House Caps Year With $607B Defense Bill. In its last roll-call vote of the year, the House on Thursday easily passed a $607 billion defense bill from House and Senate negotiators. Members voted 350-69 for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), sending it to the Senate to consider next week. The "no" votes came from 19 Republicans and 50 Democrats. The Hill

Passed in House, NDAA Now Heads to Senate. The House on Thursday approved a compromise version of this year's defense authorization bill, kicking it to the Senate under a fast-track process that precludes senators from tacking on controversial amendments dealing with Iran sanctions and other divisive issues. The Senate is expected to take up the bill on Tuesday or Wednesday, according to Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee. It will need some Republican support to get the 60 votes required to advance. Politico

Senators Prep for More All-Nighters. The Senate this week is a bit like a university, albeit one filled with sexagenarians and septuagenarians. With Democrats insisting on plowing ahead on nominations and Republicans refusing to yield back debate time to allow speedy confirmations, the Senate is headed into its second straight all-nighter as Democrats push to confirm as many of President Barack Obama's nominees as they can. Politico

Long-Term Warming and Environmental Change Trends Persist in the Arctic in 2013. According to a new report released today by NOAA and its partners, cooler temperatures in the summer of 2013 across the central Arctic Ocean, Greenland and northern Canada moderated the record sea ice loss and extensive melting that the surface of the Greenland ice sheet experienced last year. Yet there continued to be regional extremes, including record low May snow cover in Eurasia and record high summer temperatures in Alaska. "The Arctic caught a bit of a break in 2013 from the recent string of record-breaking warmth and ice melt of the last decade," said David M. Kennedy, NOAA's deputy under secretary for operations, during a press briefing today at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in San Francisco. NOAA

Presidential Adviser Pete Rouse Maintains Alaska Roots. One of President Obama's closest advisers is leaving. Pete Rouse has been at Obama's side since his first days in the Senate and at the White House, serving at times as chief of staff. But Rouse shuns the spotlight, so few people know of his Alaska roots, or the pull he's had on the 49th state. APRN

Faroes Push to End Fish Feud. Following an unsuccessful attempt to reach an agreement on fishery allocations earlier in the week, the Faroe Islands are engaging in increased consultations to push for an agreement before the end of the year. The five coastal parties to the Atlanto-Scandian herring agreement, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, Russia and the EU, met in London on Tuesday and after failing to reach an agreement confirmed they would continue negotiations in January 2014. Arctic Journal

Russia Modernizing Arctic Airports, Port Facilities, Says Official. Russia has been modernizing several Arctic airports and port facilities on Novaya Zemlya archipelago, a senior Russian military official said Friday. "To protect our strategic interests, further development of the airfield network and port infrastructure (in the Arctic) has been envisaged," chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Col. Gen. Valery Gerasimov told a meeting with 90 foreign military attaches. Xinhua

Why Canada's Race to Claim the North Pole Could Backfire. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's push to control the North Pole may be good holiday season politics, but it risks stalling an already glacially slow effort to draw Canada's Arctic borders. His government filed a partial claim with the United Nations Monday that details how far it thinks Canada's jurisdiction stretches off the Atlantic Coast, while signaling it will make a pitch for the North Pole in a later submission on Arctic boundaries. The Star