians since the ceasefire took effect. Israel says its attacks are in response to violations by Hamas or threats to its soldiers, but Palestinian health officials says scores of civilians have been among the dead. Four Israeli soldiers have also been killed during this period.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks in October 2023, which killed some 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza says over 72,700 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire. The ministry, part of Gaza's Hamas government, does not give a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.

Republican voters in Texas’ 19th Congressional District, which represents a wedge of West Texas from Lubbock to Abilene, elected Sell as the Republican nominee. Sell, a businessman with deep familial ties to Lubbock, was endorsed by several U.S. House GOP leaders, including House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer.

President Donald Trump won by a 52-point margin in the 19th Congressional District during the 2024 presidential election, his widest in the state. Sell’s opponent in the runoff, Abraham Enriquez, made his support for Trump a key element of his unsuccessful bid for the seat after receiving the president’s endorsement. 

Trump did not endorse either candidate in the district, but Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick both threw their support behind Enriquez, with Patrick describing Enriquez as “the true America First conservative in this race.”

The seat opened up after Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock, who served in the district since 2017 and chairs the U.S. House Budget Committee, announced in November that he would retire. Trump had endorsed Arrington in his 2020 and 2024 reelection campaigns.

Voters in Texas’ 38th Congressional District selected Jon Bonck of Houston as the GOP nominee, besting his opponent Shelley deZavallos handily after receiving several endorsements from Republican leaders. Bonck nearly won the seat outright in March, having received just under 47% of the primary vote, roughly 3% shy of a majority.

Bonck declared victory a half hour after polls closed Tuesday, with early voting results indicating an immediate lead over deZavallos. 

“Tonight, the people of TX-38 made it clear that they are ready for a conservative outsider who will fight for our families, our faith, and our future,” Bonck said.

Endorsements for Bonck came from several leading names in the Republican Party, including Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, Scalise and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson. Trump posted a graphic celebrating Bonck’s victory on social media less than an hour after polls closed.

The district, which represents a western stretch of the Houston area, became open for new representation after Rep. Wesley Hunt launched an unsuccessful Republican primary bid to challenge  U.S. Sen. John Cornyn for his seat. 

Sell and Bonck will face Democratic nominees Kyle Rable and Melissa McDonough, respectively, in November, however both districts are heavily favored for the two Republican candidates.

Phuoc died Saturday in Southern California after collapsing suddenly, his nephew, Van Nguyen, said.

Phuoc was hired in 1965 by AP’s former photo chief, Horst Faas, to replace another local hire who had been killed on assignment. He quickly gained a reputation among other journalists and the U.S. and South Vietnamese troops for his uncanny ability to find the thick of the action.

Phuoc was born in a Vietnamese village near Quang Ngai, south of Da Nang, in 1935 and was the youngest of many siblings. When he was about 10, his father was killed by local members of the Viet Cong insurgency. A few years later, his mother died, leaving him homeless.

“He was a really very extraordinary man who grew up from very bad treatment when he was a boy,” Nguyen said.

As a young man, Phuoc volunteered to help carry equipment at a Saigon film studio where Nguyen’s mother worked as a cook. It was there that Phuoc first picked up a camera and taught himself photography, his nephew said.

Phuoc, who was dubbed the AP’s “secret weapon” by his boss, was known for walking with the “point man” on combat patrols, putting him in position to get excellent photographs — but also exposing him to grave danger.

He was wounded at least five times during his 10 years with the AP in Vietnam, the first time just five months after he was hired. A grenade explosion left him with shrapnel in his chest and leg, but he was back on duty within a few months covering the drawn-out civil war between the Communist forces of North Vietnam and the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese military.

In 1968, he sustained a concussion when he was hit in the head by a rocket while covering street fighting in Saigon. That same year, Phuoc risked sniper fire to carry a wounded U.S. soldier to safety and received a commendation from the Ninth U.S. Army Infantry Division for saving the man’s life.

Phuoc lost his right eye in a grenade explosion in 1969 while on patrol with a Ranger battalion south of Da Nang, along Vietnam’s central coast. He learned to shoot with one eye and returned to work.

In a 2011 interview for AP’s archives, Phuoc described the difficulty of working with one eye when he had to look through the camera while also watching for silent hand gestures from the soldiers with whom he was patrolling.

His colleague in AP’s Saigon bureau, Huỳnh Công “Nick” Út, described Phuoc as fearless and resourceful in the field. Behind the scenes, he was a giving man and loyal friend who treated Út like a brother.

“Everyone loved him so much,” Út said. “When I heard, I cried, ‘My brother, he’s gone.’”

Despite his reputation for shooting action, the photos that touched Phuoc were those that evoked the plight of civilians caught in the crossfire. In the 2011 interview, he compared himself to a “small grain of sand” who used his pictures to bring their stories to the world.

When Saigon fell in 1975, Phuoc fled with his family with little more than the clothes on their back and a bottle of milk. His family was rescued from a refugee camp in Guam with the help of AP reporter Linda Deutsch, who was covering the tent city, and flown to Camp Pendleton.

Phuoc then returned to Asia and worked briefly for the AP in Hong Kong before leaving the company and settling permanently in Southern California with his family.

He went on to become a professional portrait photographer in Orange County, which is home to Little Saigon, the largest single community of South Vietnamese refugees in the world.

His great-nephew, Kim Nguyen, looked back Tuesday at the portraits Phuoc shot of him as a baby and reminisced about bringing his own son to see Phuoc’s work on display at a museum in Vietnam.

In California, Phuoc was a founding member of The Artistic Photography Association and trained young photographers. He also was a civilian volunteer for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and in 1994 was named the county’s volunteer of the year.

___

Schoenbaum reported from Salt Lake City.

Inspired by Gisèle Pelicot ’s decision to make her harrowing drug and rape trial public, the parents of the children agreed to open the proceedings. In France, trials involving children are usually held behind closed doors.

According to their lawyers, some parents said they were following the example of Pelicot and her motto that “shame must change sides” to abusers, not victims.

The Paris case emerged in April 2025 after several children told their parents they allegedly had been sexually abused at a nursery school.

The defendant, 36, who has not been publicly identified, is accused of assaulting children while supervising them in bathrooms, during lunch breaks and in after-school care between August 2024 and April 2025. He has denied any sexual abuse against children.

The children were between 3 and 5 years old at the time. They do not have to attend the trial. A judge has read their testimonies to investigators.

The defendant is also accused of sexually harassing two co-workers and sexually assaulting one of them. He faces up to 10 years in prison. His lawyer would not speak with The Associated Press before the trial.

Barka Zerouali, co-founder of parents' group MeToo Ecole, or MeToo School, said at a protest outside the courthouse that “there needs to be a national wake-up call at some point." Protesters carried a banner reading: “Because no child should be afraid to go to school.”

Families said the trauma of the alleged assaults was compounded by what they described as a struggle to be taken seriously by authorities. An initial warning raised by a mother months earlier was apparently ignored by the school.

Rebecca Royer, a lawyer representing several families, said that “what we are expecting is a real turning point in child protection, meaning we expect the government and municipalities to implement real measures to protect children, but also to provide real resources."

Similar cases in Paris and across France have drawn media attention in recent months.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau last week said investigations were underway involving 84 nursery schools, about 20 elementary schools and about 10 daycare centers in the capital.

Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said 78 school and after-school staff members have been suspended in the city since the beginning of 2026, including 31 over suspicions of sexual violence.

While teachers in France are employed by the government in state-run schools, school assistants and after-school activity leaders are hired by city authorities.

Grégoire, elected in March, has made combating child abuse an “absolute priority” and unveiled a 20 million euro ($22 million) plan to address what he described as “major dysfunction” in the city’s school supervision system. He pledged to immediately suspend any school employee suspected of abusing children.

Before being elected, Grégoire publicly revealed that he had been sexually abused as a child while attending elementary school between the ages of 9 and 10.

Child abuse became a major issue in the mayoral campaign after a series of allegations involving public schools emerged earlier this year.

___

Associated Press journalists Nicolas Garriga and Masha Macpherson contributed to this report.

Mealer, a former GOP nominee for Harris County judge, won the runoff after earning the support of Washington power players, including President Donald Trump and members of House Republican leadership.

The Associated Press called the race for Mealer shortly after 8:15 p.m.

Outside groups poured millions into the race on her behalf, leaving Cain vastly outspent. His loss also reflects a setback for Gov. Greg Abbott, who had endorsed him in the race before Trump weighed in.

Mealer will face Leticia Gutierrez, a community organizer and the Democratic nominee, in the November general election. The district includes some of Texas’ major economic powerhouses, including the Houston Ship Channel and various refineries and petrochemical production facilities.

The seat is one of five districts Texas Republicans redrew last year to favor the GOP, kicking off a national gerrymandering war after Trump urged red states to undertake an unusual mid-decade redistricting scheme to help pad Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the U.S. House during the midterm elections. Mealer and Cain finished atop a nine-person field in the March 3 Republican primary. Neither earned a majority of votes, pushing them into Tuesday’s runoff.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Al Green currently represents the 9th District; with the new lines covering an almost entirely different part of the map, Green shifted to run in the nearby 18th District.

Under its new lines, the 9th District would have voted for Trump by a 19-point margin in 2024. But the leftward drift of Hispanic voters, who narrowly make up a majority of the district’s eligible voting population, has convinced some Democrats they can make a run for the seat in November.

The district takes in parts of Houston’s heavily Hispanic East End and cities in the eastern part of Harris County, including Baytown, Deer Park and Pasadena. Solidly Republican Liberty County was also tacked onto the district.

Throughout the race, both Mealer and Cain ran on their Trump-aligned, conservative bona fides. Mealer showcased her support from Trump and experience in the Army, while Cain emphasized his homegrown roots in the district and staunchly conservative record in the Texas House on issues including immigration, abortion, elections and guns.

Mealer outspent Cain three to one over the course of the election cycle. Outside spending also flooded the contest, with several conservative groups wading into the race to boost Mealer and attack Cain.

Club for Growth, an influential and well-heeled national conservative group, invested over $1.1 million to support Mealer and oppose Cain, with funding going to mailers, text messaging, ads, a field program and more.

Win It Back PAC, a group affiliated with Club for Growth, pushed an ad attacking Cain for previously accepting campaign contributions from the developers of Colony Ridge, a development in the district that came under fire from Republicans for selling land to undocumented immigrants.

Additionally, Conservatives for American Excellence, a super PAC bankrolled by GOP megadonors that has opposed hardline candidates aligned with the House Freedom Caucus, aired an ad tagging Cain as a “liberal lightweight.” Another group affiliated with an Anthropic-backed effort supporting candidates who favor stronger guardrails around the AI industry, known as Defending Our Values PAC, spent over $400,000 supporting Mealer.

Cain, who hails from Deer Park, has been consistently ranked among the most conservative lawmakers in the Texas House over nearly a decade in office. Mealer attacked him, though, for supporting the House’s 2023 impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton, a MAGA darling running to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.

Cain had just one outside group in his corner during the runoff: Building a Strong America, whose funding came entirely from a dark money nonprofit group that does not have to disclose its donors. The pro-Cain group spent over $85,000 on texts and digital ads opposing Mealer.

Mealer is a former U.S. Army captain and bomb squad officer. She graduated from West Point, Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, and she served as the public safety chair for Harris County METRO. She was the 2022 Republican nominee for Harris County judge, a contest she narrowly lost to Democrat Lina Hidalgo and whose results she contested.

Thomas Smith, an assistant attorney general in Paxton’s office, held a commanding lead in the GOP primary runoff for Place 3 on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals over Alison Fox, a staff attorney with years of experience working for this court, unofficial election results showed Tuesday. The two candidates had emerged neck-and-neck at the top of a four-way race in March, with Fox less than one percentage point ahead of Smith.

Smith said in a statement to The Texas Tribune that he is “honored and humbled” to be the nominee. 

“I want to extend my respect to my opponent, Alison Fox, who is a great competitor and exceptional lawyer,” he added. “I hope she will join me in the task that lies ahead, uniting our party to win in November.”

Smith will face Democrat Okey Anyiam, a criminal defense attorney, in the November general election. No Democrat has been elected to the court since 1994. 

Smith’s primary win also signals Paxton’s continued influence on the nine-judge court, resulting in notable turnover on the all-Republican panel. 

Traditionally, the Court of Criminal Appeals is closely followed for its rulings on death penalty cases. It also hears criminal appeals from lower courts as well as petitions from those convicted of a state felony challenging their conviction or sentence. But in recent years, the court has also been in the spotlight for a 2021 decision that the attorney general’s office lacks the authority to unilaterally prosecute allegations of voter fraud. 

Paxton in turn successfully waged a campaign during the 2024 primary elections to unseat three Republican judges who were part of the 8-1 majority in the voter fraud ruling, including Sharon Keller, the presiding judge who had served on the court since first being elected in 1994. 

This year, two more Republican judges who ruled against Paxton were up for reelection, but both, David Newell and Bert Richardson, chose not to seek another six-year term. 

Newell’s campaign also donated $4,000 to Fox in October. But she returned the fund last month, according to her campaign finance report filed May 16, after learning the donation was significantly more than the $100 judicial officeholders are allowed to donate to a political candidate in a year. 

Judge Kevin Yeary, the sole pro-Paxton vote in the 2021 ruling, is the only incumbent seeking reelection this year. He did not have a primary opponent. 

One day ahead of Election Day, Smith faced a judicial complaint from James Luster, a criminal defense attorney who alleged that the candidate’s “negative campaigning” had violated the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct.  

Luster co-represents Autumn Hill, who was convicted of four federal charges and acquitted of several others in connection to a 2025 nonfatal shooting of a police officer outside a North Texas immigration detention facility. He is also a partner at the Fort Worth-based Cofer Luster Law Firm, which hosted a petition signing event for Fox in September. 

On May 18, Smith criticized Fox on social media over the firm’s representation of Hill. 

“Anti ICE, Antifa lawyers helped launch my opponent’s bid to get on the ballot?!” Smith posted on X. “She is the most radical, leftist candidate to ever appear on a statewide Republican ballot.”

A day later, Fox said in a Facebook post that she is a “lifelong conservative Republican” and called the comments “absurd and intentionally deceptive.”

In his complaint, Luster said Smith’s comments misrepresent the positions of Fox and the law firm, adding that attorneys didn’t discuss any specific cases with her before the campaign event and that they also represented defendants from the Jan. 6, 2025 riot at the U.S. Capitol. He added that Hill’s state charges are still pending, and that Smith’s comments suggest that he “would probably reach a decision in favor of the State” if that case gets to the appeals court. 

Smith called the judicial complaint “politically motivated” in a statement to the Tribune.

“Our system provides representation for those accused of wrongdoing and I have my own support, including financial support, from attorneys who provide criminal defense representation for defendants,” he added. “Any observation I made about the gathering they held for my opponent was to demonstrate that she chose to seek support there rather than Republican and conservative clubs in Tarrant County where I sought support.”

Paxton was out to an early lead, and the Associated Press called the race within an hour of polling places closing.

Find more election coverage on the Vote 2026 page.

KSAT anchors Myra Arthur and Ernie Zuniga will be live on election night Tuesday, covering key primary runoff races. The livestream will take place at 7:30 p.m. on KSAT Plus and YouTube.

In what is certain to be one of the country’s most closely watched races, two Texas heavyweights vyed to become the lone Republican nominee for U.S. Senate.

Following an extensive career in the Texas Legislature, Ken Paxton was elected as Texas Attorney General in 2014 before announcing his U.S. Senate bid in April 2025. John Cornyn, the incumbent, was first elected to the seat in 2002.

When Paxton announced his run for U.S. Senate, Paxton told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that it was “time for a change in Texas.”

Neither Cornyn nor Paxton blinked as they entered the primary field with six other Republican candidates. Both men were working to earn the endorsement of President Donald Trump, but Trump did not publicly back either candidate ahead of the March primary.

As expected, Cornyn and Paxton emerged as the top two vote-getters in the primary. However, Cornyn only secured 42% of the vote compared to Paxton’s 41%.

The candidates continued their campaigns throughout April and May without word of an endorsement from the commander in chief. Seven days before the May 26 runoff, Trump officially endorsed Paxton.

The winner between Cornyn and Paxton will face Democratic nominee James Talarico, an Austin-area state representative and former San Antonio teacher who won his primary bid against U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

Talarico launched his campaign last September. He previously told KSAT that his experience as a public school teacher on San Antonio’s West Side shaped his views for his campaign.

According to his campaign website, Talarico is pushing for economic equality, specifically the gap between billionaires and Americans struggling to make ends meet.

U.S. senators are elected for six-year terms.

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The beginning of the end for John Cornyn came in 2022, when he was doing the thing he was once praised for: whipping votes to pass difficult, bipartisan legislation.

That year, moved by the Uvalde school shooting, Texas’ senior senator convinced 14 Senate Republicans to buck the National Rifle Association and join him in passing the most significant gun safety bill in a generation.

“This was fundamentally important to the country at a time when things are so polarized and people are so intolerant of others that have different points of view,” he said after it passed. “I thought it was important to demonstrate the Senate could work.”

It was legacy defining, but not in the way he had hoped. Later that year, he was booed at the Texas GOP convention for an agonizing 45 seconds straight before he even began his remarks. When he launched into his speech, packed full of red meat, the jeers did not stop.

He dismissed the reception at the time, but it would prove to be prophetic — as would President Donald Trump’s decision to torch him as a “RINO,” or Republican in Name Only, for his efforts negotiating the bill.

On Tuesday, Cornyn lost his first ever election, putting an end to his more than four-decade career in public office.

A former Texas Supreme Court justice, the first Republican to become Texas attorney general since Reconstruction and a four-term U.S. senator, Cornyn had held on in the GOP as it transformed from the party of Bush to the Tea Party movement, and eventually the dominion of Trump.

But in the end, Texas Republicans rejected the august senator for a MAGA darling. Despite a record of voting in near-perfect alignment with Trump’s agenda, serving as the No. 2 most powerful Republican in the Senate, using that post to drive the president’s priorities through the chamber and working to elect Republicans across the country — Cornyn fell to Attorney General Ken Paxton, his political nemesis and a man he battered for months as morally unfit for office.

“He’s an incredibly sophisticated and talented political operator,” said Enrique Marquez, a Republican consultant who previously served as chief of staff to one of Paxton’s erstwhile rivals, former Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan. “He just happened to be running against the one person more loyal to Donald Trump than he is. And ultimately, loyalty is the attribute that Trump values the most.”

Cornyn’s list of MAGA sins included voting to certify President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 election (even as he opposed Trump’s impeachment over the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection) and suggesting in 2023 that Trump’s “time has passed him by” (before later endorsing him for his third run at the White House). He was also seen, in the eyes of Trump and the grassroots, as failing to push hard enough to pass the SAVE America Act, a voting restrictions bill at the top of Trump’s priorities, this year. Notably, he was also one of the few Texas Republican leaders to criticize Paxton’s 2023 impeachment as “a source of embarrassment” to the party — igniting a feud that would carry through their primary battle.

“Cornyn created his own vulnerabilities by really allowing himself to become untethered from the desires of the average grassroots Republican in Texas,” said state Rep. Mitch Little, R-Lewisville, who served on Paxton’s defense team during his impeachment trial. “It was really the perfect storm of Paxton being optimal in all the areas where Cornyn was weak.”

For the past several months, Cornyn ran primarily on his allegiance to the president — and on the basis that Paxton was unfit for office and would threaten Republican dominance in Texas. Even while gluing himself to Trump, who has faced similar scrutiny to the attorney general, Cornyn hammered Paxton for his long list of since-resolved civil and criminal accusations and for his divorce over his alleged infidelity.

“Character is on the ballot,” Cornyn said ahead of the March 3 election. “Ken Paxton is betting that character doesn’t matter to Texas Republican primary voters. I’m betting the opposite.”

Trump all but sealed Cornyn’s fate last week when he issued a last-minute endorsement of Paxton a day after early voting began. He did so over the protests of Cornyn’s colleagues in Senate Republican leadership, who argued that Paxton would make a weaker general election candidate and force the GOP to spend millions more defending Texas instead of other, more competitive seats.

“John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “John was very late in backing me in what turned out to be a Historic Run for the Republican Nomination.”

Over Memorial Day weekend, Trump’s tune soured. In another post, he attacked Cornyn as “VERY disloyal to me, as President,” adding that he “didn’t fight hard enough for the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT.” The bill would require people to provide proof of citizenship in person to register to vote and to show government-issued photo ID at the polls. It would also force states to submit their voter rolls to the federal government to check for noncitizens.

Trump described Paxton, meanwhile, as “someone who has always been extremely loyal to me and our AMAZING MAGA MOVEMENT,” and “a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas.”

The outcome reflects Trump’s continued grip on the Republican Party, despite his flagging approval rating and status as a second-term president pushing 80 years old. And it underscored the ever vanishing space within his GOP for a lawmaker of Cornyn’s tradition, in which bipartisan cooperation, statesmanship and staunch conservatism could outweigh a candidate’s devotion to Trump.

Cornyn and his allies dropped roughly $100 million on airtime over the course of the primary, seeking to convince voters of his conservative record while tarring Paxton as corrupt, adulterous and untrustworthy. Senate Republican leadership poured millions into the race on his behalf, helping make the primary and runoff elections the most expensive in the country’s history, according to media tracking firm AdImpact.

Cornyn also rolled out endorsements from titans past of Texas Republican politics, law enforcement, industry groups and more. And he nakedly sought to curry the president’s favor, posting photos of him reading Trump’s book, “The Art of The Deal,” and standing in front of Trump Burger in Houston, proposing Congress rename a highway “Trump Interstate,” and reiterating his consistent support for Trump’s agenda.

None of it was enough to save him.

“He was willing to be malleable, flexible on his issue positions, but what he couldn’t ever really do was change his basic style of engagement with politics,” said Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. “Cornyn is not by nature an ideological warrior, he’s not someone who gets up in the morning thinking about how he can own the libs. And that’s what Paxton is. … To the extent that that has become the dominant style of our politics, Cornyn is, in terms of tone and vibe, not a good match for that.”

Had Cornyn won the nomination and gone on to beat Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico for a fifth term, he would have set a Texas senatorial record. Instead, he is the first sitting senator in Texas to lose to a member of his own party since U.S. Sen. Ralph Yarbrough in 1970.

His final pitch to Texans as voting in the runoff kicked off reflected both the political style he embodied over more than two decades in Washington and one long out of vogue with a Republican base intent on taking a wrecking ball to the establishment.

“We know we can’t just win elections with Republican votes,” Cornyn said in Austin last week. “You need independents and the occasional convert from the other party. Ken Paxton will get none of those, and puts all of this at risk.”

That resistance to the base’s preferences did not go unnoticed.

Cornyn “assumed his final form, which is an ivory tower moderate Republican who was removed from the everyday concerns of Texans,” Little said. “He is out of touch with his voters and it cost him. And Attorney General Paxton is not out of touch with his voters — he’s with them all the time.”

The last major Texas Republican of his ilk, Cornyn’s defeat leaves behind a cast of political characters who have increasingly modeled themselves after Trump: brash, populist and set upon partisan domination.

“John Cornyn was part of a wave that helped usher in the Republican revolution in Texas,” Marquez said. “He is the last of the gentlemen Republicans in our state.”

The rise and fall of John Cornyn

Cornyn began his career in public office as a district judge in Bexar County. He sat on the Texas Supreme Court in the 1990s before winning election as attorney general in 1998, serving one term while George W. Bush occupied the governor’s mansion.

Historically, the attorney general’s office was not splashy or particularly partisan, and instead mostly handled child support and defended the state in bureaucratic lawsuits.

But Cornyn’s election to that office helped kickstart the Republican takeover of Texas at every level of government, laying the groundwork for Paxton’s rise — and Cornyn’s own eventual ouster.

“John Cornyn and the men and women that swept into office with him in those years are the reason that conservative government in Texas is … a model to the rest of the country,” Houston attorney Charles Eskridge, now a federal judge, told a Federalist Society gathering in 2017.

In the Senate, Cornyn reached the upper echelons of power. He sat on high profile, influential committees, such as the judiciary and finance panels, and he served as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, leading the effort to elect Republicans during the Obama administration and to retake the Senate majority in 2014.

As the GOP whip — the No. 2 Senate Republican — from 2013 to 2019, Cornyn was a key deputy to then-Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, playing a central role in the GOP’s reshaping of the judiciary. In the early Trump years, Cornyn helped shepherd three Supreme Court justices and various legislative priorities through the Senate, including Trump’s marquee 2017 tax law. He was also instrumental in passing major legislation including the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which incentivizes semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S., and up to $11 billion in federal reimbursements for border security efforts undertaken by Texas during the Biden administration.

Just 18 months ago, Cornyn was positioning himself to lead Senate Republicans. He had raised a staggering $414 million over the course of his tenure on behalf of GOP campaigns and developed personal relationships with each senator while serving as whip. He narrowly lost the post to U.S. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, who maintained his support for Cornyn’s re-election bid even after Trump’s endorsement.

Through it all, Cornyn established a reputation for working across political lines, mastering Senate processes, raising gobs of money for fellow Republicans and bringing federal dollars home to Texas.

“Senator Cornyn — you can criticize him saying he’s been there too long, but doggone it, he knows how to get that done,” said former U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville.

But all around him, the Republican Party was changing.

As anti-establishment energy took hold from the tea party movement through the era of Trump, the mold of the conservative, business-oriented, genteel Republican that Cornyn represented and that had dominated the Texas Republican landscape began to crack in favor of a more populist, flamethrowing and insurgent ideal.

“For much of Cornyn’s political career, people like him were riding high,” Wilson, the SMU professor, said. “It has really been over the last 10 years that their political world has started to unravel.”

The landmark bipartisan gun safety bill he championed came to encapsulate his Republican detractors’ chief criticisms: that he was insufficiently conservative, too willing to compromise with Democrats and a creature of the establishment that wanted to take away Texans’ liberties. The measure largely did not restrict gun owners’ existing rights and was supported by a host of law enforcement groups, but Cornyn was spurned at the Texas GOP convention later that year anyway.

Diverging from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Cornyn also voted to certify the results of the 2020 election. In 2023, he remarked that Trump’s “time has passed him by.” He broke with most Texas Republicans to call Paxton’s legal scandals a “source of embarrassment” for the GOP. He was dubious of Trump’s push for a wall along the entire southern border, even while supporting broader border security efforts, and he backed legal protections for migrants brought unlawfully to the U.S. as children — earning him attacks from Paxton and the right, who claimed he supported “amnesty.” This year, even as Trump and the base clamored for Senate Republicans to nix the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act, Cornyn initially resisted, maintaining his long-held position that the tool should be protected for the good of the institution.

“John was good at doing enough Republican things to cover over the things that were clearly in opposition to conservative Republicans’ values,” Little said. But “he wasn’t there when we needed him.”

At the same time, Paxton was ascendant.

He sued the Biden administration more than 100 times, making him a conservative hero as he worked to hamper the Democratic president on every hot-button issue from immigration and the environment to abortion and gender.

He was the first state attorney general to file a lawsuit contesting the results of the 2020 election on Trump’s behalf, and he stuck with the president even as most Republicans distanced themselves after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. When Trump launched his 2024 campaign for the White House, Paxton was one of few Republican elected officials to show up.

His legal troubles fell away, too. He was acquitted by the state Senate of his impeachment over charges of corruption and abuse of office; prosecutors dropped a set of felony securities fraud charges; the Texas Supreme Court dismissed a State Bar of Texas complaint against him; the Justice Department ended its investigation into the same allegations at the heart of his impeachment; and the state, not Paxton, would be on the hook for the $6.6 million he owed to his former senior staff who reported him to the FBI and later argued he fired them in violation of state whistleblower law.

And he was gearing up for what would become a nearly three-year journey to topple Cornyn.

“I can’t think of a single thing he’s accomplished for our state or even for the country,” Paxton said on the Tucker Carlson show in September 2023, freshly vindicated of his impeachment.

It would become the refrain of his campaign, which cast Cornyn as a fair-weather conservative and Washington insider long out of touch with the grassroots.

“We’re not putting up with that anymore,” the attorney general said in Dripping Springs last week. “We’re not gonna put up with the lies, we’re not gonna put up with the non-performance. We want somebody that represents our values that will go fight for us — that’s why I ran.”

Cornyn warned throughout the race that Paxton’s nomination, with all his legal and ethical baggage, would risk a Democrat winning a Senate seat in Texas for the first time since 1988, and would sink Republican candidates down the ballot. The general election began Wednesday on the third anniversary of Paxton’s impeachment by the Republican-dominated Texas House.

Cornyn’s closing plea to Texans came in favor of the political tradition he held onto over decades.

“We need to get away from this idea that when people disagree with you occasionally, as they will, that they are somehow a traitor,” he said in Austin as early voting began. “These are your fellow Texans, these are your fellow Americans and people you need to work with and try to do the hard work of building consensus, rather than deteriorate or degenerate or name call.”

At what would be the last campaign stop of his career on Friday, in a final push to carve out a path to survival in today’s GOP, Cornyn urged those in attendance in Corpus Christi to vote — and to get their neighbors who might not typically participate in runoff elections to join.

“The small fraction of people who actually vote [in runoffs] are not necessarily representative of the whole state and all voters,” he said. “Because I believe that character does still matter, and it is on the ballot.”

Gabby Birenbaum and Alejandro Serrano contributed reporting.

SAPD took Angie Morales, 21, into custody Monday and charged her with the capital murder of multiple persons, jail and court records show. According to an arrest affidavit obtained by KSAT, Morales — who was 17 at the time of July 29, 2022, shootings — is accused of being a “party” in the killing of Gregorio Ricardo Cordova-Mejia, 19, and Angel Ray Garcia, 15.

The arrest affidavit does not directly accuse her of pulling the trigger, but police say she helped set the teens up to be robbed by luring them to the apartments.

Officers were dispatched on a shots fired call just before 3 a.m. on July 29, 2022, to the Union Pines Apartments in the 1700 block of Pleasanton Road. According to a 911 call, shots rang out near Building 28 at the complex.

Upon arrival at the complex, officers found Cordova-Mejia and Garcia’s bodies and 9 mm shell casings at the scene. Cordova-Mejia was discovered near a breezeway on the ground while Garcia “was found upstairs” of Building 28, the affidavit states.

Autopsies conducted by the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office showed both teenagers died of multiple gunshot wounds. Their deaths were ruled homicides.

Morales’ alleged plan

In the affidavit, an SAPD detective wrote that a “confidential informant” came forward with information that tied Morales to the double-murder.

According to the informant, Morales used an Instagram account to communicate with and lure Cordova-Mejia and Garcia to the Union Pines Apartments. There, the informant said the teenagers would be robbed and subsequently killed by people Angie colluded with, according to the affidavit.

The original detective on the case tried to interview Morales, but she said she knew nothing about the shooting deaths of Cordova-Mejia and Garcia, the affidavit stated.

Morales is the first arrest in the case.

Although an SAPD spokeswoman said they could not confirm other suspects, the affidavit mentions Morales “acted in concert with multiple other suspects,” and even names one.

Since that person has not yet been arrested, KSAT won’t name them.

Social media trails

Investigators said they reviewed data from Cordova-Mejia’s phone, which showed he communicated with Morales’ Instagram account in the minutes leading up to his death.

While Morales told Cordova-Mejia the address and a specific building number, documents show she didn’t give him an apartment number.

In her last message to Cordova-Mejia, Morales told him to “wait” and that she was “stepping out.” Minutes later, police said shots rang out.

Detectives obtained a search warrant tied to the Instagram account, and police say the name and birthday listed on the account matched Morales.

A phone number associated with the account also matched the number the informant had given, SAPD said. Call records placed the phone using the number “in the area of the murder, at the time it occurred.”

A Bexar County judge set Morales’ bond at $250,000, Bexar County court records show. It is unclear when she will make her next court appearance.

More recent crime coverage on KSAT:

• Woman who uses wheelchair stabs brother in altercation on East Side, SAPD says
• Man found with stab wound to stomach downtown, San Antonio police say
• Man charged with animal cruelty after dead dogs found at Southwest Side home, SAPD says

Maria Tellez, the mother of 19-year-old Gregorio Ricardo Cordova-Mejia, and Jesica Martinez, mother of 15-year-old Angel Ray Garcia, said they are still searching for answers in the case, which remains unsolved.

San Antonio police have not identified or arrested a suspect.

“It’s still hard, it’s still difficult,” Tellez said. “I just hope and pray that we find who did this already.”

For Tellez, the night her son was killed still haunts her.

Instead of receiving a phone call or a knock at the door, she said she learned about the shooting after seeing KSAT’s coverage. From there, she began putting the pieces together herself, knowing her son often spent time at the apartment complex where the shooting happened.

“I actually found my son myself,” she said. “Me and my (other) son went out there and I told my son, ‘That’s Greg’s car right there.’”

In that moment, she said, before any official confirmation from investigators, she already knew.

Martinez said her son Angelray was just two weeks shy of his 16th birthday when he was killed — a milestone he never got a chance to reach.

“It’s devastating, it’s heartbreaking, it’s something I never expected,” Martinez said.

She said the grief has not eased with time, adding the loss still feels as heavy as it did in 2022.

Both mothers said the moment they learned their sons had been killed is something that will shape their lives every day.

Over the years, the families have tried to keep attention on the case, including a billboard placed in hopes of generating new leads.

Still, they said there have been no arrests and few answers.

Despite that, both mothers refuse to stay silent.

“Angelray and Greg aren’t forgotten. They are still loved and we are still trying for them,” Martinez said.

San Antonio police are actively investigating what happened that night in July 2022.

Even after three years, Tellez and Martinez continue speaking publicly about what happened to their sons.

When asked to describe their sons, both mothers shared memories that reflect who they were in life.

“He was so loving, He was good in school. He has a big family that he very much loved. I do miss him a lot,” Martinez said of Angelray.

Tellez described her son Gregorio as “funny and caring.” Gregorio also leaves behind a 4-year-old daughter.

As the anniversary of their deaths approach, both families said they continue to honor their sons privately, often through candlelight vigils and time with close family.

For them, the goal has remained the same since 2022.

“We just want justice for the boys so they can rest in peace,” Martinez said.

The San Antonio Police Department asks anyone with information about the shooting to contact Crime Stoppers at 210-224-STOP (7867). Tips can remain anonymous, and a reward may be available for information that leads to an arrest.

Read also:

• Man with apparent gunshot to head dies inside South Side home, authorities say
• Family member stabs man multiple times with kitchen knife on Northwest Side, SAPD says
• SAPD: 1 dead, 1 in critical condition after shooting outside apartment complex on Northwest Side

The Alabama-based nonprofit was indicted in April on fraud and money laundering charges that accuse it of misleading donors by paying informants inside white supremacist and other extremist organizations to obtain inside information about their activities.

Lawyers for the SPLC have already argued that law enforcement agencies have long known that the nonprofit paid informants to report on the movements of hate groups. They have also said acting Attorney General Todd Blanche made a false statement at a news conference when he said the organization had not shared with law enforcement information it had learned from informants. Blanche later appeared to walk back that claim in a television interview, saying it was true that the SPLC had “selectively” shared information with law enforcement over the years.

The attorneys for the center expanded on those arguments Tuesday, saying in a legal brief seeking to dismiss the case that the prosecution was the “culmination of a top-down, retributive campaign" in which Trump pushed the Justice Department "to go after those individuals and groups he deemed his political enemies, including the SPLC.”

Defense says indictment fits broader retaliation campaign

The brief was filed against the backdrop of other politically charged prosecutions that have raised concerns that the Justice Department is operating as a weapon to target Trump's opponents. It drew a parallel between the SPLC indictment and the human smuggling prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, which was dismissed Friday on similar vindictive prosecution grounds by a judge who called the case an “abuse of prosecuting power.”

The SPLC has said its now-defunct program of paying informants to infiltrate hate groups was developed to glean key insights into their activities so that potential victims could be protected. An earlier federal investigation into the practice was closed without charges, but the brief paints the current Justice Department as pursuing the case with renewed — and rushed — vigor.

The department decided to pursue the indictment without having interviewed any current SPLC employees, and did not seek any documents from the group until after it had told defense lawyers that criminal charges were forthcoming, defense lawyers say.

During a meeting requested by defense lawyers who hoped to avert to indictment, Justice Department officials informed them that the decision had already been made to pursue charges, according to the brief.

“These procedural irregularities show that the charges against the SPLC were a foregone conclusion based on prosecutorial vindictiveness — driven by the White House and FBI leadership’s retribution campaign — rather than the result of a good faith examination of the evidence,” the document states. It says the indictment was “premised on conclusory accusations but devoid of provable facts or a proper statement of the law.”

The motion also cites whistleblower accounts that accused top Justice Department officials of rushing forward with an indictment despite internal concerns about the merits of the case and the strength of the evidence.

“For weeks, we have been arguing against these false allegations levied against the SPLC — an organization that for 55 years has stood as a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multiracial democracy where we can all live and thrive,” Bryan Fair, the interim president and CEO of SPLC, said in a statement.

“The government can’t prosecute the SPLC as payback for its protected speech — it violates basic constitutional rights," he said.

The administration has painted SPLC as partisan

Founded in 1971 as a civil rights organization, the SPLC over the decades has used litigation to fight white supremacist groups. It also tracks the activities and locations of domestic extremists. But its work has made it a popular target among Republicans who see it as overly leftist and partisan.

The center, for instance, received fresh attention last year after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk because the SPLC had included a section on the group that Kirk founded and led, Turning Point USA, in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024."

FBI Director Kash Patel announced in October that the bureau would be severing its relationship with the SPLC, saying it had turned into a “partisan smear machine,” and he accused it of defaming “mainstream Americans” with its “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States.

The defense motion says “animus” from senior levels of the administration helped shape the indictment.

It cites, among other comments, a statement from Trump himself deriding the SPLC as “a total scam run by the Democrats,” as well as a news media interview in which Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department's top civil rights official, said the indictment was “personal” to her because she had “a lot of journalist friends ... and groups that I’ve represented who have been targeted by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

Green, who has represented the 9th Congressional District since 2005, has been a vocal opponent to President Donald Trump’s policies in Washington and a fixture on the Houston political scene. Green repeatedly and unsuccessfully filed articles of impeachment for Trump during the president’s first and second terms. He was also removed from the State of the Union earlier this year after unfurling a protest sign. He had vowed to continue fighting Trump’s agenda if reelected and leaned on his experience, pitching himself as the candidate has been doing the job.

Menefee will face the GOP nominee Ronald Dwayne Whitfield. Whitfield faces an uphill battle as the district is deep blue; Kamala Harris would have carried the new district by 55 points.

Menafee is an attorney by trade who in 2020 became the youngest ever and first Black Harris County attorney. In January, Menefee won a special election to finish the term of Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died in March 2025.

With little policy misalignment between the two congressmen, the runoff contest for the 18th Congressional District centered on stylistic differences between Menefee, the newest member of Texas’ delegation, and Green, amid a broader conversation about age and politics.

Green, 78, and Menefee, 38, advanced to the runoff election after neither cleared the 50% threshold in the March primary, in which Menefee received more votes. Tuesday’s election marked the fourth in seven months for voters in the district.

Texas Republicans forced the rare incumbent against incumbent clash when they drew a chunk of Green’s voters out of his 9th Congressional District in a mid-decade redistricting effort last summer to gerrymander the state’s congressional map for more GOP gains.

Green has represented his district, and parts of the region, for more than two decades since he defeated an incumbent in 2004, also following a redistricting that created the majority Latino and Black district.

The new district has more voters from Green’s previous boundaries. Still, Menefee led Green in some polls leading up to the election, especially with voters younger than 55.

Among the few differences in policy between the two is over cryptocurrency. Green has emerged as a skeptic while Menefee has embraced the industry as it invested in his congressional bid.

The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion was created in response to two gunmen allegedly inspired by the Islamic State group slaying 15 people at a Sydney Hanukkah celebration in December. Royal commissions are Australia's highest form of public inquiry.

The commission's head, former High Court judge Virginia Bell, said Jewish witnesses who testified about their experiences of antisemitism since public hearings began on May 4 have been subjected to online “harassment and intimidation.”

“We have received reports from a number of witnesses concerning a dramatic increase in online hate messages after they have given evidence,” Bell said.

“Quite what this undiluted level of hatred and bigotry directed towards members of the Jewish community is thought to benefit by those who post these remarks is lost on me,” she added.

The commission was recording the “offensive social media posts,” Bell said, and in one case the harassment has been referred to police.

“The commission has, as one of its principal objects, understanding and assessing the lived experience of antisemitism by members of the Jewish community and it is being informed by conduct of this character,” she said.

The first two weeks of hearings scrutinized the nature and prevalence of antisemitism in Australia’s institutions and society.

During the first week of hearings, a 68-year-old man was charged with wearing a shirt emblazoned with a “prohibited Nazi symbol” outside the commission in Sydney, a police statement.

The design appeared to incorporate a Star of David superimposed over a swastika with the slogan: “Antisemitism. Proud to be accused. Speak up!”

The commission said in a statement at the time it was “appalled” that an “antisemitic shirt” had been worn in its vicinity. The commission assured witnesses that safety protocols were in place around the building.

“The royal commission is determined to investigate antisemitism in Australia without fear or intimidation,” the statement said.

Luc Brisebois, director-general for the Centre for Border and Travel Health at the Public Health Agency of Canada, said the measures are being implemented out of an “abundance of caution” and will stay in place until Aug. 29.

Travelers who have symptoms will be transferred to hospital for further medical assessment. The stricter border measures are being implemented starting Saturday, and those who do not have somewhere to isolate will be provided with a place.

Canadian officials also said that starting Wednesday, they are pausing final decisions on immigration applications for people from affected countries for 90 days, though that could be extended or lifted based on the evolution of the outbreak.

The outbreak is centered around northeastern Congo and is of a rare type of Ebola that is outpacing response efforts, the World Health Organization says, with more than 900 suspected cases and more than 220 deaths. Aid efforts have intensified, and WHO says the outbreak could last for months.

Hobart/Lawrence (Wisconsin) Police Chief Michael Renkas said that Jacobs was arrested Tuesday and booked into Brown County Jail on charges of strangulation and suffocation, battery-domestic abuse, criminal damage to property-domestic abuse, disorderly conduct-domestic abuse and intimidation of a victim.

Renkas said police had been dispatched to a complaint involving Jacobs on Saturday at 8:37 a.m.

“This remains an active and ongoing investigation,” Renkas said in a statement. “No further information will be released at this time.”

The strangulation and suffocation charge is a felony and the other four charges are misdemeanors, according to the charge information in the Brown County Jail's online record of this case.

Jacobs' lawyers — David Chesnoff, Richard Schonfeld and Clarence Duchac — issued a joint statement on his behalf.

“Josh vehemently denies the allegations, and this matter is in the early stages of investigation with important evidence that has not yet been made public,” they said. “We ask for fairness and restraint while the judicial process takes its course.”

Jacobs is the Packers’ top returning rusher after running for 929 yards and 13 touchdowns last season. That followed a 2024 season in which he ran for 1,329 yards and 15 touchdowns while earning his third Pro Bowl selection.

He's the only player on Green Bay's roster who rushed for as many as 200 yards for the Packers last season. Emanuel Wilson, the Packers' second-leading rusher last year, signed with the Seattle Seahawks in the offseason.

The Packers began their organized team activities Tuesday. Packers coach Matt LaFleur has a scheduled availability with reporters Wednesday.

“We are aware of the matter involving Josh Jacobs,” a Packers spokesman said. “As it is an ongoing legal situation, we will withhold further comment.”

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said that “we are aware of the report and have been in contact with the club.”

Jacobs spent his first five seasons with the Raiders. He earned All-Pro honors and had an NFL-leading 1,653 yards rushing with Las Vegas in 2022.

He has rushed for 7,803 yards and 74 touchdowns in his seven-year career. The only active players with more career touchdown runs are Baltimore's Derrick Henry (122) and Buffalo's Josh Allen (79).

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

The chants: “We want Wemby! We want Wemby!”

The Knicks have done their part, getting to the NBA Finals. And now, they’ll have to wait until at least Thursday to see which team comes out of the Western Conference — either Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs, or the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder.

Before Game 5 of the Spurs-Thunder series on Tuesday night, San Antonio coach Mitch Johnson was asked if he has heard about the chants from those Knicks fans.

He hasn’t — but didn’t seem surprised that they’re happening.

“I know New York’s on fire. They won so that city is obviously enjoying it and they’ve had a heck of a playoff run,” Johnson said. “But unfortunately, I’ve been pretty locked-into what we’ve got going right here in front of us.”

The Knicks have won 11 consecutive games, rallying from a 2-1 deficit to beat Atlanta in Round 1 and then sweeping Philadelphia and Cleveland in the next two rounds.

And in fairness, some Knicks fans were captured on videos that got posted to social media chanting “We want Wemby!” after Game 1 of the East finals against the Cavaliers.

“Tip your cap to New York, for sure,” Johnson said. “They’re having a heck of a run.”

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba

The victory could provide a model for similar campaigns gaining traction in states including California and Illinois, where labor organizers are increasingly targeting app-based industries as drivers also grapple with the rapid expansion of self-driving technology.

As drivers waved signs and chanted with the gold dome of the Massachusetts State House providing a backdrop, labor leaders described Friday's certification as the largest private-sector organizing win since Ford autoworkers unionized in 1941.

Jean Fredo, who has driven for Uber for more than seven years, said he hopes the union will bring better pay, stronger protections against sudden deactivations and more stability for drivers.

“With the union, it will not feel like we’re working for nothing,” he said in French through a translator. “Now the money will not only stay in the billionaire’s pockets. The money will actually come to the workers who work very hard.”

Uber and Lyft said they planned to work with the new bargaining framework as negotiations move forward. Uber said it would work with the union and regulators while preserving “driver flexibility and hard-won benefits,” while Lyft said it was committed to “engaging in good faith” and “helping drivers succeed while keeping rideshare affordable and dependable for everyone who counts on it.”

The certification became possible after the state’s voters approved a 2024 ballot measure creating a first-in-the-nation framework allowing ride-hailing drivers to unionize and bargain collectively while remaining independent contractors — a model some business groups and legal scholars argue could face antitrust challenges under federal law. Organizers say the union will ultimately represent nearly 70,000 drivers statewide.

Drivers hope for relief on wages, deactivations

“Without the support of the drivers, we wouldn’t be here,” Victoria Acosta, a mother who drives for both Uber and Lyft, said in Spanish through a translator. She said she hopes the victory inspires drivers in other states.

Uber and Lyft drivers are generally classified as independent contractors rather than employees, meaning they are not covered by many traditional labor protections under federal law. Drivers typically use their own vehicles, pay for expenses such as gas and maintenance themselves and can choose when and how long they work through the apps.

Fredo said when he started driving for Uber he appreciated the flexibility and the ability to make his own schedule while still being present for his family. But over time, he said, he found himself working longer hours while earning less as gas and maintenance costs climbed.

Drivers can also lose access to the apps with little warning, he said.

“I live with stress — always scared to lose my app. This is not a way to live," said Fredo, who helped sign up hundreds of other drivers at airports and gathering spots around the Boston area.

“This is my family,” he said, holding up a photo of his four children. “I’m fighting for a better life for them — just like everyone else is fighting for their families. My dream is to save and send my kids to college, and I believe we will get there.”

A labor fight shadowed by automation fears

Supporters say rising vehicle costs, fluctuating pay and opaque app algorithms have fueled frustration among drivers who pay many work expenses themselves. Uber and Lyft have argued that drivers value the flexibility of app-based work and have opposed efforts that could reclassify workers or alter the industry’s business model.

Massachusetts regulators are considering new ride-hailing rules involving safety standards and driver oversight. Days before the union certification, Uber warned in a blog post that some of the proposals could raise costs and reduce flexibility for drivers, while supporters said the changes are intended to strengthen safety and accountability.

The organizing effort has also unfolded alongside the rapid expansion of autonomous vehicle technology. Massachusetts still requires a licensed human operator inside autonomous vehicles tested on public roads.

Waymo has expanded driverless taxi operations in cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, heightening anxiety among some ride-hailing drivers about the future of their jobs.

Julie Blust of the App Drivers Union said drivers across the country regularly communicate with one another about changing conditions in the industry, including the expansion of autonomous vehicles.

“Drivers now have an official organization and can speak with one voice about what’s happening in this industry,” Blust said. “We cannot let billions of dollars leave Massachusetts and go to Silicon Valley. That money feeds people’s families, that money pays the rent."

“Leaving the training ground and walking to my car with a box full of bobbleheads to take home to my kids,” the 38-year-old defender recalled, “my WhatsApp started to go a little bit crazy.”

Ream was among 26 players who received a video in a group chat from Sam Zapata, the U.S. national team administrative manager, informing those selected for the World Cup roster.

“Guys, if you are watching that video, it is because you are in,” U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino told them. “I am so excited to communicate that you are going to be on the roster for the World Cup 2026, in the World Cup that you are going to host.”

“It made me stop on my tracks,” said Ream, hoping to become the oldest U.S. player to appear in soccer's top tournament.

Midfielders Gio Reyna and Sebastian Berhalter, sons of a former captain and an ex-coach, were picked by along with forward Alejandro Zendejas.

Midfielders Diego Luna and Tanner Tessmann were left off.

Holding American jerseys with wavy red and white stripes, players were introduced Tuesday at a made-for-TV event on the roof of the South Street Seaport’s Pier 17 with the Brooklyn Bridge as a backdrop. They were announced in the numerical order of jersey numbers assigned by equipment manager Kyle Robertson, taking seniority into account. All were on hand except for defender Chris Richards, in Germany with Crystal Palace for Wednesday’s UEFA Conference League final.

“We want this so bad,” said forward Christian Pulisic, the biggest American star. “If you're not a little bit nervous, you don’t feel a little, you don’t care. So, we care so much.”

Defender Sergiño Dest, midfielder Tyler Adams and forward Haji Wright were added after missing March friendlies because of injuries. Zendejas was bypassed for the March roster after a knee injury last fall.

A few minutes after the Friday video arrived, emails were sent to all 55 players on the preliminary roster informing them of their fate. Pochettino didn't give explanations to those omitted, comparing the rejection with how he felt when Tottenham executive chairman Daniel Levy fired him as manager in 2019 and then asked to speak.

“What do you want to talk about (with) me?” Pochettino said. “I don't want to hear nothing.”

Luna missed the March matches because of a knee injury after playing in 17 of 18 international games last year.

“It’s painful because I really know what it means to be out of the roster,” said Pochettino, who failed to make Argentina's roster as a defender in 1994 and 1998, then was chosen in 2002.

“During two weeks I didn’t sleep," the coach said. "And today still I cannot enjoy the 26 guys that are in front of me because I am thinking in players that are out.”

Final rosters are submitted to FIFA on June 1 and injuries could cause a change until one day before the U.S. opener against Paraguay on June 12.

“Things can happen. They need to be ready because maybe we can call,” Pochettino said.

Reyna, a son of former U.S. captain Claudio Reyna, nearly was sent home from the 2022 World Cup by then-coach Gregg Berhalter for lack of hustle and made just four starts this season for Borussia Mönchengladbach — none since Dec. 19.

“I don’t say that he’s going to play the game, but he can help,” Pochettino said. “He can help because he’s a different player, different talent, and I think in all the roster you need to have a player like him.”

Sebastian Berhalter, a 25-year-old son of the former coach, made his national team debut last June and became the Americans' best corner-kick taker.

Players dropped who had been on the March roster included goalkeeper Patrick Schulte, Tessmann and fellow midfielder Aidan Morris. Two players were sidelined by recent injuries: midfielder Johnny Cardoso (right ankle surgery) and forward Patrick Agyemang (torn right Achilles). Defender Cameron Carter-Vickers is recovering from a torn Achilles in October.

Who is back from 2022?

Half the roster returns from the last World Cup: goalkeeper Matt Turner; Dest, Ream and fellow defenders Antonee Robinson and Joe Scally; Adams and fellow midfielders Weston McKennie, Reyna and Cristian Roldan; and Pulisic and Wright at forward with Brenden Aaronson and Tim Weah.

Richards and Miles Robinson were picked after injuries sidelined them ahead of the 2022 tournament.

Richards is a health concern after tearing two left ankle ligaments on May 17. Pochettino said he won't know Richards' status until he arrives in the U.S. for training because clubs “hide things.”

“Was really, really tough to have the real information to make our best decision,” Pochettino said. “How selfish, no, is the people in soccer or in football?”

Among the final cuts four years ago, Ricardo Pepi made it this time.

Players from 2022 left off included goalkeepers Ethan Horvath and Sean Johnson; Carter-Vickers and fellow defenders Aaron Long, Shaq Moore, DeAndre Yedlin and Walker Zimmerman; midfielders Kellyn Acosta, Luca de la Torre and Yunus Musah; and forwards Jesús Ferreira, Jordan Morris and Josh Sargent.

This year's average age of 26 years, 332 days as of the U.S. opener is up from 25-216 four years ago and the fifth-youngest for an American World Cup roster.

Where are players from?

Just eight players were taken from Major League Soccer, the fewest since four in 2010. Five players are based in England, three each in Germany’s Bundesliga and France’s Ligue 1, two apiece in Italy’s Serie A and the Dutch Eredivisie, and one each in Mexico, Scotland and Spain.

Pulisic ended his AC Milan season scoreless in 19 games since Dec. 28 and has gone eight U.S. matches without a goal since November 2024.

Pochettino's three strikers finished their club seasons in form, combining for 56 goals: Folarin Balogun and Pepi scored 19 each and Wright 18.

For the first time since 1990, no American goalkeepers are from European clubs.

Ream will be 38 years, 250 days on the day the U.S. plays its opener, older than defender Fernando Clavijo when the U.S. was knocked out by Brazil in 1994.

Defender Alex Freeman, a son of former Super Bowl champion Antonio Freeman, is the youngest American this year at 21.

No. 3 goalkeeper Chris Brady is the first player on the U.S. World Cup roster with no international experience since backup goalkeeper Juergen Sommer in 1994.

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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup

Raul Canales, Jr., 76, was arrested on animal cruelty charges — which are considered third-degree felonies — Sunday at his home in the 500 block of Cavalier Avenue near South Zarzamora Street.

A report from San Antonio police said officers responded to a call about someone at that home killing dogs and found several pets dead there.

In the report, SAPD said officers also found some living animals on the property, which were then turned over to ACS. The report did not offer specifics about what was done to the dogs or exactly how they died.

KSAT 12 News spoke off-camera to a man in the neighborhood Tuesday morning who claimed to be a relative of Canales.

The relative said the dogs that were killed were puppies from an unexpected litter and were extremely sick.

The relative said Canales had called ACS several times for help with the animals.

When an ACS crew showed up at the home last Friday, the relative said the agency refused to take the puppies due to its shelter being full.

The ACS workers told Canales to try back again after the Memorial Day weekend, the relative said.

In the meantime, police said Canales, Jr. ended up killing the pups.

KSAT 12 News reached out to ACS throughout the day Tuesday, including sending several emails and leaving voicemail messages with requests for more details on the case.

Spokesperson Claudia Balarin sent KSAT the following statement on Tuesday afternoon:

On May 22, Animal Care Services responded to an anonymous call about loose puppies in the street. During the response, the resident shared that the owner surrender process for the animals had begun the week prior. ACS has no record or information indicating that the puppies were sick at the time of the field response. As of yesterday, 8 dogs were owner-surrendered into our care, and 2 additional dogs were confiscated.

ACS Spokesperson Claudia Balarin

Meanwhile, Canales is being held at the Bexar County jail on bonds totaling $100,000.

More crime coverage on KSAT:

• What we know about Marlene Vidal, the South Texas mother charged with capital murder of her 2 children
• SAPD: Capital murder suspect used Instagram to lure 2 teens before shooting, killing them
• Man dies of multiple stab wounds downtown; Suspect charged with murder, San Antonio police say

“I’ve been dancing my whole life, it’s the best,” said Ross, who founded the Rodeo City Wreckettes group 23 years ago at an age when many people are getting ready for retirement.

Now 87, Ross and her husband and lifelong dance partner John, also 87, have long known what more older adults are now discovering: Moving to music is one of the best ways to stay healthy. Medical professionals say it doesn’t matter if it’s Western line dancing, ballroom steps, salsa, tap, Zumba at the gym, or with a group like the Wreckettes.

“Dancing is one of the most powerful activities for older people,” said Julio Loya, a nurse and geriatric program coordinator at the Tucson Medical Center.

Why dancing helps balance, strength and more

Dance, like other exercise, can help people lose weight, get stronger, reduce fall risk, increase mobility and flexibility, and even improve brain health.

“ It engages their brain, it changes their mood, and it connects them socially while getting them moving,” said Loya. “And it’s fun. Everybody has a good time.”

Dr. Thomas Johnson, a geriatrician at the UCHealth Seniors Clinic in Aurora, Colorado, said he remembers one man in particular whose passion for dance was so strong that he willed himself to attend one last class before he died in his late 80s.

“His No. 1 priority was that he danced until the day that he died," Johnson said of his patient.

Johnson said dance can improve the balance of his patients at the clinic, which serves about 2,500 people 75 and older a year.

He said older patients can benefit from adding two to three dance sessions to the 150 minutes of aerobic exercise he recommends for them each week, because dancing often involves movements that help with balance, such as walking backward or standing on one foot.

Meeting people by dancing together

The Wreckettes practice their routines during two-hour sessions at least twice a week in a rented dance studio.

After studying ballet as a girl, then moving on to everything from ballroom to tap as an adult, Ross said it made sense to keep dancing when she and her husband moved from Philadelphia to retire in Tucson.

John Ross is a key part of the Wreckettes' routines, typically joining his wife for at least one number. At one recent practice, it was a saucy saunter to Merle Haggard’s “Let’s Chase Each Other Around the Room.”

“I learned early on that dancing was a great way to attract the chicks,” joked John Ross, who slid across the floor like a much younger man.

Wreckettes member Cindy Soffrin said that watching her mother suffer as she aged convinced her to stay active as she got older.

“My mom was sedentary the last 20 years of her life. It was pretty rough,” said Soffrin, 74.

For 67-year-old Gail Kowalski, joining the Wreckettes three years ago meant finding new friends after her husband died and she moved from Utah to Tucson.

“Plus, it’s so dang fun,” Kowalski said.

The fun of performing

The Wreckettes perform throughout the year, from holiday events to rodeo shows, dressing up in a series of matching sparkly costumes.

But they all said what they love the most is being hired by retirement homes to perform for memory care patients. Wreckette members take turns picking a favorite charity to donate their earnings.

“When we first arrive, people will be distracted or sleeping,” said Soffrin. “But once the music comes on, they perk up right away.”

A similar dance group for older women in Las Vegas, the Vegas Golden Gals, also performs at retirement homes, said Cheryl Cortez, the group’s president. They add pompoms to their routines.

“I must now know close to 40 routines,” said Cortez, 69. “And that alone has to be great for the memory.”

How to begin dancing when you're older

If you want to start moving to music, here are some tips from health professionals and dance instructors:

BEFORE STARTING: Check with your health provider before starting a dance or any exercise program. Choose something simple to start, like line dancing rather than intricate tango steps.

FIND A CLASS: Check with a YMCA, parks and recreation department, or senior or community center. Community colleges often have dance classes, sometimes tailored for older people. Local dance studios and YouTube videos are other options. If you have Medicare Advantage insurance with the Silver Sneakers benefit, find out if your local gym has Zumba or other dance classes you can attend for free.

BEFORE THE SESSION: Dress comfortably for easy movement, and warm up and stretch before class.

MOST IMPORTANTLY: Have fun! You are doing great things for your mind and body.

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For more AP stories about healthy aging, go to https://apnews.com/hub/aging

As early in-person voting began Tuesday in South Carolina’s primaries, the state Senate rejected a Republican plan to cancel those congressional votes and instead schedule a new primary under revised districts designed to help the GOP oust a longtime Democrat.

Some senators said it was simply too late to make a change.

“South Carolina citizens are going to the polls today. And neither my conscience or common sense is going to let me stop an election that is already underway,” Republican state Sen. Richard Cash said.

The political drama in South Carolina is part of a Republican strategy — propelled by Trump — to redraw voting districts to the GOP’s advantage in an attempt to hold on to a slim House majority in the midterm elections. Republicans have moved quickly to try to leverage a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act.

But in Alabama, a three-judge federal panel issued a preliminary injunction blocking the state from using a Republican-drawn congressional map that could help the GOP win an additional seat. The court said the plan “intentionally discriminated based on race” by including only one Black-majority district, and it ordered the continued use of a court-imposed map that includes two districts with a significant proportion of Black residents.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, vowed a quick appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and predicted an eventual victory.

Republicans, who remain ahead in a national mid-decade redistricting battle, also notched some victories in lower courts on Tuesday.

A state judge in Florida declined to block new congressional districts passed by the Republican-led Legislature from being used in the midterm elections. Republicans stand to gain as many as four seats under the new map. The judge said voting rights groups that sued hadn't shown they were likely to succeed on their claim that the map was drawn with political intent in violation of Florida's Constitution. The groups said they were quickly appealing to a higher court, and vowed to keep pursuing the case all the way to the state Supreme Court, if necessary.

A federal court also declined to issue a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit contending that Tennessee's new U.S. House districts are racially discriminatory. The new Republican-drawn map carves up a majority-Black district in Memphis, giving Republicans an improved chance to win the state's only Democratic-held seat. The case is one of several brought against the map.

A redistricting battle that has spanned 10 months

Voting districts typically are redrawn after a census at the start of a decade. But Trump has urged Republican-led states to redistrict ahead of the November elections to try to rebuff political headwinds, which typically result in lost congressional seats for the president’s party in midterms.

Since Trump first urged Texas to redraw its voting districts last summer, Republicans also have enacted new House districts in Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee. Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from those efforts, and perhaps 15 if they eventually win the ability to use a different map in Alabama.

Meanwhile, Democrats think they could win five additional seats from new voter-approved districts in California, plus one more from a new court-imposed map in Utah. Democrats suffered a setback earlier this month in Virginia, where the state Supreme Court invalidated a voter-approved redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats win additional seats.

Redistricting discussions are ongoing in Louisiana following an April high court ruling that struck down a majority-Black congressional district as an illegal partisan gerrymander. The Louisiana House could vote later this week on a new map that could eliminate a seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields and improve Republicans' chances of winning six of the state's seven seats.

The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday called on major corporations, including those that previously expressed support for voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S. House districts. The caucus last week called for Black athletes to boycott public universities in states that are gerrymandering congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers.

Clyburn decries White House role in redistricting

More than 55,000 ballots were cast Tuesday on South Carolina's first day of early voting for the June 9 primary after Democrats called for people against a proposed new map to turn out in force. In the 2022 midterms, about 125,000 early votes were cast in the entire two weeks.

Among the first to cast an early ballot in the small city of Orangeburg was U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the Democrat whose district Republicans were trying to reshape in their quest for a clean sweep of South Carolina’s congressional seats. A defiant Clyburn insisted he would run for reelection, regardless of what the district looks like.

“I’m OK if it’s Trump plus 20,” Clyburn said while describing the potential Republican advantage in a reshaped district. “I would be running where I live.”

The Republican-led House already had passed a plan that would reconfigure Clyburn's district, void the results of current congressional primaries and instead hold new U.S. House primaries in August.

Trump had lobbied for the plan, making at least two phone calls to Republican state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey and also phoning in to a private meeting of Republican senators earlier this month. He also had maintained the pressure on social media.

But debate stalled in the Senate, where Democrats were staunchly opposed and some GOP lawmakers were concerned that aggressive redistricting could backfire by making some Republican-held seats vulnerable to losses because of the addition of Democratic voters.

Clyburn noted that when state lawmakers last redrew congressional districts, after the 2020 census, they spent months holding meetings across the state to gather public suggestions. Although that map resulted in a 6-1 seat advantage for Republicans over Democrats, the process was orderly and fair, he said.

“When the map was challenged, the U.S. Supreme Court said, yes, this is constitutional,” Clyburn said. But now, “this White House says, to hell with the process, to hell with the Constitution, just do what we want done.”

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Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama, and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri.

Jurors are expected to be seated in the manslaughter case of Aris Jamal Ransom-Powell, 29. Ransom-Powell is accused of participating in street racing that led to the deaths of three people.

San Antonio police officers responded to the crash just before 4:30 p.m. on June 24, 2020, near the intersection of McCullough Avenue and Pinewood Lane.

SAPD initially reported two deaths in the crash, but investigators later determined a third person injured in the collision was later pronounced dead.

Police said one of the vehicles lost control and hit a tree, resulting in two deaths.

Last month, SAPD and Guadalupe County Sheriff’s deputies executed an arrest warrant and took Powell into custody in the 300 block of Hinge Loop in Cibolo. During his arrest, GCSO said deputies located a stolen vehicle.

If convicted on the manslaughter charge, Ransom-Powell could face up to 20 years in prison.

More related coverage of this story on KSAT:

• Wanted fugitive with extensive criminal history arrested in Cibolo, GCSO says
• 2 dead, 5 hospitalized after major multi-vehicle crash on North Side, San Antonio police say

The proposal from parents' group Protect Girls Sports in Maine was slated to go before voters in November. It would have asked voters if they wanted to require public schools to restrict access to bathrooms and sports based on the gender denoted on a child's birth certificate.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who is running for governor as a Democrat, said Tuesday her staff found that more than 12,000 signatures on the petition for the referendum were invalid. That leaves the petition drive a few hundred short of the 67,682 required for the initiative to make the ballot, Bellows said.

Bellows' decision is a setback for the nationwide movement to limit or ban transgender students in sports. Maine emerged as a battleground for the issue last year following a public disagreement between Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who is in her final year of office due to term limits, and President Donald Trump.

“We take the integrity of the petitions just as seriously as we take the security of voting. It's really important that anyone seeking to place a initiative on the ballot follow the law,” Bellows said.

Leyland Streiff, principal officer of Protect Girls Sports in Maine, said in a statement that the group “disagrees with the secretary of state’s decision declaring the Protect Girls Sports initiative ineligible for the November ballot.” The group “is working to ensure full judicial review of the secretary’s decision with the understanding that the courts, not the secretary, should have the final word on this important matter,” Streiff said.

The petitioners have 10 days to appeal Bellows’ decision. The group will also have the ability to try to get the initiative on a future ballot, Bellows said. The secretary of state’s office released a recommended decision about the initiative last week that said the petition “does not meet the constitution threshold” of valid signatures.

At least 19 states have laws banning transgender girls and women from using girls’ and women’s bathrooms at public school, and in some cases, other government facilities, private schools or public places. Enforcement of one of the laws – in Montana – has been put on hold by a court.

At least 30 states have laws or other statewide policies that seek to keep transgender girls and women from competing in girls and women’s sports. Courts have blocked enforcement of some of the laws.

None of the laws on bathrooms or sports restrictions came about through ballot measures. Two other Democratic-controlled states – Colorado and Washington – have sports-related laws on the ballot for November.

The restrictions on both fronts have been adopted in the past five years, and have been championed by Trump. Since his return to office last year, he has terminated agreements with school districts to protect transgender students and signed an executive order to limit sports participation by transgender athletes.

Opponents of the Maine ballot initiative said Tuesday they agreed with Bellows' decision. The petitioners “failed to follow the rules,” said David Farmer, campaign manager for the Campaign for Free and Fair Schools, which opposed the question.

___

Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, New Jersey.

Kennedy shared the clip of himself grabbing the tails of the non-venomous black racer snakes on his personal social media accounts, noting in the caption that he was removing them from the patio of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz.

An avid outdoorsman, Kennedy has posted numerous photos and videos over the years of himself interacting with wild animals. He's also shared tales of such interactions, including admitting once planting a bear carcass in New York's Central Park as a prank.

Internet users reacted with joy, incredulity and outcry at Kennedy's latest clip, which shows the snakes biting in the direction of his fingers as Oz asks questions about the snakes. Kennedy’s wife, actress Cheryl Hines, can be heard saying “Why?” and telling her husband to let them go.

Herpetologists said the species in the clip is largely harmless to humans, even if it bites. But they said people should be mindful of the stress that handling snakes can put on the creatures, and to avoid grabbing them by the tails as Kennedy does in the video, because it can cause injuries to their spines.

“That is not how I would handle the snakes, but I’m a trained professional,” said Bonnie Keller, a herpetologist and former board member of the Virginia Herpetological Society.

Sean McKnight, director of programs at the nonprofit Rattlesnake Conservancy, said he encourages people to minimize the duration that they’re handling any kind of wildlife, because they are “potentially stressing out the animals more than needed.”

Earlier this month, Kennedy posted a snapshot of himself holding a bird in his enclosed hand in what he wrote was the rescue of a starling at Dulles Airport in northern Virginia.

In 2024, while running for president, he posted a video of himself using a small net and a trowel to capture a rattlesnake in his California driveway. In that video, he cautiously secures the venomous snake in his bare hands and displays its fangs to the camera. McKnight said he doesn’t advise anybody to handle rattlesnakes like that, because there’s no way to restrain them safely with your hands.

Also in 2024, Kennedy generated criticism when he admitted to taking a bear carcass from the side of the road and placing it in Central Park as a prank in 2014. He said at the time that he had been picking up roadkill his “whole life” and once had a “freezer full of it” at home. His campaign spokesperson Stefanie Spear, now a top adviser at the nation's health department, said roadkill was how Kennedy, a longtime falconer, fed his birds.

Today on Texas Eats NOW:

LA CARNICERIA MEAT MARKET

8771 TX-151, Ste 101, San Antonio, TX 78245

946 N Loop 1604 W, Ste 140, San Antonio, TX 78232

La Carniceria Meat Market has become one of San Antonio’s premier destinations for premium meats and elevated carne asada cuts. Founded by Luis Ruiz, the concept modernizes the traditional carniceria experience by offering high-end proteins like USDA Prime, Wagyu, and authentic Japanese Kobe beef alongside classic Mexican favorites such as ranchera, arrachera, and tasajo. The upscale butcher shop is known for its spotless presentation, personalized service, and fresh marinades prepared to order by in-house butchers.

Today on Texas Eats, we fired up the outdoor grill using meats provided by La Carniceria while highlighting the market’s popular VIP Charola package. The package includes three customer favorites: tasajo, ranchera, and costillas, available marinated or unmarinated for cookouts, parties, and catered events. Beyond premium cuts, La Carniceria also offers house-made chorizo, charcoal, tortillas, cheeses, and salsas, creating a one-stop destination for backyard grilling essentials. Customers continue to praise the market for the tenderness, flavor, and quality of its meats, along with the shop’s attention to detail and customized cuts.

GOODE CO. ARMADILLO PALACE

5015 Kirby Dr, Houston, TX 77098

Goode Co. Armadillo Palace is one of Houston’s most iconic Texas dining and live music venues, blending honky-tonk culture, elevated comfort food, and Lone Star history into one unforgettable experience. Located in Houston’s Upper Kirby district, the massive venue is instantly recognizable thanks to the giant silver armadillo sculpture out front that puffs smoke into the air above Kirby Drive. Inside, guests are surrounded by reclaimed wood, antique saddles, taxidermy, vintage Texas memorabilia, and multiple live music stages that celebrate the state’s rich musical heritage.

The menu focuses on scratch-made Texas favorites, including venison chili, shrimp campechana, Gulf Coast seafood, chicken fried steak, and wood-fired meats. The venue also features the Orange Blossom Bar, a whiskey-forward cocktail space named after Texas music legend Leon “Pappy” Selph. With indoor and outdoor stages, dance halls, sprawling patios, and regular performances from Texas country and Americana artists, Armadillo Palace serves as both a restaurant and a full-scale Texas entertainment destination for locals and visitors alike.

MEZQUITE

221 Newell Ave, San Antonio, TX 78215

Located inside Pullman Market at the Historic Pearl, Mezquite offers a bold take on Sonoran-inspired cuisine centered around mesquite-grilled meats, fresh ceviches, and house-made flour tortillas. The acclaimed restaurant has quickly earned statewide recognition, including a spot on Texas Monthly’s list of the best new restaurants and recognition from the MICHELIN Guide. Unlike traditional Tex-Mex concepts, Mezquite focuses on the flavors and grilling traditions of Northern Mexico, emphasizing live-fire cooking and high-quality ingredients.

Signature dishes include aguachile verde, mesquite-grilled carne asada, free-range chicken with pipian rojo, and Sonoran-style caramelos layered inside paper-thin flour tortillas that have become a standout favorite among diners. The adjoining Mezcaleria bar complements the menu with agave-forward cocktails like the Paloma Buendia and Margarita Flaquita, while also hosting mariachi performances and guacamole-making classes. With its airy desert-inspired design, open kitchen, and focus on hospitality, Mezquite continues to establish itself as one of San Antonio’s top dining destinations inside the Pearl District.

Follow Texas Eats and David Elder on Facebook and Instagram for more food info, pictures, videos and giveaways.

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In Washington, the president is scheduled for a medical checkup. The redistricting war also continues as the Congressional Black Caucus is urging corporate America to get involved to save voting rights, ending a collective retreat during Trump’s second presidency. In Texas, the Trump-backed, scandal-plagued Ken Paxton is favored over Sen. John Cornyn in Tuesday's GOP primary runoff election.

The Latest:

Trump says his administration should regulate prediction markets, not states

The president said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission should continue to have “exclusive authority” over prediction markets, as he attacked state leaders who seek to restrict the use of the online markets that can hinge on insider information.

“Under my leadership, we are setting ‘rules of the road’ that are the Gold Standard for the States,” Trump posted on social media. “We cannot have SCUM like Chris Christie, Letitia James, Tim Walz, and JB Pritzker setting the rules!”

Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., has invested in the prediction market Polymarket through his venture capital firm and he has been a strategic adviser for another market, Kalshi.

The CFTC currently regulates prediction markets, and that federal oversight enables them to operate in all 50 states, even those where gambling is illegal.

“It is a major Industry, and we must protect it,” Trump said in his post.

Trump calls off holding a Cabinet meeting at Camp David

The president wrote on his social media site that Wednesday’s planned meeting with his Cabinet had been set to take place at the remote presidential retreat in the mountains of Maryland but would instead be happening at the White House.

“Based on the possible bad weather conditions tomorrow, we will be having our Cabinet Meeting in the White House,” he wrote “and will be postponing the Cabinet trip to Camp David.”

Trump has visited Camp David sparingly, making just one visit there so far in his second term last fall.

Chinese foreign minister says he hopes US-Iran ‘stay committed’ to a deal as progress remains murky

At a press conference at the United Nations in New York, Wang Yi told reporters that despite the uncertainty between Washington and Tehran after a series of U.S. strikes this week, “every step forward in the negotiations brings more hope to peace.”

“We hope that the parties concerned can stay committed to pursuing a ceasefire and continue to meet each other halfway, so that peace can return to the Middle East as early as possible,” Wang said.

He added, “As we have been saying, it takes more than one cold day to freeze three feet of ice, and longstanding issues cannot be resolved overnight.”

Vance praises pope’s AI message as ‘very profound’

The vice president made the comment in a Tuesday interview with NBC News, saying he had read excerpts and summaries of Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical.

“What I read of it sounds very profound, and the sort of thing that you would expect and hope from a leader of the church,” Vance said. “The thing about morality is that the principles never change, but the way you apply those principles does, because the world changes, right?”

He said with new technology “you have to kind of rethink the entire Catholic social teaching in light of the new world that we live in. And I think that’s exactly what the pope is trying to do.”

Vance, who is Catholic, previously said the Trump administration is trying to strike a balance that encourages innovation in AI while protecting data and privacy. The American pope’s message calls on AI developers to work for the common good over profit.

South Carolina Senate rejects President Trump’s call to redraw congressional maps

The South Carolina Senate on Tuesday rejected President Donald Trump’s push to redraw the state’s congressional district in hopes Republicans could gain an additional seat in the midterm elections.

Senators had political concerns, worrying that any map in a state where Democrats got at least 40% of votes in the past eight presidential elections couldn’t guarantee Republican wins in all seven districts.

And there were logistical worries. Statewide primaries are June 9, with early voting starting Tuesday. The plan had called for throwing out any congressional votes already cast and holding another statewide primary just for U.S. House races in August.

Election officials said holding three statewide elections in five months would require employees to work around the clock to prepare voting machines and ballots and to meet legal requirements.

The proposal passed the South Carolina House last Wednesday after two days of long debate.

▶ Read more

Trump says everything checked out ‘PERFECTLY’ at his medical exam

The president made the comment after spending more than three hours at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for what the White House described as annual preventive medical and dental checkups.

Trump called it a “6 month physical” and thanked the medical center’s doctors and staff. He returned to the White House shortly after.

The White House did not immediately release results from his physical. It was Trump’s fourth publicly disclosed medical exam since he returned to office for a second term.

Top Rubio aide moves to White House

One of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s top aides is moving to the White House to serve in a position he has held informally since Rubio became Trump’s national security adviser last year.

U.S. officials said Tuesday that Mike Needham would leave his post as director of policy planning at the State Department to work full-time at the White House as a deputy national security adviser.

Needham, a veteran of the conservative Heritage Foundation who served as Rubio’s chief of staff at the beginning of Trump’s second term before moving to the policy planning position, had already been spending large amounts of time at the White House with Rubio.

Dan Holler, Rubio’s current chief of staff, will take over the policy planning post at the State Department, officials said.

Rubio set to testify in Congress on June 2

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to testify before Senate and House committees on June 2 as the conflict in Iran remains a top concern for lawmakers.

Although the hearings are officially focused on the State Department’s budget, lawmakers are expected to press Rubio on a broad range of issues tied to the war.

News over the weekend of a potential deal to end the conflict drew mixed reactions from Republicans in Congress, with some — including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — urging Trump not to ease pressure on Iran. Cruz sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, before which Rubio is scheduled to testify.

Rubio told reporters Tuesday that negotiations over extending the ceasefire and reopening the Strait of Hormuz could take several more days.

Jeffries implores Supreme Court to ‘do the right thing’ after Alabama ruling

The House Democratic leader said his party “will continue to fight the corrupt Republican scheme to racially gerrymander congressional maps in order to rig the midterms.”

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York issued the statement after a federal court blocked Alabama’s plan to use a Republican-backed congressional map that the three-judge panel said “intentionally discriminated based on race” by including only one Black-majority district.

Alabama is expected to swiftly appeal to the Supreme Court.

More clashes outside an immigration detention center in New Jersey

Several dozen people were demonstrating Tuesday outside the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, where advocates say some detainees have been on a hunger strike to protest conditions since last week. The Homeland Security department denied any hunger strike, abuse or poor conditions inside the center.

Protesters, including a woman draped in a Mexican flag, kneeled and chanted “ICE out” in front of a line of federal officers who stood alongside an armored vehicle. At one point, an officer appeared to tackle a protester as he and other officers started walking slowly toward the crowd, attempting to have it move back.

It was a tamer scene than what U.S. Sen. Andy Kim said he experienced on Monday, saying he was pepper-sprayed as he and Gov. Mikie Sherrill led a delegation of Democratic officials seeking to meet with detainees.

Homeland Security rejects Democrats’ protest outside detention center as ‘political stunt’

“Instead of engaging with me and others about the poor conditions, ICE sent in an armored vehicle and a line of armed agents that only poured gasoline on the fire,” Kim posted on social media after Monday’s clashes. “Civilians were tackled and restrained, and agents fired pepper balls and spray into the crowd.”

Federal officials denied entry to the newly elected governor, who joined the first-term senator in demanding that Delaney Hall be shut down. “In New Jersey, we believe in the rule of law and that everyone deserves to be treated with basic dignity,” Sherrill’s statement said.

“This is nothing more than a political stunt by New Jersey sanctuary politicians for fundraising clicks,” Acting Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement.

Alabama will appeal voter discrimination ruling to US Supreme Court

The federal judges’ ruling says Republicans “intentionally discriminated based on race” by redrawing the state’s House map to remove a Black-majority district.

“Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” the judges wrote.

Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, described the GOP-drawn map as “blandly unobjectionable” and said Alabama will immediately appeal.

“Know this — in my mind, it is not a matter of whether we win this case, only when,” Marshall said.

Republicans in several Southern states, including Alabama, have sought to reshape voting districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats following the Supreme Court’s ruling that struck down a Black-majority district in Louisiana and weakened the federal Voting Rights Act.

Rubio says Iran deal talks will take several more days

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says talks with Iran on extending a ceasefire and re-opening the Strait of Hormuz will take several more days.

Speaking to reporters before leaving India on Tuesday after the U.S. launched new strikes against Iran in the south despite the ceasefire, Rubio said there is “a lot of talking back and forth going on about specific language in the initial document.”

“So, it’ll take a few days,” he said. He added that Trump would not accept a bad deal and said the critical point at the moment is reopening the Strait of Hormuz without Iran being allowed to charge a toll for ships to pass through the crucial waterway.

“The straits need to be open, unimpeded, without tolls,” he said.

FCC’s sole Democrat warns media companies against yielding to Trump

Anna Gomez wakes up every morning and checks her phone to see if Trump has fired her yet.

The sole Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission is urging urge media companies fight back against efforts to silence free speech. In an extraordinary four-page letter to Josh D’Amaro, the CEO of Disney, which is the parent company to ABC, Gomez described the FCC’s “sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control” against the company under Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump ally.

She noted probes touching on diversity practices, ABC’s moderation of a 2024 presidential debate, guest bookings on “The View” and calls for late-night host Jimmy Kimmel to be fired. She said the FCC’s move for early reviews of ABC’s local broadcast licenses is “the most egregious assault on the First Amendment this FCC has taken to date.”

▶ Read more from her Q&A with the AP

Iranian World Cup team will play in US but sleep in Mexico

The Iranians will return each night to a base in Tijuana, Mexico, after their U.S. group stage matches, President Claudia Sheinbaum has confirmed.

Sheinbaum said at a news conference Monday that she was told by a FIFA representative that the U.S. was reluctant to have the Iranian soccer team spend time in the U.S. outside the stadiums while the war launched by the U.S. and Israel continues.

“The United States doesn’t want the Iranian national team to stay overnight in the United States,” Sheinbaum said. A FIFA representative then asked, “Can they stay overnight in Mexico?” “And we said, ‘Yes, no problem. We have no issue with that’,” she said.

A U.S. State Department statement Monday said Trump made it clear the Iranian team is welcome to participate. The statement did not address where the team might stay, or Sheinbaum’s comments.

Lebanon hopes for an agreement that sees Israeli withdrawal

Israel’s military clashed with Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants Tuesday along the strategic Litani River in Lebanon as Israeli troops tried to push farther north, just three days before Lebanese and Israeli military delegations are set to meet for direct talks in Washington.

A previously reached ceasefire appears more nominal by the day, complicating efforts at a broader peace in the Iran war, as Tehran wants an end to the fighting to include Lebanon. Israel says it will not withdraw until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat to residents of its northern towns. Hezbollah has vowed to continue fighting until Israel stops its daily airstrikes and withdraws its troops from Lebanon.

▶ Read more:

Trump turns 80 next month as more Americans express concerns about his age

A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll in April found that less than half of U.S. adults think Trump has the mental sharpness or physical health to serve effectively.

“I think concern for the president’s physical health is probably at an all-time high, and I think advanced physical age is the No. 1 concern,” said Dr. Jeffrey Kuhlman, who served as a White House physician under Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Kuhlman said a complete physical would include advanced heart testing, screening for common cancers and a cognitive assessment. The White House has not disclosed what Trump’s checkups will entail.

“President Trump is the sharpest and most accessible President in American history who is working nonstop to solve problems and deliver on his promises, and he remains in excellent health,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement.

US consumer confidence is dented as gas prices remain high

U.S. consumer confidence declined slightly as gas prices remained at or above a national average of $4.50 a gallon in May and inflation remained elevated, a sharp contrast to soaring stock prices that have neared record levels.

The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index slipped 0.7 points to 93.1 in May, the first decline after three months of gains.

The index follows a separate gauge of consumer sentiment compiled by the University of Michigan, which fell to a record low this month. Spikes in gas prices as well as higher food costs have worsened inflation, which has outpaced the growth in average paychecks in recent months, reducing most Americans’ purchasing power. Polls show Americans have soured on Trump’s economic policies, which could harm Republicans in this year’s elections.

Iran denounces US strikes as a sign of bad faith, with impact on peace talks unclear

Iran on Tuesday denounced U.S. strikes a day earlier as a sign of “bad faith and unreliability” as negotiations continue toward a possible deal to end the war.

The U.S. military said it acted with restraint in defensively targeting missile launch sites and boats placing mines. Iran’s foreign ministry called the strikes a ceasefire violation and warned that “The Islamic Republic of Iran will leave no act of aggression unanswered.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on Tuesday said it had shot down and deterred drones and a fighter jet that entered its airspace, according to Iran’s official Mizan news agency, which did not say when this happened.

Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf went to Qatar as part of the talks. The U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Center said an explosion was reported Tuesday morning aboard a tanker in the Gulf of Oman. No one was injured and there was no immediate information on the cause.

Federal court blocks Alabama’s plan for new US House map

The new congressional map would give Republicans an advantage in a key House race this November. But the preliminary injunction issued by a three-judge panel requires the state, at least for now, to instead use the same court-ordered districts under which congressional representatives were elected in 2024.

Lawyers representing Black voters argued that Alabama’s map intentionally discriminates against Black voters and that trying to change lines in the middle of an election year creates chaos.

The state could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Republicans want to use a new map that will give the GOP a chance to reclaim the seat now held by Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures.

US stocks rise, oil falls after Trump said Iran talks are ‘proceeding nicely’

The price for a barrel of U.S crude oil fell 3.8% to $92.99 on Tuesday after resuming trading following the Memorial Day holiday, and U.S. stocks were catching up to others around the world that climbed after Trump said Iran talks were “proceeding nicely.”

The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq composite all rose Tuesday to near their all-time highs even though fighting continued in the Mideast and the U.S. military said it struck Iranian missile launch sites and boats placing mines on Monday. Markets have rallied in the past on hopes for a coming end to the war with Iran, only to see the conflict drag on, causing painful inflation around the world.

Congressional Black Caucus presses US corporations to oppose Republican redistricting push

The Congressional Black Caucus is calling on major U.S. corporations to oppose Republican-led redistricting efforts that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S. House districts.

Their letter sent Tuesday urges more than 250 companies to condemn “coordinated efforts to silence Black voices at the ballot box.” Some had cosigned their own message to Congress five years ago urging lawmakers to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a Democratic proposal to restore and update the Voting Rights Act.

That 2021 coalition, Business for Voting Rights, included Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Tesla, Salesforce, Target, PayPal, Intel and Starbucks.

“Corporations that have profited from Black consumers, relied on Black workers, and amassed wealth in part from Black communities cannot look away while Black political power is dismantled in plain sight,” the caucus chair, Rep. Yvette Clarke, said in an interview.

Trump arrives at Walter Reed military hospital for his latest physical

The White House said Trump would participate in a greeting with service members and hospital staff before he spends hours being examined by a team of doctors.

It is the Republican president’s fourth publicly disclosed medical exam since he returned to office in January 2025, and it comes as the nearly 80-year-old Trump tries to project strength going into November elections that will test his sway with voters.

The White House says the visit is an annual preventive medical and dental checkup. Trump was last at Walter Reed in October and also had a physical there in April 2025.

Last July, the White House said he’d been diagnosed with a condition common in older adults that causes blood to pool in his veins, causing the swollen ankles seen in some photos of Trump.

The White House also has blamed handshaking for visible bruising on Trump’s hands.

Presidents aren’t required to disclose health information

There’s no law requiring these disclosures and the degree of transparency varies.

Presidents for decades have released medical test results to try to reassure the public that they are up to the high-pressure job.

But the president signs off on what is released, which raises questions about what isn’t being shared.

Trump’s past medical reports have been criticized for offering scant detail and including statistics that some medical experts eyed with skepticism.

It will be several hours before the White House releases any information about Tuesday’s exam.

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A proposed notice, announced Tuesday on the Office of Personnel Management website, is expected to be officially published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, seeking comment on a draft NDA to be used by federal agencies for “both new and existing employees."

"The form is intended to document Federal employees’ acknowledgment of, and agreement to comply with, current legal obligations to safeguard non-public, confidential, or proprietary information, created or obtained through their official duties, while expressly preserving the right to make disclosures authorized by law,” the notice said.

The proposed notice seeks comment on several questions, including whether the NDA should cover only unclassified information and what appropriate actions, if any, agencies should consider for new or current employees who choose not to sign the agreement.

The OPM noted “several recent instances” where internal agency communications related to rulemaking and policy development were disclosed without authorization. It also discussed specific instances in which federal employees at the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security disclosed information about planned immigration enforcement actions without authorization.

In one case, The New York Times and The Washington Post received unauthorized information on the U.S. raid on Venezuela this past January and delayed “publishing what they knew to avoid endangering U.S. troops,” the OPM request for comment said.

A Washington Post spokesperson declined to comment.

Charles Stadtlander, executive director of Media Relations and Communications for the Times, said in an email that the paper had extensive reporting on operations targeting Venezuela and preparations for land-based military operations. “Contrary to some claims, however, The Times did not have verified details about the pending operation to capture Maduro or a story prepared, nor did we withhold publication at the request of the Trump administration.”

Ferreting out leaks that the administration deems harmful to its messaging has been a priority across multiple agencies since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. As part of that crackdown, the FBI in January seized the electronic devices of a Washington Post reporter, a move that alarmed media organizations and advocates of press freedom.

One other notable incident occurred last year when dozens of reporters turned in their access badges at the Pentagon, rejecting new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that would leave journalists vulnerable to expulsion if they sought to report on information — classified or otherwise — that had not been approved by Hegseth for release.

Michael L. Vogelsang Jr., an attorney at the Employment Law Group, said he has questions, among them: “What gap is an NDA supposed to fill that doesn’t already exist?”

He noted that statutes already exist regarding the leaking of classified and sensitive information. There’s also a law passed by Congress, he noted, that prohibits employers from implementing or enforcing an NDA.

He said: "So Congress has already said NDAs are a no-go. So how can OPM make a regulation that violates the law?”

The American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley said in a statement that OPM’s proposed rule is part of a continuing effort to silence federal employees.

“This proposed NDA is another attempt by the administration to purge the civil service of nonpartisan career employees and replace them with loyalists who won’t speak out against waste, fraud, and abuse," Kelley said.

The top-ranked Sabalenka looked light on her feet on Court Philippe-Chatrier, despite wearing two thick necklaces in a 6-4, 6-2 win against Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.

“Diamonds, I don’t really feel the heaviness, but I can imagine how it looks from the outside,” said Sabalenka, the tournament runner-up last year to Coco Gauff. “So I feel pretty comfortable. For me, it’s important to look good.”

The four-time major winner was initially going to wear three necklaces but said she thought that might be too much.

“It probably sounds a bit crazy, but when I feel good about what I’m wearing, how I look on court, I tend to perform much better,” Sabalenka said. "I like to bring a little bit of a fashion on the tennis court. I know the dress that I will wear on the Grand Slam, and I just try to come up with something to match the outfit."

Sabalenka said she wasn't worried about protecting her jewelry when she's off the court.

“I have my fiancé. He’s kind of like my security,” she said, smiling. “My physio does jujitsu, so I feel pretty secure walking around. If I go somewhere, I don’t go alone.”

Gauff began her title defense with a 6-4, 6-0 victory over fellow American Taylor Townsend, while four-time major winner Naomi Osaka beat Laura Siegemund 6-3, 7-6 (3) on Court Suzanne-Lenglen wearing a sequined gold playing dress.

Frenchwoman Lois Boisson, who made a surprise run to the semifinals last year when she was ranked 361st, lost 6-2, 6-2 to the 22nd-seeded Anna Kalinskaya.

For a third consecutive day, the temperature in Paris rose far above normal, reaching a scorching 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit).

“I’m from Florida, so this is nothing. Shout-out Delray Beach,” said Gauff, who kept her spare rackets in a court-side cooler during the match.

Medvedev loses early again

The unusually hot conditions made the courts faster than usual.

Daniil Medvedev usually thrives in such conditions but he struggled in a five-set loss to 97th-ranked Australian opponent Adam Walton.

Walton, who received a wild card invitation from tournament organizers, beat Medvedev 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, 1-6, 6-4. It was Medvedev's second straight first round exit here and third in four years.

“I know why I don’t really play my best in Roland Garros, but if I say it, it’s (making) excuses,” he said. “So I keep it to myself.”

Playing in the night session, top-ranked Jannik Sinner routed 171st-ranked French wild card entry Clement Tabur 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 to extend his winning streak to 30 matches as he chases the only big title missing in his tennis career.

Stefanos Tsitsipas, the 2021 runner-up to Novak Djokovic, was leading 6-2, 3-0 against Alexandre Muller when his French opponent retired. Muller injured his right calf, three months after injuring his left calf.

Ninth-seeded Alexander Bublik was beaten 7-5, 6-7 (6), 6-4, 7-5 by Jan-Lennard Struff.

Alexander Blockx withdrew from the tournament with a right ankle sprain, making Alex de Minaur — his scheduled second round opponent — the first player into the third round.

Rising star

French teenager Moïse Kouamé made the perfect start to his French Open career with a 7-6 (4), 6-2, 6-1 win over Marin Cilic.

The 17-year-old Kouamé won one day after 39-year-old Frenchman Gael Monfils made his last appearance at Roland Garros.

The teenager raised his arms in triumph after defeating the 37-year-old Cilic, who won the 2014 U.S. Open, finished runner-up at two other majors, and reached the French Open semifinals in 2022.

The ATP Tour said No. 318-ranked Kouamé became the first man born in 2008 or later to win a Grand Slam match.

In March, he became the youngest winner in Miami Masters history when he beat Zachary Svajda in the first round — earning a congratulatory message from Djokovic.

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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

The first bee was held in 1925, when the Louisville Courier-Journal invited other newspapers to host spelling bees and send their champions to Washington. After a long run at a convention center in suburban Maryland, the bee returns to the nation's capital this year at Constitution Hall, a few blocks from the White House.

Another change for this year: ESPN NFL analyst and recent “Celebrity Jeopardy!” champion Mina Kimes has joined the bee as its television host.

This is the 98th bee; it was canceled from 1943 to 1945 because of World War II and again in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year’s champion will be the 111th, because the bee ended in a two-way tie several times and an eight-way tie in 2019.

Thirty of the past 36 champions have been of Indian heritage, including last year’s winner, Faizan Zaki.

How can I watch the Scripps National Spelling Bee?

The bee is broadcast and streamed on channels and platforms owned by Scripps, a Cincinnati-based media company.

Wednesday's quarterfinals will stream on Scripps Sports Network and spellingbee.com from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and semifinals can be watched on those platforms from 2:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Tape-delayed semifinals will be broadcast on ION from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Finals will be broadcast Thursday on ION from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. The semifinals and finals will also air or be streamed on these Scripps-owned channels or services: ION Plus, Bounce, Grit, Laff, The Spot, Bounce XL, Grit Xtra, Laff More, Scripps News and Scripps Sports Network.

What are the rules of the Scripps National Spelling Bee?

Spellers qualify by advancing through regional bees hosted by sponsors around the country. In order to compete, spellers must not have advanced beyond the eighth grade or be older than 15.

Competitors must get through two preliminary rounds, where they are quizzed on words from a list provided in advance. There is one spelling round and one multiple-choice vocabulary round.

Those who make it through the preliminaries sit for a written spelling and vocabulary test, with the top 100 or so finishers advancing to the quarterfinals. The words for the test, and for all subsequent rounds, are taken from the Merriam-Webster Unabridged dictionary.

Throughout the quarterfinals and semifinals, spellers are eliminated at the microphone through oral spelling or vocabulary questions.

About a dozen spellers advance to the finals. When only two remain, Scripps has the option to use a lightning-round tiebreaker known as a “spell-off” to determine the champion.

Who is competing in the Scripps National Spelling Bee?

This year's bee has 247 spellers representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, three U.S. territories and five other countries: The Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates. After the preliminary rounds, 167 were left.

The top returning finisher from 2025 is Sarv Dharavane of Dunwoody, Georgia, who finished third last year as an 11-year-old fifth-grader. Even if he falls short this year, he has two years of eligibility left.

Other possible contenders:

— Shrey Parikh, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Rancho Cucamonga, California, who finished third in 2024. He has dominated the bee circuit in the past year, winning the South Asian Spelling Bee, the SpellPundit National Spelling Bee and the Words of Wisdom Spelling Bee.

— Oliver Halkett, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Los Angeles who finished in a tie for seventh last year.

— Esha Marupudi, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Chandler, Arizona, who also tied for seventh last year.

What are the prizes for the Scripps National Spelling Bee champion?

The winner receives a custom trophy and more than $50,000 in cash and prizes. Here are the prize payouts:

— First place: $52,500 in cash, reference works from Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster, a custom trophy and commemorative medal, and $1,000 in flight credits from Delta Air Lines.

— Second place: $25,000.

— Third place: $15,000.

— Fourth place: $10,000.

— Fifth place: $5,000.

— Sixth place: $2,500.

— All other finalists: $2,000.

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Ben Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012. Follow his work here.

Not everyone at this week's competition appreciates the change.

“I feel like they should not have moved it. The old venue was better. Because it's a bit of a hassle, getting on the bus and going there and then coming back,” said 14-year-old Yahya Mohammed, a three-time speller from Hoffman Estates, Illinois. “The old venue was more spacious, and it feels kind of isolated in the hotel.”

As the National Spelling Bee began with Tuesday's preliminary rounds, spellers and their families marveled at the historical significance of their new venue and the nearby cultural opportunities while also dealing with logistical hurdles: crowded hallways, limited dining options and shuttle bus rides to and from their hotel.

Built in 1929 by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Constitution Hall sits a few blocks from the Washington Monument and the White House. Spellers and their families are staying at the nearby J.W. Marriott, a favored haunt of lobbyists and interest groups, and the quickest route to the competition venue would normally be a stroll across the Ellipse, the grassy expanse south of the Executive Mansion.

However, the Ellipse is surrounded by temporary fencing and security checkpoints as crews construct an outdoor octagon on the South Lawn of the White House for UFC Freedom 250, a June 14 event timed for President Donald Trump's 80th birthday and marking the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding.

“Two very disparate forms of entertainment,” said Rajeev Malhotra of Boston, the father of speller Rajeev Malhotra, describing the bee and the mixed martial arts extravaganza.

Venue change brings heavy security but plenty of history and culture

Security was beefed up at the hall, with guards and metal detectors stationed at every entrance and explosive-sniffing dogs patrolling the hallways. Three blocks away and three days earlier, a man opened fire at a White House security checkpoint, injuring a bystander before he was fatally shot by Secret Service officers.

At the prior venue, the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland, spellers moved freely throughout the building, roaming between their hotel rooms, the ballroom that housed the competition stage and a massive food court where they grabbed quick meals between last-minute study sessions.

“Last year was better,” said Arpit Aggarwal of Columbia, Missouri, whose daughter, Ananya, is competing for the second time. “Everything was in one place.”

“It's an adjustment,” Ananya's mom, Deepti Bahl, said diplomatically.

Other spellers appreciated the buzz of gathering downtown, saying it was more appropriate for a national competition. The bee began in 1925 and was held at a series of Washington hotels before it moved to the suburbs in 2011.

“I just love being here, right next to the National Mall. You can see the Smithsonian, you can see the Jefferson Memorial. It's such a lively and unique city and I love being in the heart of it,” said three-time speller Oliver Halkett, a 14-year-old from Los Angeles. “There's so much history, there's so much culture. The memorials and the museums are fascinating to go to.”

Speller Andie Seavey of Fairbanks, Alaska, and her mom, Kristin, went to see the musical “The Great Gatsby” at the National Theater next door to the hotel.

After 80 spellers were eliminated Tuesday during onstage spelling and vocabulary rounds, the remaining 167 competitors reconvened at the hotel for a high-stakes written test that determined the 100 or so who would move on to Wednesday morning's quarterfinals. The competition concludes Thursday night.

At the spelling bee, the bell is not necessarily the end

Last year, Faizan Zaki won the National Spelling Bee even though he misspelled a word and heard the dreaded bell rung by head judge Mary Brooks. In fact, he knew it after a few letters. He stopped spelling and told Brooks, “Just ring the bell.”

Faizan's flub let his two remaining competitors back in, since all three misspelled during the round.

Kushi Gottimukkala of Morrisville, North Carolina, is one of a few spellers competing this year who know what that feels like.

At her regional bee, sponsored by the NFL's Carolina Panthers, it was down to Kushi and two other spellers for the final spot at nationals. She misspelled “anchialine,” and she thought it was over, only to see the other two spellers mess up.

Kushi rode the emotional roller coaster and ultimately got through.

“I was still thinking about the mistake, but I was also really grateful that I got a second chance, and so I took that into consideration and decided to focus on my next word,” she said.

Spellers have to prepare for the possibility that missing a word isn't necessarily the end.

Oliver Halkett, too, has competed in a bee where he got a word wrong but wasn't eliminated. He battled through the disappointment by focusing only on the word in front of him.

“It's a peculiar situation, but I think, above all, mental clarity is so important, especially in those latter rounds,” he said. “I close my eyes and do some deep breathing and I visualize the word, and it's just me and the word. That's how you have to approach every single word.

“Treat every word as if it's your first and last word.”

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Ben Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012. Follow his work here.

The 79-year-old president spent more than three hours at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for what the White House described as preventive medical and dental checkups. It was Trump's fourth publicly disclosed medical exam since he returned to office for a second term, and it comes as he tries to project strength ahead of midterm elections that will test his sway with voters.

In a social media post after the visit, Trump said that he had just finished his “6 month physical” and that “Everything checked out PERFECTLY.”

The White House did not immediately release a written report from Trump's doctors.

For decades, administrations have released selected results from presidential physicals, offering the public a glimpse at the commander-in-chief’s health. But the results are filtered through the White House and must be approved by the president, raising questions about what the public does and doesn't get to see.

Trump, a Republican, turns 80 next month and was the oldest person elected U.S. president. His immediate predecessor, President Joe Biden, a Democrat, was 82 when he left office, dropping out of the 2024 presidential race because of widespread concerns he was too old for the job.

A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in April found that less than half of U.S. adults think Trump has the mental sharpness or physical health to serve effectively as president.

“I think concern for the president’s physical health is probably at an all-time high, and I think advanced physical age is the No. 1 concern,” said Dr. Jeffrey Kuhlman, who served as a White House physician for more than a decade under Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

For a president of Trump’s age, a complete physical would be expected to include advanced heart testing, screening for common cancers and a cognitive assessment, along with basics like height, weight and blood pressure, Kuhlman said.

The White House has not disclosed what the visit entailed but expressed confidence in what it will show.

“President Trump is the sharpest and most accessible President in American history who is working nonstop to solve problems and deliver on his promises, and he remains in excellent health,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement.

No law requiring presidents to disclose their medical records

In the weeks leading up to his visit, Trump has been saying he feels as good as he did five decades ago — even as he jokes about his fondness for fast food and his minimal exercise regimen. Yet he’s also sensitive to perceptions about his age, noting that he takes extra caution descending the steps from Air Force One to avoid headlines about a stumble.

There is no law requiring presidents to publicize their health records, and the degree of transparency has varied by administration. Trump’s past reports have been criticized for offering scant detail and for providing statistics that some medical experts have viewed with skepticism.

At public appearances, Trump is often seen wearing makeup to conceal bruising on his hands, which the White House attributes to handshaking and regular aspirin use. He has sometimes appeared drowsy during meetings and closed his eyes for long stretches, though he denies having fallen asleep.

Trump often boasts of having “aced” cognitive tests while frequently deriding Biden, who faced questions about his mental acuity. Biden and his aides pushed back aggressively against doubts raised about his fitness for office.

Some of Trump’s previous physicals have included the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, used to screen for dementia and cognitive impairment. Trump's physicians reported a score of 30 out of 30 for him at his 2018 and 2025 checkups.

Yet critics have pointed to Trump’s meandering speeches and sometimes bellicose rhetoric as evidence of cognitive decline.

Last month, a statement from more than 30 neurologists, psychiatrists and other medical experts — who acknowledged they’ve never examined him — said Trump was mentally unfit to serve and warned of an “increasingly dangerous decline” in his behavior based on what they called “objectively observable signs of serious medical concern.″

“Any so-called medical professionals engaging in armchair diagnosis or false speculation for political purposes are clearly breaking the Hippocratic Oath they’ve sworn to,” Ingle said.

Just like any other patient, presidents get to choose what’s disclosed about their health, said Sara Rosenthal, a bioethicist at the University of Kentucky who studies presidential health. Questions about transparency have become more acute as America elects aging presidents like Trump and Biden, she said.

“I think we can expect very little disclosure about the true health status of any president unless they’re in perfect health,” said Rosenthal, who has suggested an independent medical organization to review and report on the health of the president and those in the line of succession.

'Nothing should be hidden'

Trump's first medical report in his second term was released last April. In July, he was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a common condition in older adults that causes blood to pool in his veins. Photographs have shown the president with swollen feet, ankles and calves, described by the White House as a symptom of chronic venous insufficiency leading to “mild swelling” in his lower legs.

Following his last publicly disclosed exam, described as a routine follow-up last October, Trump’s physician issued a one-page summary saying the president was in “exceptional health” without divulging many specific results.

The frequency of Trump's medical checkups is not uncommon for someone his age, according to S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois-Chicago, who has studied the health of past presidents. It's part of a strategy to catch problems while they’re still treatable, Olshansky said.

Olshansky says the public deserves to see more than White House medical summaries that “may be subject to editorial discretion.” Full, unredacted medical records should be made public, he said: “Nothing should be hidden.”

Despite the sweltering heat, the pilgrims gathered on the rocky hill and the surrounding plain for worship that often marks a spiritual peak for the faithful, fervently murmured prayers and poured their hearts out in supplication.

Many raised their hands in worship. It is common for pilgrims on that day, some with tears streaming down their faces, to ask God for forgiveness, mercy, blessings and good health.

The Hajj, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is required once in a lifetime for every Muslim who can afford it and is physically able to perform it.

For pilgrims, the Hajj, performed over several days, can be a deeply moving spiritual experience and a chance to seek God’s forgiveness and the erasure of past sins. As they brave the intense heat to perform religious rituals, many pilgrims have been using umbrellas for shade.

A Saudi official said on Friday that more than 1.5 million pilgrims have arrived in the country from abroad.

This year, Muslims have been pouring into Saudi Arabia for the Hajj against the backdrop of a tenuous ceasefire in the Iran war and related uncertainty in the region.

The U.S. military said Monday that it carried out “self-defense” strikes in southern Iran, including on missile launch sites and boats used to lay mines, even as President Donald Trump said on social media that negotiations with Tehran were “proceeding nicely." Iran on Tuesday denounced the most recent U.S. strikes as a sign of “bad faith and unreliability” as negotiations pressed on toward a possible deal to end the war.

For many, performing the Hajj can be a realization of a lifelong dream as they spend years hoping and praying to one day be able to undertake the pilgrimage or saving up money and waiting for a permit to embark on the trip.

“This happens once in a lifetime,” Mohammad Asal, an Egyptian pilgrim, said. “People here have prepared their prayers, hoping that God will respond to them, because we know that ... the most important ritual of the Hajj is being in Arafat.”

The Hajj brings together large numbers of Muslims of diverse races, ethnicities, languages and socioeconomic classes, creating a sense of unity for many. It’s a mass, communal experience, with Muslims performing rituals together. But it is also deeply personal, as every pilgrim brings their own yearnings and experiences.

“It was incredible,” Ahmed Sufyan, a pilgrim from the United States, said on Tuesday. “The unity and peace that we feel is something I’ve never experienced before,” he added via WhatsApp.

“Our wishes are many,” Mohammad Obaid, a Sudanese pilgrim, said, adding he was praying for Sudan and Muslims everywhere.

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Fam reported from Winter Park, Florida.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.6% after trading resumed following Monday’s holiday and set an all-time high. The Nasdaq composite rallied 1.2% to set its own record, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 118 points, or 0.2%, from its all-time high.

Stock markets in much of the rest of the world pulled back from their gains the day before, as fighting continued in the region and the U.S. military said it carried out “self-defense” strikes in southern Iran, including on missile launch sites and boats placing mines. Markets have rallied in the past on hopes for a coming end to the war with Iran, only to see the conflict drag on.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 3.5% to $96.67, but that reclaimed only some of its plunge from Monday. The price for a barrel of U.S crude oil, meanwhile, fell 2.8% to settle at $93.89.

Oil prices have been at the center of financial markets' action since the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February. The ensuing war has closed the Strait of Hormuz and kept oil tankers pent up in the Persian Gulf instead of delivering crude to customers worldwide. That in turn has driven up oil’s price and sent a wave of painful inflation around the world.

Hopes for a deal to improve the flow of oil helped lift stocks of companies with big fuel bills. United Airlines rose 6%, and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings steamed 4.9% higher.

Big technology stocks also continued their big runs. Micron Technology's stock leaped 19.3% to top $895.88 and was the strongest force lifting the S&P 500 after analysts at UBS led by Timothy Arcuri raised their 12-month price target for the stock to $1,625 from $535.

The analysts are forecasting continued strength in demand for computer memory, and Micron’s stock has already more than tripled so far this year. It's the latest Big Tech company to top an overall value of $1 trillion and joined such behemoths as Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft, which have each blown past $3 trillion.

On the losing side of Wall Street was AutoZone, which dropped 9% after reporting slightly weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Phil Daniele said performance for the retailer’s stores in Brazil and Mexico was below its plan, though its overall profit topped analysts' expectations.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 45.65 points to 7,519.12. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 118.02 to 50,461.68, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 312.21 to 26,656.18.

Lower oil prices helped pull yields down in the U.S. bond market, which eased the pressure on Wall Street. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.49% from 4.56% late Friday.

It’s a respite following recent gains for yields in bond markets worldwide, which threatened to slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments. High yields have already forced the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate to its most expensive level since last summer, and they could curtail companies’ borrowing to build the artificial-intelligence data centers that have supported the U.S. economy’s growth recently.

Most big U.S. companies have been reporting both profit and revenue for the start of 2026 above what analysts expected. The strong performances have helped vault U.S. stocks to records, even with all the uncertainty around oil prices and the war with Iran.

U.S. households have been feeling discouraged about the economy because of accelerating inflation, and a report on Tuesday said consumer confidence edged downward in May, though the number was not as bad as economists expected. It followed a report on Friday that said sentiment among U.S. consumers hit its lowest level on record.

In stock markets abroad, many indexes slipped, including a 0.2% dip for Japan’s Nikkei 225 from its all-time high set the day before.

South Korea’s Kospi jumped 2.5% as it caught up with other markets following its closure on Monday for a holiday. London’s FTSE 100 added 0.2% even though British petroleum giant BP fell 4% there. BP ousted its chairman over what it called serious concerns related to “important governance standards, oversight and conduct.”

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AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.

Join KSAT 12 Meteorologist Justin Horne this Thursday, 5/28, for a fun, fast giveaway sponsored by Circle K.

• 📍 Location: Circle K, 3890 N. Loop 1604 E.
• 📅 Date: May 28
• ⏱️ Line starts: 8:00 a.m.
• 👕 T-shirt giveaway starts: 9:00 a.m.
• 🎟️ Cost: FREE to the first 100 people in line

Giveaway details (read this part!)

• First 100 KSAT viewers/Spurs fans in line get a shirt
• Limit one (1) T-shirt per person, while supplies last
• Sizes are subject to availability and not guaranteed; recipients will receive the size available at the time of distribution
• No exchanges

Bring your Spurs energy, be ready to “Honk the Horne,” and let’s show up strong for our silver and black.

GO SPURS GO — and don’t forget to watch Larry, Mary and Ashley for the latest in Spurs news!

You can read the Official Rules & Regulations here.

The U.S. military characterized Monday's strikes in southern Iran as defensive, with targets that included missile launch sites and minelaying boats, and said the U.S. acted with “restraint" in light of the weekslong ceasefire.

Iran's foreign ministry called the strikes a ceasefire violation and warned that Washington would bear responsibility for “all consequences,” without elaborating.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will leave no act of aggression unanswered,” it added in a statement.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Tuesday that it shot down at least one drone and deterred another drone and a fighter jet that entered its airspace, according to Iran’s official Mizan news agency. It didn't specify when the incidents occurred.

Iran's supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, used a statement about Islam's annual Hajj pilgrimage to address his country's confrontation with the U.S. and Israel, declaring that other Mideast nations “will no longer serve as a shield” for U.S. military bases. Iran has previously complained about U.S. military facilities in the region and targeted them.

It was not immediately clear what the developments would mean for negotiations.

Iranian state TV reported Tuesday that Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left Qatar, where talks had been taking place. The report did not elaborate or point to any next steps.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio projected that talks on extending the ceasefire and reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz will “take a few days."

Iranians get back online, to some extent

Meanwhile, Iranian authorities eased a monthslong internet shutdown that they cast as a wartime necessity, but that has cost the country's economy an estimated $30 million to $40 million a day. Internet users reported that access was gradually being restored, at least in some places. State media said fixed broadband service was back. It was unclear when mobile internet would be widely restored.

Iran has long enforced filters and policed content on platforms such as YouTube and Instagram. But before the war, Iranians could bypass restrictions with cheap virtual private networks, known as VPNs, and other easy workarounds.

Authorities cut off internet access in January during massive anti-government demonstrations and later began to relax those restrictions before imposing a complete internet blackout after the U.S. and Israel attacked on Feb. 28.

The internet outage made it difficult for Iranians outside the country to maintain contact with loved ones, and the lack of connectivity devastated the country’s relatively vibrant online businesses, putting further pressure on an already battered economy.

An execution in Iran

In other developments, Iran hanged a man it convicted of spying for Israel, the latest of more than two dozen allegedly espionage- and security-related executions since the war intensified a crackdown on dissent.

The Iranian judiciary’s news outlet, Mizanonline, identified the man as Gholamreza Khani Shakarab, calling him “a ringleader” for operations for Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, and accusing him of recruiting members inside and outside Iran to work against the nation’s security. He was involved in sports and traveled to neighboring countries, according to the news agency.

Activists and rights groups say Iran routinely holds closed-door trials in which defendants are unable to challenge accusations and often are forced to confess.

The official judiciary agency said the country’s Supreme Court had upheld Shakarab's death sentence.

Global food official concerned about strait closure

The U.S. strikes were the latest flare-up in the fragile ceasefire that began April 7 and has largely held.

Negotiations center in part on the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway off southern Iran through which a fifth of the world's crude oil and natural gas passed before the war began. Once the fighting started, Tehran retaliated by effectively closing the strait, stranding hundreds of ships, shocking the global economy, disrupting energy markets and squeezing fertilizer supplies worldwide.

Iran has let a limited number of ships pass and has charged tolls. The Revolutionary Guard navy said Tuesday that 25 oil tankers, container ships and other commercial vessels were allowed to pass in the previous 24 hours, according to state broadcaster IRIB. Before the war, over 100 ships a day went through the strait.

The full effect of the fertilizer crunch might not become clear until harvests that are months away. U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Qu Dongyu warned Tuesday at an event in Rome that “the decisions we make now will determine whether this remains a manageable shock or evolves into a deeper global food security crisis in 2026 and 2027 and beyond."

The strait has become a powerful lever for Tehran in talks, joining the long-running issue of Iran's nuclear program and its highly enriched uranium. Iran wants the U.S. to lift its military blockade of Iranian ports that began on April 17.

In the nearby Gulf of Oman, an explosion was reported Tuesday aboard a tanker, according to the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Center. No one was injured, and there was no immediate information on the cause.

The justices overturned a lower-court ruling that had allowed the case to proceed and raised questions about whether a complaint system for federal employees is still working as intended after the Republican president fired some of its top officials.

Immigration judges are federal employees, unlike those in federal courtrooms. They want to sue over a policy restricting their public speeches that started in Trump's first term in office and continued under President Joe Biden's Democratic administration. The judges argue it is a free speech issue that belongs in federal court.

The Trump administration disagreed, saying the judges must instead take their dispute to the complaint system for federal employees overseen by the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The court ruled on procedural grounds, but Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, wrote to rebuke the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for responding to “political controversies of the day.”

Tuesday's decision comes as the court weighs another lawsuit about Trump’s power to fire heads of independent agencies. The outcome is also expected to affect firing power over Merit Systems Protection Board members.

The judges first sued in 2020, and the Supreme Court previously temporarily sided with them on an emergency basis in December 2025. A union said in a statement that the judges were disappointed by the decision, but the case is “far from over.”

“Justice cannot endure when judges are intimidated into silence, nor can a nation remain free when the rule of law is subordinate to the whims of political ambition,” the National Association of Immigration Judges said.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche applauded the decision, saying it "sends a clear message: lower courts must accept that the law is the law, no matter the 'political controversies of the day,'” he wrote in a social-media post.

___

Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

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First responders located the bodies just before 5 a.m. on May 15 behind a warehouse in the 500 block of Richland Hills Drive, which is located near Potranco Road.

San Antonio police later detained a 34-year-old woman at the scene. She was later identified as Marlene Vidal — the children’s mother.

Later that day, San Antonio Police Department Assistant Chief Jesse Salame said the children are believed to be 5 and 7 years old. They were both pronounced dead at the scene.

Nearly two weeks after their deaths, on May 26, the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the children as Aleeza Elena Vidal, 6, and Adrian Akeel Vidal, 5.

Autopsies for both children determined that they died of “homicidal violence with multiple sharp force injuries.” Their deaths were ruled homicides, the medical examiner’s office said.

Salame also said police obtained surveillance video and evidence at the scene, along with “statements” made by Vidal, that indicate “she was solely responsible for the death of these two children.”

The charges

During a May 15 news conference, Salame said Vidal would be charged with capital murder. Court records updated later that day confirmed:

• Two charges of capital murder of a person under 10 years of age
• Arson charge (second-degree felony)

A Bexar County judge set her bond for each capital murder charge at $1 million plus an additional $100,000 bond for arson ($2.1 million total).

Vidal’s case has since been assigned to Bexar County’s 437th Criminal District Court, which is presided by Judge Joel Perez.

Family ties

Vidal is a native of Edinburg, a city in Hidalgo County located approximately 230 miles south of downtown San Antonio along the Rio Grande Valley.

Salame said she had familial ties to the Alamo City.

KSAT confirmed with Vidal’s San Antonio relatives that she had temporarily stayed with the family at times.

On the day of the alleged murders, Vidal made the trek north to San Antonio, where she was living for the time being.

Government involvement

While Vidal does not have a previous criminal history in Bexar County or Hidalgo County, KSAT reached out to the Edinburg Police Department on May 18, who revealed it came into contact with Vidal days before the children were found dead.

“The Edinburg Police Department is aware of the tragic case in San Antonio,” the department said. “Edinburg police officers made contact days prior with the subject involved in the case. At the time of the interaction, there was no basis to make an arrest or execute an emergency detention.”

Edinburg police gave no further details about what led to their interaction with Vidal.

A Child Protective Services (CPS) spokesperson was unable to provide any further information to KSAT beyond the fact that a child fatality report will be released upon completion of the investigation.

Later on May 18, KSAT also found a record of a private lawsuit between Vidal and the father of her children, which was categorized under “parent and child relationship.”

The detailed documents were not immediately available, but a legal expert told KSAT that these suits can involve issues such as custody, child support, supervised visitation and other related matters.

While the details are not available, the fact that there was a civil legal record and some type of CPS history has led child welfare experts to express concern about why more action wasn’t taken last week before the tragedy.

Due to the murders happening in Bexar County, the county’s CPS chapter will complete a child fatality report.

Anyone struggling with mental health can reach out to the National Alliance on Mental Illness HelpLine by calling 800-950-NAMI (6264), texting NAMI to 62640, emailing helpline@nami.org, or chatting online.

More coverage of this story on KSAT:

• CPS confirms agency had contact with mother before she allegedly set car on fire, killing 2 children
• Prayer vigil held on West Side to remember 2 children found dead in burned vehicle
• 2 children found dead in burned vehicle; mother charged with capital murder, San Antonio police say

Parent company Meta Platforms Inc. appealed after Vermont’s highest court allowed a suit filed by its attorney general in 2023 to move forward. The company is facing similar lawsuits from states across the country, accusing it of knowingly designing addictive features.

Meta had argued that it can’t be sued in Vermont court because neither the company nor the app design has specific ties to the state. Vermont countered that the sites’ large number of teen users gives its courts jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal in a brief, unexplained order, as is typical. The procedural decision comes after court losses for Meta and YouTube in social media addiction lawsuits in California and New Mexico.

Vermont's lawsuit was filed after an investigation by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general in several states. Newspaper reports based on Meta’s own research also found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues. One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.

Almost all teens ages 13 to 17 in the U.S. report using a social media platform, with about a third saying they use social media “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center.

Meta, for its part, has said that it has already introduced dozens of tools to support teens and their families and suggested it would have worked with the states on standards for youth social media use.

Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark applauded the decision, saying it affirms “that companies that choose to do business in Vermont, like Meta, can be held accountable when they harm kids.”

Barcelona said Tuesday that Putellas will officially bid farewell at an event at Camp Nou stadium on Wednesday, giving the club a “chance to recognize the legacy created by a player who has become a role model on and off the field and who has helped women's football to grow across the globe.”

The 32-year-old Putellas on Saturday helped Barcelona win the Champions League title for the fourth time in six seasons.

There was no immediate announcement about her next move, with speculation in Spain that she may join the fast-emerging London City Lionesses. Putellas attended a Lionesses game in London in January.

Putellas played 507 games for Barcelona — second on the all-time list — since arriving at age 18 in 2012 from Levante, the Catalan club said.

Putellas scored 232 goals for Barcelona, a club record, and won 38 trophies, including four Champions Leagues and 10 Spanish league titles.

“The time has come to acknowledge that I’ve given everything for these colors,” Putellas said in a video posted on her social media accounts. "It’s been a perfect story.”

She was Barcelona's best player when it won its first Champions League in 2021 and helped put women’s soccer in Spain on the global map when she won back-to-back Ballon d’Or awards in 2021 and 2022. Her boost to the sport was considered key to helping Spain win the 2023 World Cup.

When Spain was embroiled in crisis after its then soccer federation president Luis Rubiales kissed a player without consent during the World Cup awards ceremony, it was Putellas who led the player revolt that prompted his downfall.

“We’ve taken the women’s team further than we ever imagined,” Putellas said. “At the beginning, being a soccer player wasn’t even recognized as a profession. Now I feel privileged to have been part of this change.”

Serious leg injuries put her star status in doubt for Barcelona and Spain. She was sidelined for months and, when she returned to the field, she was reported to be considering a move from Barcelona due to her limited playing time but eventually signed a contract extension.

___

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

According to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the upper level of I-10 westbound between Poplar Street and University Avenue will be reduced to one lane starting Wednesday.

Throughout the duration of the partial closure, TxDOT said the lower-level of the I-10 westbound lanes will still be open for travel.

It is unclear how long the upper level will be closed.

Alternating closures are expected to take place in this area through the fall, the transportation department said in a social media post.

Read also:

• Kids, teens 18 and younger can get free meals at IDEA Public Schools this summer
• No serious injuries reported after 4 vehicles collide at West Side intersection, police say

The suspension records were released by the San Antonio Police Department earlier this month.

SAPD officer busted for crash cover-up after damaging patrol car

Officer Martin Rivas is indefinitely suspended after damaging a patrol unit in a chase, failing to report it, and speeding, suspension records show.

Discipline records show that an SAPD officer noticed one of the units parked at the South Substation appeared to have been in a crash. Records show that Rivas, who was the last officer to drive the unit, did not report the crash to a supervisor.

Rivas admitted to “unintentionally” hitting a curb while following a stolen vehicle that had gotten away from SAPD officers earlier that day.

Rivas said he did not know he had to report the crash, according to the suspension paperwork. The records said that Rivas drove over a median. Rivas said the car was still drivable, but then a front tire started getting flat.

Rivas said he drove the car back to the substation to get the tire changed and put in a work order once he realized there was plastic from the undercarriage driving.

“I was unaware that hitting a curb was considered an accident and figured it was a flat tire that needed to be changed,” wrote Rivas.

Records show Rivas sped several times while pursuing the stolen vehicle, despite reporting having “followed from a distance.”

Rivas also did not turn on his emergency lights or record the pursuit on his body-worn camera, records indicate.

SAPD detective suspended after getting pulled over, cursing out officer

Detective Narciso Marte is serving a 30-day suspension after discipline records show he violated several traffic laws and cursed at the SAPD officer who pulled him over.

City records show that Marte began working for SAPD in 2007. His suspension is set to end on June 1, 2026.

Another San Antonio police officer pulled Marte over for violating several traffic laws, which include:

• Passing in a no-passing zone
• Straddling two lanes of traffic
• Disregarding a stop sign

Records show that the incident was caught on the officer’s dash camera. Marte was driving an unmarked unit.

Once Marte pulled over, records show he exited his unit “in an aggressive manner” and walked up to the officer who pulled him over.

“I got a f---ing detective that needs help right now, and you f---ing stopped me,” Marte said to the officer.

When the officer asked why the call was not toned out, records show that Marte told him to “get the f--- out of here.”

Marte also cursed at the officer after providing his badge number, discipline paperwork shows.

In a written response, records show that Marte claimed to have identified himself before the stop, which the other officer disputed.

Officer runs red light, chases speeding driver

Officer Lucas Zapot was suspended for 15 days after city records show that he chased after a speeding driver, which violates department policy.

In September 2025, records show a driver sped past Zapot on Blanco Road near Jackson Keller at around 3 a.m.

The driver pulled into a gas station, which is where records show Zapot turned on his emergency lights to pull the driver over.

The driver sped off, and Zapot followed, turning his lights off but continuing to speed, according to disciplinary records. At one point, records show that Zapot sped through a red light and drove 88 miles an hour in a 35-mile-per-hour zone.

“I didn’t realize I was driving at those speed (sic) at that moment,” Zapot said.

Zapot is a two-year veteran of SAPD, records show. Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.

A three-judge panel in the state’s long-running redistricting case issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the state from switching maps, ruling that the Republican-backed plan “intentionally discriminated based on race” by including only one Black-majority district. The judges instead required Alabama to continue using a court-ordered map in place for the 2024 elections that includes two districts where Black residents compose a majority or close to it.

“Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” the judges wrote.

The ruling is a setback for Republicans, who want to use a map for the November midterms that would give the GOP a chance to reclaim the seat now held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, said the state will immediately appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. He contended the judges had no basis for their decision to block what he described as a “blandly unobjectionable congressional map.”

“Know this — in my mind, it is not a matter of whether we win this case, only when,” Marshall said.

Figures said he is pleased with the ruling, adding: “This is a significant step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go before this fight is settled.”

The court order is the latest development in the twisting legal and political saga following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Black-majority district in Louisiana and weakened the federal Voting Rights Act. That ruling has led Republicans in several Southern states, including Alabama, to take steps to reshape voting districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats.

The redistricting frenzy is part of a broader push by President Donald Trump to try to hold on to Republicans’ slim House majority in the November elections.

Alabama court fight stretches back several years

The three-judge panel in 2023 ruled that a map drawn by Republican state lawmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of Black citizens. The court said the state, which is about 27% Black, should have two districts where Black voters are the majority or close to it. The court-selected map was used in 2024.

After the Supreme Court's recent ruling in the Louisiana case, Alabama officials moved to implement the 2023 state-drawn map. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority agreed to lift the injunction that had blocked the map's use and sent the case back to the three-judge panel for reconsideration in light of the Louisiana ruling.

In the meantime, voters cast ballots in Alabama's May 11 primaries, and Republican Gov. Kay Ivey set new special primaries for Aug. 11 in four congressional districts affected by the map switch.

Upon further review, the judicial panel said there was “undisputed evidence” of intentional racial discrimination. It said the special congressional primaries should instead proceed under the previous court-approved districts.

The decision to temporarily block the map switch came after a seven-hour hearing Friday in which judges sharply questioned state lawyers about the timeline and the impact of the Louisiana ruling.

Using the same districts that had been in place for the previous election would prevent “an expensive, aggressive, and perhaps logistically impossible voter reassignment effort,” the judges wrote.

“Candidate and voter confusion is troublesome and warrants significant consideration, but we do not see that a preliminary injunction will worsen it. To the contrary, we expect a preliminary injunction to lessen it,” the judges said.

Deuel Ross, director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said the court ruling “again vindicated the constitutional rights of voters in the Black Belt, and our clients look forward to voting under a fair map this fall.”

Redistricting changes affect primaries in several states

Other states also have considered adjustments to their primary elections to allow time for congressional redistricting after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision affecting the Voting Rights Act. Louisiana’s congressional primaries, scheduled for May 16, were postponed until later this summer by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry so that state lawmakers could consider a new U.S. House map that would eliminate a majority-Black district.

In South Carolina, where early voting began Tuesday for its June 9 primaries, the Republican-led Senate rejected a plan that would have thrown out the votes and instead held a new congressional primary in August under revised districts that could have improved Republicans’ chances of winning an additional seat.

Tennessee also moved quickly to enact new U.S. House districts after the Supreme Court’s ruling, carving up a Black-majority district based in Memphis that had elected the state’s only Democratic representative. The new map gives Republicans a chance to sweep all nine of the state’s seats. As part of the plan, Tennessee temporarily reopened the candidate qualifying period for its August congressional primaries, allowing new candidates to enter the race and existing ones to either switch districts or drop out.

Since Trump first urged Texas to redraw its U.S. House districts last summer, about a half-dozen Republican-led states have enacted new voting districts, though some still face legal challenges. Democrats countered with new districts in California and also expect to gain a seat from new court-imposed districts in Utah.

KSAT anchors Myra Arthur and Ernie Zuniga will be live on election night Tuesday, covering key primary runoff races. The livestream will take place at 7:30 p.m. on KSAT Plus and YouTube.

Find election results by clicking the links below, or use the drop-down menu above to find the specific election you’re interested in.

• Key races
• U.S. Senate: John Cornyn, Ken Paxton
• All Bexar County races
• U.S. House and Senate races
• Texas House and Senate races
• Statewide offices
• Area local races

Texas voters will settle unfinished business from the March Primary on May 26, when they decide either who will be on the ballot for the November general election or who will take office next year.

The contests where no candidate received 50% plus one of the vote will be on the Tuesday, May 26 runoff election ballot.

The Bexar County Democratic sample ballot can be seen below:

The Bexar County Republican sample ballot can be seen below:

Election day is May 26. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Get more election results on our homepage and Vote 2026 page. Be the first to know by downloading our newsreader app or signing up for breaking news email alerts.

Find election results on the Vote 2026 page.

The move stems from new U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations and recommendations to phase out specific artificial dyes commonly found in brightly colored cereals, candies and snack foods.

Dr. Dina Tom, a pediatric hospitalist with University Health and UT Health San Antonio, said some artificial food dye studies are linked to behavioral issues in children.

“Children are particularly susceptible to any kind of ingredient, really, because they’re developing and growing,” Tom said. “Their intestines and their bodies are really absorbing as much nutrients as it can to grow.”

While some countries have already restricted or banned certain dyes, the United States started taking steps toward tighter regulation domestically.

Synthetic dyes, including Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and Blue 1, are often added to foods to make them more visually appealing, especially products marketed toward children.

“It has been shown in human studies to have potentially harmful outcomes in behavior for children,” Tom said, “specifically in different types of diagnoses like autism and ADHD, and also in children who may have some behavioral concerns.

Tom said research has associated artificial dyes with issues such as hyperactivity, sleep problems and behavioral changes in some children.

Rather than relying on packaging claims displayed on the front of the box, Tom suggests looking at the ingredients label to parents looking to avoid artificial coloring.

“If you look at ingredients, which is underneath the nutrition facts, it will list out everything that’s included in that food label,” Tom said. “It will call out the words ‘artificial flavor’ or ‘artificial food coloring.”

Some food companies now use natural alternatives, Tom said, including coloring derived from beet juice and other plant-based ingredients.

Tom also encourages families to focus more on fresh foods found around the outer aisles of grocery stores, where produce, dairy and other less-processed products are typically located.

“Those ultra-processed or packaged foods tend to be in the center of the grocery store, in the boxes,” Tom said. “They have a lot of preservatives and artificial ingredients, including dyes.”

Parents looking for alternatives to traditional colorful cereals may find dye-free versions on store shelves, though they can cost more.

Some brands marketed as natural alternatives to cereals like Froot Loops can range from $1 to $3 more, depending on the retailer.

Tom said another option is to buy plain cereal and add fresh fruit, such as strawberries or bananas, for natural color and flavor.

Read also:

• ‘Pearl Fest’ to feature live music, food and after-parties on Saturday

Trump suspended the refugee program on his first day in office and, since then, has turned it into a vehicle to allow Afrikaners — a group of white South Africans descended mainly from Dutch settlers — into the U.S. Advocates say the decision to focus a decades-old program on one group has left people around the world fleeing war and strife stranded and with few options.

The administration says Afrikaners are subject to persecution in their home country, a charge the government in South Africa denies.

In the Tuesday announcement on the Federal Register, President Donald Trump said that because of “an unforeseen emergency refugee situation” he was raising the refugee cap. He blamed the South African government for “recent increases in the incitement of racially motivated violence" but gave no specific information.

“I hereby determine that the admission to the United States of Afrikaners from South Africa in response to this emergency is justified by the grave humanitarian concerns and is otherwise in the national interest,” Trump said in the announcement.

Democrats criticize refugee cap

The administration indicated last year that it would approve up to 7,500, mostly Afrikaners, during the fiscal year stretching from October 2025 through September 2026, but last week, in a notice to Congress informing it of the increase, the administration said that “unforeseen developments in South Africa created an emergency refugee situation.” The change raises the limit to 17,500.

Christopher Landau, the deputy secretary of state, and Troy Edgar, the deputy secretary of Homeland Security, met with key congressional committees on Thursday as part of the legally required consultation process with lawmakers, according to two people who were granted anonymity to discuss a private meeting.

During the hour-long session, Landau told lawmakers that one of the ways that Afrikaners had faced persecution at home was the erasure of their history in school textbooks, according to the people with knowledge of the meeting. The discussion infuriated Democrats, who called the approach and the consultation “indefensible.”

The State Department did not return a request for comment on the interaction.

“The administration’s shameful approach to refugee resettlement is organized around prioritizing white-only Afrikaners and betraying everyone else, including thousands of Afghan allies who risked their lives for our nation, and thousands of other approved and vetted refugees twisting in the wind,” said Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Alex Padilla of California, and Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Pramila Jayapal of Washington in a statement.

Inside the meeting, Democrats also pressed the administration on religious minorities in other nations, particularly in Iran, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan indicated that it was an issue the administration should look at, the people said. Jordan raised the case of Saleh Mohammadi, a 19-year-old star wrestler who was hanged in Iran with two other young men in March after being sentenced on charges of “moharabeh,” or “waging war against God,” another person with knowledge of the meeting said.

Thousands of mostly white South Africans already admitted

The State Department has already approved more than 6,000 people through the refugee program since the beginning of the fiscal year in October, according to official data. All of those were from South Africa except for three people from Afghanistan.

Presidents set the cap on how many refugees the U.S. will approve through the program each year, and historically, they’ve allocated those numbers across various geographic regions while factoring in wars or conflicts that spark humanitarian needs around the globe.

The refugee program, administered by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, is distinct from asylum. People hoping to come through the refugee program must be living abroad and undergo vetting and other checks before being admitted to the U.S., whereas those seeking asylum are already on U.S. soil. A visa, however, is not a guarantee that the holder will be allowed to enter the U.S.

During his first administration, Trump slashed the number of refugees approved every year. Then the Biden administration built the system back up, setting a goal of admitting 125,000 refugees in his last year in office.

Groups that have for decades helped resettle refugees in the U.S. have sued to allow people who were in the refugee application process but are now stranded to be allowed to come to the U.S.

“For nearly half a century, the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program embodied a simple but powerful, bipartisan idea: that the United States would offer safety to the world’s most vulnerable refugees,” said Beth Oppenheim, President & CEO of HIAS, in a statement. “This administration is now dismantling that legacy in plain sight."

KSAT anchors Myra Arthur and Ernie Zuniga will be live on election night Tuesday, covering key primary runoff races. The livestream will take place at 7:30 p.m. on KSAT Plus and YouTube.

Bexar County voters will resolve unfinished business in the primary runoff election on Tuesday, May 26.

Four races are on the ballot after no candidates in those contests earned the required majority — 50% plus one vote — in the March primary to advance to November.

The Bexar County Democratic sample ballot can be seen below:

The Bexar County Republican sample ballot can be seen below:

Election day is May 26. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Get more election results on our homepage and Vote 2026 page. Be the first to know by downloading our newsreader app or signing up for breaking news email alerts.

Find election results on the Vote 2026 page.

KSAT anchors Myra Arthur and Ernie Zuniga will be live on election night Tuesday, covering key primary runoff races. The livestream will take place at 7:30 p.m. on KSAT Plus and YouTube.

Voters in Atascosa, Bandera, Comal, Dimmit, Frio, Guadalupe, Kendall, Kerr, Maverick, Medina, Uvalde, and Zavala counties will resolve unfinished business in the primary runoff election on Tuesday, May 26.

Live updates will track results in key local races where no candidate earned the required majority—50% plus one vote—in the March primary to advance to November.

Election day is May 26. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Get more election results on our homepage and Vote 2026 page. Be the first to know by downloading our newsreader app or signing up for breaking news email alerts.

Find election results on the Vote 2026 page.

KSAT anchors Myra Arthur and Ernie Zuniga will be live on election night Tuesday, covering key primary runoff races. The livestream will take place at 7:30 p.m. on KSAT Plus and YouTube.

Texas voters head back to the polls on Tuesday, May 26, to finish decisions left unresolved in the March primary, determining which candidates will advance to the November general election and, in some contests, who will take office next year.

Some statewide races are on the ballot in the Democratic and Republican runoffs, including attorney general for both parties.

Voters in the Democratic runoff will also decide their party’s nominee for land commissioner, while Republican runoff voters will select their nominee for railroad commissioner.

The Bexar County Democratic sample ballot can be seen below:

The Bexar County Republican sample ballot can be seen below:

Election day is May 26. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Get more election results on our homepage and Vote 2026 page. Be the first to know by downloading our newsreader app or signing up for breaking news email alerts.

Find election results on the Vote 2026 page.

KSAT anchors Myra Arthur and Ernie Zuniga will be live on election night Tuesday, covering key primary runoff races. The livestream will take place at 7:30 p.m. on KSAT Plus and YouTube.

Eight Democratic candidates announced their candidacies for Bexar County District Attorney, but now only two remain. Jane Davis and Luz Elena Chapa are vying to be the party’s nominee in November.

Davis, who is currently the chief of the juvenile sections at the Bexar County DA’s Office, has nearly three decades of experience as a prosecutor. Elena Chapa previously served as a judge for the Fourth Court of Appeals.

Watch KSAT’s preview of the race below:

During the March primary, Elena Chapa earned the most votes (24%) while Davis checked in with 18% of the vote. Both women are seeking to replace Joe Gonzales, the current Bexar County DA who announced he will not seek reelection in June 2025.

Though Gonzales is not running for office, he garnered attention weeks after the March 3 primary when he appeared at a forum where Elena Chapa was in attendance.

Gonzales, who publicly endorsed Davis in the race, defended the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office against Elena Chapa.

“It offends me when you attack our people for working hard,” Gonzales told Elena Chapa in a video obtained by KSAT.

Elena Chapa sent KSAT the following statement on March 21:

“Today, I felt compelled to not only stand up for myself and my daughters, but also for every woman in Bexar County who has felt powerless and voiceless in our justice system,” Elena Chapa said at the time.

In separate May interviews leading up to the runoff, Elena Chapa and Davis outlined their visions to address the thousands of backlogged cases at the DA’s office.

“With respect to the thousands and thousands of cases backlogged in the family violence division, too many victims have gone unheard and unseen,” Elena Chapa told KSAT. “We need to dismantle the intake process and how we are looking at cases when we are accepting them. And that also entails collaboratively working with local law enforcement to making sure we are bringing strong cases and we’re going to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.”

“I’m the chief of the juvenile unit. We don’t have a backlog, and we have great morale in the juvenile unit at the DA’s office,” Davis told KSAT. “I think it’s important that I bring that expertise into every section of the office.”

The winner of the Democratic primary will advance to the November election and face Ashley Foster.

Foster is the lone Republican in the race.

Jason Wolff, the nephew of former San Antonio Mayor and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, is running as an Independent.

If he receives enough signatures, Wolff’s name will appear on the November ballot.

Get more election results on our homepage and Vote 2026 page. Be the first to know by downloading our newsreader app or signing up for breaking news email alerts.

Find election results on the Vote 2026 page.

To fight off predators of the humpback chub, a threatened fish native to the river, Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona would need to do what is known as a “cool mix flow,” where cold water is released from deep in its reservoir to cool the river below. But there are no hydropower turbines in the cool, deep section, so significant power generation would be lost.

The proposal comes after the worst snowpack on record for the Colorado River Basin, relied upon by farmers, industries, wildlife and more than 40 million people in seven U.S. states, tribal nations and Mexico. It also comes as those states fail to reach a long-term agreement on how to share the river's dwindling resources beyond this year, when the guidelines expire.

“There is a limited water supply. It’s getting even lower. And with that, a lot of hard decisions need to be made,” said John Berggren, regional policy manager for the environmental nonprofit Western Resource Advocates.

Utilities that buy this hydropower say the cool water releases would be costly because they would have to spend millions to buy alternative energy and would increase financial hardship for customers. But supporters say that without cool releases, the warm waters projected downstream this summer would allow non-native predatory fish to spawn, further threatening the humpback chub, and would destroy a world-famous trout fishery nearby.

The Bureau of Reclamation, which is expected to announce a decision in the next couple of weeks, said in a statement that it is weighing several factors including the ecological health of the river and the hydropower production of the dam. The Interior Department, which oversees the bureau, declined to comment. If the cool water release is approved, it would likely happen from June to October through jet tubes, bypassing the turbines near the warmer surface.

How mixing cool water protects fish

Lake Powell, one of two massive reservoirs on the Colorado River, is just 23% full after decades of overuse and evaporation of water as average temperatures rise because of climate change. A record low inflow is expected this summer. With such a low reservoir, warm water near the surface gets sucked through the generators and sent downstream.

Smallmouth bass, introduced in Lake Powell in the 1980s for sport fishing, live at that warm surface, and also get sucked through the hydropower generators and into the river below. That's a problem for the humpback chub and other federally protected fish in the Grand Canyon, a 278-mile (447-kilometer) stretch farther south on the river that's world-famous for its geologic formations. A recent study shows that roughly half the bass survive the generators. If the river below is warm enough, they spawn.

Smallmouth bass already feast on humpback chub in the river’s upper section, where agencies spend millions of dollars annually to keep the intruders in check. Native fish have been safer below Glen Canyon Dam because it blocks the path to the Grand Canyon — but that may not be true for long.

Water temperatures just downstream of the dam are expected to shatter records set in 2022, when smallmouth bass were first found there. Officials project that water will consistently exceed 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5 Celsius) by mid-June due to the warm water being pulled in from Lake Powell. Any higher than that, and non-native predatory fish that pass through the dam could reproduce.

Officials say cool water releases from Lake Powell in 2024 and 2025 successfully prevented spawning.

It’s critical to consider the cost of not doing the cool mix, Heather Whitlaw, field supervisor with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said during a recent meeting on managing the issue. “We are certainly just giving up on the future for any kind of recovery for humpback chub and all of the other pieces of the system that rely on those cooler water temperatures.”

With no long-term solution to keep the predators from passing through the dam, withholding cool water would force officials to rely solely on manually removing them downstream.

More hydropower loss could further impact utilities

Utilities reliant on hydropower from federal generators are worried.

If the cool water releases are approved, it could mean bypassing about half the generation at Glen Canyon Dam, forcing utilities to buy power elsewhere that would likely be more expensive, according to the Utah utility group Heber Light & Power.

“We keep hearing comments that we must continue Cool Mix because the cost of not doing it will be even greater,” the Colorado River Energy Distributors Association, which represents about 155 customers who buy federal hydropower generated from the river and opposes the releases, said this month in a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. “We would like to understand what remediation would consistently cost more than $20 to $30 (million) per year.”

The association said the releases are not a sustainable solution to prevent smallmouth bass from reproducing and threaten a critical fund used to operate, maintain and invest in hydropower and transmission facilities.

During the cool water releases in 2024, nearly 900,000 acre-feet of water bypassed the generators, costing $19 million in replacement energy costs, according to the Bureau of Reclamation. It’s unclear how much water would bypass the generators this year, although the cost to replace it is anticipated to be around $25 million — roughly the total cost to hydropower users from the prior two years.

The ongoing loss of hydropower due to Lake Powell's decline has brought challenges to Heber Light & Power as the population grows, said Emily Brandt, the utility’s energy resource manager. The overall decline has led to rate hikes the past five years.

Ann Moulton, who lives in Heber City, has seen her residential electricity bill from Heber Light & Power steadily rise. Her bill this April was $125.98, up from $103.24 and $86.14 for the same month in the previous two years. That's impacting her budget, she said.

Other customers are struggling to pay. So far this year, the utility has seen a jump in late payments over the past two years, from 10% to 12%.

Brandt said the utility supports caring for fish, “but this particular experiment seems unnecessary.”

“We’re already seeing reduced generation from drought, and now we’re seeing even further reduced generation because of this environmental experiment,” Brandt said.

Fisheries downstream are also in limbo

Dave Foster still remembers the 2022 trout die-off in Glen Canyon, a remote stretch of river between the dam and the start of the Grand Canyon. Warm water killed nearly half the rainbow trout the world-renowned fishery relies on, said Foster, who has been working on or around that stretch of river since age 13.

He and other guides are still recovering from the die-off, he said, as “the population has simply not rebounded.” But cool water releases in recent years have offset more negative impacts, and more this year would get them through the fall and winter.

Foster has warned customers booking trips after mid-June that he might cancel if the water gets too warm, which can stress fish. Without cool water releases this year, “that's it for the trout fishery,” he said. “There's no ambiguity about it. It will destroy it.”

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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In the third to last paragraph, corrects the name of a stretch of the river to Glen Canyon instead of Marble Canyon.

In an updated preliminary report obtained by KSAT on Tuesday, officers identified the suspect as Gage Perez Montes.

A male went to the woman’s apartment and found her dead just before 10 a.m. Friday at an apartment located in the 5100 block of Eisenhauer Road.

Officers later arrived at the scene and found the woman with wounds “consistent with a sharp cutting object,” according to police.

The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the woman’s identity, as well as her cause and manner of death.

Montes was booked into the Bexar County Adult Detention Center on Saturday on a $250,000 bond, jail records show.

At this time, it’s unclear whether the male who found the woman was Montes.

SAPD said its investigation is ongoing. Further information was not readily available.

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