Senate confirms Rahm Emanuel and others to ambassador posts
CNN
The US Senate overnight confirmed more than three dozen of President Joe Biden's nominees to ambassador posts, ending a months-long Republican-led blockade on quick consideration of the diplomatic nominations.
Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago and White House chief of staff for President Barack Obama, was confirmed early Saturday as the US ambassador to Japan. The vote was 48-21, with 31 senators not voting.
Progressive Democrats had objected to Emanuel's nomination, citing his record as Chicago mayor, specifically his handling of the 2014 police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Three Democratic senators -- Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley -- voted against Emanuel's confirmation.
A real estate agent in Omaha, Nebraska, got an unexpected houseguest this week – a hungry opossum who ate the Tuxedo Chocolate Mousse Cake she recently bought from Costco.
A young man from an isolated Indigenous tribe who approached a riverine community in Brazil’s Amazon returned voluntarily to his people less than 24 hours later, Brazilian authorities said.
Top Trump administration officials are set to meet with senior Russian officials to begin talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, according to multiple sources.
A call to an anonymous tip line set off a chain of events that helped thwart a potential Valentine’s Day mass shooting in Indiana, authorities say.
The tragedy has the city reevaluating how it connects homeless families with shelters amid fears federal support for people in or on the precipice of homelessness could wane as the Trump administration pushes to slash spending.
In less than a month in office the Trump administration has simultaneously dismantled foreign aid programs that support fragile democracies abroad and put on leave federal workers who protect US elections at home in a move that current and former officials say abandons decades of American commitments to democracy.
A 5.0 magnitude earthquake was detected in western Texas Friday night, according to the United States Geological Survey.
Sen. Mitch McConnell was a generational force for the Republican Party — using procedural tactics and political will to stymie much of former President Barack Obama’s agenda, hand President Donald Trump key first-term political victories and deliver a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority. Now he’s the odd man out.
The Trump administration is forcing out senior leadership at the National Archives and Records Administration in a major shakeup, according to a source familiar. President Donald Trump has been highly critical of the archives since the agency asked the Department of Justice to investigate Trump’s mishandling of classified documents after he left office.
Colorado prosecutors on Friday argued additional charges against James Craig, a dentist accused of fatally poisoning his wife, as new details were revealed in court about how he allegedly tried to get a fellow inmate to kill a detective on the case.
One week into the Trump administration, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem issued a directive that the Federal Emergency Management Agency should stop sending money to non-governmental organizations that she characterized as helping “illegal aliens.”
The morning after the mass resignation of prosecutors sparked a crisis inside the Trump Justice Department, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove led a meeting with the Justice Department’s public integrity section. His message: they had to choose one career lawyer to file a dismissal of the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, according to three people briefed on the meeting.
Seventh prosecutor in Eric Adams case resigns and calls out Trump’s former lawyer in scathing letter
A federal prosecutor assigned to the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams resigned Friday in a blistering letter that accused top leaders at the Justice Department of looking for a “fool” to dismiss the criminal charges.