Trump honors
President Donald Trump announced last weekend he will present the nation’s highest civilian honor Friday to seven Americans, including a king and a sultan.
The president will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously to singer Elvis Presley (known as the “King of Rock ’n’ Roll”), baseball’s George Herman “Babe” Ruth (aka the “Sultan of Swat”), and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a staunch originalist on the bench who died one year before Trump took office.
The other recipients are retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who is the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history (41 years); doctor and philanthropist Miriam Adelson, who is the wife of major GOP donor and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; and former NFL stars Roger Staubach, a Hall of Fame quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, and Alan Page, another Hall of Famer who went from being a member of the Minnesota Vikings’ Purple People Eaters defensive line to serving more than two decades on the Minnesota Supreme Court.
The seven are the first to receive the honor since Trump took office. —Mickey McLean
Report: U.S. military ill-prepared to fight
The United States’ military readiness has “eroded to a dangerous decree,” according to a new assessment by the bipartisan National Defense Strategy Commission. The geopolitical risk for military conflict is high, the report states, and the U.S. military is not ready to fight a major adversary like China or Russia—and definitely not both at the same time. —Lynde Langdon
Sick days
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg returned to work Tuesday after a brief absence due to injury. The 85-year-old fell the evening of Nov. 7 and fractured three ribs. She came back to the court after a brief hospital stay and convalescence at home but was not on the bench Tuesday morning when the court met for routine business. —L.L.