May 10, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

‘It will forever change who we are’: Rural Texans brace for data center invasion

Ryan Mote gestures to the property line between land that has been in his family for 100 years and the grounds of what is slated to become a data center campus. The parcels are separated by a welded wire fence barely visible against the brown-green grassland of Young County, about 90 miles from Fort Worth. Lake Graham glistens in the distance. At full capacity, 15 data center buildings on land the size of 657 football fields would become the neighbor Mote never wanted. “This is not good for our community,” Mote said. “It will forever change who we are.” Mote’s primary concerns aren’t aesthetics. He’s worried about the center moving in with the help of tax breaks and without a public vote. He’s worried about a lack of oversight and the effects on the environment and the health of people and wildlife.

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He’s worried about water and electric demands that come with a project of its scale. These are the same issues being raised across rural Texas as the state’s business-friendly environment and lack of regulations — the same qualities that attract many to country life — fuel an expansion of server farms from the Panhandle to the Valley. Those traits coupled with Texas’ geography and favorable weather have long been magnets for the latest industry and infrastructure of the day: railroads, highways, oil rigs, wind and solar farms. Now, in the midst of an artificial intelligence boom, it’s data centers. To some, the data centers are an inevitable part of our future and an economic opportunity that can’t be ignored as the global AI race accelerates. To others, they’re a nuisance at best and at worst they’re noisy health and environmental hazards that destroy land and livelihoods. For Mote, one of an estimated 4.2 million to 7 million people living in rural Texas, and others like him, data centers could be a future neighbor — just not without a fight. “Country living is a whole different feeling,” Mote said. “It is based in God and community and love for the land and the resources around you. I just think there’s a different mentality — that you wouldn’t necessarily see the same fight at the city level that you would at the rural level.”

CPS Energy pilot targets Texas data center power demand

The rapidly increasing pressure to provide electricity for data centers and other high-demand users could be eased by a CPS Energy pilot program that encourages energy-hungry customers to bring their own generation. The program — and others under consideration by the statewide electric grid operator — is a response to demand that’s projected to increase nearly 400% across Texas by the end of the decade as the state attracts more of the computing power needed for artificial intelligence and other aspects of today’s digital world. “We’ve been anticipating that we may need some new tools to help customers’ desire, as well as things that are being contemplated at the state level,” said Elaina Ball, CPS Energy’s chief strategy officer. “This pilot is one of the solutions that we’ve been pursuing.”

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The effort by San Antonio’s city-owned utility is a microcosm of trends in the energy sector, she said, which have state grid operator the Electric Reliability Council of Texas also grappling with sharp growth in both commercial and residential demand. The Austin-San Antonio area is in the crosshairs as some forecasts suggest it could be the world’s top data center market by 2030. Though experts suggest that only a fraction of the facilities on the waiting list to connect to the grid will actually be built, its growing backlog of requests is forcing ERCOT to overhaul its processes and experiment with new ideas. CPS Energy’s new service option is a natural response, Ball said. Under its pilot, CPS will provide natural gas for industrial users that bring their own energy generation. In return, data centers and other so-called large loads could connect more quickly to ERCOT’s statewide grid. Ball pitched the behind-the-meter generation pilot to the City Council in early March, saying it would “help exercise someone else’s capital to provide grid flexibility.” “When customers bring their own generation, it does help the grid,” she said in an interview. “We’ve got less demand on the system. During times of tight demand, customers will be able to self-provide their power, which lessens the burden on the rest of the grid.”

How Republicans gained an edge on the midterm House map over 10 days

Just two weeks ago, Democrats felt increasingly emboldened about taking control of the House in November after seeming to fight the redistricting wars to a draw. But two court rulings — one by the Supreme Court and another by Virginia’s top court — and an aggressive new push by red states to carve up congressional maps have delivered the Republican Party its biggest burst of momentum in many months. Put bluntly, Republicans have roughly 10 more House seats that favor them than they did just 10 days ago, and Democrats are suddenly grappling with a new landscape. “This is now clearly closer than it was just a week and a half ago,” Representative Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said of his party’s chances to retake the House. Democrats are still widely seen as favored to win the House this fall. Republicans face a daunting political climate, saddled with President Trump’s sagging approval ratings, high gas prices and an unpopular war with Iran. In special elections and last year’s races for governor, Democratic enthusiasm has swamped Republican turnout.

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governor, Democratic enthusiasm has swamped Republican turnout. “I was anticipating about a 15-to-20-seat pickup before the last week and a half,” Mr. Boyle said. “Now I would be anticipating a 10-to-15-seat pickup.” That would be more than enough to wrest the majority from Republicans, who are clinging to a current edge of 217 to 212 seats. And history is not on Republicans’ side: The party in power almost always loses seats in midterm elections. But after the latest map changes, winning the House majority will require Democrats to flip more seats in less hospitable territory. Bullish Republicans feel they are back in the game. “Lord grant me humility,” James Blair, the Republican strategist who is overseeing Mr. Trump’s political operation in the midterms, wrote on X on Friday after Virginia’s top court struck down a recently enacted map meant to give Democrats four extra House seats. One of Speaker Mike Johnson’s senior political aides interrupted the middle of a meeting in Texas, where the Republican leader was on a fund-raising swing, to break the news, according to two people with knowledge of the conversation. Mr. Johnson later celebrated on the phone with Glenn Youngkin, the former Republican governor of Virginia, who had opposed the Democratic effort to redraw the state’s lines.

Railroad Commission runoff exposes bitter divide in Texas oil industry

For some oilmen, there’s only one thing they need to know about Bo French: He isn’t Jim Wright, the Railroad Commission’s incumbent chairman and French’s competition in a Republican primary runoff later this month. “I can't support Jim Wright, because Jim Wright makes rules that are silly for lots and lots and lots of operators,” said Lance Thomas, manager of Albany-based Stasney Well Service. French’s political campaign may have little to do with oil and gas — he has said far more publicly about Muslims and DEI — but it was an oil and gas policy that helped set the stage for his battle against Wright to lead the state regulatory agency. Wright’s efforts to lead reforms at the commission, which oversees oil and gas extraction in Texas, have not landed well with many small-scale oil companies.

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In fact, Stasney is suing the Railroad Commission over a new set of rules about how oil operators manage onsite waste pits. They require permits and, in many cases, adding synthetic liners meant to protect groundwater from drilling waste often containing residual oil, wastewater and radioactive material. volumes of oil and waste that are triggering the need for more regulation. Low-volume wells like theirs aren’t threatening groundwater — at least not in his area, where there is no groundwater to protect, Thomas said. While smaller companies like Stasney are waging war against Wright over “one-size fits all” solutions that threaten their businesses, big oil companies are working with Wright to wage a war of their own. They need a technological breakthrough and a friendly regulator to help them find a new way to dispose of massive volumes of super-salty water that pour from the ground with every barrel of their oil. Their existing method of handling it — injecting it underground — is resulting in a rash of leaking wells, earthquakes and geysers that threaten not only Texas groundwater, but the future of the oil industry.

State Department reviewing all Mexican consulates in U.S. as tensions grow

The State Department is initiating a review of all 53 Mexican consulates operating in the United States, a U.S. official told CBS News on Thursday, in a move that could lead Secretary of State Marco Rubio to consider ordering the closure of some diplomatic offices. The review comes as bilateral tensions build over security cooperation and cartel violence, and it follows the deaths of two American CIA officers after a counter-narcotics operation in northern Mexico last month. A State Department official said the review is part of a broader effort to align U.S. foreign policy with the Trump administration's priorities.

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Dylan Johnson, assistant secretary of state for global public affairs, said the "Department of State is constantly reviewing all aspects of American foreign relations to ensure they are in line with the President's America First foreign policy agenda and advance American interests." Mexico maintains the largest foreign consular network in the United States, with offices that provide documentation and legal aid to millions of Mexican citizens living across the country. Most are concentrated in border states and cities with large Mexican American populations, including California, Texas and Arizona. In recent years, U.S. consulate closures have usually reflected rising tensions with rival countries rather than routine diplomatic changes. In 2020, as relations between Washington and Beijing worsened, the Trump administration ordered China's consulate in Houston to close, citing concerns over espionage and intellectual property theft. In 2017, the U.S. ordered Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco, along with diplomatic facilities in Washington and New York, in response to Moscow expelling American diplomats.

State Stories

Mihaela Plesa: Texas doesn’t have many real elections anymore. The Supreme Court just made it worse

(Mihaela Plesa represents the 70th district in the Texas House of Representatives.) I represent Texas House District 70, covering much of Plano and parts of Far North Dallas, Richardson and Allen. It’s one of the few truly competitive districts left in Texas. In 2024, my race was decided by 4.44 percentage points, one of the closest Texas House races in the state. I do not see that as a political burden — I see it as a governing responsibility. In a competitive district, you cannot take voters for granted. You cannot only talk to people who already agree with you. You have to show up in schools, chambers of commerce, neighborhood meetings, town halls, community events and living rooms. You have to listen to people who voted for you and people who did not. You have to explain your votes. You have to earn trust over and over again.

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That is how representative government is supposed to work. The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais makes that harder. The court struck down Louisiana’s congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and held that the Voting Rights Act did not require the state to create an additional majority-minority district. The ruling does not erase the Voting Rights Act, but it narrows one of the tools communities have used for generations to challenge discriminatory maps and demand fair representation. Texans should care because redistricting decides more than the shape of a district. It decides whether lawmakers have to listen to the full community they represent, or whether they can hide inside districts drawn to protect them. Texas has already seen what happens when competitive districts disappear. In 2024, only nine of 150 Texas House races were decided by less than 10 points. Most Texans now live in districts where the real political fight is not the general election. It is the primary. And when the primary becomes the only election that matters, the legislative process changes. Lawmakers stop asking, “What does my whole district need?” and start asking, “What will keep me safe from a primary challenge?”

The new North Texas Banking Order

Y’all Street is here. The concrete might still be drying and the steel beams still exposed, but the financial infrastructure is taking shape—fast. Goldman Sachs is building a $700 million, 5,000-employee campus in Uptown as part of its growing Dallas presence. Bank of America is developing a new tower near Klyde Warren Park that will house 1,000 employees. Scotiabank’s new Victory Park office is expected to bring more than 1,000 jobs. And Morgan Stanley is reportedly exploring a 500,000-square-foot lease in Uptown—roughly twice the size of Bank of America’s footprint.

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The public markets are here, too. The New York Stock Exchange Texas is open for business, landing early dual listings from companies like AT&T, Vistra Corp., Arcosa, Cinemark, HF Sinclair, and D.R. Horton. Nasdaq launched its own Texas dual-listing program in March with JB Hunt, APA Corp., and Huntington Bancshares. And the Texas Stock Exchange—the upstart that forced Wall Street’s hand to launch the aforementioned markets—plans to begin trading this July. Against that backdrop, Dallas’ banking landscape is consolidating. Over the last year, three of North Texas’ most recognizable banks have been swept into major transactions. Fifth Third Bancorp acquired Comerica in a deal valued at $10.9 billion and Vista Bank and Veritex Bank both merged into larger institutions. Malcolm Holland sold Veritex—the bank he founded in 2010 and grew into a $13 billion-asset institution—to Huntington Bancshares for $1.9 billion. National Bank Holdings acquired John Steinmetz’s Vista Bank, which had $2.5 billion in assets at the time of the deal, for $377.4 million. It’s an era of consolidation that Curt Farmer—former Comerica CEO and now vice chairman of Fifth Third—says he saw coming when the current administration took office. “We perceived a change in regulatory receptivity,” Farmer says. “Interest rates began to stabilize, inflation became more manageable, credit conditions were favorable, and we’ve been in a very benign credit environment. As an $80 billion bank, we had a lot of capabilities, but we didn’t have the scale of some of our competitors.”

From banking to conservation, nonprofit leader is celebrated for preserving land in Texas

Anne Brown had tears in her eyes as she recalled when Merrill Gregg’s resume landed on her desk at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation 10 years ago. From working for Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong, Gregg made a life-changing decision to turn to a career in conservation, said Brown, the foundation’s executive director. Merrill committed 110% to making a difference in conserving Texas’ natural land, Brown said. She hopes people understand the magnitude of her dedication. “I’m so proud to call you a colleague and a friend,” Brown said to Gregg. Since joining the state organization in 2016, Gregg went from focusing on major gifts and donations to leading in land conservations, developing conservation finance models and managing the foundation’s investment portfolio.

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Gregg’s accomplishments earned her recognition at the Fort World Wild! event Wednesday, hosted and awarded by the Friends of the Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge. Every year, the nonprofit honors an individual for their work and dedication in urban conservation. As Fort Worth grows, the community’s well-being depends on natural areas to make the city an enjoyable place to live, Gregg said. “I’m so proud to be a Fort Worthian and to be part of this community,” she said. “I’m super excited about what we will continue to accomplish together.” Although Gregg previously worked in banking, a daily routine in nature wasn’t completely new to her. She reminisced on growing up on her family’s farm in Virginia, where she often rode her pony and explored nearby streams. Gregg’s background in finance helped in her transition to protecting natural spaces. She arrived at a time when the foundation was navigating different approaches to funding conservation projects. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill prompted the organization to think about how to acquire large sources of funding without added costs — such as interest — while ensuring dollars are allocated across much-needed conservation projects. Since joining the foundation, Gregg helped parks and wildlife officials collect and allocate $10 million in loans to protect 3,500 acres across the state. But her dedication to conservation doesn’t stop there. Gregg made it a goal to give back to Fort Worth in smaller ways.

Nvidia, Corning's factory plans could mean thousands of jobs in Austin

The world's most valuable company might bring thousands of jobs to Austin as Nvidia ups its investment in Texas. Artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia Corp. and glassmaker Corning Inc. announced plans to build three new plants dedicated to manufacturing light and glass technologies for AI manufacturing in North Carolina and Texas.

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The companies, which both have significant business ties to the Austin area, promised to create more than 3,000 jobs at the factories. "(Nvidia's) commitment is directly fueling the expansion of our U.S. manufacturing footprint and creating more than 3,000 new, high-paying jobs for American workers," Corning CEO Wendell Weeks said in the announcement. "This partnership is proof that AI is not just a technology story. It is a manufacturing story, and it is happening here in the United States." It is unclear where in Texas and North Carolina these factories will be built, and both companies declined to specify locations.

Amanda McAfee: Texas' childcare investments pay off

(Amanda McAfee is President/CEO of the Lubbock Area United Way.) At Lubbock Area United Way, we spend a lot of time listening to South Plains parents — hearing both what’s hard and what’s working for their families. One theme comes up again and again: access to high-quality, affordable childcare can change everything. When parents have reliable childcare — whether that’s a preschool, a church program, a grandparent, or a trusted neighbor running a home-based center — they can show up for work. That might mean putting on a tie, a uniform, or their well-worn work boots. Either way, it’s how parents provide for their families today and build toward a more stable future. And quality childcare doesn’t just matter for parents. It matters just as much for children — the kids who will someday be our doctors, nurses, teachers, police officers, business owners, and community leaders right here in West Texas.

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We want those children to walk into their first day of kindergarten confident, curious, and ready to learn — not already playing catch-up. That’s why our local school districts asked United Way’s School Ready 806 Coalition to focus on strategies that help more children in our communities arrive at school truly “kindergarten-ready.” Research shows there are six key areas in which children benefit from strong early experiences between birth and age 4: literacy, language, math, self-care, motor skills, and social-emotional development. Parents are, of course, a child’s very first and most important teacher. But for the many parents who must work to make ends meet, high-quality childcare is also a critical piece of the puzzle. In a quality childcare setting, children gather on the carpet with trained teachers for story time. They practice counting, learn their letters, and figure out how to share and play with others. These everyday moments add up — laying the foundation for success in kindergarten and beyond. Too often, though, quality childcare is simply out of reach. In some cases, it costs more than tuition at Texas Tech. That price reflects a tough reality: childcare requires skilled, hands-on, nurturing professionals doing work that can’t (and probably shouldn’t) be automated

HISD under federal investigation over plans to restructure special education services

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has opened an investigation into Houston ISD to determine whether the district is violating the rights of students with disabilities after it unveiled plans to restructure the way special education services are delivered. This week, after Houston Public Media reported on leaked draft documents outlining their plan, district leaders confirmed they planned to consolidate special education services to certain campuses beginning in 2026-27. The move would require some students to be transferred from their neighborhood school to another school in the district that would be tapped as a hub to provide a variety of special education services.

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"Public schools are required – to the maximum extent appropriate — to ensure that children with disabilities are educated alongside their nondisabled peers and to follow specific procedures when making placement decisions about how and where children with disabilities are educated," the education department stated in a Friday news release announcing the investigation. Houston ISD, the largest school district in Texas that has been under state control since 2023, defended its forthcoming changes in a Friday night statement while noting that 15,000 of its more than 21,000 students in special education “are served in inclusive settings.” The district also said that for the roughly 5,000 students “primarily served in self-contained settings, families can expect small class sizes, low adult-to-student ratios to support specialized instruction, and placement with similar-age peers.” HISD added that special education services will be available at more than half of its campuses. “Any review will show that all special education updates for the 2026–27 school year focus on increasing access to services in the least restrictive environment, strengthening systems to improve the quality of instruction, and improving student outcomes,” HISD also said in its statement.

‘Liberty or die’: Comal GOP arson suspect indicted by federal grand jury

A federal grand jury indicted a 22-year-old woman Wednesday on a charge of “actual and attempted malicious damage by fire to property involved in interstate or foreign commerce” for allegedly throwing a burning magazine into the Comal County Republican Party’s headquarters on Jan. 14. Grace Carol Brown also faces felony charges of terrorism, arson and burglary of a building in Comal County court. KXAN reached out to Brown’s attorneys Friday afternoon for their comments on the case.

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A press release issued Friday by the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, Justin R. Simmons, says that the building also contained two commercial businesses. These include a storage company and a used car dealer. A redacted version of the indictment, obtained by KXAN through court records, claims that Brown allegedly “displayed antipathy towards the goals and activities of” the Comal County Republican Party and federal immigration enforcement. “This antipathy extended to…. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) and certain Executive Branch officials, including the President of the United States, whom she referred to as “Enemies of The US Constitution,'” the indictment says. The indictment also claims that Brown allegedly “expressed support” for “anti-government principles espoused by the domestic terrorist organization ‘ANTIFA.'” As to the alleged crime, it accuses Brown of allegedly breaking one of the building’s windows before throwing a backpack and a burning magazine inside the building. According to Simmons’ press release, the backpack “allegedly contained, among other items, one container of ethanol, two containers of gasoline, a lighter and matches.”

Texas made more complaints about Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show to the FCC than any other state

Texans had more to say than residents of any other state about Super Bowl LX and Bad Bunny's halftime show, according to the Federal Communications Commission — and they said it with great conviction. According to a Dallas Morning News analysis of complaints made to the FCC regarding the broadcast, which the agency released on its website Friday, no state filed more complaints than Texas did, with more than 10% of the 2,157 complaints originating here. "It was a disgrace and an embarrassment for US all," one person wrote from Dallas.

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Filing a complaint from Plano with a subject line, "Violent Horror Advertisement During Family Broadcast," another person wrote: "While I do not speak Spanish, how in the world could anyone let Bad Bunny be broadcast, saying the things that he did, without it being censored?" Identifying themselves as a Texan from the city of "none of your business," the author of another complaint emphasized how little of the show they could bring themselves to watch. "so much for an all American sport and entertainment. that was disgraceful, inappropriate and disgusting!!!!" that complainant wrote. "at least the 5 seconds i watched because i was so offended." According to The News' analysis, Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio led in complaints with eight each of the 226 total people who identified themselves as Texans. Houston came in fourth, with six. Four of the complaints came from Dallas. More than 40% of the Texas complaints — 92 — mentioned Bad Bunny by name. That matched the percentage of total complaints who mentioned him nationally. About 30% used the word "vulgar" and 14% found the performance "disgusting."

Psychedelic treatments are on the verge of FDA approval. Why Texas is pushing for them, and how Texans could gain access

Psychedelic treatments are moving closer to federal approval, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration taking steps to fast-track several compounds under review. The agency recently said three companies will receive National Priority Vouchers to speed their psychedelic drugs through the approval process. These include two psilocybin compounds for treatment-resistant depression and major depressive disorder, and methylone, a drug similar to MDMA, for post-traumatic stress disorder. Each previously received Breakthrough Therapy designation, which the FDA awards to therapies for serious conditions that demonstrate a substantial improvement over currently available therapies.

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That announcement came one week after President Donald Trump signed a psychedelics executive order, which signaled the federal government’s support for states, including Texas, that are working to create access for psychedelic treatments that show promise for addressing life-threatening conditions, but are currently illegal in the U.S. Psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, 5-MeO-DMT, and ibogaine are among the psychedelic compounds being studied in FDA clinical trials for mental and behavioral health conditions. Many researchers believe that psychedelics promote healing by inducing the brain’s ability to change and form new neural connections. In combination with therapy, they may help people develop new ways of thinking and processing trauma. Lynnette Averill, PhD, told Texas Public Radio that psychedelic-assisted therapy involves one or a few psychedelic experiences which support ongoing therapy, and the effects are felt quickly, within hours to days. Averill, who leads a psilocybin clinical trial at Baylor College of Medicine and the Menninger Clinic, said this differs from daily antidepressants, which generally take weeks or months to help patients feel better, if at all.

Kaye Stripling, former HISD superintendent, dies at 85

Kaye Stripling, a former Houston ISD's superintendent who was known for her advocacy for teachers, died Saturday at 85. Stripling joined the school district in 1964 at Lee Elementary School as a special education teacher. She taught at Losscan and Atherton elementary schools before serving as principal at Burbank Elementary, Parker Elementary, West University Elementary and Pershing Middle School. She was appointed to various administrative roles before succeeding Superintendent Rod Paige to the district's top position in 2001. Stripling, who lived in the Houston area, received a bachelor's degree from Texas Woman's University in 1962, and earned her master's degree and doctorate in education at the University of Houston, specializing in special education.

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Waco’s “Baby Whisperer” has her murder conviction reversed again

Marian Fraser, the former Waco day care owner who is serving a fifty-year sentence for allegedly killing a four-month-old with a fatal dose of Benadryl, may get a third trial. On Wednesday, Texas’s Seventh Court of Appeals, in Amarillo, reversed Fraser’s 2023 felony-murder conviction. The court ruled that Fraser was found guilty based in part on evidence obtained through an illegal search warrant. This is the second time the 62-year-old Fraser has had her conviction overturned. She was originally tried for Clara Felton’s death in 2015. A Waco jury found her guilty and sentenced her to fifty years in prison. Two years later, an appellate court reversed that conviction after finding that the judge’s instructions to the jury had been slanted in favor of the prosecution. The McLennan County district attorney put her on trial again in 2023, winning another guilty verdict and another fifty-year sentence.

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Prosecutors plan to appeal the Amarillo court’s decision to the Court of Criminal Appeals, Texas’s highest court for criminal matters. “While we are disappointed with the Amarillo Court of Appeals’ ruling, we still firmly believe that Marian Fraser’s conviction should be affirmed,” the DA’s office wrote in a statement provided to Texas Monthly. “We therefore look forward to continuing the appeal by asking the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to review the case.” The previous reversal survived a similar appeal, and the high court has been consistently skeptical of Fraser’s prosecution for felony murder. Her conviction hinged on whether giving diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Benadryl, to a child under age two constituted an “act clearly dangerous to human life.” During a hearing last June, several of the judges tore into McLennan County’s appellate lawyer. “I had two small children at one point, and I gave them Benadryl all the time,” said Judge David Newell. “So it’s hard to see why giving Benadryl, in and of itself, would be clearly dangerous to human life.” Because Fraser’s conviction was overturned on procedural grounds, she can be put on trial for a third time. In its statement, the McLennan County DA’s office left no doubt that it intends to do so. “Should justice ultimately require it, we will absolutely try Fraser again for killing Clara Felton. The fight for Baby Clara and her family is ongoing and we will continue using every tool the law provides to hold Fraser accountable.”

National Stories

The man trying to make Trump’s tariffs go on forever

Jamieson Greer is a trade lawyer. He is a well-respected trade lawyer. He was chosen by President Donald Trump to be the country’s top trade lawyer: the U.S. Trade Representative. He is not a member of a union. He is not a welder. He is not a manufacturer. He is definitely not a salesman. But here he is one cloudy morning on a factory floor in Michigan, in front of an American flag that could hide an elephant, selling the administration’s trade agenda in one of the most important political states in the country with a man hoping to become its next governor. And that man just went soft on the core tenet of Trump’s efforts to reshape global trade. “We don’t want the tariffs to go on forever,” said Rep. John James (R-Mich.). “We want reciprocal tariffs. We want fair trade.”

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Greer stares off at a machine in the distance. He’s heard a similar line from tariff-skittish Republicans before — that the tariffs are a tool, a way to get countries to open markets and expand exports, and then they will come down. But those reassurances contradict his daily reality: His boss does want tariffs to go on forever. And he’s made it Greer’s job to ensure they do. Trump has never hidden his love of tariffs. But his second term has seen the so-called “Tariff Man” unleashed, with a trade policy defined by a fire-from-the hip approach that’s upended global markets. He immediately set about imposing tariffs on three of the country’s top trading partners — China, Canada and Mexico — and quickly followed with “Liberation Day,” when he imposed duties on goods from nearly every country in the world in the hopes that it would end the alleged global exploitation of American commerce and mark the beginning of a grand resurgence in domestic manufacturing. He justified those tariffs with the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows the president to regulate trade during a national emergency. The trade deficit between the U.S. and other countries, Trump said, constituted such an emergency. But the law had never been used for that purpose and doesn’t explicitly mention tariffs. In April, the Supreme Court ruled that it couldn’t be used that way at all, striking down the cornerstone of Trump’s economic agenda.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy returns to reality TV roots, sparking criticism and questions

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s new reality show, filmed with his family over the last seven months, has sparked criticism amid high gas prices, in addition to raising ethics questions. Duffy said that costs for the five-part series titled “The Great American Road Trip,” which will air for free on YouTube ahead of America’s 250th birthday, were paid for by a nonprofit, the Great American Road Trip Inc., and that “zero taxpayer dollars were spent on my family.” He said his family did not receive a salary or production royalties. The project’s sponsors, according to its website, include Boeing, Shell, Toyota, United Airlines and Royal Caribbean — all companies that intersect with the Department of Transportation.

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“As everyday Americans struggle with the price of gas and raise concerns about airline safety, the Secretary announces that he spent work time going on a road trip that appears to have been funded by the very industries his agency oversees,” Donald K. Sherman, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in a statement. This show brings Duffy and his wife, Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy, back to their entertainment roots. The pair, who have nine children together, met while filming the MTV reality show “Road Rules: All Stars.” “To love America is to see America,” Duffy says in the trailer that released Friday. “It’s one of the most powerful ways to understand the vast, beautiful, complicated place we call home,” he says over video of destinations spanning from sweeping fields to bustling cities. The Duffy family said they filmed the show one to two days at a time over the course of seven months. Trip activities included running up the Rocky Steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, snowmobiling in Montana, and a stop at “The Real World: Boston” house where Duffy first gained reality television fame.

Trump administration’s new wildfire agency preps for fire season

Across the country, wildland firefighters are staring down what could be one of the most severe fire seasons in recent history. Among those figuring out how to prepare is the U.S. Wildland Fire Service, a brand new agency created by the Trump administration. "We're dry and we're expecting the pace to pick up significantly here any time," said the recently appointed head of that service, Brian Fennessy, in an interview with NPR's All Things Considered host Emily Feng. The agency is a product of an ongoing White House effort to combine all the parts of the federal government that fight fires.

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"We're trying to bring on additional aircraft and bring them on early," he said. The agency is also bringing on more fire crews earlier in the year. Some wildfire experts, like Park Williams at the University of California, Los Angeles, say they want the government to do more preventative work that could stop a major fire instead of narrowly focusing on suppressing those that ignite. "If we don't want fires to be growing so large that they have catastrophic consequences for people and ecosystems, then the best tool we have at our disposal is large prescribed fires," Williams said.

North Korea updates constitution to require automatic nuclear strike if Kim Jong Un is assassinated: report

North Korea has updated its constitution to require a retaliatory nuclear strike if leader Kim Jong Un is assassinated, according to a report. The Telegraph reported the change comes amid heightened global tensions following the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other officials during a recent conflict. Khamenei was killed in an Israeli strike in Tehran as part of a coordinated U.S.-Israeli military operation earlier this year, Fox News Digital previously reported. The constitutional revision was approved during a session of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, which opened March 22 in Pyongyang, the outlet said.

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South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) briefed senior government officials this week on the update, according to the report. The revised policy outlines procedures for retaliatory action if North Korea’s leadership is incapacitated or killed. "If the command-and-control system over the state’s nuclear forces is placed in danger by hostile forces’ attacks … a nuclear strike shall be launched automatically and immediately," the updated provision states. Reuters previously reported that North Korea revised its constitution to define its territory as bordering South Korea and remove references to reunification, reflecting Kim’s push to formally treat the two Koreas as separate states. That marked the first time North Korea included a territorial clause in its constitution. Last month, Kim pledged to further strengthen the country’s nuclear capabilities while maintaining a hard-line stance toward South Korea, which he has called the "most hostile" state.

Trump's Truth Social lays bare narrow obsessions of an extremely online president

On March 1, the day after U.S. forces bombed Iran and began a war that's now more than nine weeks long, President Trump posted 30 times on Truth Social. Just after midnight, he posted about the bombing campaign, including a threat to retaliate if Iran itself retaliated ("THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT"). But he soon had a lot more on his mind; mid-morning, he posted a video portraying Senator Mitch McConnell as the floppy, deceased Bernie from Weekend at Bernie's. He posted a Tiktok video praising his State of the Union – a speech he had given five days prior – then reposted that video, along with a screenshot of a post on the social media site X. Just after noon, he posted an update on the war ("we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important").

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Mid-afternoon, he posted a string of Trump-friendly news coverage, including a New York Post article from September 2024 about how Lady Gaga's father endorsed Trump in the presidential race. Shortly thereafter, in the span of five minutes, he posted 10 times, all of them lists of screenshots of praise from X users for his State of the Union address. He later posted a video update about the war in Iran, followed by a video marked as being from an Instagram user called @truthaboutfluoride, purporting to show San Francisco as a run-down city filled with poverty. During his first presidential campaign, Trump's constant stream of seemingly unvetted tweets was a sideshow that quickly became inescapable – the boasts, insults, and lies at times hijacked news cycles. Once he was elected, they presented a new frontier in American politics: a real-time view into a president's mind. Ten years, one Twitter ejection, one Twitter return, and a move to Truth Social later, Trump's posts still make news – like when he announces a war or tries to pick a fight with the pope – but for many have become the background noise of American politics.

A deadly cruise ship outbreak exposes travel’s blind spot

The chef on the expedition vessel Hondius filmed it all. Tuna steaks sizzling on a flat-top grill. Lobster pulled from volcanic reefs. A crew drawn from nine countries gathered around a table in Ushuaia, Argentina, raising glasses before setting off into the South Atlantic. “Next stop: the deep blue,” Khabir Moraes wrote in a Facebook post. Ten days later, people on that same ship began dying. A hantavirus outbreak tied to the Dutch-flagged vessel has left three passengers dead and five others ill, with cases now spanning continents, including a patient in intensive care in South Africa and another being treated in Switzerland after leaving the voyage earlier. Almost 150 passengers and crew remain isolated on board as the ship sails toward the Canary Islands, where authorities are preparing to screen them and determine when they can disembark.

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The outbreak is still being pieced together. But the setting — a small ship moving through some of the most remote, wildlife-rich parts of the planet — is already familiar to epidemiologists. It’s the kind of journey where infections can incubate silently, only to surface mid-voyage, far from hospitals and across multiple jurisdictions. That’s the blind spot: infections that start out of sight and surface too late to be contained in one place. Expedition cruises promise access to places few people ever reach: Antarctica, sub-Antarctic islands, isolated communities scattered across the South Atlantic. They’ve become one of the fastest-growing corners of the travel industry, built on the appeal of proximity to wildlife and landscapes largely untouched by mass tourism. (The number of passengers landing on the Antarctic Peninsula reached almost 80,000 last season, up from about 54,000 before the pandemic, according to industry data.) But those same features can complicate the way diseases are detected and contained. Passengers move through environments where animal-borne pathogens circulate. They spend days or weeks together in close quarters. And by the time symptoms appear, the ship may be thousands of miles from where exposure occurred.

Passengers begin to disembark cruise ship hit by hantavirus

Passengers are disembarking the cruise ship at the center of the hantavirus outbreak, Spain’s Ministry of Health said, in a carefully managed repatriation operation in Tenerife involving multiple nations. All passengers still aboard the vessel were screened Sunday and did not show symptoms, according to health authorities. Since the vessel departed Argentina last month, the deaths of three people have been linked to hantavirus — a rare disease typically caused by exposure to infected rats’ urine or feces. It remains a low risk to the general public, according to the World Health Organization, which also emphasized how the virus differs from Covid-19. The operation has caused tensions in the Canary Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. The territory’s leader said last week that he opposed the ship docking. Meanwhile, British medics parachuted onto a remote Atlantic island to treat a UK national with suspected hantavirus, who left the ship weeks before the outbreak became clear.

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Copyright May 10, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved