May 20, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

Why Trump bucked Republicans with a risky bet on Texas’ Ken Paxton

Sen. Tim Scott called President Trump on Tuesday with a last-ditch plea. The president was on the verge of publicly endorsing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the state’s tightly contested Republican primary. Scott, a South Carolina Republican who leads the Senate’s campaign arm, urged him to reconsider, according to people familiar with the conversation. Thirty minutes later, Trump backed Paxton anyway, breaking with Scott and other senior Republicans in Washington, who have long believed that Paxton’s GOP opponent, four-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, was a safer bet. The decision, which came after months of waffling, reflected the president’s renewed conviction that he maintains an iron grip on the party following recent electoral victories, according to people familiar with his thinking. It was also a warning shot to Republicans in Congress that Trump won’t tolerate dissent.

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The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. Trump’s decision comes with political risks. Though Republicans still have a good shot at winning in deep-red Texas, many GOP strategists worry that Paxton is a flawed candidate. He has been accused by his top lieutenants of abusing his office (he has denied wrongdoing), impeached by his own party (he was later acquitted), charged with securities fraud (he resolved the charges with a pretrial deal) and is currently in the middle of a divorce initiated by his wife “on biblical grounds.” Paxton has consistently denied wrongdoing and characterized accusations of illegal or immoral behavior as attacks by left-wing enemies. The winner of next week’s Republican runoff will face Democrat James Talarico, who some national GOP groups view as a formidable opponent. Trump has told advisers in recent weeks that he views Talarico as a weak candidate. Though both Paxton and Cornyn have vied for Trump’s coveted endorsement, the president had long resisted picking a favorite in the race. The competition between the two men has been ugly, with Cornyn attacking Paxton for infidelity in marriage, and Paxton calling Cornyn old, weak and too bipartisan for Texas.

Democrats are bullish on Texas after Trump’s move for Paxton

Democratic leaders say they’re one step closer to winning in Texas, now that President Donald Trump has endorsed scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for Senate. The question now is whether they’re close enough that it’s worth investing in a state where Democrats have consistently been disappointed in recent years. If Paxton beats Sen. John Cornyn in next week’s Republican primary runoff, Democrats say they see a viable path to win a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide in more than three decades. State Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee and a rising star inside the party, has already raised a record-breaking $27 million for his race. For the first time, the flagship political action committee aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer signaled its willingness to jump in. “We remain bullish about Texas, and there is every likelihood we’ll make a mark there,” Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement shared with NOTUS.

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Democrats’ dream of turning Texas blue is still a longshot. Contesting Texas would require vast financial resources, and Democrats are currently losing the national fundraising race to Republicans. The GOP nomination isn’t settled yet, either: Cornyn came in first in the March primary, outperforming Republicans’ expectations, and could still prevail in the May 26 runoff despite Trump’s snub. Even so, Democrats greeted Trump’s intervention in the runoff with jubilation. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair, told NOTUS that Paxton, a darling of the MAGA movement, will “turn off a lot of independent voters, and Talarico has made it clear he wants to represent everyone in Texas, not just MAGA.” Talarico, who won the March Democratic primary outright, said in a statement, “It doesn’t matter who wins this runoff. We already know who we’re running against: the billionaire mega-donors and their corrupt political system.” Officials at the DSCC, Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, expressed confidence that they could make a real push to flip the seat. “Republicans are watching $100 million circle down the drain before their eyes as Donald Trump rejects their year of begging him to bail out John Cornyn,” spokesperson Maeve Coyle said in a statement after the endorsement. “While the Texas GOP has been embroiled in a ‘bitter,’ ‘costly intraparty war’ that has fractured their base and left them drained of resources, Democratic enthusiasm has surged to its highest level in decades.”

With Massie and other critics defeated, Trump notches more GOP primary wins

President Donald Trump flexed the strength of his party-transforming political movement again Tuesday, continuing the successful process of eliminating political enemies within the GOP this month. At the same time, Trump’s low approval ratings and the war with Iran have raised red flags in key Republican primaries among base voters who supported his “America First” agenda that included the idea of a focus on domestic issues. Those red flags may persist with independent voters and base turnout alike when the general election gets underway in a few months. But in the meantime, Trump continues to prove he can not only influence the Republican primary electorate but also attack Republicans who have opposed him in any way without feeling there are significant negative consequences.

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“I think what everyone can take away from this is that Donald Trump is going nowhere,” said a Trump adviser working for his political operation. “He has won and will continue to win.” Trump this month defeated five Republican state senators in Indiana who opposed his push for mid-decade redistricting. Over the weekend, his political machine also blocked Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict him in his 2021 impeachment trial, from advancing in his primary in Louisiana, a state he has represented for two terms. The biggest and most exciting win for the White House, though, came Tuesday: defeating Rep. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who opposed Trump on key issues, including on the “big, beautiful bill” tax and spending plan and on pushing for the release of files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Massie lost to Trump-backed Ed Gallrein, who got 54% of the GOP primary vote. For months, Trump and his allies have attacked Massie, and they got their win Tuesday in the most expensive House primary in history in terms of ad spending. Trump, however, did not outright win everything he touched Tuesday night. In Georgia’s nationally watched race for governor, Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who also has major GOP establishment backing in the state, moved on to a runoff against billionaire Rick Jackson, who has framed himself as a Trump ally.

Rising energy costs and data centers at heart of NextEra’s Dominion bid

NextEra Energy’s proposed acquisition of Dominion Energy will make it the nation’s largest utility and power company, placing it at the center of national debates about why electricity bills are soaring and how the country should meet the seemingly insatiable energy demands of data centers. The deal, which was announced Monday, would bring together utility operations serving around 10 million customers in Florida, Virginia and other Southeastern states. NextEra will also own nuclear power plants, renewable energy projects, transmission lines and pipelines from Maine to Hawaii. The companies and some analysts say that combining all those operations under one corporate roof will result in big benefits, including lower costs and the speedier addition of new sources of electricity.

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But who reaps those rewards from this deal, which values Dominion at more than $120 billion including its debt, is a big question. Even before the war in Iran sent fuel prices soaring, anger was building about the rising costs of energy, especially for electricity. Residential electric rates are up around 34 percent since 2020. At least some of that increase can be linked to the rapid growth of data centers used to develop artificial intelligence. Most utility industry experts do not expect electricity rates to drop but say that policymakers can do a lot to arrest their rapid rise. One early sign of their willingness to do so will come when federal and state governments weigh NextEra’s purchase of Dominion. Regulators could try to block the deal or impose conditions aimed at keeping electricity rates in check. What does this deal mean for electricity rate and bills? It is hard to say with any certainty. NextEra, based in Juno Beach, Fla., said on Monday that if its deal is approved, it will offer Dominion’s roughly four million customers in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina $2.25 billion in bill credits over two years. That amounts to about $550 per customer. Customers would also “benefit from the shared expertise and best practices of America’s leading regulated utilities, laser-focused on low customer bills, customer service, storm resiliency and reliability,” John Ketchum, the chief executive of NextEra, said in a statement.

State Stories

USAA’s $223M in patent victories over PNC dies at Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to revive USAA’s patent-infringement case against PNC Bank, leaving intact a federal appeals court ruling that erased about $223 million in jury awards the San Antonio company had won over its mobile check-deposit technology. By declining to hear the case, the Supreme Court left the Federal Circuit’s ruling as the final word, meaning USAA cannot recover the jury awards. The justices denied USAA’s petition for review without comment. Justice Samuel Alito took no part in the decision. USAA representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. “PNC is pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the Federal Circuit’s decisions in the USAA matter,” a PNC Bank spokesperson said in email.

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In 2022, two East Texas juries awarded USAA about $223 million combined after finding PNC Bank infringed patents tied to the San Antonio company’s mobile check-deposit technology. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington wiped out the verdicts last June, ruling that the patents were invalid because they covered the abstract idea of depositing checks using a mobile device and did not describe a specific technological improvement. In asking the Supreme Court to intervene, USAA argued the appeals court adopted an overly narrow view of patent eligibility for computer-implemented inventions that conflicts with prior high court rulings. The USAA case is the latest in a series of disputes in which the Supreme Court has declined to revisit patent-eligibility rules involving software and computer-implemented inventions. USAA has said it developed its remote deposit capture technology nearly two decades ago to help military members deposit checks while deployed overseas and that it holds more than 180 patents tied to the technology.

House candidate Maureen Galindo pledges to send ‘American zionists’ to internment camp

Controversy-tarred congressional candidate Maureen Galindo this week pledged to transform a site south of San Antonio now used by the Trump administration to detain migrants into an internment camp for “American Zionists.” “She’ll turn Karnes ICE Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking,” Galindo wrote in an Instagram post over the weekend, referring to herself in the third person. “It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles, which will probably be most of the Zionists.” Galindo’s latest set of inflammatory remarks comes as the Democratic hopeful for Texas’ newly redrawn 35th Congressional District continues to draw national attention for remarks critics have called antisemitic and untethered from reality. The controversy is snowballing as she heads into the May 26 Democratic primary runoff.

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Over the past week, Galindo has accused her runoff opponent — former Bexar County Public Information Officer Johnny Garcia — of participating in a human trafficking conspiracy orchestrated by billionaire zionist Jews. She also pledged during a Texas Public Radio interview to put Garcia on trial for treason. Beyond her attacks on Garcia, Galindo has continued to promote the narrative that a cabal of Jewish zionists controls Hollywood, the media and even local politicians. Even so, in comments to the Current and other media outlets, Galindo maintained she only has an issue with zionists, or those advocating for the existence of a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland, rather than Jews in general. “I think it’s actually the zionists who are putting Jewish people at the most risk,” Galindo told the Current last week. The San Antonio Jewish Federation (JFSA) doesn’t see it that way.

The little-known hedge fund that stands to make over $10 billion on SpaceX

SpaceX’s planned initial public offering is expected to be a windfall for futurist investors and venture capitalists. A publicity-shy hedge-fund manager whose other investments include Dick’s Sporting Goods and Wingstop is also expected to make a killing. Darsana Capital Partners first invested in SpaceX in 2019 when Elon Musk’s rocket maker was valued at around $30 billion, and made several subsequent investments since then. Should SpaceX go public at a valuation of around $1.5 trillion or more next month, as many expect, Darsana’s paper gains on their investment could top $10 billion, people familiar with the matter said. Several billion of that would be gains since SpaceX’s December funding round that valued it at around $800 billion. The soaring valuation of Elon Musk’s rocket maker means the investment now accounts for nearly 60% of Darsana’s assets under management, the people said.

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Anand Desai launched New York-based Darsana, which takes its name for a Sanskrit word that means seeing the true nature of reality, in 2014 with about $1.4 billion. He previously spent nearly a decade at Eric Mindich’s Eton Park Capital Management. It doesn’t focus on any particular industry or sector and prefers to hold investments for multiple years. Darsana got interested in SpaceX after one of its partners, Dan Irom, was looking into publicly traded satellite companies and met with privately held SpaceX as part of his research, the people familiar with the matter said. Through that process, the firm got to know SpaceX, and the company invited it to invest. Darsana has made other investments in companies that wound up doing deals with SpaceX, resulting in it receiving additional shares, and has never sold any of its SpaceX shares, the people said. The firm invested in venture-capital and debt financings for social-media platform X after Musk took it private and before it merged with xAI last year. That company then merged with SpaceX in an all-stock deal early this year. The largest holding in Darsana’s disclosed portfolio of publicly traded stocks at March 31 was EchoStar. The satellite and telecommunications company struck a deal to license some of its wireless spectrum to SpaceX for $17 billion in cash and stock.

Phillips 66 expands Corpus Christi natural gas liquids facility

Houston oil giant Phillips 66 is building a new gas plant and pipeline in the Permian Basin and expanding its Corpus Christi processing and pipeline facilities as the company expands its natural gas liquids business. Energy companies have been growing their chemicals business as part of the energy transition and a push to cushion their portfolios from volatile consumer and market trends. Although policy changes of the Trump administration have incentivized a focus on traditional resources such as oil and coal, forecasts still suggest demand for crude is expected to decline within the next two decades. Demand for chemicals such as ethane, propane and butane is expected to rise with their increased use in cleaner-burning fuels and as building blocks of plastics.

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These chemicals are used to produce compounds used in everything from plastic for packaging materials to polymers for construction and consumer electronics. Phillips 66 in particular has taken steps to boost its sales of natural gas liquids such as ethane, propane and butane. The company spent more than $6 billion in recent years to acquire pipelines and processing facilities from Epic NGL in 2025 and DCP Midstream in 2023. The new Zeus gas plant will include the construction of the Midland Express Pipeline, an approximately 45-mile, 20-inch line connecting the company’s Permian Basin production assets. The Zeus plant will be able to process 300 million cubic feet per day of natural gas. The pipeline is expected to be able to move up to 230 million cubic feet of gas with bidirectional flows between multiple processing facilities. “At a high level, Zeus is the next step in our plan to add a gas plant every 12-18 months,” said Don Baldridge, executive vice president of midstream for Phillips 66, in an email. Gas plants the company already has in its Permian lineup include Dos Picos II and Iron Mesa, which together will be responsible for processing more than 520 million standard cubic feet per day. Dos Picos II is already online while Iron Mesa is expected to come online next year. Phillips 66 also said Monday that it will build a third fractionator at its Coastal Bend facility in Robstown, near Corpus Christi. Fractionators are facilities used to separate mixed natural gas liquids into separate components that can then be properly distilled into different products.

Kirkland & Ellis could end up supplying both a U.S. attorney and judge

President Donald Trump has nominated a Dallas attorney from a large corporate law firm to fill a vacancy on the federal bench in the Northern District of Texas. Kasdin Mitchell is a litigation partner with Kirkland & Ellis in its Dallas office, where she has represented large companies such as Facebook, Dow Inc. and Boeing, along with health insurers and a large pipeline company. Prior to joining the firm, she clerked for Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. In a related development, the U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed the nomination of Ryan Raybould to serve as U.S. attorney in Dallas. Raybould was named to the post on Nov. 17 by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi after Trump nominated him on Oct. 21 to serve a four-year term.

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The U.S. Attorney is the top federal prosecutor in North Texas. The office prosecutes federal crimes and brings civil actions and also defends the government in civil lawsuits. Both Raybould and Mitchell hail from Kirkland & Ellis, which was among several large corporate law firms that made an agreement last year with Trump to provide free work to the federal government. The law firms agreed to each provide millions of dollars in free legal services to the federal government and to further politically conservative causes championed by the president. The firms that cut deals with Trump were facing crippling executive orders – orders which many other law firms fought successfully in court, according to published reports. Trump said the corporate law firms he targeted did “some very bad things," including representing clients and causes he considered un-American. Many in the legal profession criticized the arrangement, calling it unconstitutional and undemocratic. A message left on Mitchell’s voicemail was not returned. Raybould also could not be reached for comment. Two attempts over two days to reach media representatives of Kirkland & Ellis by email were unsuccessful. And the White House could not be reached for comment. The Texas Lawbook reported last year that Kirkland & Ellis employed more than 450 lawyers in Texas and enjoyed $1.1 billion in revenue in 2024. And it cited legal industry analysts in calling the firm “the most successful and most profitable business law firm in Texas history.”

‘Constitutional Crisis’: Attorneys share concerns about the state of criminal law in rural Texas

Concho Valley First Assistant Public Defender, Ted Wenske, drove over three hours from Abilene to the Texas Capitol to advocate for an increase in criminal attorneys in rural areas across rural Texas as his office faces bigger workloads. “At this point, most of the office lives in a constant state of being on the verge of burnout,” Wenske explained to Nexstar in the halls of the Texas Capitol. The Concho Valley Public Defenders Office was created in late 2021 to aid rural counties that were overburdened with criminal cases. It is mostly funded by the Texas Indigent Defense Commission (TIDC), a state agency that oversees improving public defense across the Texas. Scott Ehlers, the executive director of the TIDC, testified that between 2014 and 2024 there has been a 29% drop in the number of attorneys handling indigent defense cases.

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Between their two offices in Abilene and San Angelo, there are 25 attorneys and 4 investigators. Wenske said the TIDC limits each attorney in their office to 128 felony cases per year, however, this is not enough to counter the shortage of attorneys. “We have had to cut off appointments because our attorneys were overloaded,” Wenske explained. lawmakers heard testimony highlighting the need for the Texas Legislature to partner with Texas law schools in developing potential pipelines that would incentivize aspiring attorneys to practice law in rural Texas towns. It is part of the interim charges assigned to committee members. Among those who testified was the executive director of SMU Dedman School of Law’s Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center, Pamela Metzger. She emphasized that debt from attending law school encourages new lawyers to obtain jobs at larger law firms in urban areas, rather than public defender positions in rural areas, exacerbating the attorney shortage. Lawmakers on the dais, most of which are practicing attorneys, agreed that the cost of law school is a big factor in the shortage of rural attorneys. “I have to make a certain amount of money because I’ve made this massive financial investment and I have to pay it back,” said State Rep. Brent Money, R — Greenville. Texas A&M University School of Law Dean Robert Ahdieh testified that there are three major components in addressing this issue: awareness, education of these positions and incentives.

Corpus Christi pushes back Level 1 water emergency timeline, postpones drought policy vote

Recent rainfall is buying the Coastal Bend more time before tougher water restrictions could take effect in Corpus Christi City Council. City leaders announced Tuesday the projected timeline for Corpus Christi to enter a Level One water emergency has been pushed back from September to December following recent rain across the region. At the same time, city council delayed a key vote tied to proposed changes in the city’s drought contingency plan after concerns were raised by apartment owners and managers over how multi-family properties would be treated under the updated policy. The vote would have been the first of two required readings needed to approve new curtailment policies during a Level One water emergency.

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Under the proposed changes, the monthly water baseline for residential customers would increase from 7,000 gallons to 8,000 gallons per month. With the required 25 percent curtailment applied during a Level One emergency, the monthly allocation for residential customers would increase from 5,250 gallons to 6,000 gallons. The discussion during Tuesday’s council meeting quickly shifted toward apartment complexes after Councilman Eric Cantu voiced concerns over how apartment residents would be classified under the updated policy. “For them to be under commercial just because they are apartments, because in reality, we all cannot just afford a home or mortgage. That’s their home, apartment,” Cantu said. “I don’t feel we should leave them out. There are 50,000 doors, homes, apartment in Corpus Christi, that's a lot of people.” Under the proposed policy, apartment complexes would be classified as commercial accounts rather than residential accounts, meaning they would fall under a different surcharge structure during water restrictions.

Frisco mayoral candidate doubles down on GOP ‘sharia scare’ rhetoric, H-1B hysteria

A mayoral candidate in Frisco who has made inflammatory remarks about Muslims and referred to immigrants as “rats” is one of the last two men standing in the race. Out of a field of four candidates, Rod Vilhauer and Mark Hill advanced to a runoff on May 2 after neither received a majority of votes. The candidates beat out two incumbent Frisco City Council members to make the final ballot and will face off in a June 13 runoff election. Hill is backed by current Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney and currently serves on the school board of Frisco ISD outside of his legal practice. Vilhauer, on the other hand, is a 65-year-old former owner of a construction company who served on the city’s zoning board in the 1990s. He received 28.7% of the vote, trailing Hill’s roughly 37%, according to Collin County election data.

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On his campaign website, Vilhauer’s listed priorities include governmental transparency, addressing congestion in the rapidly growing suburb, public safety and improving basic city services. What you won’t find, however, are some of the staunchly conservative candidate’s more controversial and well-publicized comments on Muslims and Indians. In a March appearance on a right-wing podcast, Vilhauer fanned fears of sharia law — which is largely unenforceable in the U.S. — coming to Texas and dismissed took shots at the Islamic faith. “You can’t tell me that Islam is a religion,” Vilhauer said. “It’s a terrorist group… If you don’t bow to them, you die — that’s a religion? I don’t think so.” The candidate’s comments come at a time when Frisco has become a majority-minority city with a large Muslim community, and GOP lawmakers are playing into Islamophobic rhetoric with increasing enthusiasm. Warning of the “Islamification” of Texas, prominent state Republicans like Gov. Greg Abbott have aired largely unsubstantiated concerns about so-called “sharia courts,” while Attorney General Ken Paxton has relentlessly targeted both the East Plano Islamic Center and its planned Muslim-centric 402-acre real estate development.

Texas residents shocked border wall planned for wildlife preserve with ‘best birding spots’

Members of a small church stayed after Sunday Mass to hear environmentalists and political activists explain how new federal border wall is slated to cut through their remote South Texas town and a popular birding center — something they were unaware was happening. “What can we do as residents? We don’t want the wall,” retired teacher Jani Castillo said. “It’s not good for our environment. It’s not good for our birds, for all our wildlife. It’s not good.” Gloria Galindo, a board member with the nonprofit Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, told Castillo to reach out to lawmakers to stop the border wall from being built through the popular Salineño Wildlife Preserve in far western Starr County. “The changes that are coming are not just now, they’re for forever if we don’t step up and make our voices heard,” Galindo said.

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New maps released last week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection show new border barrier and river buoys are to be installed through this wildlife refuge, which draws thousands of birders and wildlife enthusiasts from all over the world to this remote 250-year-old town. Townsfolk here say the border wall will divide the town’s 1,500 or so residents from the river they love. “The reason we’re here today is to help the people of Salineño. They’re asking me what’s happening with the incoming wall – they’ve heard the rumors, they’ve seen the maps. They don’t know anything and they thought that this fight was done.” Galinda was among a handful of environmentalists and political activists who came from the McAllen-Edinburg area to meet with Salineño residents. They also toured the banks of the Rio Grande and walked along the brushlands, which was a first-time experience for some. “We have a lot of concerns,” St. Joseph’s Catholic Church Deacon Amado Peña told Border Report. “This river that runs by Salineño … it’s been a part of our lives forever.” “Es una costumbre, it’s a custom to go by the river, barbecue, enjoy wildlife, enjoy the birds, enjoy the fishing, enjoy family. … It’s a beautiful part of our community,” he said.

Grand jury indicts Montgomery County man accused of secretly giving pregnant woman abortion medication

A Montgomery County man accused of secretly giving a pregnant woman an abortion pill that killed their unborn baby, has been officially indicted by a grand jury. The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office confirmed Jon Rueben Demeter was indicted Thursday on an abortion charge and injury to a child. The abortion charge is a first-degree felony carrying a punishment of five years to life in prison. KPRC 2 News reporter Corley Peel obtained a search warrant revealing new details about how Demeter allegedly administered the drug without the woman’s knowledge or consent. According to the warrant, the woman told detectives she was at Demeter’s home when he gave her a bottle containing a white milky substance. He told her it was an electrolyte drink and claimed it had helped the mother of his other children during pregnancy.

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Later that night, the woman began feeling ill. Once at the hospital, she gave birth at 14 weeks. Her baby girl did not survive. The woman told detectives she did not want to end her pregnancy, but Demeter did. The warrant shows Demeter had previously told the woman he could obtain abortion medication online and offered to pay her $1,000 to terminate the pregnancy. She refused. While searching Demeter’s home, investigators found a glass bowl containing white powder residue and evidence of a crushed white pill. According to the warrant, Demeter admitted he ordered abortion medication online and gave the woman the drink, but denied the bottle contained the abortion pills, telling investigators he had given the pills away. Demeter was initially arrested on an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge. The grand jury’s indictment replaces that charge with the more specific abortion and injury to a child charges, the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office said. The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office is holding a news conference Friday afternoon, where detectives will share additional details about the case.

Jason Kidd is out as coach of the Mavericks, 2 weeks after the hiring of team president Masai Ujiri

Jason Kidd is out as coach of the Dallas Mavericks after five seasons, and two weeks after the club hired former Toronto Raptors executive Masai Ujiri as team president and governor. The team said Tuesday it was parting ways with Kidd, describing the move as a mutual decision. The Hall of Fame point guard led the franchise to its only championship as a player in 2011. When asked about the future of Kidd at his introduction on May 5, Ujiri was noncommittal, saying he would talk to Kidd while evaluating all aspects of the team. “As we evaluate the future of our basketball program, we believe this is the right moment for a new direction for our team,” Ujiri said in a statement. “We have high expectations for this franchise and a responsibility to build a basketball organization capable of sustained championship contention.”

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Kidd made two deep playoff runs with Luka Doncic, reaching the NBA Finals in 2024, two years after a loss to Golden State in the Western Conference finals. The Mavericks traded Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2024-25 season, getting Anthony Davis as the centerpiece in a deal that backfired badly on the franchise. Dallas missed the playoffs that season and again in 2025-26. The 53-year-old Kidd had said he was looking forward to developing 2025 No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg, who won Rookie of the Year. Instead, that task will fall to someone else. Kidd finished with a .500 regular-season record (205-205) with the Mavericks, an appropriate illustration of the up-and-down nature of his tenure. The run to the West finals came in his first season, when Dallas stunned the favored Phoenix Suns in Game 7 on the road in the second round. The Mavericks lost in five games to the Warriors, who won the title. Then-general manager Nico Harrison traded for Kyrie Irving the next season, but injuries to him and Doncic limited their chances to be an elite scoring pair. Dallas missed the playoffs. In their only healthy season together in 2023-24, Doncic and Irving led the Mavericks to the Finals for the first time since Kidd helped Dallas win it all.

A new report outlines 10-year plan for fixing Dallas City Hall

After a marathon meeting in March, the Dallas City Council directed City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert to start digging. The body wanted more options than the initial report from the Dallas Economic Development Corp., which priced repairing and replacing aging systems in Dallas City Hall at more than $300 million, with another potential $700 million or more tacked on for modernizing the building and moving city operations to new quarters while the work was done. Among the tasks assigned to Tolbert in March was formulating and presenting at least two potential plans for phasing those repairs over 10 years, in hopes that the city would not need to completely vacate the building. The body also asked her to find funding strategies for remaining at 1500 Marilla, and for leaving. On Wednesday, the Dallas City Council will be briefed on a new report that outlines two options for repairing the 47-year-old Brutalist building designed by I.M. Pei. One would see operations moved out of the building for at least three years. The other would phase those repairs and modernizations over a decade and would require fewer employees to relocate at a time.

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The report is created by consultants, including several from the firm Gresham Smith, and Will Mundinger, who worked with Goldman Sachs and has also worked with the city, most recently helping the permitting department improve operations. “This effort does NOT re-validate or re-estimate the AECOM $329.4M baseline.” They also didn’t conduct a new facility condition assessment; instead, they relied on previous studies and assessments. The report doesn’t make any recommendations. Taking the 10-year, phased approach has its upsides, including that “many” areas of City Hall can remain in use. However, it also has some drawbacks, including increased expense and complexity. The 10-year plan would prioritize the most urgent repairs first. That would include the generators, which are “beyond their useful life,” and the roof, which has also “exceeded typical service life and is experiencing failure.” Neither of those fixes, the report notes, would impact anyone’s ability to work inside the building. The more complex replacements and repairs seem to be original to the structure—electrical, HVAC, fire safety, and plumbing, some of which is “buried in the 1970s slabs.” The report does not account for any additional costs or time that could be required for historical preservation, but neither did the original report. A second report with more details about those options and cost estimates will be presented to the Council next month.

Family says they sought help for mom charged with killing kids

Relatives of Marlene Vidal, whose two children were found dead Friday morning inside a burned SUV on San Antonio’s West Side, said they repeatedly warned police, Child Protective Services and other agencies that Vidal was in a mental health crisis and her children were in danger. Vidal, 34, of Edinburg, was arrested Friday and charged with two counts of capital murder of a child younger than 10 and one count of arson. Two days earlier, Edinburg police were called to a Walmart after customers reported that Vidal was acting and speaking erratically, her sister Argelia Vidal told the San Antonio Express-News. Marlene had lighter fluid and a grill in her shopping cart, the sister said. Edinburg police confirmed the encounter but said they had no basis at that time to take her into custody.

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A San Antonio Police Department officer also spoke to Marlene by phone on Wednesday after family members asked police to check on her, a law enforcement source said. Officers had no legal basis to detain her after she told them she did not need help, according to the source. Family members told the Express-News that Marlene's mental health began to decline nearly a year ago, when she suffered what appeared to be a psychotic episode, and that they spent months trying to persuade law enforcement and child welfare authorities to intervene for her and her children's safety. They said she had recently shaved her head. “We reached out to every agency we could, and they all failed us,” said Argelia, 45, who lives out of state. “Now my sister’s going to get the help that she needs,” she said. “But the children are dead.” The children's bodies were discovered after a resident walking a dog around 5 a.m. Friday saw a burning car in a warehouse parking lot in the 500 block of Richland Hills Drive in a mixed residential-industrial area on San Antonio's West Side. The person called 911. After firefighters put out the blaze, officers found the bodies of two children inside the vehicle, a white Hyundai Kona subcompact SUV.

County Stories

Many Georgetown residents oppose Williamson County's new jail project

The Williamson County Commissioners Court on Tuesday unanimously approved spending $75.8 million to buy 250 acres in southeast Georgetown for a new justice center, jail and sheriff's offices despite the objections of dozens of residents who said the site is too close to schools and neighborhoods and is too expensive. Residents voiced their opposition to the site before the vote Tuesday and also at another Commissioners Court meeting on May 12.

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Ed Stade, a Georgetown resident, said he was most concerned that inmates released from jail would wander to nearby schools. "George Wagner Middle School is half a mile away and Mitchell Elementary is a quarter of a mile away and the Rock N' Ride Center for kids is a quarter of a mile away," he said. The land that the county bought Tuesday includes a 134-acre triangle at 1200 County Road 110, near several other county buildings, including the Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter. The county plans to build the justice complex on that site, Commissioner Valerie Covey has said. A nearby 119-acre tract, south of Sam Houston Avenue and east of Maple Street, also was part of the 250-acre purchase Tuesday. It is designated for future county facilities. Howard Chase, another Georgetown resident, said he was worried released inmates would walk into people's backyards or into their homes in the nearby Carlson Place neighborhood.

City Stories

Spurs name Overland International and others to design downtown arena

With the ITC demolished, the Spurs have named the architects of the $1.3 billion downtown arena: Overland International, Sasaki, and Marquee Development. On May 13, the San Antonio Spurs named the lead partners for the design and development of their downtown arena and surrounding district, part of the broader Project Marvel. Overland International, a Texas firm with offices in San Antonio and Dallas, will design the arena itself. The firm’s portfolio includes AT&T Stadium, the Cotton Bowl, and U.S. Bank Stadium. Sasaki, the Boston-based design firm that recently led the Arboretum San Antonio masterplan, will serve as master district planner. Marquee Development, the real estate arm of the Ricketts family office, which holds majority ownership of the Chicago Cubs, will lead district development. CAA ICON will manage the project. Pepe-Dawson, a San Antonio engineering firm currently working on the new Nissan Stadium in Nashville, will handle civil and traffic engineering. Goldman Sachs is advising on financial structuring, and Hunton Andrews Kurth on legal counsel. The arena is targeted for completion in time for the 2032–2033 NBA Season.

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The site is the southeast corner of HemisFair, where the Institute of Texan Cultures (ITC) stood until last year. Drone footage captured by KSAT 12 in January showed graded dirt, treated and ready for construction. The ITC was the Texas Pavilion built for HemisFair ’68, the 1968 World’s Fair held in San Antonio. The 180,000-square-foot inverted concrete pyramid on a 13.59-acre site was designed by William M. Peña of the Houston firm Caudill, Rowlett, and Scott. Peña, born in Laredo in 1919, is widely considered the father of architectural programming, the discipline of asking what a building is supposed to do before drawing it. His book Problem Seeking, written with John Focke and published the same year HemisFair closed, became a standard architecture-school text and was incorporated into the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards licensing framework. According to the Conservation Society of San Antonio, the ITC was the only downtown landmark designed by a Mexican-American architect.

National Stories

Top Treasury lawyer resigns after creation of ‘anti-weaponization fund’

The top lawyer at the Treasury Department stepped down on Monday in the wake of the creation of a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that could soon make payments to President Trump’s political allies, according to three people familiar with the move. Brian Morrissey, the Treasury’s general counsel, resigned from the position seven months after he was confirmed to it by the Senate and just hours after the Trump administration announced the fund on Monday. Mr. Morrissey did not respond to requests for comment. A Treasury spokesman said: “Mr. Morrissey has served the United States Treasury with both honor and integrity. We wish him all the best in his next endeavors.” In his resignation letter, Mr. Morrissey said he was grateful to have worked for Mr. Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, according to two people familiar with the letter.

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The Justice Department created the fund to disburse payments to people who claim that the Biden administration improperly targeted them — a population that includes supporters of Mr. Trump and former members of his staff. Among them are people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The Treasury Department is responsible for depositing $1.776 billion into an account that will be controlled by a group of people selected by the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, according to the terms of the fund released on Monday. That money will come from the Judgment Fund, an uncapped pot of funding that is available for the federal government to pay settlement claims without needing congressional approval. The Justice Department is creating the anti-weaponization fund as part of an agreement to settle a lawsuit that Mr. Trump brought against the Internal Revenue Service, which falls under the umbrella of the Treasury Department. In his suit, Mr. Trump accused the I.R.S. of not doing enough to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of his tax information during his first term. The president dropped the suit on Monday under scrutiny from a judge who questioned whether Mr. Trump could legally sue a government agency he controls.

South Carolina House passes new map aimed at forcing out Clyburn

The South Carolina House of Representatives passed a new congressional map early Wednesday morning aimed at eliminating the state’s only Democratic seat at the urging of President Trump. Among the proposed changes is a significant, Republican-leaning shift of the Sixth Congressional District, which is currently represented by James E. Clyburn, a powerful Black Democrat. The map now heads to the State Senate, where some conservative members have been more hesitant to jump into the nation’s redistricting battles. Republicans already hold six of the state’s seven congressional seats, and some lawmakers have expressed skepticism about possibly unseating Mr. Clyburn, a power broker who has funneled vast resources into South Carolina over the years.

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Indeed, there initially appeared to be little appetite for redistricting from Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, who did not immediately call for a special session on the issue. And some conservative state senators voiced opposition to the idea, saying it could backfire and create more competitive districts for Democrats by spreading out liberal voters — known as a dummymander. But then Mr. McMaster, who has faced pressure from much of the conservative base to heed Mr. Trump’s demands, announced that he would call for a special session focused on redistricting and the state budget. The governor has said that it is up to the General Assembly to examine the congressional map and determine necessary changes. The State House voted on the map around 12:30 a.m. because a Democratic lawmaker requested the text of the bill be read aloud, in an effort to slow the process. It took more than three hours. As James L. Mann “Bubba” Cromer Jr., the reading clerk, began his marathon, he uttered: “Let’s get it done.” In the State House, Republican members are up for re-election this year and are considered more vulnerable to pressure from the president. It did not go unnoticed in Columbia, the capital, that many of the Republican state senators in Indiana who voted down Mr. Trump’s plan on redistricting lost their primaries this month to challengers he had endorsed.

The Trump administration pushed out nearly half of its nuclear waste cleanup team

Hundreds of federal workers in charge of nuclear waste cleanup took the Trump administration’s resignation offers. Now, the most radioactively contaminated parts of the country are being overseen with a fraction of the staff. The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, tasked with cleaning up vast nuclear contamination from World War II and Cold War-era weapons programs, is operating with roughly half its normal workforce, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ watchdog agency. The vacancy rate for the office is 45% overall; for critical positions like general engineers and nuclear engineers, who are responsible for managing and designing the safe disposal of nuclear waste, the vacancy rates are now both over 50%.

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“This understaffing includes shortages in mission-critical occupations that are integral to carrying out EM’s mission, which includes addressing contaminated buildings, soil, and groundwater, and treating radioactive waste,” the GAO wrote in a report commissioned by Rep. Frank Pallone, the New Jersey Democrat who serves as the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The vast majority of those vacancies occurred directly because of the Trump administration’s programs incentivizing federal workers to resign. Hanford, the former Manhattan Project nuclear-production facility in Washington state, lost more than 100 full-time agency employees between the end of the 2023 and 2025 fiscal years. “President Trump has single-handedly weakened the critical cleanup work at Hanford and other sites with his slash-and-burn campaign to push out federal workers. It will take years to undo these reckless setbacks—but I am going to fight tooth and nail to keep this cleanup on track and hold this administration accountable,” Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state, said in a statement to NOTUS about the GAO’s findings.

Memphis is “under full-blown occupation” by ICE. Here’s why you may not know that.

There’s a massive immigration operation in Memphis right now, but you may not have heard about it. It certainly hasn’t gotten as much attention as past surges in Chicago or Minneapolis—even though it’s been going on since September. Hunter Demster, who runs a soup kitchen in the city, has been trying to get the word out. He often drives around with his phone, looking for officers to film as they arrest immigrants. There are more than 2,700 officers stationed in the city as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force; some are from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); others are from other law enforcement agencies and the National Guard. None particularly want to be photographed. Which means that Demster is facing blowback for trying to document them. So are other community members doing the same thing. Officers have taunted them, shined bright lights at them, and followed them in their cars. One community member was assaulted and jailed for trying to film. Now, they’re suing, with help from the ACLU, which argues that agents are engaged in a pattern of intimidation and retaliation that hampers their First Amendment rights to record the police.

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The lawsuit was filed last week against leaders of the task force, and it’s a harrowing read—dozens of pages of examples. Demster, for one, recalls an officer driving quickly as he stood in a parking lot and then swerving toward him, missing him by inches. Another plaintiff was “bumper-rushed” by police while driving—they came up behind him so quickly that it appeared a collision was imminent, before hitting the brakes at the last second. “It’s retaliation,” Demster told me of the various incidents. “And for what? Holding a phone.” Plaintiff Jessica Chodor was tackled by a task force officer when she tried to film a traffic stop; she was held down and an officer threatened to tase her before taking her to jail. (The charge against her, “resisting official detention,” was later dropped.) Demster says agents sometimes sit in their vehicles outside his house. “It’s terrifying to have to be on guard 100 percent of the time,” he says. The case in Memphis also challenges Tennessee’s Halo Law, which criminalizes anyone who gets within 25 feet of an officer after they’ve been warned to step away. Task force agents are invoking the law against observers who are not interfering, and sometimes forcing them back even farther than required so they can no longer see or hear. “It unconstitutionally burdens people’s ability to engage in gathering information and recording what task force agents are doing,” ACLU attorney Scarlet Kim told me.

San Diego mosque shooting victims remembered as 'men of courage, sacrifice and faith'

The three American Muslims killed during a shooting Monday (May 18) at a San Diego mosque are being remembered by their imam and faith community as “men of courage, sacrifice and faith” who put themselves on the line to protect others. The Islamic Center of San Diego identified the victims as Amin Abdullah, a gentle security guard; Nadir Awad, a dedicated neighbor; and Mansour Kaziha, a longtime shopkeeper and caretaker of the mosque. Abdullah died protecting more than 200 children and community members, the mosque’s Imam Taha Hassane said in an interview with RNS. The “beloved” security guard was killed first, Hassane said, but before he died, he used his radio to warn teachers in the center’s school to lock their classroom doors. He “undoubtedly he saved lives today” by delaying the shooters in a gunbattle in front of the mosque, said San Diego Police Department Chief Scott Wahl during a press conference Monday.

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Federal authorities are investigating the shooting at the largest mosque in San Diego as a hate crime. They said on Tuesday they recovered a manifesto by the two suspects, who were found dead in a nearby car by police, that discussed hate speech against various races and religions. Abdullah, born Brian Climax, is remembered by community members as a hero, Hassane said, describing him as a faithful man who smiled often and warmly greeted kids, adults and visitors who entered the mosque’s doors. His daughter, Hawaa Abdullah, spoke about her father as a loving protector, a best friend and a role model. At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, she began with a recitation of the Quran, then broke into sobs before giving heartfelt tribute to her father. “My dad was the No. 1 advocate for safety and keeping our community safe,” she said. “He stood against any form of hate. He took his job seriously to protect everyone here. He would want our community to stand together as one. That’s exactly what he would want.”

States sue over new student loan limits on certain nursing and healthcare degrees

A coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday challenging a Trump administration rule that limits access to federal student loans for borrowers earning a graduate degree in several popular, healthcare-related fields. "Higher education is expensive, and our health care system is already under immense strain," New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. "This rule will shut talented people out of critical professions and leave communities with fewer health care providers they desperately need." At issue is a pair of complex changes that, taken together, drew the ire of the American Nurses Association and triggered Tuesday's lawsuit.

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First, Republicans passed new limits on graduate student loans as part of last year's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The law does not change limits for undergraduate borrowers, including those attending undergraduate nursing programs, but it dramatically scales back how much graduate students can borrow. Previously, grad students could borrow up to the cost of their program, but the new limits cap annual borrowing for most at $20,500 with a total limit of $100,000. These limits are legal, if controversial. Arizona, California, North Carolina, Kentucky and Nevada are among the states that joined the lawsuit, which focuses on a rule that essentially outlines an exemption to the limits. In implementing the changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Trump administration has scaled back the types of graduate degrees that qualify as "professional" and for which students can borrow up to $50,000 a year and $200,000 overall. It is limiting those exempted programs to 11 categories: chiropractic, clinical psychology, dentistry, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, podiatry, theology and veterinary medicine. Nursing, physical therapy and nurse anesthesia are some of the many healthcare-related programs excluded from that short list of professional degrees.

'We're not kids anymore': The DACA generation hits their 30s with an unstable future

Diana A., 34, woke up one morning to find she was no longer able to legally work in the U.S. With expired documents, she couldn't go to her friend's wedding in San Diego. She couldn't drive. Diana is a decade-long recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA, after she came to the U.S. illegally with her parents 24 years ago from Mexico. She asked NPR to only refer to her by her first name and last initial out of fear of legal repercussions for her immigration status. Every two years, like other DACA recipients, Diana would submit an application to renew her DACA and work permit. This year, for the first time, the approval lapsed for more than a month. "It was a very stressful time in my life and it was just, here's hoping today's not the day where I get taken," she said, adding that for the first time she had a mental plan of who to call if she got detained.

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Diana hoped DACA would give her more opportunities. Now she worries those opportunities could be taken away. "This is what I envisioned: having a job, having a career that I could be proud of and being able to be independent and living a life that I could be comfortable with," she said. "And to a certain degree, I think I've achieved the dream — and I think that there's still a cage around it." The Obama administration created the DACA program in 2012 to protect from deportation those who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. The program was billed as a "temporary" stopgap to provide them a legal way to live and work in the U.S. while Congress negotiated a permanent pathway. But Congress hasn't managed to agree on one. "We're not kids anymore. We are adults. We are professionals. We are parents. A lot of us are leaders in the community," said Blanca Sierra-Reyes, 33, a DACA recipient and mom to two teenagers. "We're no longer a part of that group that they had placed us in. We have achieved all the things that we've wanted to, or we've tried, or we're still on that path – but it's a hard one." Now, according to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the average age of a DACA recipient is 31; and a majority are between the ages of 31 and 44. Beneficiaries of the program have advanced degrees, U.S. citizen children and businesses. Meanwhile, the DACA program has become increasingly unreliable under this second Trump administration.

Democrats pick candidates for key districts in the battle for the House

Major general election matchups across the House battleground are set after Tuesday’s primaries, as the race for control of Congress takes center stage in the midterm elections. President Donald Trump’s successful effort to unseat a Republican rival, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and battles between progressive or establishment Democrats in deep-blue seats have captured wide attention this week and in other recent primaries. But the results of four Democratic congressional primaries in battleground Pennsylvania — which have already drawn a combined $50 million in advertising dollars spent on or committed to these races, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact — will loom large in November, when Democrats need to net three seats to take back control of the House.

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Firefighter union leader Bob Brooks won the party’s nod to take on Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in the Allentown-area 7th District. Brooks overcame a crowded field of prominent Democrats from different wings of the party, as well as a last-minute push from a shadowy outside group with ties to Republicans. Brooks had won the backing from prominent Democrats from different wings of the party — including Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. He has also gotten a significant boost on the airwaves from an outside group funded primarily by unions and The Bench, a Democratic organization that has played a significant role in elevating its preferred candidates, as well as the House Democrats’ campaign arm, which launched a late ad buy coordinated with Brooks’ campaign. Ryan Crosswell, a former Republican prosecutor and former Justice Department official, had been the top fundraiser in the race, and has the endorsement of groups like VoteVets and New Politics, as well as Alex Vindman, the retired Army lieutenant colonel who is running for the Senate in Florida.

Copyright May 20, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved