Speaking of wars … The tense ceasefire and dueling naval blockades with Iran went on amid fitful efforts to restart peace talks between Washington and Tehran.

Iran’s forces fired on and seized at least two commercial ships attempting to traverse the dangerous, closed Strait of Hormuz. Iranian officials also said they are collecting fees for maritime passage, in direct opposition to U.S. demands.

The U.S. military said it seized another tanker carrying Iranian oil.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed an order reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a win for pro-cannabis groups who have sought to expand research and further alleviate the stigma for pot smokers.

The order shifts the designation of licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I — for drugs with no currently accepted medical use — to the less strictly regulated Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act.

While marijuana is still not legal under federal law, the move does give a tax break to licensed medical marijuana operators and eases some barriers to researching the drug in part by alleviating penalties for cannabis researchers who obtain state-licensed marijuana or marijuana-derived products for use in their work.

The Justice Department indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center, saying the civil-rights group has funded efforts to foment the kind of hate that the center said it fights against.

Mr. Blanche said the SPLC has delivered $3 million since 2014 to eight individuals associated with notorious hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the National Socialist Movement and the Nazi party.

The group considered the money payments to informants, but it used sham bank accounts to shield the source, the department said.

The head of the SPLC said its payments were necessary “because we are no stranger to threats of violence.” He accused the Trump administration of trying to discredit the group.

Records show the SPLC raked in donations at a higher rate after one of its informants allegedly helped organize the infamous “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 in Virginia.

Reconciled to power play. The Senate adopted a budget blueprint for a filibuster-proof Republican plan to funnel up to $70 billion to immigration enforcement agencies.

The House also needs to approve the budget before Republicans can formally begin the budget reconciliation process aimed at averting a Democratic filibuster in the Senate.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, supports keeping this budget reconciliation effort narrowly focused on immigration funding and saving other party priorities for a second filibuster-proof package later this year. He faces some opposition from his own troops on that front.

GOP leaders are pushing to quickly enact the party-line bill after Democrats have blocked annual funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol for months, leading to the record-setting Department of Homeland Security shutdown.

Federal Reserve Chairman nominee Kevin Warsh got a hearing in the Senate Banking Committee in Mr. Trump’s effort to replace Chairman Jerome Powell, the president’s nemesis on interest rates.

Sen. Thom Tillis, North Carolina Republican, said he fully supports Mr. Warsh’s nomination but will continue to block his confirmation until the Justice Department drops its investigation of Mr. Powell for cost overruns at the central bank’s headquarters renovation in Washington. Mr. Tillis views that probe as political payback for Mr. Powell angering Mr. Trump by failing to lower interest rates quickly.

“Let’s get rid of this investigation so I can support your confirmation,” he said.

Amid a spate of misconduct allegations, Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned from Congress, minutes before she was about to face an embarrassing decision by the House Ethics Committee on how to punish her for siphoning ill-gotten pandemic money into her congressional campaign.

The Florida Democrat had been facing possible expulsion.

In a statement, she decried the process but said she was giving up.

She is the third House lawmaker to resign this month. Reps. Eric Swalwell, California Democrat, and Tony Gonzales, Texas Republican, gave up their seats last week while facing sexual misconduct allegations.

The Ethics Committee has come under criticism for being slow to investigate those two cases. Mr. Johnson said he will lead the cause to clamp down on sexual misconduct in Congress.

“We are looking at every potential avenue to tighten up the rules and make sure that women have an avenue to report,” the speaker said.

Newsom loses immigration case. A federal appeals court ruled against Mr. Newsom, putting on hold a California law that tried to force federal immigration officers to display their names on their uniforms while they are out enforcing laws.

The three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the state was trying to regulate federal law enforcement, which violates the Constitution.

“The Supremacy Clause forbids the state from enforcing such legislation,” wrote Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee.

The Ten Commandments posted in Texas classrooms does not violate the Constitution, a federal appeals court ruled, plowing new ground in religious law. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was deeply divided on the case, ruling 9-8.

The majority said the law does not look anything like the sort of establishment of religion the founders contemplated when they wrote the First Amendment barring such entanglements.

Nor, the court said, does the law upend anyone’s free exercise of their own religion.

The ruling came from the full circuit and saw dissents from five judges appointed by Democratic presidents and three appointed by a Republican, George W. Bush.

Nobody is writing American consumers a refund check for Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which the Supreme Court deemed illegal, writes Joseph Curl.

Michael McKenna argues that America runs the risk of ceding the lead in artificial intelligence if it listens to critics such as Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent.

Spain has transformed from a historically reliable ally into NATO’s weakest link — and a danger to the military alliance, asserts Emilio T. Gonzalez.