Republican defense hawks say Plan B in House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-Louisiana) stopgap federal spending bill is a no-go if it still includes the six-month deadline. “If it goes past December 31, I'm not in favor of it,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) told The Hill on Wednesday. House Republican leaders on Wednesday withdrew their planned six-month stopgap budget proposal just hours before it was due to go ahead.

The Secret Service announced Thursday that the vote counting scheduled for Jan. 6 “has been designated a special national security event by the Secretary of Homeland Security.” “The counting and certification of the 2025 Electoral Vote, which will take place in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2025, has been designated a special national security event by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” the Secret Service said in a press release about the Department of Homeland Security.

The American-made M1 Abrams is considered one of the best tanks in the world, but on the Ukrainian battlefield it has proven vulnerable to Russian drones and explosives, keeping the armored behemoths out of action. But Ukraine has modified the Abrams to better protect it in a relatively simple way: by wrapping a steel cage around the frame. A Ukrainian official behind the effort told The Hill…