As he gears up for what may potentially be his roughest re-election of his decades-long career, longtime GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas landed the backing of the top Republican in the Senate.

“I’ve been honored to work alongside @JohnCornyn—one of the most effective and respected conservative leaders in the country,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune wrote in a social media post on Wednesday. 

Thune, who topped Cornyn last year in the Senate GOP race to succeed longtime leader Mitch McConnell, emphasized that his one-time rival “was tireless and instrumental in building our majority. We need to keep him in the Senate & in the fight to deliver on President Trump’s agenda.”

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The Senate Majority Leader’s endorsement came a couple of hours after Cornyn — who previously served six years as the No. 2 Republican in the Senate — officially launched his 2026 re-election campaign, as he bids for a fifth six-year term representing Texas on Capitol Hill.

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The backing from Thune, which was widely expected, comes as the 73-year-old Cornyn faces a possible primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The conservative and MAGA firebrand who’s an ally of President Donald Trump has repeatedly for a couple of years flirted with taking on Cornyn.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, speaks during a news conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.  (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“I can’t think of a single thing he’s accomplished for our state or even for the country,” Paxton said in a September 2023 interview on the Fox News Channel. “Somebody needs to step up and run against this guy,” adding, “everything’s on the table for me.”

And in a Fox News Digital interview earlier this year, Paxton said that he’s “looking potentially at the U.S. Senate.”

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While Paxton is very popular with the conservative base of the party, political strategists note that toppling Cornyn in a GOP primary would likely be a very expensive proposition, and it’s not clear if Paxton could raise the money needed for victory.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, on August 5, 2022. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

Paxton has claimed Cornyn does not represent the conservative values of Texans and accused him of not being an ally of Trump.

He has also regularly labeled Cornyn a “RINO,” a “Republican in name only” and an insult MAGA and “America First” Republicans have regularly used to criticize more mainstream or establishment members of the GOP.

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Cornyn, during the early stages of the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race, had said he would prefer that the GOP take a new direction, which angered Trump. But the senator endorsed Trump in late January of last year, after the then-former president won both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, the first two contests in the Republican White House calendar.

Since Trump returned to the White House two months ago, Cornyn has been supportive of the president’s cabinet nominees and agenda.

And in the senator’s campaign launch video, the announcer highlights that during Trump’s first term in office, “Texas Sen. John Cornyn had his back.”

“Now I’m running for re-election and asking for your support so President Trump and I can pick up where we left off,” Cornyn says to camera in the video.

Cornyn is a former state senator, former Texas Supreme Court justice, and former state attorney general, who first won election to the U.S. Senate in 2002.

Fox News’ Peter Pinedo contributed to this report

A Webb County, Texas grand jury has indicted a man nearly a decade after he allegedly attempted to sexually assault the mother of nine children and killed her as she was walking home from work.

Using advanced forensic methods, investigators with the Texas Rangers and Laredo Police Department identified 42-year-old Sergio Mendez as the culprit who allegedly killed 33-year-old Janette Escamilla Jaramillo of Laredo, Texas, in 2016.

The Texas Rangers said in a press release that on May 18, 2016, Jaramillo left work to go home at about midnight, though she never made it to her destination.

Jaramillo’s body was discovered under a skate ramp just after daybreak at Seven Flags Park, by employees of the Laredo Parks and Recreation Department.

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Seven Flags Park is located just blocks from where Jaramillo lived, according to law enforcement officials.

Investigators learned that the victim had been brutally strangled after an attempted sexual assault.

During the investigation, detectives reviewed surveillance video footage showing Jaramillo walking with an unidentified person about 30 minutes after she was seen leaving her job.

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Sergio Mendez was indicted earlier this month for allegedly murdering Janette Escamilla Jaramillo on May 18, 2016. (Texas Rangers)

Police described the suspect as tall with short, cropped hair and wearing a trash bag, though that was likely because it was raining that night.

At the time, though, there was not enough evidence to arrest a suspect in Jaramillo’s case.

But in 2021, investigators were able to obtain funding from the Department of Justice (DOJ) after the case was identified as being eligible for the Texas Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) program.

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Pipette placing sample into vial for extracting DNA evidence in forensic lab.  (Andrew Brookes via Getty Images)

The funding allows agencies across the U.S. to further investigate unsolved sexual assaults and sexually-related homicides.

Investigators used the funds to conduct advanced DNA testing, which ultimately identified Mendez as a suspect.

On March 12, a grand jury indicted Mendez. He is currently in custody and serving a 10-year prison sentence in Edinburg, Texas, for an unrelated crime.

Houston Police are searching for a man who crashed his car into a ditch at 100-mph and fled the scene, leaving behind his injured family.

The father was driving with his wife and four children when their SUV crashed into a pickup truck, according to reports from local outlets.

HPD says the surveillance footage shows the man’s Ford Expedition speeding on Yale Street when what appears to be a Chevy Avalanche truck turns in front of the Expedition, cutting off the car. The crash caused the Expedition to flip, with the family inside, into the ditch.

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Investigators believe the SUV was traveling about 100 miles per hour when the accident happened.

An 8-year-old child was thrown from the vehicle, FOX 26 reported. Police say the other children looked like toddlers.

A photo of the skyline in downtown Houston. (John Coletti via Getty Images)

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Although the occupants of the pickup were not hurt, the SUV driver’s family have been hospitalized with two in serious condition and three in critical condition.

HPD says the driver of the Expedition ran following the accident and had another car pick him up.

“I have no idea what’s going through his mind at the time. I don’t know if there was some other reason that he felt he needed to flee,” Capt. Ryan Watson said, told KTRK reported. “The investigators here are following down leads and they are going to track that down and see if they can talk to him and get some answers, find out what’s going on.”

A Houston police car at Houston art car parade with American flags. (iStock )

Authorities said they are still looking for the driver of the Expedition.