Half a year of war. Shortly after the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran began on Feb. 28, Mr. Trump predicted it would last several weeks.

Instead, the president has been trapped in a loop of violence and negotiations for nearly half the year.

In a now-familiar cycle, a Pakistani mediator hailed progress this week toward a peace deal after yet another meeting with Iran’s foreign ministry, but Tehran hard-liners made new demands, Iran-backed rebels fired on ships in the Red Sea, and the U.S. Navy used Hellfire missiles against a Panama-flagged vessel to enforce its blockade of Iranian ports.

Oil prices rose and U.S. stocks dove despite word of an emerging deal, a sign that investors are growing skeptical of repeated claims of progress.

Mr. Trump says he will achieve his goal of keeping a nuclear weapon out of Tehran’s hands. But the conflict has lasted longer than promised, making it appear as if he is stuck in “a problem of his own making,” said Gordon Gray, a former U.S. ambassador to Tunisia and professor of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula affairs at George Washington University.

Mr. Trump says the U.S. retains the upper hand and that he will not accept a bad deal with Iran, even with the war polling poorly and the midterm elections looming. The U.S. is reliant on air power, though experts say airstrikes alone are unlikely to change the regime’s behavior.

The Pentagon confirmed it is replacing the USS Abraham Lincoln with a different aircraft carrier, although Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied multiple reports about dire conditions on the Lincoln after a seven-month deployment.

Mr. Trump said he will maintain the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports for the foreseeable future because Iran is reeling from his pivot from military might to economic pressure.

Yet he faces political pressure to wind down the conflict. Americans face elevated gas prices, and the military is using up long-range munitions.

The average U.S. price of gas stood at $4.04 per gallon this week, a 36% increase from when the war started on Feb. 28, according to the AAA motor club.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is leaving her job at the end of this month to spend more time with her young children.

Mr. Trump called it “a decision I totally understand and respect!”

Ms. Leavitt has a 2-year-old son and a daughter who was born in May. At 28, she is the youngest person in history to hold the job of White House press secretary. She’s occupied the role since the start of Mr. Trump’s second term.

During that time, she reshaped the briefing room by creating a new media seat for nontraditional outlets, often calling on those journalists first, and employed a well-prepared and at times combative style that mirrored her boss’s.

Ms. Leavitt called her decision to leave “bittersweet” but said she could no longer be “the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy and attention required of the White House press secretary.”

Deja pool all over again. White House officials asked the Justice Department to determine whether a new criminal case can be brought against a former Olympian over vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

David Hearn already has had charges against him dropped, but the Justice Department is now probing whether another type of case, such as a misdemeanor, is possible.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro abandoned prosecution against the 67-year-old, three-time Olympic canoeist after documents showed that the damage was caused by a “botched” refurbishing project championed by Mr. Trump.

The FBI opened its criminal investigation into Mr. Trump in May 2017 based on information from the liberal news media and the Democratic Party-funded dossier, according to an analysis by The Washington Times of newly declassified documents.

The FBI’s original memo opening the probe was first released in 2023, but it was highly censored, virtually deleting all five pages of information on which the bureau justified the extraordinary action against a new president just five months on the job.

The newly declassified memo, without the redactions, shows that the FBI was starting “a full investigation based on an articulable factual basis that reasonably indicates that President Donald J. Trump may be … involved in activities for or on behalf of [Russia].”

The FBI could have also included a statement that, as of May 2017, there was no evidence — outside of the Democratic Party dossier — that any Trump ally colluded with Russia. But it didn’t.

The memo cited “open source reports,” which means the news media and dossier, and listed four events as the “factual basis” to put Mr. Trump under a “full investigation.”

Senate confirms Blanche. Senate Republicans voted to confirm Todd Blanche as the new attorney general, overcoming headwinds that Mr. Trump created for his nominee and installing a new top cop at the Justice Department.

The 50-49 vote wasn’t assured until Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, a longtime thorn in Mr. Trump’s side, said he would back Mr. Blanche.

Two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted with Democrats to oppose him.

Mr. Trump’s attempt to create a $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund to compensate what he called victims of the Biden Justice Department almost sank Mr. Blanche, who, as acting attorney general, signed off on the court settlement that established the payment.

It was only after Mr. Blanche signed new orders declaring the fund dead as far as DOJ was concerned, and clarifying the extent of a tax-crime immunity deal he gave Mr. Trump, that the issue was defused.

Sen. Darline Graham, the sister of the late Lindsey Graham, placed first in the Republican primary to fill the powerful senator’s seat for a six-year term after his unexpected death.

Because she did not win an outright majority, despite Mr. Trump’s support, the result sets up another battle for the political novice in two weeks. She now faces Rep. Ralph Norman, a hardline conservative who has spent a decade on Capitol Hill making a name for himself as a fiscal hawk.

Patients with cancer, HIV, cystic fibrosis or conditions with high-cost medications often use coupons from drug manufacturers to help them pay for the drugs. But that assistance runs out, and patients learn the money was not counted toward their deductibles, the set amount of money a patient must pay for a drug or service before insurance kicks in.

The dilemma is renewing calls for restricting copay “accumulator” programs.

Congress passed a series of health reforms in this year’s spending bill that were related to transparency and other topics. The lawmakers left the copay accumulator issue untouched, leaving a state-by-state jumble.

The laws vary in scope, ranging from outright bans to statutes that prohibit copay accumulators only when there is no cheaper generic alternative to a brand-name drug.

Several states are debating whether it is a good idea to restrict accumulators or side with industry groups who say drug companies’ coupons only exacerbate high costs.

Bogus marriages. Federal prosecutors said they disrupted one of the biggest marriage fraud rings in U.S. history that orchestrated more than a thousand bogus unions over a decade in the hopes of getting green cards.

Officials said the ring earned tens of millions of dollars, charging up to $100,000 to arrange sham marriages for Chinese citizens and paying up to $30,000 for Americans willing to marry them.

Eleven people — 10 of them naturalized citizens and the other a legal permanent resident — were named in the newly unsealed indictment.

Authorities described the remarkable steps the outfit went to, including fabricating photos to try to make it look like wedding ceremonies were held, opening joint accounts for the so-called couples and purchasing life insurance.

The goal, prosecutors said, was to create a false history to fool immigration authorities.

The outfit also would coach its customers on how to survive the scrutiny from Department of Homeland Security officials.

A crackdown on mail-in voting in Texas was upheld by a federal appeals court, which scolded voting rights activists and a lower court for their efforts to undermine the state’s statute.

The Texas law requires voters to provide an identification number before casting ballots by mail.

The appeals court delivered a forceful statement about the dangers of mailed ballots.

“It has long been established that mail-in ballots are prone to fraud,” Judge Andrew Oldham wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “That is why voting by mail jeopardizes election integrity and democracy itself.”

The case involves a law that was approved by the state Legislature in 2021.

After the chaos of the 2020 pandemic-infected vote, the Legislature sought to rewrite the rules about how ballots would be cast in Texas.

That included restrictions on ballot harvesting and rules on proving a voter’s identity — both of which were at stake in Wednesday’s ruling.

The new Democratic Party is “young, educated beyond their intellectual capacity, angry and entitled,” writes Michael McKenna.

Every member of Congress should be familiar with Islamism’s history, argues Clifford D. May.

Robert Knight questions the use of the term “liberal” when describing socialists such as Abdul El-Sayed, Hasan Piker and Ms. Hong.