defense

Days when the temperature breaks 100 degrees Fahrenheit at U.S. military bases will happen by 2050 nearly five times as often as they do now without action to address climate change, the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a report released Monday.

All told, it will amount to roughly another month of dangerous heat every year, according to the nonprofit group. Unsurprisingly, troops at bases in the Southwest and the South will suffer more than peers elsewhere, including the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Ariz. and the MacDill and Homestead bases in Florida, which are forecast to be the three facilities that see the greatest increases.

Navy Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson is considering a run for Congress in Texas, two sources familiar with his plans said Friday.

Jackson was the chief White House physician in 2018, when President Donald Trump nominated him to be Veterans Affairs secretary. But Jackson withdrew his name from consideration amid allegations that he abused alcohol and mishandled prescription drugs, although he said at the time the charges were “completely false and fabricated.”

Sens. Doug Jones and Mike Rounds want to expand a program started in the House that gives wounded veterans an opportunity to work in congressional offices.

The two introduced a resolution just before Veterans Day that would establish the McCain-Mansfield Fellowship, a two-year program giving each Senate office a “wounded warrior” to serve as a fellow in a state or Washington, D.C. office.

The House will take up a stopgap funding bill, legislation to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, and a voting rights measure in November, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said in a “Dear Colleague” letter Friday.

The House has been on recess this week and will return Tuesday after the Veterans Day holiday for two consecutive weeks of legislative sessions before recessing again for the week of Thanksgiving. 

At the conclusion of Thursday’s closed-door testimony from Jennifer Williams, a longtime State Department official who is detailed to work with Vice President Mike Pence, Rep. Eric Swalwell told reporters that it's not yet clear whether she'll be the last witness deposed in the first phase of the inquiry.

The committee would still like to hear from acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Friday, although Swalwell acknowledged Mulvaney is unlikely to show. The California Democrat and member of House Intelligence, one of the three committees leading the impeachment inquiry, said the committee is still finalizing its schedule for the remainder of the week.

House Democratic impeachment investigators Wednesday unsealed testimony of one of their potential star witnesses, William Taylor, who alleged some of President Donald Trump’s closest advisers sought a quid pro quo from Ukraine to advance the president’s political interests.

Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told lawmakers at his deposition earlier this month that some top officials in the Trump administration, led from the outside by the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, pressured Ukraine to publicly announce anti-corruption investigations into the Bidens and other Democrats in exchange for the U.S. unfreezing $400 million in military aid.

Kurt Volker knew by early July that he and other Trump administration officials had a problem. More precisely, he realized, “There’s a Giuliani problem here.”

That is what the former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine told the House panels leading Democrats’ impeachment inquiry just weeks ago, referring to Rudolph Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney. The former U.S. attorney and New York City mayor is at the forefront of testimony that Volcker and Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, gave the House committees. Giuliani’s name comes up over and over, with both officials raising concerns about his role in American diplomacy despite having no government position.

President Donald Trump on Monday unveiled a new attack on Democrats one year ahead of the 2020 election, saying at a rally in Kentucky that the party wants to enact an “authoritarian agenda.”

Trump also vowed to return to the state “many times” to campaign for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who faces what some political experts call a serious Democratic challenge from Amy McGrath. Trump also urged Kentucky voters to reelect their “pain in the ass” incumbent Republican governor, Matt Bevin, to “send a message” about Trump’s own coattails.

Businessman Lev Parnas appears to have changed his mind about not cooperating with the House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry.

His lawyer told Reuters Monday that Parnas, who is currently under indictment, would provide records and testimony.

President Donald Trump gave no indication Friday he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are closer to signing a “Phase One” trade pact, but he does have a place in mind where a signing event for it could happen — a battleground state that has borne the brunt of the U.S.-China trade war.

“It could even be in Iowa,” he told reporters on the White House South Lawn as he departed for a campaign rally in Mississippi. “I would do it in the U.S. He would too,” he added, speaking for Xi.