Biden taps US ambassador to NATO for a top State Department role
CNN
President Joe Biden has nominated the current US ambassador to NATO to one of the top positions at the State Department.
President Joe Biden has nominated the current US ambassador to NATO to one of the top positions at the State Department. Biden announced on Wednesday his intent to nominate Julianne Smith to serve as the undersecretary of state for political affairs – a key diplomatic post involved in US efforts on Ukraine and the Middle East. Her nomination was sent to the Senate the same day, according to a release from the White House. The role has been without a confirmed official since late March, following the departure of Victoria Nuland. John Bass, the Under Secretary for Management, has been serving in the role in an acting capacity. Smith took on the role of US ambassador to NATO in November 2021, previously serving as a senior advisor to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. She has been the top US envoy to NATO throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The war has put the defensive alliance to the test and prompted its expansion, with Finland and Sweden both joining NATO in response to Russia’s invasion. A US official said that the administration hopes Smith will be confirmed to the job as soon as possible. It is unclear how quickly the Senate will move her nomination forward. A group of Republican senators have vowed to block all nominees in response to former President Donald Trump’s guilty verdict in the New York hush money case..
Seven men have been charged in connection with nationwide burglaries of professional athletes’ homes
Seven Chilean nationals have been charged in connection with breaking in and stealing property worth more than $2 million from professional athletes’ homes –– including those purportedly belonging to Kansas City Chiefs players Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.
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Minutes before touching down at Toronto Pearson International Airport after relatively uneventful trip from Minneapolis, Delta Flight 4819 was cleared for landing on runway 23 under a westerly wind with gusts of about 38 miles per hour.
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President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to develop policy recommendations to expand access to and affordability of in vitro fertilization.
The Trump administration ordered legal service providers working with unaccompanied migrant children to stop their work, according to a memo obtained by CNN.
Louis DeJoy, the head of the US Postal Service, intends to step down, the federal agency said Tuesday, after a nearly five-year tenure marked by the coronavirus pandemic, surges in mail-in election ballots and efforts to stem losses through cost and service cuts.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston was forced to close Tuesday due to the “sudden dismissal of federal employees,” the library’s foundation said in a statement to CNN.
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A federal judge considering whether to indefinitely block President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender service members described it on Tuesday as having “unadulterated animus” toward transgender Americans.
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A federal judge declined on Tuesday to temporarily block Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency from accessing federal data systems at a slew of executive branch agencies.