Trump-Backed Paxton Wins Texas GOP Primary

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0:50The Russian calculation is that as they watch President Trump talking about leaving NATO, they are thinking that if we attack some of these European countries, be it the Baltic states, be it Finland, Sweden, Norway. Maybe the U.S. will not react. It's Wednesday, May 27th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. We begin in Texas, where Trump-backed State Attorney General Ken Paxton has defeated incumbent John Cornyn in a primary runoff to clinch the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.

1:27At his victory party, Paxton pivoted his focus to his opponent in November's general election, Democrat James Tallarico. No matter what he says or how much he raises, the reality is that James Tallarico is going to be nothing more than a Texas-based puppet for Chuck Schumer and the National Democrats. Democrats are hoping that a Tallarico victory could help them to reclaim the Senate in what's expected to be the red state's most competitive general election in years. Paxton's chances of winning, meanwhile, could hinge on uniting his party after a bruising primary and amid anger among Senate Republicans that Trump turned his back on Cornyn.

2:06In a pair of redistricting updates, a federal court has barred Alabama from using a congressional map favoring Republicans in special primaries in August, saying it was intentionally discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional. Instead, the court directed the state to reuse the so-called race-blind maps it created for the 2024 congressional election. The state is likely to appeal the ruling. And in a setback for South Carolina's Republican governor, the state's GOP-controlled Senate has rejected a plan to cancel an ongoing congressional primary and hold a later election under new maps drawn to remove a high-profile Democrat stronghold.

2:44Governor Henry McMaster had called the legislature back for a special session to redraw the maps after pressure from President Trump and his aides. Early voting in South Carolina's primary election started yesterday.

2:59In global markets news, China has recorded a nearly 25 % jump in year-on-year industrial profits for April, with its oil refining sector crawling out of the red on the back of higher crude prices. But pricier energy wasn't China's only industrial tailwind. The country's metal sector has now seen triple-digit profit growth through April, thanks to strong global demand for Chinese AI and green energy products. And there's fresh evidence of that in Europe in the form of new car sales data out this morning. Otto's reporter Stephen Wilmot says there are two clear themes. One is that Tesla is bouncing back a bit.

3:37They had a very bad 2025 because they were shifting to the new version of the Model Y in their Berlin factory. and also that was kind of when Elon Musk's political affiliation with Trump was at its most toxic, shall we say, to the European consumer. So partly because of that rather weak start to 2025, the 2026 numbers are looking a lot better by comparison. That said, the more obvious theme is the growth of Chinese manufacturers. BYD is now bigger than Tesla in Europe, way bigger than Honda and many other brands that will be much more familiar to American consumers. And it's not just BYD, it's also Geely, Cherry, Syke, Leapmotor.

4:16Overall, these brands have about 10 % market share year to date in Europe, which is an astonishing number given how they were barely registered just a couple of years ago. And the reason for this growth is really that they come with a lot of fairly strong features at a reasonable price. These are often EVs and hybrids. So the range that they go between charges is a key feature that consumers look at. And because They have good relationships with Chinese supply chains. The battery industry in China is vast and very competitive. They can offer a very good range for a reasonable price. South Korea's SK Hynix has become the latest member of the trillion-dollar club, joining the likes of NVIDIA and TSMC.

4:57The memory chip maker's shares jumped today, extending a more than 3x run-up since the start of the year as benefits from higher memory prices and tighter supplies of high-performance computing chips. SK Hynix is now the second South Korean company to surpass the trillion-dollar market cap threshold after Samsung did so earlier this month. U.S. chipmaker Micron also joined the trillion-dollar club yesterday. And speaking of Samsung, the company's unionized workers today approved a new bonus pay deal, averting a potential strike at the world's largest memory chipmaker that had raised fears of disruptions to the global chip supply chain.

5:35Samsung shares closed up more than 2.5 % on the news. Coming up, the U.S. is set to deploy public health officials to Kenya should Americans be exposed to Ebola. Plus, European capitals begin to fear that Russia may extend its war beyond Ukraine. Those stories and more after the break.

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6:30The Trump administration is scaling up its Ebola response in Africa. We're exclusively reporting that plans are underway to send U.S. public health officers to Kenya in order to staff a potential quarantine facility there to treat Americans infected by or exposed to a rare strain of Ebola that's currently spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It's a shift from prior outbreaks in which exposed Americans were brought back to the U.S. for monitoring or treatment. There are no known cases of Ebola in Kenya, and the facility is awaiting final sign-off from the Kenyan government. While the CDC says the risk of Ebola spreading to the U.S.

7:07public remains low, the WHO has warned that the outbreak, the third largest on record, is outpacing the global response. Apple and Google are warning Canadian politicians that a proposed law could put the privacy and security of Canadians at risk, with top executives saying the bill would force them to change their products to allow for more surveillance, potentially compromising encrypted systems. Messaging service Signal said it would rather pull out of Canada than comply. Canadian officials, meanwhile, say the country's laws haven't kept pace with technology and that the bill would give authorities modern tools to deter criminal activity.

7:46The bill also has the support of Canada's police chiefs, who say their investigators need help getting digital evidence in a timely manner.

7:56Does Vladimir Putin have his eye on the Baltics? With Russian troops bogged down in Ukraine, Wall Street Journal chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov reports that a series of threatening statements in recent weeks is sparking fear in European capitals that Moscow could seek to expand its conflict beyond Ukraine. And Yaro joins me now from Poland with the very latest. Yaro, we haven't covered these Russian threats directed at countries in the Baltic on the program to date. Remind us what we've been hearing and seeing. There's been an escalation of threats. So the Russian Ministry of Defense has listed the addresses of defense companies throughout Europe, from Spain to Germany to the Scandinavian countries, where Ukrainian companies are producing, jointly with local manufacturers, drones and other military equipment.

8:43And it's warned that those areas could become legitimate targets for Russian strikes. That's part of parcel of Russian commitment of intimidation, because we have also seen agents of the Russian intelligence have been involved in firebombing and attacking defense manufacturers across Europe. There was this case of a Czech defense company that was blown up by Russian agents not so long ago. And so you already have this activity that is becoming more and more brazen and reckless around Europe. But now we're also talking about something more. The Russian calculation is that as they watch the geopolitical environment, as they watch President Trump talking about leaving NATO, they are thinking that if we attack some of these European countries, be it the Baltic states, be it Finland, Sweden, Norway, maybe the US will not react.

9:26Maybe President Trump will not join the war to defend them. And if he doesn't, then there will be a strategic victory for Russia because they will have proven that NATO doesn't exist anymore as a cohesive alliance. And on that exact point, Yaro, our colleagues Michael Gordon and Robbie Gramer actually reported just overnight that the Pentagon has informed some of its NATO allies that it plans to substantially dial back the number of troops that it's earmarking for Europe in the event that NATO should find itself in a potential conflict. And this is all coming, of course, as Europe is also dealing with the impact of the war in Iran and the energy price shock caused by that.

10:00Is that something Moscow thinks could also play to its advantage here? Yes, because obviously you also have the energy crisis in Europe. And it has fueled the pro-Russian populist parties that are saying, look, why should we be paying the price? Let's buy Russian oil and gas on the cheap again and forget about Ukraine. Now, all of this could be a huge miscalculation because President Putin has miscalculated in the past. When he invaded Ukraine in 2022, he was expecting its collapse in three days. Instead, he's now bogged in a war that has lasted into its fifth year, with Russia being shut out of the international trade and markets and subjected to some of the most severe sanctions ever.

10:38I'm glad you brought up those risks, though, because obviously the fastest way for Russia to reverse any trends potentially moving in their favor would be precisely this, to strike NATO territory. Well, yes. I mean, there is no trends going into Russia's favor right now. That's the issue for Putin because there is a psychological turning point that happened in January when this war against Ukraine has lasted longer than the Soviet Union's war against Nazi Germany. And so now there is this broad dissatisfaction in Russia as people are saying, well, you know, what are we doing? We're now in our fifth year.

11:06Our cities all over Russia are being bombed by Ukrainian forces. And we're not able to stop that. We're not able to advance to the battlefield. So something is wrong. And so I think a way of reshuffling the situation could be for Putin to expand the war to easier targets, such as the Baltic states, especially now that he is coming to the conclusion that the so-called Alaska deal, the Anchorage deal with President Trump that they struck last August is not going to materialize. And at the time, if you remember, the U.S. basically offered Russia the portion of the Donetsk region of Ukraine that Russia has not been able to conquer as a condition for a ceasefire.

11:42And Ukraine has refused to hand over this territory. And so Russia is looking at this and saying, well, you know, we cannot cash in this American check. We cannot invest in the battlefield. So what else do we do? Jaroslav Trofimov is the journal's chief foreign affairs correspondent. Joined us today from Poland. Jaroslav, as always, thanks so much. Thank you. And that's it for What's News for this Wednesday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Daniel Bach. And I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.

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