President Donald Trump announced Monday that a key obstacle standing in the way of his administration’s negotiations with Tehran to end the U.S. war against Iran had apparently been addressed, potentially clearing the path to an end to the conflict.

“I had a very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel, and there will be no Troops going to Beirut, [Lebanon], and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

“Likewise, through highly placed Representatives, I had a very good call with Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop – That Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.”

Trump’s inability to pressure Israel to halt its bombardment and invasion of Lebanon – which he explicitly demanded in April – has been a key factor in the negotiation stalemate between Washington and Tehran. Iranian officials have demanded that any agreement to end the conflict include Israel halting its bombardment of Lebanon, which since early March has killed more than 3,100 Lebanese and injured nearly 10,000.

Whether Israel abides by Trump’s latest request to cease hostilities remains to be seen, with the Middle East nation having flagrantly disregarded the president’s demands in the past.

A federal appeals court on Monday blocked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's ban on transgender servicemembers, ruling the policy is driven by unconstitutional animus — and torching the government's legal strategy along the way.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction protecting currently serving troops from the Hegseth Policy — the February 2025 Pentagon directive implementing President Trump's executive order barring from service anyone with a history of gender dysphoria. The court vacated the injunction for prospective recruits.

Writing for the majority, Circuit Judge Wilkins found the policy "both arbitrary and based upon animus" — driven by what he called a "bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group." The government, he noted, never contested that the plaintiff servicemembers — who have collectively served 130 years and earned more than 80 commendations — "served honorably" and "satisfied the rigorous standards" required of them.

The majority were withering in their criticism of the government's courtroom performance. Rather than defend the policy on its merits, the administration's "strategy seems to be one of willful ignorance," the court wrote, deflecting from the executive order's explicit language targeting people who express a "false gender identity." In the majority's plain-language summary of what that order actually proclaims, Trump "labeled transgender persons as dishonorable, undisciplined, arrogant, selfish liars." The government offered no evidence to back that up.

The ruling echoed District Judge Ana Reyes' original March 2025 finding that the ban is "soaked in animus and dripping with pretext" — and called it an "unadulterated expression of animus."

Today's ruling is the latest courtroom defeat for Hegseth. Since taking office, federal judges have blocked his Pentagon press restrictions, enjoined his censure of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and blocked his blacklisting of Anthropic — with courts repeatedly finding his actions driven by retaliation rather than legitimate policy.

The case, Talbott v. United States, now heads back to the district court. A class action motion that would extend protections to all affected servicemembers is scheduled for hearing on June 30.

President Donald Trump swept all seven main battleground states in the 2024 presidential election, but as the midterm elections draw closer, a number of his supporters in those states are starting to voice regret as the president’s deeply unpopular war against Iran continues to squeeze Americans’ pocketbooks.

“Last time I filled up [my tank with gas] I was like, ‘Oh, this hurts,’” said Adele Wilson, a 30-year-old Michigan resident and dental assistant, speaking with The New York Times in its report Monday.

The Times spoke to several former Trump voters across three key battleground states, and like Wilson, others voiced regret for supporting the current commander-in-chief.

“Wilson said Mr. Trump’s second term had been unsuccessful, and she called the war a ‘horrible idea,’” the Times’ report reads.

“She was unsure how she would vote in the midterms, she said, but she had already ruled out voting for [Vice President] JD Vance or [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio in the 2028 presidential race. She said that she was unimpressed with the potential Democratic presidential candidates, but that she might ‘vote Democrat until the Republicans get it together.’”

When asked about how he felt about Trump’s second term, Ryan Hummel, a 25-year-old Ohio resident and recent college graduate – and former Trump supporter – said it didn’t give him "the greatest feeling.”

Hummel called gas costs one of his “chief expenses,” and that he “regretted voting for the president and distrusted the White House,” the Times reported.

And Raven Hoskins, a 27-year-old Michigan resident and package handler, laid the blame for the United States’ worsening economic conditions squarely at Trump’s feet.

“A lot of people, especially of my color, think that he’s a really racist man, but I look at him like a businessman,” Hoskins told the Times. “Him running us like a business – I’ve seen where it’s gotten us, and it’s not good.”