President Donald Trump is planning lunch with GOP senators after sparring with several of them, as congressional Republicans turn to overhauling the tax code. It will be Trump's first appearance as president at Senate Republicans' regular Tuesday policy lunch at the Capitol. The gathering has the potential for awkward moments, because it follows spats between Trump and GOP senators such as John McCain of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee, as well as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. McConnell and Trump had a joint news conference last week to announce they had smoothed things over and underscore their common focus on taxes. But Trump's comments at that event spawned the controversy over his treatment of fallen U.S. troops, underscoring how the president's lack of discipline repeatedly takes the White House off-message, a continuing frustration for members of Congress. Get More

An emerging theory among U.S. military investigators is that the Army Special Forces soldiers ambushed in Niger were set up by terrorists, who were tipped off in advance about a meeting in a village sympathetic to local ISIS affiliates, three U.S. officials who have been briefed on the matter told NBC News. The group of American Green Berets and support soldiers had requested a meeting with elders of a village that was seen as supportive of the Islamic State, and they attended the meeting around 11 a.m. local time Oct. 4, after a long night of patrolling, the officials said. Such meetings are a routine part of the Green Beret mission, but it wasn't clear whether this meeting was part of the unit's plan. Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not address that theory when he briefed reporters on the incident Monday. He said the troops had been on a reconnaissance mission. Get More at NBC News

A non-partisan federal watchdog says climate change is already costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars each year, with those costs expected to rise as devastating storms, floods, wildfires and droughts become more frequent in the coming decades. A Government Accountability Office report released Monday said the federal government has spent more than $350 billion over the last decade on disaster assistance programs and losses from flood and crop insurance. That tally does not include the massive toll from this year's wildfires and three major hurricanes, expected to be among the most costly in the nation's history. The report predicts these costs will only grow in the future, potentially reaching a budget busting $35 billion a year by 2050. The report says the federal government doesn't effectively plan for these recurring costs, classifying the financial exposure from climate-related costs as "high risk." Get More

President Donald Trump's personal lawyer is scheduled to speak Tuesday with investigators for the House probe into Russia's involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, NBC News reported. Sources familiar with the House Intelligence Committee's probe say Michael Cohen will talk with them in private. The sources requested anonymity to discuss private workings of the House probe. A source with first-hand knowledge told NBC News that Cohen will also appear before to Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday. Cohen is a former executive with the Trump Organization. He was in talks to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, but ended those negotiations as Trump's White House bid grew stronger. Get More at NBC News

The father of a Texas girl reported missing Oct. 7 is facing a felony charge of injury to a child, police say. Wesley Mathews was arrested Monday after he and his attorney arrived to the Richardson, Texas, police station and asked to speak with detectives, police said in a written statement. "Mathews provided an alternate statement of events from those which he had given previously" regarding the disappearance of his adopted 3-year-old daughter, police say. Get More

The ruling Communist Party on Tuesday formally lifted Xi Jinping's status to China's most powerful ruler in decades, setting the stage for the authoritarian leader to tighten his grip over the country while pursuing an increasingly muscular foreign policy and military expansion. The move to insert Xi's name and dogma into the party's constitution alongside the party's founders came at the close of a twice-a-decade congress that gathered the country's ruling elite alongside rank-and-file party members. It not only places him in the first rank with past leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, but also effectively makes any act of opposing him tantamount to an attack on the party itself. "The Chinese people and nation have a great and bright future ahead," Xi told party delegates as the meeting came to a close after delegates approved the addition of Xi's ideology of "socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era" to the party charter. Get More

The days of fruitlessly swiping and swiping (and swiping again) a MetroCard at a bad turnstile reader are officially numbered in New York City. That's because the MTA announced on Monday that it will begin making widespread replacements of the now ubiquitous card readers with a modern, contactless payment system that straphangers can use to get into the mass transit system late next year. MTA Chairman Joe Lhota said the new payment method will be available at every turnstile throughout the city by 2020, with as many as 500 contactless readers installed at subways and 600 in buses by next year. Officials told The New York Times, which first reported the imminent change, that straphangers would be able to use smartphones, certain debit and credit cards or other devices embedded with near-field communication chips to get onto their train. Get More

Crying babies push the same "buttons" in their mothers' brains no matter what their culture, a new study suggests. The research found that mothers in 11 countries tend to react the same way to their bawling child — by picking up and talking to the baby — and that the way mothers respond seems to be programmed into their brain circuits. An author of the study said he hopes the results will spur others to study brain responses in women who mistreat their children. Crying is a common trigger for abuse, said Marc Bornstein of the government's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Maryland. Get More

A California surfer has won a recycled surfboard contest with an entry covered with 10,000 cigarette butts. "This is the most polluted item picked up on the beach," creator Taylor Lane told the Orange County Register. "And no one thinks twice that you can do anything with it." Lane, 24, from Santa Cruz had the top entry amid an assortment of boards made from potato sacks, used packaging and stuff picked up from Dumpster dives. An Australian entry was made from an old bathroom door. Get More

U.S. officials are preparing a recommendation for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to declare that "ethnic cleansing" is occurring against Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims. That assessment would raise pressure on the Trump administration and U.S. lawmakers to consider new sanctions on a country that had been lauded for its democratic transition. Tillerson could receive the recommendation as early as this week, said officials familiar with the process. He will then decide whether to adopt the advice of his agency's policy experts and lawyers. A declaration of "ethnic cleansing" by the top U.S. diplomat would mark a reversal of fortune in American relations with the country also known as Burma, whose civilian government has been under the leadership of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for more than a year. Get More

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. is recalling 161,167 vehicles in the U.S. and Canada because electric relays can cause the engine to stall or overheat. The recall affects the 2015-2017 Outlander SUV, the 2015-2017 Lancer sedan and Outlander Sport, and the 2015 Lancer Evolution sport sedan. Most are in the U.S. but 28,615 are in Canada. Get More

President Donald Trump is sounding an off-key note on his economic performance and perhaps overstating how much the public wants his tax package. A look at some of his statements about the economy over the weekend and a rash of misstatements on a variety of topics over the past week: Get More

Eight former federal energy regulators — including five former commission chairs — oppose a Trump administration plan to bolster nuclear and coal-fired power plants, arguing it would raise prices and disrupt electricity markets. The former officials, who served under presidents from both parties, call the plan "a significant step backward." The plan by Energy Secretary Rick Perry would reward nuclear and coal-fired power plants for adding reliability to the nation's power grid. Get More