This report provides background information and issues for Congress on China's naval modernization effort and its implications for U.S. Navy capabilities. The question of how the United States should respond to China's military modernization effort, including its naval modernization effort, is a key issue in U.S. defense planning and budgeting. Many U.S. military programs for countering improving Chinese military forces (particularly its naval forces) fall within the U.S. Navy's budget.

This report outlines emergency department (ED) boarding of behavioral health (BH) patients and highlights areas for research and discusses policy options Congress may consider to reduce BH patient boarding. Behavioral health refers to patients with psychiatric and/or substance use disorders. Boarding refers to the holding of inpatients in an ED after an admission or transfer decision has been made.

This report provides an overview of the appropriations and provisions of the FY2019 Defense Appropriations Bill, such as proposed funding cuts and increases.

This report first provides a synopsis of the role of the National Hurricane Center (NHC), part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) National Weather Service (NWS), in forecasting hurricanes, and it discusses some of the advances and remaining challenges in hurricane forecasting. The report then provides an overview of the 2017 hurricane season, with a focus on the three destructive hurricanes named above, and includes a brief summary of the hurricane outlook for 2018.

This report discusses U.S. and international responses to the issue of human trafficking. Human trafficking is a domestic and international phenomenon that refers to the subjection of men, women, and children to exploitative conditions that may be tantamount to slavery.