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As Israel and the U.S. continue to fire missiles at targets within Iran, the American military and President Donald Trump are weighing the costs and benefits of putting U.S. boots on the ground in the Middle East once again.

Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s Department of Homeland Security confirmation hearing saw him clash with his fellow congresspeople. Despite the meeting’s testy tone, the committee cleared Mullin by a single vote, sending his confirmation to the full Senate.

A federal judge ruled this week that Voice of America must reinstate more than 1,000 employees after the Trump administration placed them on leave last year.

And, in global news, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, announced this week that the Strait of Hormuz wasn’t technically closed to all traffic, just to ships controlled by the country’s enemies. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is leaning on Japan to send warships to the passageway, to counteract Iran’s efforts to control the flow of trade.

New reporting from The Guardian indicates that before the U.S. began bombing Iran, security officials from U.S. allies judged that, as talks between Washington and Tehran progressed, a peace deal was in reach.

The U.S. eased sanction on Russia and Venezuela this week to unlock more viable sources of oil as energy prices rise and the war with Iran continues.

We cover the most important stories from around the world in the News Roundup.

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Cases of colorectal cancer in young people have risen nearly 60 percent since the early 2000s. That’s according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and the National Cancer Institute. And a new study out this month by the American Cancer Society found that colorectal cancer is now the deadliest kind for those younger than 50.

But this rise isn’t being felt across all generations in the same way. People born around 1990 are four times more likely to develop rectal cancer than those born around 1950. And for those 65 and older, colorectal cancer rates have actually decreased.

So, what’s going on? And what can you do to protect yourself and your gut health? For those answers and more, we turn to a panel of experts.

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Big changes are coming to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

With Kristi Noem out at the Department of Homeland Security, all eyes are on FEMA to roll out millions of dollars in stalled federal funding for disaster responses. That’s especially true in North Carolina, where the western part of the state is still grappling with the effects of Hurricane Helene.

We sit down with a panel of experts to find out what the future holds for FEMA in the Tar Heel state.

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Wars are fought by militaries — but they’re usually ended by diplomats. So, what happens when diplomacy is sidelined?

Officials from Washington and Tehran engaged in talks for weeks, trying to avoid war before the U.S. and Israel fired missiles targeting Iran weeks ago. Now, as President Donald Trump publicly muses about why the military is engaged in another conflict in the Middle East, experts are wondering why talks were abandoned in the first place. And about the off ramps for all sides involved.

We look at the role diplomacy plays once a war is already raging — and what happens when negotiations, expertise, and international alliances are weakened.

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President Donald Trump and his administration and allies have sent mixed messages about the war with Iran in the first two weeks of the operation. The Secretary of Defense called it war. Now, the Speaker of the House said thus conflict with Iran is not a war.

Whatever the president decides to call the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign – it’s cost the lives of 13 American troops and more than 2,000 people in the Middle East, both civilians and military personnel.

Congress has voted on a resolution to limit the president’s power to continue this campaign – but that effort failed. And the president hasn’t indicated he wants Congress to weigh in. Many Republican members appear unbothered by that fact. At least in public.

What does Trump owe Congress as far as buy-in on war? And how have past presidents involved the legislative branch when deploying the military?

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