Today's D Brief: Killer heat; NATO’s Afghan withdrawal; New debate over war authorizations; Border crossings; And a bit more.

A devastating heat wave is sweeping across Canada and America’s west, and it’s drawn the attention of President Joe Biden and his cabinet today. They’ll talk with the governors of Washington, Oregon, California, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada and Colorado, as well as “private sector partners,” in the White House’s South Court Auditorium at 11 a.m. this morning.  

The heatwave is so bad in the Pacific NW that rolling blackouts have begun in Spokane, Washington, which just set a new record for highest recorded temperatures at 109 degrees Fahrenheit, the Associated Press reports on location. 

The local utility provider, Avista, says it’s struggling with “a new peak demand” on electrical usage since Friday, and that “required us to proactively turn off power for some customers,” the company’s president said Tuesday. “This happened faster than anticipated.” The heatwave is now moving inland, “threatening people, crops and wildlife,” the Wall Street Journal reports from Yakima, Wash. 

Canada notched its hottest day ever yesterday. A staggering 134 deaths in Vancouver since Friday are believed to be linked to the heat, according to Agence France-Presse. What’s worse for public health, “The heat wave has forced schools and Covid-19 vaccination centers to close in the Vancouver area, while officials set up temporary water fountains and misting stations on street corners.”

A phenomenon called a “heat dome” is sweeping across a portion of the globe. And this happens when "the atmosphere traps hot ocean air like a lid or cap," AFP reports in a helpful illustration. When mixed with a northward jetstream and eastward winds, that dome sinks over wide swaths of land and can induce hyperthermia. 

And this heat dome, which itself is not unusual, is "worsened by human-caused climate change, which is making such extreme weather events more likely and more extreme," AP reports. Read on, here. Or learn more from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

One more thing: This kind of heat imperils infrastructure, an engineering professor says. For example, Portland’s tram system shut down after its cables sagged in the heat. "We have to figure out ways to make that stuff, those systems, resilient to increasing extremes," Constantine Samaras of Carnegie Mellon University told The Atlantic. But even new infrastructure isn’t being built for the new normal. "The public might look at engineering and say, ‘Of course they’re designing for a future climate; it would be silly if they weren’t,’" Samaras said. "But we’re basically not doing it." Read on, here.

From Defense One

New Radar Method Could Reveal Space Junk, Super Fast Missiles, Objects Behind Walls // Patrick Tucker: Multiple transmitters processed through a new algorithm can spot very difficult-to-track targets.

20 Federal Agencies Used Face-Recognition Tech in 2019-20 // Brandi Vincent: Most of the images were collected by the controversial company Clearview AI, a Government Accountability Office report found.

Air Strikes Renew Battle Over War Authorizations // Jacqueline Feldscher: Some lawmakers are using Sunday’s strikes in Iraq and Syria to push for keeping a two-decade-old statute, but law experts say their arguments don’t hold water.

Experts Assess the Unexplained in Government’s Recent UFO Report // Brandi Vincent: Officials briefed Nextgov on notable inclusions—and what might come next.

Congress Needs a Global Competition Caucus // Tim Welter: Today’s legislative stovepipes are hobbling America’s ability to compete with China.

Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief from Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. If you’re not already subscribed to The D Brief, you can do that here. On this day just two years ago, Donald Trump became the first U.S. president to visit North Korea. On this day 100 years ago, the Chinese Communist Party was first formed "in a small brick house in Shanghai's former French Concession," as CNN recalls today. AFP assembled some of the key events here.

Italy’s military has withdrawn from Afghanistan, Defence Minister Lorenzo Guerini announced today. "However, the international community’s commitment to Afghanistan, starting with Italy, does not end here," he said today in a statement. "It will continue in other forms, from strengthening development cooperation to supporting Afghan republican institutions."
By the numbers: "50,000 Italian soldiers were deployed to Afghanistan over the past 20 years," AFP reports. "Over that period, 53 soldiers died and 723 were injured." AFP has a tiny bit more from Rome, here.
The Germans are gone as well, having withdrawn through Tbilisi, Georgia. Over the years, Germany sent more than 150,000 troops to Afghanistan, more than any other NATO country save the United States. 59 German troops died there, Reuters reports.
ICYMI last week, the U.S. and NATO exit from Afghanistan is leaving behind a heap of opportunity for scrap metal salesmen, AFP reported from Kabul in a piece titled "Junkyard of empires."
Hot ticket items include copper wiring inside cables, "circuit boards broken down for rare-earth metals, and aluminium" that's later "smelted into ingots."

This week in infowars: The news just isn’t as "war-like" as it used to be, according to Axios, reporting Tuesday off data from "news bias ranking service NewsGuard."
What’s going on: Since former President Donald Trump lost re-election, "media companies’ readership numbers are plunging — and publishers that rely on partisan, ideological warfare have taken an especially big hit," Axios’s Neal Rothschild and Sara Fischer write. And this means, e.g., "A slower political news cycle has put the spotlight on breaking news stories that may not have otherwise gotten as much attention in the Trump era, like a ship getting caught in the Suez Canal or the Derek Chauvin trial."
Expect all that to change in time for America’s midterm elections in 2022, especially if the "enormous growth in conservative podcasts over the past year" doesn’t unearth some related media trends. Read on at Axios, here.

Trump is dropping by Texas’ Rio Grande Valley today, "where the former president was expected to rail against illegal immigration," AP reports in a preview that zeroes in on the rising profile of Indiana Republican Rep. Jim Banks.
BTW: "More than 1 million migrants have been arrested after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border since last October...surpassing the 2019 border crisis tally with three months still left in the fiscal year," CNN reports.

• In other Trump news, "The Manhattan district attorney’s office is expected to charge the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer with tax-related crimes on Thursday," the WSJ reported Thursday, noting that these would be "the first criminal charges against the former president’s company since prosecutors began investigating it three years ago."

A wealthy GOP donor from Tennessee is paying to send 50 North Dakota National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border for at least a month, maybe two, Politico reports. His name is Willis Johnson, and he's the founder of a company called Copart Inc., "which auctions used, wholesale and wrecked cars." (The Daily Beast calls him a "junk-care billionaire.") The money — which has not been specified — is being routed through what’s called Willis and Reba Johnson's Foundation.
The spokesman for North Dakota’s governor insists this is all legal, telling Politico in a text message, "The Governor has authority under SDCL 5-24-12 to accept a donation if she determines doing so is in the best interest of the State. The Governor has additional authority to accept donated funds for emergency management under SDCL 34-48A-36."
Said Governor Krisi Noem in a statement: "The border is a national security crisis that requires the kind of sustained response only the National Guard can provide...My message to Texas is this: help is on the way."
Worth noting: "Noem, who is up for reelection next year, is seen as a likely 2024 Republican presidential candidate and last month started a federal PAC called Noem Victory Fund." Read on, here. 

And finally today: A model enthusiast built a navy destroyer that drives on a golf cart, Chicago’s ABC7 News reported this weekend. His name is Greg Machak, and he built the drivable destroyer — as part of a local fundraising event — “in honor of [his] uncle, Joe Vercellotti, who served as chief engineer on the real-life USS Hollister.” Watch Greg explain a bit more in a video here.