Here’s a recap of the day so far:
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Trump urges Texas Republicans to vote for Ken Paxton in runoff election. As Texas heads to the polls for the primaries, Trump reminded his supporters to vote for Attorney General Paxton, who is running against John Cornyn, the incumbent.
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Two Republican-led efforts to redraw congressional maps in Alabama and South Carolina hit setbacks. In Alabama, a federal court said the proposed map could not be used because it was drawn to intentionally discriminate against Black voters. The South Carolina Senate voted against redrawing the state’s congressional map due to political and administrative reasons.
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Trump completes annual physical after year of public attention to health issues. Trump, the oldest inaugurated president in US history, completed a physical exam on Tuesday at Walter Reed national military medical center, amid questions around his health. “Everything checked out PERFECTLY,” the US president declared in a social media post.
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Trump administration considers asking federal workers to sign NDAs. The goal of asking federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements is to prevent them from sharing confidential information with journalists.
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Iran says US broke ceasefire with overnight strikes, with impact on peace talks unclear. Further to that, while Donald Trump continues to insist that a peace deal is close, Iran has accused the United States of violating the ceasefire after conducting what the US called “self-defense” strikes overnight.
Key events
Construction is under way on the White House lawn for a UFC arena that will host a cage-match next month to mark the United States’s 250th anniversary and Donald Trump’s 80th birthday. The mixed martial arts fight is planned for 14 June.
Photos of cranes and other construction equipment on the White House lawn today show the beginnings of the temporary construction. Trump has said that the finished project will feature “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House.”
Trump first floated the idea of hosting a UFC fight on the White House grounds last year, during an appearance in Idaho on 4 July 2025 when he announced festivities planned to celebrate the United States’s 250th birthday on 4 July 2026.
“Think of this on the grounds of the White House. We have a lot of land there,” he said, originally adding that it would be a “full fight” with 20,000 to 25,000 people in attendance.
In December, Trump said the White House event would host “eight or nine championship fights – the biggest fights they’ve ever had.” But like the size of the crowd, the number of fights expected to be held on the White House lawn has shrunk. The fight card includes two title fights: a lightweight championship fight between Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje in the main event, and an interim heavyweight title fight between Alex Pereira and Ciryl Gane.
Trump has long been a fan of mixed martial arts, and is close friends with Dana White, the UFC’s president.
As construction began on the White House lawn, competitors at the Scripps National Spelling Bee navigated around it Tuesday. After 15 years at a convention center in Maryland, the spelling bee was relocated to Washington DC’s Constitution Hall. Families staying at the nearby J.W. Marriott would usually walk across the Ellipse to reach the hall, but with construction ongoing there, families are making a longer trek around. The parent of one speller, Rajeev Malhotra, described the scene as “two very disparate forms of entertainment.”
Richard Luscombe
Nasa announced on Tuesday ambitious plans for three uncrewed lunar missions this year to kickstart construction of a $20bn moon base, and said it had chosen the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, ahead of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to conduct the first.
The revelation by Nasa’s administrator, Jared Isaacman, at a press conference in Washington DC marked the first detailed public explanation of how and when the moon base will be built.
He said the three missions planned for 2026 would be followed by “more than a dozen” more in the coming years to test systems and equipment. He said the highly successful Artemis II mission last month that sent four astronauts around the moon for the first time since 1972 had been both a catalyst and incentive to advance the moon base plan.
“People are looking up again, believing in big things again, and paying attention as America returns to the moon again, and this time to stay,” he said.
He added, without mentioning any names, that the agency had been “having the tough conversations with those failing to meet expectations” since the Artemis splashdown on 10 April.
Today, Texans are voting for a Republican nominee for US Senate in a runoff election. Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, is competing against four-term incumbent John Cornyn.
The winner of the runoff will go up against Democrat James Talarico in November’s general election. Recent polls have put Talarico, with his blend of faith-based populism, bipartisan appeal and generational energy, in a tight race with Cornyn and Paxton.
Last week, Donald Trump endorsed Paxton, who Trump called “a true Maga warrior”. But Paxton has been embroiled in a series of controversies. He was acquitted in a 2023 impeachment trial on corruption charges. He also reached a deal in 2024 to end a long-running securities fraud case.
The Guardian follows the Associated Press in calling an election. We’ll bring you the results from Texas’s runoff election as the AP calls the races. Polls in Texas close at 7pm local time, with polls split across the Central and Mountain time zones.
Here’s more of our latest coverage of the runoff:
Brazilian senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the country’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, met with Donald Trump at the White House today, Reuters reports, citing Bolsonaro.
Flávio Bolsonaro is currently running for Brazil’s presidency against incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who met with Trump earlier this month. Bolsonaro has been trying to shore up his election bid after The Intercept published leaked messages showing the senator received millions in donations from a Brazilian banker accused of defrauding customers of millions of dollars.
Uber and Lyft drivers in Massachusetts have become the first in the nation to certify a union for gig-economy workers of ride-hailing apps. On Friday, the Massachusetts Department of Labor Relations certified the App Drivers Union, which represents nearly 70,000 drivers classified as independent contractors.
“It changes the game for ride-share workers across this country,” Massachusetts governor Maura Healey said at a rally with drivers and labor activists in Boston today. Labor leaders hailed the victory as the largest organizing win since Ford autoworkers unionized in 1941.
The victory comes as drivers say they’re contending with rising gas, insurance and other costs, alongside the rise of self-driving vehicles. Similar efforts to unionize ride-share drivers are under way in California and Illinois.
The winning plan to rebuild Penn Station features Donald Trump’s name and preferred architectural style throughout, according to documents obtained by the New York City news site Gothamist.
Trump’s transportation department took control of the Penn Station rebuild alongside Amtrak last year, saying it would save taxpayers money and champion a public-private partnership in the redesign. Earlier this year, the White House proposed renaming Penn Station as “Trump Station”, Gothamist reported in February.
Last week, the transportation department announced it had chosen Penn Station Partners as the “master developer” for the station. Gothamist reports that “New York elected officials criticized the bidding process for a lack of transparency. The details of Amtrak’s request for proposals, as well as the three final bidders’ plans for Penn, were kept under wraps.”
Internal documents obtained by Gothamist include a rendering of the station’s proposed new Eighth Avenue entrance, which includes a large plaque with Donald Trump’s name etched into marble alongside a presidential seal. The renderings also show gold-accented railings throughout the station and American flags at the entrance, echoing designs for the new White House ballroom.
The United States Space Force has awarded a $2.29 bn contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which would see the tech billionaire’s aerospace and artificial intelligence company build a satellite communications network to connect military sensors and weapons platforms around the world.
SpaceX has previously won several military contracts for work on satellite communications. Here’s more of our previous reporting on the subject:
Vice President JD Vance held a roundtable for state attorneys general on anti-fraud initiatives Tuesday afternoon. Democratic attorneys general declined, reported the Washington Examiner, claiming it was not a good-faith effort.
About two dozen Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to Vance, saying:
“While we would appreciate the opportunity to engage in serious discussions, the invitation was provided with less than one business day’s notice with no agenda. This short notice does not match the spirit of collaboration that has long defined our joint efforts with federal partners. Accordingly, we respectfully decline to attend at this time.”
Here’s a recap of the day so far:
-
Trump urges Texas Republicans to vote for Ken Paxton in runoff election. As Texas heads to the polls for the primaries, Trump reminded his supporters to vote for Attorney General Paxton, who is running against John Cornyn, the incumbent.
-
Two Republican-led efforts to redraw congressional maps in Alabama and South Carolina hit setbacks. In Alabama, a federal court said the proposed map could not be used because it was drawn to intentionally discriminate against Black voters. The South Carolina Senate voted against redrawing the state’s congressional map due to political and administrative reasons.
-
Trump completes annual physical after year of public attention to health issues. Trump, the oldest inaugurated president in US history, completed a physical exam on Tuesday at Walter Reed national military medical center, amid questions around his health. “Everything checked out PERFECTLY,” the US president declared in a social media post.
-
Trump administration considers asking federal workers to sign NDAs. The goal of asking federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements is to prevent them from sharing confidential information with journalists.
-
Iran says US broke ceasefire with overnight strikes, with impact on peace talks unclear. Further to that, while Donald Trump continues to insist that a peace deal is close, Iran has accused the United States of violating the ceasefire after conducting what the US called “self-defense” strikes overnight.
Michael Sainato
The goal of asking federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements is to prevent them from sharing confidential information with journalists.
The office of personnel management (OPM), the human resources office for the US government, released a draft nondisclosure agreement designed for federal agencies to use with new and existing employees. Under the draft agreement, the administration could pursue civil and criminal penalties against employees who violate it. The US government would be entitled to all “royalties” that employees receive from disclosing information that violates the agreement, according to the draft.
The OPM did not immediately offer further explanation.
The draft form is the latest step in the president’s effort to exert more control over US government workers and the flow of information to the public.
“This move is rooted in concerns that unauthorized disclosures of sensitive government information are disrupting agency operations and eroding trust across government,” an OPM spokesperson, McLaurine Pinover, said in an email to Reuters.
Former government employees would need “written permission from an authorized agency official” to speak to journalists about information the Trump administration deems “confidential” after leaving their jobs, according to the draft. Former employees who violate that rule could be subject to civil and criminal penalties.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/may/26/donald-trump-medical-walter-reed-republicans-texas-runoff-iran-latest-news-updates
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