Today's five.

Rescinding a $1.8 billion fund to secure your own Senate confirmation is a very specific kind of Washington transaction. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche formally killed the Justice Department's "anti-weaponization fund" Sunday night — the one that critics noted could have paid pardoned January 6th defendants — after two Republican senators threatened to block his confirmation over it. They got their written assurance; he got their votes. The L.A. Times noted critics say Blanche's memo doesn't actually rule out the fund being revived later, which is the kind of detail that tends to get buried in the confirmation celebration.

Trump called off strikes on Iran, then immediately threatened Iran with strikes, which is one way to run a foreign policy. He cited the "perimeters of a deal" — a phrase that is doing enormous diplomatic heavy lifting. Oil dropped 5% on the news; markets are apparently taking the optimism at face value even if the analysts aren't. Semafor noted Saudi Arabia pressed Trump to hold off, suggesting Gulf states now have more pull than Israel in this particular drama. Five months of bombing threats and peace talks have produced, so far, more threats and more talks.

Seven times is no longer a pattern — it's a policy. Trump has threatened devastating strikes on Iran, and seven times those threats have not materialized, which foreign policy analysts note is the kind of thing adversaries notice. Bloomberg cited a former US ambassador warning Washington is nearing the "end of the tether" on credible ultimatums. CSIS told Bloomberg directly: Iran now believes it holds the upper hand. Reason led with the image of a president in retreat; ABC led with the receipts. The negotiations continue. So do the threats. At some point the threat is the policy.

A parasite that wasn't supposed to kill people in the U.S. just killed two. Michigan has now recorded over 11,000 cases of cyclosporiasis — a foodborne illness caused by a microscopic parasite that gets into produce when crops are irrigated or washed with contaminated water. Both deaths involved people with significant underlying health conditions, which the state health department noted carefully, then said it wouldn't be sharing anything else about the cases. The illness causes severe watery diarrhea; dehydration did the rest. The outbreak is believed to trace back to iceberg lettuce. The kind you put in salads because it's the healthy choice.

The House Ethics Committee released a 25-page report finding Rep. Chuck Edwards violated the "spirit" of sexual harassment rules — a phrase his attorneys immediately used to argue he didn't actually violate sexual harassment rules. The bipartisan panel recommended full censure after concluding Edwards engaged in "persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct" toward two young female staffers. Edwards cooperated with the investigation and denied any romantic or sexual intent. Axios led with the censure recommendation; his lawyers led with the acquittal framing. The full House still has to vote on whether to formally censure him, which is a whole separate conversation.