Today's Headlines and Commentary

President Donald Trump submitted the annual White House budget request to Congress, including an additional $8.6 billion for wall construction along the U.S. southern border, the New York Times reports. Democrats in both chambers declared they would oppose the request.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made his first ever official visit to Iraq, emphasizing political and economic ties between the two countries, according to the Washington Post.

U.S. airstrikes against al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, have significantly increased in the past four months, the Times details.

An expert report to the UN Security Council accused North Korea of again violating UN sanctions through ship-to-ship transfers of coal and petroleum and arms sales to groups in Yemen, Libya and Sudan, the Wall Street Journal reports.

A monitoring group detailed the Syrian government’s widespread use of sexual violence against male detainees in regime custody, according to the Post.

A Malaysian court dropped charges against an Indonesian woman who was accused of murdering North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half brother in the Kuala Lumpur airport in 2017, Reuters reports.

ICYMI: Last Weekend on Lawfare

Matthew Waxman continued his series on the historical development of war powers, reflecting on President Eisenhower's 1957 congressional use of force authorization in the Middle East. And Benjamin Wittes shared an episode of the Lawfare Podcast featuring a discussion with Waxman on this episode and other moments in history involving constitutional war powers.

Sarah Grant unpacked recent litigation over the Trump administration’s transgender military service ban, including a federal court ruling last week, which removed a major obstacle to implementing the ban.

Seamus Hughes and Haroro J. Ingram assessed the Trump administration’s domestic countering violent extremism policies for the Foreign Policy Essay.