SHERO on Sunday
A lightning-fast recap of the week's most significant political and legal events for May 25th - 31st, 2026, before we are on to the next!
In the grand tradition of “take my advice, I’m not using it,” I have decided to take the entire next week off to tend to some personal matters and to reunite with some long-lost family. My cousin, who is my hero, is a librarian at a high school in Nebraska, and she will come to visit, and I will get the pleasure of showing her the nation’s capital for the first time. I can’t tell you how much fun we used to have spending every summer, joined at the hip, in Lincoln, Nebraska.
I used to demand that we play “office” every summer as we moved the tables in her playroom to look like desks and pretended to take phone calls and write invoices. She just reminded me that we used to make her little brother and our younger boy cousin our secretaries, and we complained about who got stuck with which one, and about their work output, all the time. 😂 SHERO will resume the week after next, and I’m sure I will miss you more than you will miss me.
Welcome to the Sunday Recap, with links to more information if you want it, where you can quickly check in to review the week with a minimal time commitment and ensure you do not miss a thing. This kind of newsletter model, which provides free, reliable, independent journalism that connects the political and legal dots for everyone, works only if subscribers support our work with paid subscriptions. Consider upgrading your weekend by investing in SHERO today. This was a terrible week for the Trump administration so let’s dig in!
Gun Violence This Week
At SHERO, we document all mass shooting incidents for the week every Sunday, so please take a moment to review them and remember to keep up the fight for sensible gun reform. There were nine separate mass shooting events in the United States this past week, where four people were killed, and 38 were injured.
Sunday, May 24, 2026: Thibodaux, Louisiana
Sunday, May 24, 2026: Chicago, Illinois
Sunday, May 24, 2026: Louisville, Kentucky
Monday, May 25, 2026: Chicago, Illinois
Monday, May 25, 2026: St. Louis, Missouri
Monday, May 25, 2026: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Tuesday, May 26, 2026: Dallas, Texas
Tuesday, May 26, 2026: Cincinnati, Ohio
Thursday, May 28, 2026: St. Louis, Missouri
Republican Senate Candidate (GA) Derek Dooley, who was awarded more than $27 million in a lucrative state contract, has surged into second place in the Republican primary after Georgia Governor Brian Kemp toured the state with him.
The Trump administration authorized contractors to run heavy machinery over a 1,000-year-old geoglyph in Arizona’s Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, marring the image with a roughly 50-foot-wide scrape. (As an Arizona girl born and raised, I can’t express my outrage enough on this one.)
White House Officials have pressed the office responsible for printing the nation’s money to design a $250 bill featuring Donald Trump’s portrait, in what would be the first appearance of a living person on US currency in more than 150 years. (Try not to throw up, please.)
The 80% increase in Trump’s deportation flights is accelerating the climate crisis by emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide.
Department of Justice Immigration Courts are using the unprecedented tactic of fast-tracking immigrants’ hearings through massive “mega master” calendar hearings, which include 100 or more people at a time, to deport people without lawyers faster.
The no-bid contract for the reflecting Washington Monument reflecting pool repairs, which circumvented federal procurement laws and is already underway, generated an inflated profit margin for the contractor, whom Trump claimed to have chosen before changing his story.
