Wednesday Briefing: A Major U.S. Senate Hearing

Trump’s defense pick faced a divided Senate hearing

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, faced hours of questioning yesterday during his Senate confirmation hearing. A vote to decide whether he will lead the Pentagon — a department with three million employees and an $849 billion budget — could come as soon as Monday. Read more.

Republicans largely defended Hegseth. Democrats questioned him about sexual misconduct allegations — Hegseth was accused of rape in 2017 — and his drinking habits. They also called him unfit to lead the Pentagon, and grilled Hegseth, a former Fox News host, on his long history of disparaging comments about women in the military.

A key Republican, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, a veteran and a sexual assault survivor, appeared satisfied with his responses to her questions about the role of women in the military and sexual assault prevention. Ernst, who is seen as critical to Hegseth’s confirmation chances, spent much of her time focusing on their agreement that the Pentagon should be audited.

Quotable: Hegseth described himself as a changed man and a redemption story, and he dismissed the allegations against him as a “smear campaign.”

“Have you overcome personal issues or are you the target of a smear campaign?” Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a Democrat, asked. “You can’t be both.”

What’s next: It was unclear whether Hegseth left the hearing with the votes he needs to be confirmed. If all Senate Democrats oppose him, Hegseth will have to secure the backing of at least 50 of the 53 Republicans in the chamber.

Related: A report was released yesterday that detailed the special counsel’s investigation into Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Here are four takeaways.

Strong winds threatened to spread new fires in L.A.

Officials urged residents of Los Angeles County to brace themselves for potential power outages and to be ready to flee, as expected gusts and dry vegetation could create conditions for new blazes across Southern California. At least 24 people have been killed, about two dozen others are missing and thousands have been displaced. Follow our live coverage.

Firefighters already battled and contained a new brush fire yesterday, but officials were worried it could break free again in windy conditions. The largest blaze, the Palisades fire, was still far from contained. The Eaton fire, which has killed multiple people, was also not contained. Track the fires here.

A cultural loss: The scope of valuables destroyed by the blazes is only beginning to take shape. One resident lost about 30 works by Andy Warhol — and dozens more by other artists — when his Pacific Palisades home was destroyed. “It’s dust at this point,” he said.

Seeking a safe haven: Tens of thousands of evacuees were scrambling to find temporary shelter, exacerbating the housing shortage in one of America’s least affordable cities.

Israel and Hamas appear close to a cease-fire deal

Israel and Hamas are “on the brink” of agreeing to a cease-fire in Gaza and to the release of the hostages held there, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday.

Neither Israeli nor Hamas officials have publicly confirmed their position on the proposal. On Monday, a Hamas official said a deal was possible in the coming days as long as Israel didn’t change its positions, and an Israeli official said yesterday that Israel was ready to close the deal and was waiting on Hamas. Mediators, which include Qatar, Egypt and the U.S., warned that negotiations could break down at any moment, as they have so many times in the past.

The toll in Gaza: Deaths from bombs and other traumatic injuries during the first nine months of the war may have been underestimated by more than 40 percent, according to an analysis published in The Lancet.

The Maha Kumbh Mela festival in India begins this week, and it is expected to draw up to 400 million Hindu pilgrims to the banks of the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers in what would be the world’s largest human gathering. The ceremony, which happens every 12 years and centers on a series of holy baths, has also become an important political event.

This is the first festival since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party took power. It is a chance for him to promote his right-wing party.

Lives lived: Oliviero Toscani broke advertising boundaries with his Benetton campaigns that delved into AIDS, and racial and sexual diversity activism. He is dead at 82.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

Mapping ‘The Lord of the Rings’

Karen Wynn Fonstad, a cartographer, connected so deeply with the world depicted in “The Fellowship of the Ring” that she called J.R.R. Tolkien’s publisher in 1977 to pitch a dream assignment. Much to her surprise, an editor agreed.

The result was “The Atlas of Middle-earth,” a tome with 172 maps that renders Tolkien’s world in astonishing detail, including the bedrock morphology of the Shire, settlement patterns in Gondor and plate tectonics in Mordor. Poring over her work, you “feel like you can get dirt under your nails exploring a place,” one contemporary mapmaker said.

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