U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday he had picked John Ratcliffe, a close ally who was director of national intelligence at the end of his first term, to serve as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Ratcliffe served as the nation's top spy from late May 2020 until Trump left office in January 2021. More recently, he was co-chair of the Center for American Security, a think tank advocating Trump positions, and advised the former Republican president on ...

Inside the US intelligence community, a deep wariness about a second Trump administration has set in, stoked by memories of the antagonistic relationship the nation’s spy agencies had with Donald Trump the last time he was president. But when news broke Tuesday evening that Trump had selected as his CIA Director John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence, some career officials were cautiously optimistic, seeing Ratcliffe as a largely professional and potentially...

The Justice Department has charged a man for allegedly leaking highly classified US intelligence about Israel’s plans for retaliation against Iran, according to court documents and a person familiar with the case. Asif W. Rahman was indicted last Thursday for willfully retaining and transmitting national defense information, according to court documents. He was arrested Tuesday in Cambodia and will first appear in court in Guam, though the department has asked a federal judge to...

Abortion rights initiatives were on the ballot in 10 states on Tuesday, and won in seven of them. One of the losers was prop 4, Florida’s abortion rights measure, which received a whopping 57% of the vote but failed to meet the state’s unusually high 60% threshold, meaning that the state’s six-week ban will remain in place. Asked about the Florida abortion rights proposition ahead of the election, Trump said that when he went to cast his ballot near Palm Beach, he would vote against it.

Six months ago I wrote about how Donald Trump was supposedly in trouble on the issue of abortion. High-profile members of the pro-life community were threatening to abandon him. Consequently, Democrats were musing over the possibility of riding the abortion rights train to a White House-House-Senate trifecta.

Senate Republicans have elected Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., as the next Senate majority leader after rejecting public overtures from allies of President-elect Donald Trump who backed a different candidate. Thune won in a secret-ballot vote of 29-24, beating out opposing candidates Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rick Scott, R-Fla. The 63-year-old Thune will succeed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has led his chamber's Republicans since 2007 and is the...

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) has been elected Senate majority leader, setting the stage for him to replace retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who has held the top Senate GOP leadership job for the past 18 years. Thune has served as Senate Republican whip, the No. 2-ranking position in the Senate GOP leadership, since 2019, and largely managed operation of the Senate floor after McConnell suffered a concussion from a fall in 2023.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune will be the new Republican Senate leader and the majority leader of the upper chamber in the new Congress.  In January, he will succeed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who is the longest-serving party leader in Senate history.  "I am extremely honored to have earned the support of my colleagues to lead the Senate in the 119th Congress, and I am beyond proud of the work we have done to secure our majority and the White House," Thune...

A Florida judge extended a temporary restraining order until after the election that blocks the state government from threatening to take legal action against television stations over pro-abortion ads.  Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group behind the Amendment 4 Right to Abortion Initiative to enshrine abortion in the state constitution, which is on the ballot on Election Day, filed a lawsuit earlier this month against Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and former health...

According to AdImpact, an advertising analytics firm that tracks political advertising, projects a record $10.2 billion will be spent across all races in 2024. This would be an over 13% increase from the $9.02 billion spent in the 2020 elections. With polls indicating a very close Presidential election, the biggest benefactors of this ad spending largesse are the local television stations in seven swing states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada...