National News at a Glance

As Trump Goes on a Twitter Rampage, Melania Trump Announces a Solo Trip to Africa

Under the banner of her “Be Best” campaign, first lady Melania Trump told a group of cyberbullying prevention experts Monday at a Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention session that social media “can be destructive and harmful when used incorrectly.” Just after she spoke, President Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of tweets in which he called a former CIA director a “hack” and mocked the effectiveness of the Justice Department, among other digital insults. Later Monday, Melania Trump’s office announced a solo trip for the first lady this fall to Africa — a continent whose countries and citizens her husband has disparaged with coarse language.

Watergate Informant is Back in the Limelight

A pivotal figure in the Watergate investigation, John W. Dean, was dragged back into the limelight Sunday with President Donald Trump’s defense of the current White House counsel, Don McGahn. On Saturday, The New York Times reported on McGahn’s cooperation with the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller. McGahn told people he was determined to avoid the fate of Dean, former White House counsel for President Richard Nixon. Trump took issue with the story, saying Sunday on Twitter that McGahn cooperated with his blessing. Further, he attacked The Times over the article, saying the news organization falsely implied McGahn was a “John Dean type ‘RAT.'”

Kavanaugh Urged Graphic Questions in Clinton Inquiry

Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, urged prosecutors investigating President Bill Clinton to question him in graphic detail about his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, according to a memorandum released Monday by the National Archives. Kavanaugh spent more than three years working for Ken Starr, the independent counsel who investigated a series of scandals during Clinton’s presidency, and he worked on the report that led the House of Representatives to impeach Clinton. The 1998 memo betrayed deep hostility to Clinton, and it included 10 proposed questions about matters like oral sex and masturbation.

Behind Most Wildfires, a Person and a Spark

California is experiencing its worst fire season in memory, with 1 million acres burned so far this year. With each new blaze, Californians ask, how did this happen? The answer: Destructive wildfires nearly always begin with a human, either intentionally or by mistake. This year, one began with a spark from a flat tire. Another when someone hammered a fence post amid dry vegetation. Still another was allegedly ignited by a conspiracy-minded recluse, Forrest Gordon Clark, who faces the possibility of life in prison. Rising temperatures and prolonged heat waves, which help set up the conditions that lead to more devastating fire seasons, are also a factor, scientists say.

President Praises U.S. Agent’s English

It was supposed to be a salute to the heroism of immigration agents. But on Monday, President Donald Trump appeared to have something else on his mind: the ethnicity of one of the men he was honoring. “Speaks perfect English,” Trump blurted out as he encouraged Adrian Anzaldua, a Hispanic-American Border Patrol agent and dog handler from Texas, to join him onstage in the East Room. Anzaldua recently arrested a smuggler who had tried to bring 78 people into the United States illegally inside a truck trailer. It was the latest example of the president making a racially tinged remark in public.

New EPA Rollback of Coal Pollution Regulations Takes a Major Step Forward

Andrew Wheeler, the acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, on Monday signed a plan to weaken regulation of coal-fired power plants, advancing a proposal that the coal industry has hailed as an end to burdensome regulation and environmentalists have criticized as a retreat in the battle to address climate change. The plan is one of the Trump administration’s most significant rollbacks yet of former President Barack Obama’s climate change legacy, alongside an earlier decision to let automobiles pollute more. The Affordable Clean Energy rule replaces the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which was designed to curtail greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.