Barack Obama appears with James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa at Austin restaurant
The former president greeted patrons while stopping for tacos near the University of Texas at Austin campus — a notable show of support for the Democrats atop the ticket this fall.
Texas county pauses data center construction in rural areas for a year
Hill County commissioners’ split vote to issue a moratorium appears to be a first in Texas.
Former Texas lottery director was indicted by grand jury before case got dismissed
The indictment accused Gary Grief of misusing his position to defraud the state in a highly scrutinized $95 million 2023 Lotto Texas drawing.
TribCast: Previewing the primary runoffs as early voting approaches
From U.S. Senate to Railroad Commission, the TribCast dives into the most contentious races we’ll be watching on May 26
Corpus Christi moves toward mandatory 25% cut in water use if emergency is declared
Final approval of the curtailment plan is expected at a future City Council meeting. Experts predict that, without significant rainfall, a water emergency could arrive by September.
Nebraska’s Pillen wins Republican renomination in bid for second term as governor
Republican Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska is a big step closer to winning re-election as governor of the red-leaning Great Plains state. Pillen easily topped five challengers in Nebraska’s GOP gubernatorial primary to win his party’s 2026 nomination, the Associated Press reports. DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB The governor, a practicing veterinarian and chair of Pillen Family Farms who also played defensive back for the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers football team five decades ago, was first elected in 2022. The backing of the outgoing Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts helped Pillen top a crowded field of GOP rivals in the primary before going on to easily win the general election. SIX MONTHS TILL MIDTERMS: THE TEN RACES THAT WILL DETERMINE THE SENATE’S MAJORITY One week after being sworn in as governor, Pillen appointed Ricketts to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant when Republican Sen. Ben Sasse stepped down to become University of Florida president. Pillen will be considered the clear favorite in the general election in a state President Donald Trump carried by 20 points as he won back the White House in 2024. The governor will face off against former state Sen. Lynne Walz, who won the Democratic nomination, the Associated Press reports. Walz crushed perennial candidate Larry Marvin in the Democratic primary.
House GOP launches new task force, probes alleged $250B Medicaid fraud in Ohio
FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans are rolling out a new oversight task force, starting with an investigation into alleged social services fraud in Ohio. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., tapped Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, a member of the oversight panel, to lead the Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses, Fox News Digital has learned. The duo sent a letter to Ohio Department of Medicaid Director Scott Partika on Tuesday to request documents related to a bombshell report in the Daily Wire, probing widespread fraud in the state’s Medicaid waiver program for home health and community-based services. The outlet reported on 288 home health companies in Columbus, Ohio, that shared the same addresses, dozens of which were housed in office buildings that appeared to be vacant or in poor condition. The entities billed the federal government more than $250 million in Medicaid spending between 2018 and 2024, though the outlet’s reporting cast doubt on whether the companies billed Medicaid correctly or provided the services. WHISTLEBLOWER WARNS MASSIVE FRAUD IS HAPPENING IN OHIO SOMALI COMMUNITY, MINNESOTA: ‘JUST TIP OF THE SPEAR’ “Americans deserve truth, transparency and justice,” Gill said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital. “They are sick of being defrauded by government institutions and programs that should have been putting them first, not robbing their tax dollars.” “Under his leadership, we will continue to expose radical ideologies being pushed on Americans and fight to safeguard our freedom that we’ve enjoyed as a nation for 250 years,” Comer said in a statement, adding that Gill, a freshman lawmaker, had become a pivotal player on the Oversight Committee. Gill’s task force will have a broad purview, including investigating institutions that uphold diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, individuals who misuse immigration and social welfare programs, and efforts by foreign actors and dark money groups to censor Americans’ speech. The panel’s creation comes as House Oversight Republicans are currently investigating social services fraud in Minnesota and California. RAMASWAMY VOWS AGGRESSIVE MEDICAID CRACKDOWN AFTER REPORT ALLEGES MILLIONS BILLED FROM VACANT OHIO OFFICES “The current Medicaid system either does not have sufficient internal controls to prevent and detect fraud or is not conducting proper oversight of these HCBS [Home and Community-Based Services] providers,” Comer and Gill wrote in the letter. “As a result, Americans across the country are paying for this fraud while vulnerable patients are being exploited.” Comer has authorized the task force for six months, and Gill is expected to hold hearings at a later date. Ohio Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy has pledged to scrutinize the state’s Medicaid spending if elected governor in November. “We’re going to have to take a deep, hard look at the way the $40-plus billion in state Medicaid dollars are being spent,” Ramaswamy told “Saturday in America” host Kayleigh McEnany. “I think the right answer is any instance of waste, fraud, abuse … deserve[s] to be prosecuted, and we intend to investigate them aggressively, as well as to prosecute aggressively, to send a deterrent signal that our government is not a piggy bank. The taxpayer is not a piggy bank to be bilked.” The Ohio Department of Medicaid told the Daily Wire it has sufficient safeguards in place to combat fraud and had been investigating home health companies that may be abusing the system prior to the outlet’s reporting.
Republican Ricketts wins GOP Primary in Nebraska, advances to key Senate showdown
Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts is a step closer to serving a full six-year term in the Senate, after winning renomination in red-leaning Nebraska’s primary. Ricketts, who was appointed in 2023 to replace Ben Sasse, and who won a 2024 special election to fill out the final two years of Sasse’s term, topped four GOP primary challengers on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. Ricketts now heads to this autumn’s midterm elections, where he will face off in what’s expected to be a competitive Senate race against independent candidate Dan Osborn, the industrial mechanic and military veteran who gave Republican Sen. Deb Fischer a scare in her 2024 re-election. Tuesday’s primary was held with less than six months to go until the midterm elections, when Republicans aim to hold their razor-thin House and slim Senate majorities, and Democrats hope to ride a blue wave to escape the political wilderness. DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB Even though the Nebraska Democratic Party supports Osborn in the general election, community college instructor Cindy Burbank and pastor Bill Forbes faced off for the Democrats’ nomination in the primary. Burbank secured the Democratic nomination, the Associated Press reports, as she crushed Forbes in the primary election. Both candidates were last-minute filers, and some Nebraska Democrats alleged that Forbes jumped into the race so that a Democrat would be on the fall ballot and siphon votes away from Osborn to help Ricketts. SIX MONTHS TILL MIDTERMS: THE TEN RACES THAT WILL DETERMINE THE SENATE’S MAJORITY Forbes denied the claims. Burbank says she jumped into the race to keep Forbes off the ballot in November. Ricketts is the eldest son of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, and, along with other family members, is part owner of Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs. DEMOCRATS EYE NARROW PATH TO CAPTURE SENATE MAJORITY, BUT ONE WRONG MOVE COULD SINK THEM Ricketts won election in 2014 and re-election in 2018 as Nebraska governor. One week after finishing his second term, he was appointed to the U.S. Senate by his successor as governor, Republican Jim Pillen. Top nonpartisan political handicappers rank the Senate general election showdown in Nebraska as likely Republican. The GOP currently controls the Senate with a 53-47 majority.
Big city Democrat mayor arrested at ICE protest faces voters in re-election bid
A big-city Democratic mayor who grabbed national attention last year as he was arrested during an anti-ICE protest outside a federal immigration detention center cruised to re-election on Tuesday. Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark, New Jersey, easily topped 50% of the vote in Tuesday’s election as he faced off against seven challengers, the Associated Press reports. Since Baraka clinched a majority of the vote as he ran for a fourth term steering New Jersey’s largest city, he’ll avoid a runoff in November. DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB While Baraka is a Democrat, mayoral elections in Newark are technically nonpartisan. Baraka, who is considered one of the most progressive mayors in the nation, last year opposed the reopening of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Newark, which was part of President Donald Trump’s second-term crackdown on illegal immigration. On May 9, 2025, Baraka was arrested by ICE agents outside the facility after he unsuccessfully attempted to join a congressional delegation’s tour of the facility. The mayor’s arrest made national headlines. The charges against Baraka were dropped, and he later ran for governor, coming in second to then-Rep. Mikie Sherrill in last year’s Democratic gubernatorial primary. Sherrill ended up winning election as New Jersey governor.
Warner calls Virginia court ruling ‘outrageous’ as Kaine urges Democrats to ‘go win’
Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine weighed in after the state Supreme Court blocked a newly drawn congressional map Friday, with Warner calling the ruling “outrageous” and Kaine urging candidates to “go win.” “I was really disappointed by the court,” Warner said. VIRGINIA SUPREME COURT RULES ON NEW CONGRESSIONAL MAP The court ruled the redistricting effort failed to meet Virginia’s constitutional amendment requirements, halting a plan Democrats had hoped would help flip several GOP-held seats as both parties battle for control of the House. The amendment, passed in 2020, established stricter guidelines for congressional map-drawing and approval. It also included limits on how political influence can shape district boundaries — a key issue cited by the court. “I’m not going to second-guess the fact that the majority of Virginians voted for this,” Warner said. Democratic lawmakers had aimed to target four GOP-held seats under the proposal, which voters approved in May before it was overturned by the court. The plan would have reshaped the state’s House map in Democrats’ favor ahead of the midterm elections. THIS CRUCIAL STATE IS THE LATEST BATTLEGROUND IN REDISTRICTING WAR BETWEEN TRUMP AND DEMOCRATS Those targeted districts were seen as crucial in Democrats’ efforts to gain ground in Virginia, which remains competitive in federal races even as it leans Democratic statewide. “Here’s what I think,” Kaine said. “We need to do now what we did last November and just go win a whole lot of seats on the maps we didn’t draw.” Kaine’s response shows the face Democrats are putting on in Virginia amid the redistricting fallout as both parties struggle for control of the House in the upcoming November midterms. He did not directly address the question, instead pointing to his party’s candidate strength and its ability to compete in key races heading into the election. “Everything about the candidates who are in the races and the dynamic that they’re feeling tells me we can do that, so that’s what I’m focused on now,” he said. Republicans have criticized the redistricting effort as an attempt to tilt the map in Democrats’ favor, while Democrats have pointed to similar efforts in GOP-led states as part of a broader national fight over congressional lines. TRUMP URGES VIRGINIA VOTERS TO REJECT ‘BLATANT PARTISAN POWER GRAB’ BY DEMOCRATS Kaine accused Republicans of redrawing maps “through backroom deals” in a separate statement while scolding the Virginia Supreme Court for raising concerns about the referendum after “three million Virginians cast their ballots.” “It sure as heck seems like there are one set of rules for Democrats and another set of rules for Republicans,” Warner said. With the proposed map blocked, both parties are expected to focus on key competitive Virginia districts that could decide control of the House.