Jack Smith, the special counsel who pursued two federal prosecutions of Donald J. Trump, plans to finish his work and resign along with other members of his team before Mr. Trump takes office in January, people familiar with his plans said. Mr. Smith’s goal, they said, is to not leave any significant part of his work for others to complete and to get ahead of the president-elect’s promise to fire him within “two seconds” of being sworn in. Mr. Smith, who since taking office two...

Russia told Austria on Friday it will suspend gas deliveries via Ukraine on Saturday, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow's last gas flows to Europe.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is urging the House Ethics Committee to not release its investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), as pressure mounts on the panel to publish its findings about the Florida Republican who resigned from Congress immediately after President-elect Trump selected him to be attorney general. “I do not, no,” Johnson told CNN and Politico reporters when asked if the panel should release its findings about Gaetz. “I think it’s a terrible...

Israel’s airstrikes in Iran last month destroyed an active nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, the Axios news site reported Friday, citing three US officials, one current Israeli official and one former Israeli official. The report came as the UN nuclear watchdog prepares to vote on censuring Iran for refusing to cooperate with its inspectors, and amid a report that the Islamic Republic told the Biden administration last month it would not seek to assassinate US president...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., wants the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to be abolished, but described the prospect as "unlikely," he told Politico. "I'd like to eliminate it," Paul told the outlet. "The First Amendment is pretty important, that's why we listed it as the First Amendment, and I would have liked to, at the very least, eliminate their ability to censor content online." "While it's unlikely we could get rid of CISA, we survived for what, 248 years...

Reports that the Taiwanese president may make a stop in the United States during a future trip are reigniting China’s indignation over the close relationship between the two governments. Six separate sources told Reuters on Friday that President Lai Ching-te will make a stop in the state of Hawaii while traveling overseas in the next few weeks. Guam was also cited as a possible destination.

A few days after Donald Trump named Jim Mattis as his nominee for defense secretary in December 2016, the polling firm YouGov asked Americans to offer an opinion on the potential Cabinet secretary. Unsurprisingly, given Mattis’s low public profile, most people had no opinion at all. Democrats were slightly more down on Mattis than Americans overall, no doubt because those who knew him knew him as a Trump appointee. But even so, only a fifth of Democrats said they viewed Mattis...

Elon Musk’s ascension as a top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump gives him tremendous power to sculpt the new administration’s approach to electric vehicles — and is sparking renewed scrutiny of his motives. Trump’s announcement that the Tesla CEO would join the pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy in running a so-called Department of Government Efficiency not only offers Musk an opportunity to sway Trump on federal policies that affect all automakers. It could also...

President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will nominate Doug Burgum to be secretary of the Department of the Interior.  “He’s going to head the Department of Interior, and he’s going to be fantastic,” Trump said of the North Dakota governor during remarks at the America First Policy Institute gala at his Mar-a-Lago estate.  Trump, 78, indicated that he will make a “formal announcement” regarding Burgum on Friday.

President-elect Trump has chosen North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) to lead the Interior Department, which manages the nation’s public lands and waters. Trump also said Friday that Burgum would lead a newly formed “national energy council” that’s in charge of energy ” permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation [and] transportation”