President Biden is sending a “few thousand” more troops to the Middle East, the Pentagon said on Monday, as tensions rise amid Israel’s intensified attacks against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, the New York Times reports.

“The federal government has for the first time declared that the certification of the presidential vote next year will be treated as a ‘national special security event’ — an acknowledgment that the once-routine part of the democratic process now carries special risk,” Politico reports.

“The designation by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas places the Jan. 6 session of Congress on the same security footing as major events such as the Super Bowl or U.N. General Assembly.”

Donald Trump told the Daily Mail he would not be getting intelligence briefings as the Republican nominee for president for fear of being accused of leaking classified information.

Said Trump: “I don’t want them, because, number one, I know what’s happening. It’s very easy to see what’s happening.”

He added: “We have a Marxist that’s going to try and be president, and this country is not ready for a Marxist or a communist president, and that’s what she is… So I don’t want that, because as soon as I get that, they’ll say that I leaked it.”

“Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday relieved the overseer of the war court at Guantánamo Bay and revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week with the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two alleged accomplices,” the New York Times reports.

“The Pentagon announced the decision with the release of a memorandum relieving the senior official at the Defense Department responsible for military commissions of her oversight of the capital case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his alleged accomplices for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.”

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has resigned, just a day after her House testimony on the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, CNBC reports.

Cheatle was facing bipartisan calls for her resignation.

“As the Secret Service fields a barrage of investigations on the Trump shooting, it is also set to face the release of a report on another bruising episode: its response to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol,” Politico reports.

“Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, who in March pleaded guilty in a civilian court to willfully retaining and leaking classified intelligence, is now facing charges in military court, the Air Force announced,” CNN reports.

“A group of Republican senators followed Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle through the Fiserv Forum at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday evening, shouting questions at her about the agency’s failure to prevent the shooting at former president Donald Trump’s rally,” the Washington Post reports.

“Her public dressing-down by a group of U.S. senators at the GOP convention reflected the deep breach between top Republican officials and the agency, which is charged with the protection of the country’s leaders.”

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign and announced plans for a bipartisan task force to probe the shooting of Donald Trump, Axios reports.

“As world leaders gathered this week in Washington to celebrate 75 years of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, President Biden praised the protection offered by the alliance,” the Washington Post reports.

“However, not all of the United States is protected by that shield. The state of Hawaii, home to more than 1.4 million people and various U.S. military bases, is excluded from NATO provisions. With the military alliance finding itself increasingly entwined in security threats from China and other Asian nations, some lawmakers are now calling for that exclusion to be reevaluated.”

“Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, agreed to plead guilty on Monday to a single felony count of illegally obtaining and disclosing national security material in exchange for his release from a British prison, ending his long and bitter standoff with the United States,” the New York Times reports.

“He is expected to be sentenced to about five years, the equivalent of the time he has already served in Britain.”

Los Angeles Times: “The U.S. is facing security threats in a presidential election year coming from Islamic militants, far-right extremists, leftist radicals and an array of zealots disgruntled over the nation’s culture wars and our polarized society.”

“Alarmed by repeated warnings from top FBI and military officials, a former acting CIA director and a legendary foreign policy thinker write bluntly in Foreign Affairs: ‘The United States faces a serious threat of a terrorist attack in the months ahead,’” Axios reports.

“Michael Morell and Graham Allison write that there are striking echoes of the run-up to 9/11 — including warnings about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda by then-CIA director George Tenet.”

USA Today: “U.S. soldiers were almost nine times more likely to die by suicide than by enemy fire, according to a Pentagon study for the five-year period ending in 2019.”

“A senior Biden administration official warned on Friday that “absent a change” in nuclear strategy by China and Russia, the United States may be forced to expand its nuclear arsenal, after decades of cutting back through now largely abandoned arms control agreements,” the New York Times reports.