Ken Paxton, the Donald Trump-backed Texas attorney general, triumphed over incumbent John Cornyn in the Republican primary runoff for senator. His victory signals that even a scandal-plagued candidate can win over the deep red state with the support of the president.
“After a public service career lasting more than four decades and 18 consecutive campaign wins, tonight we’ve come up short in this primary runoff,” Cornyn said shortly after the race was called. “I’ve always supported the GOP ticket. I intend to do so again this general election.”
The race had wide implications for Trump’s strength heading into November’s midterm elections, where Paxton will now face James Talarico, a Democratic pastor and state legislator whose message of peace and populism has attracted much attention. If he wins, Talarico would become the first Democrat in more than 30 years to win statewide office in Texas.
Midterm elections often serve as a referendum on the sitting president and tend to help the opposing party. This year Democrats are favored to win the House of Representatives, though a supreme court decision that decimated the Voting Rights Act could allow for more Republican-leaning districts and complicate the picture. The race for Senate remains in flux, though candidatessuch as Talarico, Graham Platner in Maine, as well as purple states such as Ohio and Michigan, could upset the Republican lead.




The implosion of a chemical tank at a Washington packaging plant early on Tuesday morning killed killed at least one person and left at least nine others with injuries including chemical burns, authorities said.
Members of a storied food co-operative in Brooklyn have voted to boycott about a dozen products from Israel and Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine – capping years of contentious debate over a conflict half a world away that has threatened to rip apart a landmark institution for liberal New Yorkers.
A three-judge panel on Tuesday blocked Alabama Republicans’ congressional map that would’ve given the party a potential pickup opportunity in the midterms.
The Republican-controlled South Carolina Senate bucked President Donald Trump and on May 26 rejected an effort to draw new congressional districts before the midterm elections.
In a historic first for Germany, nearly 700 students at the University of Leipzig voted almost unanimously on 19 May to demand that their university sever all ties with Israeli academic institutions over the genocide in Gaza.
The US and Israel are "actively working" to strip Jordan of its historic custodianship of Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, and are pursuing a new arrangement that would see the management of the revered Muslim site closely align with Israeli interests, multiple sources have told Middle East Eye.
Words matter. When describing a government, they inevitably carry moral weight.





























