Exiting stage right. The Kennedy Center has closed, at least for now, after its Trump-dominated board voted to shutter immediately for a two-year refurbishment. But the future of the iconic performing arts center is also in doubt, with Mr. Trump saying he won’t agree to repairs unless a court allows him to add his name to the finished product.

Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee to the district court in the District of Columbia, said that by law the center can honor only former President John F. Kennedy and that adding Mr. Trump’s name anywhere on the building or grounds would be illegal.

“Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” Judge Cooper wrote.

That the center needs repairs is not in doubt.

ICE is investigating Rep. Ilhan Omar to see whether she obtained her U.S. citizenship through fraud, White House border czar Tom Homan said.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Ms. Omar, Minnesota Democrat, “married her brother to try to bring him to the United States.

“There may be more to this, the whole family migration and possibly some illegal activity for them to come to the United States to begin with,” Mr. Mullin said.

Ms. Omar, a Somali by birth, came to the U.S. in 1995 at age 12. Her family was granted refugee status and she was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2000.

For years, she has denied claims from conservative opponents that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, whom she married in 2009, was her brother and that the union was to help him with immigration benefits.

Mr. Trump’s tariff war with Canada shows no signs of easing. In the latest salvo, the president warned that he might impose stiff punitive tariffs on the European Union if the bloc accepts Canada as its first “associate member.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he is open to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal. The designation, which would bring closer economic and defense ties between Europe and Canada, does not yet exist, so EU members would have to create and ratify it.

Russia sanctions. Congress approved a bill authorizing economic sanctions against Russia and nations financing Moscow’s war against Ukraine. The measure passed the House on a 262-159 vote, after the Senate passed it in August on an 86-11 vote.

The measure was sent to Mr. Trump’s desk, and the White House said he’ll likely sign it.

Supporters of the sanctions bill — named after its main champion, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican — hope Mr. Trump will use it to issue sweeping secondary tariffs of up to 100% on the top purchasers of Russian oil. China and India top that list.

“Putin has chosen to continue this war regardless of the cost in Russian lives. Russia can only continue fighting because of those who choose to fund Putin’s war machine by buying cheap Russian energy,” said Rep. Mike Turner, Ohio Republican.

Opponents, primarily Democrats, fear the president will abuse his new tariff authority to impose higher levies in his long-running trade war, a move they say risks further strain on U.S. relations with allied nations.

The check is not in the mail, Republican congressional leaders say.

The GOP isn’t making any promises about handing out $5,000 checks to every adult American, even after Mr. Trump said it would be “easy enough” if Republicans win in November.

Republicans in Congress are scrambling to defend the checks and the $1.2 trillion cost to hand them out.

Another balloting setback. The Supreme Court declined to lift an injunction blocking Mr. Trump’s attempt to use the U.S. Postal Service to regulate mailed ballots in this year’s elections, dealing a significant blow to the administration’s effort to impose new rules on mail-in voting.

The court issued a brief order saying the administration was unlikely to prevail on the merits and therefore the lower court’s preliminary injunction blocking the rule will remain in effect while litigation continues.

Some states have already begun sending out mail ballots, and that process can now proceed normally under the existing rules.

Mr. Trump had ordered the Postal Service to obtain from states the lists of all voters to whom they intended to send mail ballots. The states would then have to send out those ballots in envelopes approved by the Postal Service, with bar codes so postal officials could identify and track the ballots.

A second federal judge issued a ruling halting the idea. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee to the court in Washington, said it’s up to Congress, not the president, to set such rules on the post office.

The president criticized his appointees who ruled against him, saying they are “merely a shell” of the judges he interviewed to sit on the Supreme Court.

“It is a Court that will go down as having rendered some of the most destructive, hurtful, and damaging decisions in our Country’s history,” he wrote on social media.

“How many times can a con man run the same con?” Joseph Curl asks about Mr. Trump, who keeps promising checks to U.S. citizens.

Frank Kaufmann argues that Congress has abandoned its Constitution-created role as it succumbs to political polarization.

The Republican message for the midterm elections should be common sense vs. crazy, Peter Parisi writes.