Politics

By Samantha Waldenberg, Alejandra Jaramillo and Marshall Cohen, CNN (CNN) — President Joe Biden is granting clemency for nearly 2,500 non-violent drug offenders in his final days in office, placing a focus on sentencing disparities for crack cocaine-related crimes. “Today, I am commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses who

By Phil Mattingly and Andrew Seger, CNN Panama City, Panama (CNN) — The new Panamanian ambassador was given strict instructions as he prepared to meet then-President Donald Trump one day in 2019: Do not engage him in any substantive discussion of critical issues. This was meant to be a carefully choreographed photo op, nothing more

CNN By Phil Mattingly and Andrew Seger, CNN Panama City, Panama (CNN) — The new Panamanian ambassador was given strict instructions as he prepared to meet then-President Donald Trump one day in 2019: Do not engage him in any substantive discussion of critical issues. This was meant to be a carefully choreographed photo op, nothing

CNN By Nicki Brown and Katelyn Polantz, CNN (CNN) — Rudy Giuliani has reached an agreement with two Georgia election workers that he defamed to settle the nearly $150 million judgment against him, in a deal that will allow him to keep his home and most valuable possessions. The settlement agreement brings to an end

By Tierney Sneed, CNN (CNN) — Missouri, Kansas and Idaho can press forward with their lawsuit to restrict access to the abortion drug mifepristone, a federal judge ruled Thursday, months after the US Supreme Court had rejected an earlier version of the legal challenge. The decision by Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of President-elect Donald

By Hannah Rabinowitz and Evan Perez, CNN (CNN) — After a tumultuous tenure clouded by two failed criminal prosecutions against the incoming president, Attorney General Merrick Garland is leaving the Justice Department the same way he came in: trying to defend it against political attacks. Garland, a once-beloved appellate judge whose nomination to the Supreme

By Jamie Gangel and Whitney Wild, CNN (CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump is expected to pick his current Secret Service detail leader, Sean Curran, to be the new director of the United States Secret Service, according to multiple sources familiar with the decision. For the past four years, Curran has led Trump’s detail and is

By Zachary B. Wolf, CNN (CNN) — The right and the left don’t agree on how they’d like to change the Constitution, but they do agree that changes need to be made. President Joe Biden, in his farewell address, called for an amendment “to make clear that no president, no president is immune from crimes

By Annie Grayer, Lauren Fox and Manu Raju, CNN Washington (CNN) — House Speaker Mike Johnson has selected Republican Rep. Rick Crawford of Arkansas to be the next chairman of the House Intelligence Committee after Rep. Mike Turner was ousted from the role Wednesday, Johnson announced in a statement Thursday. “Rick Crawford will provide principled

By Jeremy Herb, CNN (CNN) — Thursday’s trio of confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees put the focus squarely on Trump’s domestic and economic agenda, which will dominate the debates on Capitol Hill this year. None of the nominees appearing Thursday before the Senate – Scott Bessent at Treasury, Doug Burgum at Interior

By Kevin Liptak, Kayla Tausche and Arlette Saenz, CNN Washington (CNN) — The White House has looked into options to keep TikTok accessible to its 170 million American users if a ban that is set to go into effect Sunday continues as planned. But White House officials say they don’t believe President Joe Biden has

By Kayla Tausche, CNN Washington (CNN) — President Joe Biden’s warnings Wednesday night about social media misinformation, the tech-industrial complex and the concentration of wealth and power struck many as a not-so-subtle shot across the bow at Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who’s also become President-elect Donald Trump’s closest consigliere. But within the White

By Edward Wu and Ariel Edwards-Levy, CNN (CNN) — Donald Trump continues to see some of the most positive ratings of his political career, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, which finds the president-elect poised to enter his second term with far more positive sentiment behind him than when he last occupied

By Steve Contorno, CNN (CNN) — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday named state Attorney General Ashley Moody to the US Senate, choosing a staunch ally to fill the seat set to be vacated by Marco Rubio, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state. Moody, a former prosecutor and judge who once sued

CNN By Annie Grayer, Kit Maher and Manu Raju, CNN (CNN) — House Speaker Mike Johnson has removed Republican Rep. Mike Turner as chair of the House Intelligence Committee for the 119th Congress. While the speaker has the authority to appoint members of the committee, the move marks a significant change among the leadership of

By Majlie de Puy Kamp, Casey Tolan, Yahya Abou-Ghazala and Kyung Lah, CNN Pineville, Kentucky (CNN) — When the coal mines closed in Bell County, Kentucky, a community that once powered the nation was left forgotten, with few well-paying jobs or prospects. Many of its residents now live in poverty among empty storefronts and the

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN Washington (CNN) — President Joe Biden on Thursday will sign an executive order that is his final stab at shoring up America’s cyber defenses after a damaging string of cyberattacks on federal networks that US officials have blamed on Chinese and Russian operatives. The directive is the product of a monthslong

By Fredreka Schouten, CNN (CNN) — Wealthy hedge fund executive Scott Bessent – whose confirmation hearing for treasury secretary is slated for Thursday – has hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and owns property from North Dakota to the Bahamas. President-elect Donald Trump’s choice as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon, billionaire Steve