Congress will have to the raise the debt ceiling in the first half of March, weeks earlier than forecast, or the federal government will run out of cash, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. The CBO attributed the shortened deadline to the tax overhaul Republicans passed in late 2017, which will lower tax receipts by $10 billion to $15 billion a month starting in February. In all, the U.S. will take in $136 billion less tax revenue in 2018 under the new tax law, the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates.

The Treasury Department has been taking emergency measures to keep the U.S. solvent since the debt limit was suspended Dec. 8, but if Congress doesn't raise the federal borrowing limit in early March, "the government would be unable to pay its obligations fully, and it would delay making payments for its activities, default on its debt obligations, or both," the CBO warned. The federal government ran a $23 billion deficit in December and a $666 billion deficit for all of 2017, the biggest shortfall since 2013.

Congress hates raising the debt ceiling but has never failed to do so, brinkmanship notwithstanding. Lawmakers also have to pass a spending bill by Feb. 8 to keep the government open, and deal with the immigration status of DREAMers before President Trump's March deadline. It's possible all these items will be rolled up into a big, must-pass package, The Washington Post notes, though House conservatives would balk "and it's unclear what political coalition will form this time to help raise the borrowing limit." Peter Weber

Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) attended President Trump's re-election rally in Orlando on Tuesday night. Graham and Rubio, both of whom ran against Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, used to be critical of Trump's rhetoric and policies, employing language now used only by Democrats and #NeverTrump Republicans. Scott, when he was Florida's governor and running for Senate, skipped a Trump rally in Florida. These days Graham is Trump's golfing buddy and Rubio mostly supports Trump's polices.

During Trump's Tuesday night rally, which New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman described as "a bleak panoply of grievance and anger at Democrats, the media, and a reference to the Academy Awards," some journalists noted Rubio's previous critiques of Trump. Rubio tweeted back.

For a sense of how 2016 Rubio viewed Trump's divisive and ugly rallies, here's one example:

Rubio didn't seem entirely comfortable with Trump's rhetoric on Tuesday, but what's he supposed to do? Stay in Washington? Peter Weber

During his May trip to Baghdad, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shared a message with Iraqi leaders that he wanted passed on to Iran: If any attacks by the country or its proxies killed any U.S. troops, there would be military action, U.S. officials told The Washington Post.

Pompeo has issued a few private warnings, the officials said. Tensions are mounting between the U.S. and Iran, with the U.S. accusing Iran of attacking oil tankers in the Middle East and Iran, which denies attacking the tankers, saying it will soon violate the 2015 nuclear deal by having too much low-enriched uranium in its stockpile. On Monday, the Pentagon announced it will send 1,000 additional troops to the Middle East, and while at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa on Tuesday, Pompeo said President Trump "does not want war," and the U.S. is in the region to "deter aggression."

U.S. officials told the Post there are concerns that because there hasn't been a confirmed Defense Secretary in several months, the hawks advising Trump — including Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton — are pushing for the military to do more than its mission in the region, which is to eliminate the remnants of the Islamic State. Bolton, the officials added, is careful about what information gets to Trump, and has reduced the number of meetings where top officials discuss the Iran policy. Catherine Garcia

President Trump made some pretty big promises Tuesday night during a rally in Orlando.

The event marked the official launch of his re-election campaign, and during his nearly 90-minute speech, Trump vowed that if he gets a second term, "we will come up with the cures to many, many problems, to many, many diseases, including cancer. We will eradicate AIDS in America, and we're very close."

Trump made several false claims, including that he passed the largest tax cut in history — it was the eighth largest, and smaller than two of former President Barack Obama's tax cuts, The Washington Post has noted — and that the unemployment rate has never been lower (it was 3.6 percent in May, but as low as 2.5 percent in 1953).

Trump railed against socialism, said Democrats are "more unhinged" than they ever have been, and in a moment straight out of 2016, he criticized Hillary Clinton, which triggered the crowd to start chanting, "Lock her up! Lock her up!" In one sign that Trump might be ready to leave the past behind him, he asked the audience to help him decide between sticking with "Make America Great Again" as his slogan or switching to "Keep America Great." By the amount of cheers, The Guardian reports, it was apparent the crowd preferred KAG to MAGA. Catherine Garcia

Scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks were stunned when they discovered that permafrost in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted.

"What we saw was amazing," Prof. Vladimir E. Romanovsky told Reuters. "It's an indication that the climate is now warmer than at any time in the last 5,000 or more years." The scientists made their last expedition in 2016, visiting a remote location only accessible by propeller plane, and couldn't believe what they saw — there were depressions and ponds and lots of vegetation, a completely different scene from what they saw during their first trip a decade earlier.

Unusually hot summers triggered the thaw, and it is likely other areas of the Canadian Arctic are also affected; the scientists are preparing to expand their study. When permafrost thaws at a fast rate, large amounts of heat-trapping gasses are released into the atmosphere, and that concerns scientists, as this will make global temperatures rise even faster. "Thawing permafrost is one of the tipping points for climate breakdown and it's happening before our eyes," Greenpeace International Executive Director Jennifer Morgan told Reuters. "The premature thawing is another clear signal that we must decarbonize our economies, and immediately." Catherine Garcia

DNA evidence exonerated them and another man confessed to the crime, but President Trump refuses to apologize to the Central Park Five for demanding that they be executed.

In 1989, a woman was beaten, raped, and left for dead in New York's Central Park. Five black and Latino teenagers were accused of the crime, and later recanted confessions they said were made under duress. The teens — dubbed the Central Park Five — pleaded not guilty, and while none of their DNA matched samples from the crime scene, they were found guilty. Later, a convicted murderer and rapist confessed he was the perpetrator, and it was determined his DNA matched the samples. After being wrongfully imprisoned, the Central Park Five were exonerated and later reached a settlement with the city of New York.

Ten days after the crime was committed, Trump paid for full-page ads in four newspapers, calling for the Central Park Five to be executed with the message: "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!" A new Netflix miniseries about the case, When They See Us, has the country talking about the Central Park Five, and American Urban Radio Networks correspondent April Ryan asked Trump on Tuesday if he would ever apologize to the men. "You have people on both sides of that," Trump responded. "They admitted their guilt ... some of the prosecutors think the city should never have settled that case and we'll leave it at that."

One of the men, Yusef Salaam, wrote in The Washington Post ahead of the 2016 presidential election that Trump "has never apologized for calling for our deaths. It's further proof of Trump's bias, racism, and inability to admit that he's wrong." Catherine Garcia

San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday for an ordinance it hopes will tackle the "growing health epidemic of youth vaping."

The supervisors voted to amend the health code to ban the sale and distribution of e-cigarettes in the city, and the final vote is expected next week. "This is about thinking about the next generation of users and thinking about protecting the overall health and sending a message to the rest of the state and the country: Follow our lead," Supervisor Ahsha Safai said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2018, 4.9 million middle and high school students were vaping, up from 3.6 million in 2017. The e-cigarette company Juul is based in San Francisco, and says vaping is a safer alternative to smoking tobacco. "The prohibition of vapor products for all adults in San Francisco will not effectively address underage use and will leave cigarettes on shelves as the only choice for adult smokers, even though they kill 40,000 Californians every year," Juul spokesman Ted Kwong told NBC News. Catherine Garcia