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The U.S. House of Representatives voted this week to end the war in Iran. While not yet passed into law, it demonstrates a break between the Trump administration and the GOP-majority legislative body.

In light of its recent ruling concerning the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court once again cleared the way for Alabama to use its new Congressional map. This comes despite a three-judge panel has blocking the map in late May.

A convicted Jan. 6 rioter was hired at the Pentagon this week. Elias Irizarry will now work in one of the agency’s offices that handles highly-classified military information.

And, in global news, talks between Washington and Tehran are hanging by a thread. Now, Iranian officials say they have yet to deploy the full power of their military and they are prepared for any scenario, even a direct confrontation.

Ukrainian missiles hit the Russian city of St. Petersburg this week as Vladimir Putin’s premiere economic forum begins.

And during testimony on Capitol Hill, Marco Rubio told lawmakers that Greenland remains a part of Denmark “for now.”

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

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On Tuesday, a legion of screaming fans packed the Beacon Theatre in New York City – arms outstretched for the glittery, long-haired rock star known as the Vampire Lestat.

Of course, in reality, the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt and his touring band don’t exist. He’s the creation of beloved horror writer Anne Rice. And this version of him, played by actor Sam Reid, is the lead of AMC’s television adaptation of Rice’s books.

But for the fans who packed the Beacon Theatre this week, these distinctions are unimportant. And it speaks to a shared commitment between the fans of Rice’s vampiric world and the actors and creators behind the series who strive to honor it.

The third season of “Interview with the Vampire’s” begins airing Sunday. It’s a departure from the first two – which focused on Louis de Point du Lac, played by actor Jacob Anderson, his transformation into a vampire, and his rocky relationship with his maker.

The third season puts Lestat in the driver’s seat – his perspective, his music, and a peak into his 200-year backstory. We sit down with the series showrunner and the actors to discuss the show’s third season, honoring Rice’s vision, and rocking out as a vampire.

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More than 300,000 federal workers have left government service since the start of the second Trump administration.

Some were laid off by the administration. Some took buyouts. Some walked out. The cuts hit every major agency — from the State Department to the Justice Department.

That doesn’t mean things have been easy for those still working for the government. Last week, the Office of Personnel Management proposed requiring all federal employees to sign non-disclosure agreements that would prevent them from sharing internal government information.

We sit down to talk about how those cuts are affecting the workers who remained.

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Smart phones. Smart cars. Smart speakers. Web browsers. Social media. Artificial Intelligence.

Technologies we rely on every day generate a massive amount of information about what we do, where we go, what we like, and who we are. That data can make life very convenient — your rideshare app knows where you want go before you enter an address, you only see ads for products you’re already interested in buying, videos on subjects you enjoy are already auto-populated in your feed.

But at what cost? What’s the tradeoff?

Andrew Guthrie Ferguson is a professor of law at the George Washington University School of Law and a national surveillance expert. He says that the rise of the self-surveillance state has big ramifications for Americans’ personal freedoms and America’s democratic values.

We sit down with him to talk about how are data is being used against us and about his books, “Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance.”

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Since the start of his second term, President Donald Trump has fashioned the Department of Justice into a tool he can wield against his enemies.

So far, Trump has installed his personal lawyer as the top official. He’s culled the ranks of career prosecutors. And he’s pressured U.S. attorneys into bringing cases against people he considers political enemies.

In recent months, grand juries have acted as the last line of defense against his full weaponization of the justice system — refusing to indict in cases where the government hasn’t proven a crime has been committed.

In this latest installment of our weekly politics series, “If You Can Keep It,” what do recent high-profile grand jury proceedings tell us about accountability at the Justice Department?

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