By Alanna Durkin Richer

Eric Tucker

Michael Balsamo

Michelle L. Price

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general, ending the contentious tenure of a loyalist who upended the Justice Department’s culture of independence from the White House, oversaw large-scale firings of career employees and moved aggressively to investigate the Republican president’s perceived enemies.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the escalating war in Iran, the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs would ordinarily be at the center of the geopolitical fray.

The bureau’s role would be to coordinate U.S. foreign policy across an 18-country region, much of which has become a chaotic battlefield scarred by drone and missile strikes as the U.S. and Israel remain locked in conflict with Iran.