Twenty-eight points.
That is the margin by which Ken Paxton defeated John Cornyn last night in the most expensive Senate primary in American history, after a Trump endorsement that arrived seven days before the vote. Cornyn’s allies outspent Paxton’s side roughly nine to one.
The rest of the paper is quieter. Transit signatures that just cleared a threshold, a biometric contract that just cleared procurement, a disease that crossed a thousand cases. Each of them the kind of thing that gets built while the loud story takes the oxygen.
Paxton Defeats Cornyn
The Associated Press called the race at 8 p.m. Central, one hour after polls closed. The margin was not close. Ken Paxton took 885,949 votes to John Cornyn’s 501,725, a 28-point blowout that made the $165 million spent on the race look like an expensive formality. Pro-Cornyn forces outspent Paxton roughly nine to one across the full primary cycle and three to one in the runoff alone. None of it moved the needle after Trump posted his endorsement on Truth Social on May 19: “Ken Paxton is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas.” KSAT
Cornyn has been in the Senate since 2003. He served as Republican Whip. He was among the GOP senators who voted against Trump’s anti-weaponization fund last week. The last Texas senator to lose renomination was Ralph Yarborough, a Democrat unseated by Lloyd Bentsen in 1970. No Texas Republican senator has lost a primary in the modern era. Texas Tribune
In his concession speech, Cornyn did not mention Paxton by name. “I’ve fought the good fight, I’ve finished the race and I’ve kept the faith,” he said, quoting Paul’s second letter to Timothy. He pledged to support “the Republican ticket.” Texas Tribune
Paxton will face Democratic state Representative James Talarico in November, and the general election is the real story now. Two polls from April show Talarico leading Paxton by five to eight points. A TPOR poll had Talarico at 46 percent to Paxton’s 41. The UT Texas Politics Project put it at 42-34. Among independent voters, Talarico leads by 25 points. Texas Tribune
- Paxton: 885,949 (64%)
- Cornyn: 501,725 (36%)
- Total ad spending: $165M+ (most expensive Senate primary ever)
- Cornyn spending advantage: ~9:1 overall, ~3:1 in runoff
- Last TX senator unseated: Yarborough, 1970
- Talarico lead (TPOR poll): +5 (46-41)
- Talarico lead (UT poll): +8 (42-34)
If Paxton loses the general and Democrats pick up Texas, the Senate arithmetic changes. The question that emerged last night is not whether Trump controls the Republican primary electorate. The 28-point margin answered that. The question is whether what works in a primary destroys the party in November. Cornyn, for all his flaws as a MAGA candidate, polled within the margin of error against Talarico. Paxton does not. NBC News
In Brief
Trump convenes Cabinet on Iran deal at a precarious moment
President Trump meets his full Cabinet today to advance a framework that would extend the ceasefire 60 days, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and begin nuclear talks. The meeting was moved from Camp David to the White House after Trump cited weather. Critical sticking points remain: Iran holds 441 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity and has not committed to relinquishing it. Monday’s “self-defense” strikes complicate the diplomacy. NPR
EU ambassadors refuse to leave Kyiv after Russian evacuation threat
Russia warned all foreign citizens and diplomats to evacuate Kyiv ahead of “systematic strikes on decision-making centres.” EU Ambassador Katarina Mathernova responded: “We are not going anywhere.” Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the EU summoned Russian ambassadors. Lavrov delivered the warning directly to Rubio. Euronews
Marcos receives Japan’s highest honor from Emperor Naruhito
President Marcos and First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos were received at the Imperial Palace by Emperor Naruhito on Day 2 of a four-day state visit. Marcos was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum, Japan’s highest honor. He is the third foreign leader Emperor Naruhito has hosted for a state visit since his 2019 accession. Talks with PM Takaichi on defense transfers and a $10 billion energy fund continue today. Philstar
Internet restored after 87-day blackout
President Pezeshkian ordered restoration of internet access to its pre-January state on Sunday. The blackout began January 8 during anti-regime protests, was reimposed February 28 when US-Israeli strikes began, and cost Iran’s economy an estimated $1.8 billion. NetBlocks confirmed connectivity returning overnight. The Hill
UK shatters all-time May temperature record
Kew Gardens in London recorded 34.8°C (94.6°F) on Monday, breaking a century-old May record by two full degrees. Multiple drownings were reported in Britain and France as people sought relief. Only about 5 percent of UK homes have air conditioning. NPR
S&P 500 and Nasdaq close at all-time highs on Iran deal hopes
The S&P 500 rose 0.61 percent to 7,519, the Nasdaq gained 1.19 percent to 26,656, both setting new records. Micron surged 19 percent to cross the $1 trillion market cap threshold. Oil fell on Strait of Hormuz reopening optimism. The Dow slipped 0.23 percent. Schwab
Knicks reach first Finals since 1999
New York will face either Oklahoma City or San Antonio in the NBA Finals starting June 3 on ABC. The Knicks, who last reached the Finals 27 years ago, will open on the road. The Western Conference Finals winner holds home-court advantage. NBA
NASA awards $1 billion in contracts for lunar South Pole base
Blue Origin, Astrobotic, and Intuitive Machines won lander missions for the first phase of a permanent base at the Moon’s South Pole. Astrolab ($219M) and Lunar Outpost ($220M) received Lunar Terrain Vehicle contracts. Firefly Aerospace will deliver JPL’s MoonFall drones. Target: sustained human presence by the early 2030s. NASA
The Locals
The Connect Bay Area campaign announced Monday that it has collected 305,895 valid signatures across Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties, far exceeding the 186,000 needed to place the measure on the November 2026 ballot. It is the largest grassroots signature-gathering effort in Bay Area history, according to campaign co-leader Lian Chang, with more than 1,000 volunteers and paid gatherers stationed at transit stops, grocery stores, and community events across the region. Local News Matters
The measure, authorized by SB 63 and commonly called the Connect Bay Area Act, would impose a 0.5 percent sales tax in four of the five counties and a 1.0 percent tax in San Francisco, generating roughly $1 billion annually over 14 years. Because it was citizen-initiated, it requires only a simple majority to pass, not the two-thirds supermajority that government-placed tax measures need. County election departments will verify the signatures over the next month. SPUR
About 60 percent of the revenue would preserve service on BART, Muni, Caltrain, AC Transit, and SF Bay Ferry. The remaining 33 percent flows to county transportation authorities with flexibility for transit capital, operations, or road repairs on bus routes. San Mateo County’s estimated share is $135 million per year by 2031, of which $32.5 million is earmarked for Caltrain. CBS SF
The Caltrain numbers make the stakes concrete. The railroad faces a projected $75 million average annual deficit from FY2027 through FY2041. Without new revenue, the agency’s published scenario begins with cutting one-third of stations, ending weekend service, reducing to hourly trains, and stopping service by 9 p.m. Even with those cuts, a $52 million annual gap remains. Beyond FY2028, Caltrain has warned it may halt all passenger service, with a two-to-four-year minimum restart timeline. SM Daily Journal
The opposition argument is real: agencies should right-size to post-pandemic ridership rather than seek a tax bailout. BART carries less than half its pre-pandemic riders while running more service than before. California already has the highest statewide sales tax in the country at 7.25 percent, averaging nearly 9 percent with local additions. A new 0.5 percent layer is felt. CalMatters
But what the opposition does not have is an alternative that keeps the trains running. The operating deficits are structural, not cyclical. The pandemic accelerated a fare-revenue model that was already failing. In November, voters in five counties will decide whether they want to pay for transit or watch it shrink. San Mateo County is one of those five. Palo Alto Online
The Nation
On May 22, Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded a sole-source contract worth $25.1 million to Bi2 Technologies, a Massachusetts company that operates what ICE’s procurement documents describe as “the only national, web-based iris biometric network.” The contract covers 1,570 handheld iris-scanning devices for deployment to ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division, with full delivery mandated within 30 days. The devices connect to a database of more than five million criminal booking records covering approximately 1.5 million unique individuals from 247 agencies. A scan returns a match in eight seconds or less. NPR
The award is 5.4 times the $4.6 million contract ICE signed with Bi2 just eight months ago for 200 units. The scaling is dramatic: from 200 devices to 1,570, from $4.6 million to $25.1 million, in under a year. The procurement was sole-source, meaning no competing bids were solicited. ICE justified this by noting that Bi2 operates the only iris network of its kind. Project Saltbox
The contract language describes the purpose as allowing agents to “quickly authenticate the identity of subjects during field operations.” Field operations, in ICE’s operational vocabulary, means raids, street-level encounters, and immigration enforcement outside of detention facilities. The mobile app runs on iOS, Android, and Microsoft platforms, enabling scanning in any setting. NPR
What the procurement documents do not describe is oversight. NPR’s investigation found that the contract does not require the system to clear FedRAMP, the federal government’s standard security review for cloud systems handling sensitive data, before deployment. A draft FedRAMP plan is mandated; actual clearance is not. There is no independent audit requirement. There is no congressional notification. There is no outside review of how the system will be used, who will be scanned, or how long records will be retained. NPR
Marianna Poyares of Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology raised the structural question: “What else is being collected? Is there any kind of oversight as to who is overseeing these databases? What kind of data is being combined and aggregated and for what use?” NPR
Iris recognition is harder to defeat than fingerprints and more reliable than facial recognition in field conditions. The technology itself is not new. What is new is the scale and the speed: an eightfold increase in hardware, deployed in 30 days, connected to a centralized database, with no guardrails between procurement and use. The infrastructure is being built. The rules for governing it are not. Project Saltbox
The World
A Strain Without a Vaccine
On May 17, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. It was the first time a Director-General had declared a PHEIC before convening the Emergency Committee, which met two days later. The urgency was simple: this is not the Ebola the world has a playbook for. WHO
The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo ebolavirus, a distinct species from the Zaire ebolavirus that produced the 2014 West Africa and 2018 DRC outbreaks. The distinction matters because all existing Ebola countermeasures were designed for Zaire. Merck’s rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine, the one that helped end the 2018 outbreak, targets Zaire’s surface proteins. Experimental primate data suggests partial cross-protection against Bundibugyo, but partial is not the same as reliable. A candidate vaccine specifically designed for Bundibugyo is six to nine months from clinical trial doses. Gavi
As of May 25, the outbreak has produced 119 confirmed cases with 10 confirmed deaths and 930 suspected cases with 231 suspected deaths, totaling roughly 1,049 cases and 241 deaths across DRC’s Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu provinces. Uganda has confirmed seven cases including one death, with infections concentrated in the capital, Kampala. The DRC’s 17th Ebola outbreak since 1976, it arrived only five months after the end of the previous one. WHO Disease Outbreak News
The US Centers for Disease Control issued a 30-day travel ban on May 18, the first Ebola-specific travel ban in American history. Non-US citizens who visited the DRC, Uganda, or South Sudan in the prior 21 days are barred from entry. The ban was expanded on May 22 to include green card holders. CDC
Ituri Province, the epicenter, has seen armed conflict escalate since late 2025, displacing more than 100,000 people. Four million are in need across the affected region, two million are displaced, and attacks on health workers have been reported. Surveillance teams cannot reach parts of the province. Contact tracing, the most important tool for controlling Ebola transmission without a vaccine, depends on access that the conflict denies. UN News
Outbreak at a glance
Cases: ~1,049 (119 confirmed, 930 suspected)
Deaths: 241
DRC provinces: Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu
Uganda cases: 7 confirmed, 1 death
Strain: Bundibugyo ebolavirus
Approved vaccine: None
Approved treatment: None
PHEIC declared: May 17, 2026
CDC travel ban: May 18 (first-ever for Ebola)
Why Bundibugyo is different
The 2018-2020 DRC outbreak killed 2,287 people but was eventually contained with the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine, which was given to more than 300,000 people. That vaccine works against Zaire ebolavirus. Bundibugyo is a different species with different surface proteins. About 2,000 Zaire-strain doses are in-country for possible compassionate-use trials, but no one expects them to provide reliable protection. The world is fighting a new Ebola variant with the same public health infrastructure and none of the pharmaceutical tools. NBC News
Siemens Artis: Six Systems, One AI Chain
The clearance covers six configurations across three platform families: four Artis vision systems (floor, biplane, ceiling, and the floor-mounted robotic pheno), the Artis icono.explore floor, and the Artis genio floor. The portfolio replaces the Artis Q and Artis zee families, and the generational differentiator is the imaging chain. ITN Online
Optiq AI works in two stages. The first is a deep-learning denoising algorithm that reduces electronic noise during image formation in real time, across all 2D imaging modes. The second is an automatic parameter optimization algorithm that dynamically adjusts tube voltage, current, copper prefiltration, focal spot size, pulse width, and detector dose based on clinical requirements. If the C-arm moves, angulation changes, or collimation is modified mid-procedure, the system re-optimizes automatically. The shift is from conventional detector-dose-driven exposure control to contrast-to-noise ratio-driven control with AI denoising on top. Interventional News
The standardized interface across all six platforms addresses a real operational problem. Staff rotating between interventional labs encounter different systems with different controls and different dose profiles. A single control language and AI chain across the full portfolio reduces variability, training time, and the probability of suboptimal imaging in unfamiliar rooms. AuntMinnie
Artis vision floor — general IR, cardiac
Artis vision biplane — neuroangio, complex vascular
Artis vision ceiling — hybrid OR, surgical
Artis vision pheno — robotic floor-mounted, precision positioning
Artis icono.explore — high-throughput (embolization, drainage, biopsy)
Artis genio — mixed-use, broad case mix
The biplane configuration is the key differentiator for neuroangiography suites. The Artis icono.explore is positioned for volume labs. Artis genio targets mixed rooms handling everything from biopsy to drainage to routine vascular. The syngo DynaCT MORE feature adds advanced intraprocedural 3D imaging with reduced motion artifacts.
First previewed at RSNA 2025. No pricing disclosed. Installations typically begin 3-6 months post-clearance for flagship Siemens platforms.
One Billion Dollars for the South Pole of the Moon
NASA awarded roughly $1 billion in contracts Monday for the first phase of a permanent base at the lunar South Pole. Sustained human presence by the early 2030s is the target.
Three companies won lander missions: Blue Origin, Astrobotic, and Intuitive Machines, each tasked with delivering cargo to the South Pole region starting in fall 2026. Astrolab received $219 million and Lunar Outpost $220 million for Lunar Terrain Vehicle contracts, the rovers that will carry astronauts and cargo across the surface. Firefly Aerospace will deliver JPL’s MoonFall drones, small autonomous craft designed to scout terrain ahead of human operations. The base is intended to cover hundreds of square miles. NASA
The South Pole was chosen because permanently shadowed craters there contain water ice, which can be converted to drinking water, oxygen, and rocket fuel. The ice has been sitting in the dark for billions of years. The difficulty is that the terrain around it is among the most rugged on the Moon, which is why the rover contracts are as important as the lander contracts. You have to be able to move once you get there. Washington Post