What happened
President Donald Trump’s National Guard deployment to Washington, D.C., will cost the federal government another $1.4 billion through the end of his term in 2029, according to a Defense Department estimate for Congress obtained by news organizations yesterday. The estimate “offers a glimpse of how much taxpayer money will be spent” on a deployment local officials call an “infringement of their city’s autonomy,” said The Associated Press.

Who said what
The White House “has not disclosed the full cost of the mission so far,” The Washington Post said, so the Pentagon’s new figure represents the “most comprehensive accounting yet” of Trump’s “unprecedented use of the military.” In January, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the deployment was costing about $55 million per month, or more than $700 million to date. “The National Guard are not pawns and taxpayer dollars are not a piggy bank for Trump’s political stunts,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a statement.

What next?
About 4,600 military personnel were stationed in D.C. as of last week, and the new estimate assumes that an average of 2,500 National Guard members will be there for the remainder of Trump’s term. But it’s unclear if governors will “extend their state units for more than two years,” said the AP. Many local governments have “challenged the deployments in court,” said the Post.

What happened
A Spokane resident charged with first-degree arson for allegedly starting the biggest of three wildfires surrounding Washington’s second-largest city was questioned by police during two fire investigations last year, according to court documents released yesterday. Aaron Farinacci, who was arrested Monday evening and made his first court appearance yesterday, served nearly a decade in prison in Arizona for fatally shooting his father during an argument over washing dishes. Spokane’s three fires, which have destroyed more than 700 buildings, are “ranked as the top firefighting priority in the ​U.S.,” Reuters said.

Who said what
Two sheriff’s deputies stopped Farinacci, 37, near the fast-growing Old Trails Fire on Saturday, but they were “unaware” of his “prior fire-related contacts,” The Associated Press said. Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels said Farinacci was carrying waterproof matches, a butane lighter and cigarettes. Nowels credited local resident Paul Child, 64, for noticing and reporting Farinacci’s suspicious behavior at the site where the fire began. When smoke appeared 10-15 minutes after he saw Farinacci bending over the grass and acting nervous, Child told The Spokesman-Review, “my immediate thought was that SOB started a fire.”

What next?
Farinacci is expected to enter a plea at his arraignment tomorrow. First-degree arson is punishable by up to life in prison.

Television might actually be rotting our brains. Frequent TV watching in midlife was associated with reduced volume in the parts of the brain vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

Surprisingly, the brain volume reduction was not tied to sedentary behavior but specifically to watching TV. “People whose jobs involved sitting for much of the day tended to have healthier-looking brains,” said ScienceAlert. And “when the researchers accounted for differences in overall physical activity, that didn’t seem to impact the outcome.”

The results showed that men were particularly vulnerable to these brain changes. “This could be because men and women accumulate sedentary time differently,” study lead author Natan Feter said to ScienceAlert. “Women may interrupt their sitting more often,” or “biological differences in how the brain responds to prolonged sedentary behavior” may be to blame. In general, women also “tend to prefer TV programming in shorter chunks,” said ScienceAlert. 

The study “shows an association, not a cause-and-effect relationship” between TV and dementia, Feter said to Healthline. The researchers also “relied on self-reported data for TV consumption, which can be less precise than timed tracking,” said a news release about the study.

“For years, we’ve focused on how much people sit,” said senior study author David Raichlen. But these findings “suggest we should also pay attention to what they’re doing while they’re sitting.” Working from home, while sedentary, is more “intellectually stimulating” than watching TV, said the release. “We might eventually see a different approach to health guidance” as a result of this research.