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Mark Sandy, a career staffer in the White House Office of Management and Budget, told impeachment investigators that two budget staffers left the agency after expressing frustrations about the unexplained hold on Ukrainian aid, according to new closed-door transcripts released Tuesday. Sandy said that one staffer, who worked in OMB’s legal office and whose name was undisclosed, told him they...

The city of Chicago lit its official 2019 Christmas tree in Millennium Park Friday evening, a sure sign the holiday season has begun, and Christmas isn’t that far away after all.

The holiday party can soon officially start. Once the city of Chicago’s official 2019 Christmas tree is lit, that is. And the big event is happening in in Millennium Park Friday evening.

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree… Chicago’s official 2019 Christmas tree will officially be lit in Millennium Park Friday evening.

Ring, the video doorbell company owned by Amazon, has helped law enforcement agencies across the country solve a lot of crimes. But it has also raised concerns about privacy, and critics have been sounding off on social media for months. Tech writers, meanwhile, have wondered if Ring users were getting the full story about the cameras they’d attached to their...

Tim Morrison, the former NSC official in charge of overseeing Russia and Europe policy, makes his opening statement during an impeachment hearing on Nov. 19, 2019.

The Taliban on Tuesday freed an American and an Australian held hostage since 2016 in exchange for three top Taliban figures — a move that the insurgent group asserted could help rekindle talks to end Afghanistan’s 18-year war. The hostages — American Kevin King and Australian Timothy Weeks — were released in an area of southern Afghanistan heavily controlled by...

The phone call State Department official David Holmes overheard between President Donald Trump and Ambassador Gordon Sondland lasted just two minutes. But it won’t be easily forgotten. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Holmes told Trump impeachment investigators, “someone calling the President from a mobile phone at a restaurant, and then having a conversation of this level of candor, colorful...

Senior Trump administration official Mina Chang resigned from her job at the State Department two and a half hours after NBC News went to her spokesperson to ask about newly discovered false claims she had made about her charity work. NBC News had previously reported that Chang, the deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stability...

State Department official George Kent testified Wednesday that there is no “factual basis” to support the notion that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 elections.

As President Trump faces the possibility of impeachments, his son is at the center of a similar situation at a Florida school. The Tampa Bay Times reports that members of the student senate at the University of Florida have begun an impeachment inquiry into the student government president at the school, Michael Murphy. A formal resolution was delivered to Murphy...

A senior Trump administration official has embellished her résumé with misleading claims about her professional background — even creating a fake Time magazine cover with her face on it — raising questions about her qualifications to hold a top position at the State Department, according to NBC News. An NBC News investigation found that Mina Chang, the deputy assistant secretary...

The view among the national security officials was unanimous: Military aid to Ukraine should not be stopped. But President Donald Trump’s acting chief of staff thought otherwise. As the aid was being blocked this summer, Ukraine officials began quietly asking the State Department about the holdup. The concern was clear for the young democracy battling an aggressive Russia. “If this...

A U.S. national who is a member of the Islamic State group has been deported home, a Turkish official said Monday, as Ankara began repatriating captured foreign IS fighters. Turkish Interior Ministry spokesman Ismail Catakli told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency that a German and a Danish national would also be deported later on Monday while seven German nationals would be...

A proposal before the Trump administration that food trucks, Wi-Fi and Amazon deliveries be allowed in campgrounds at national parks got a thumbs-down this week from some visitors at Yosemite National Park, NBC News reports. The idea comes as the Department of Interior considers recommendations from an advisory committee to modernize and privatize the operation of campgrounds, including adding running...

 A semi delivered Chicago’s 106th official Christmas tree, a 55-foot blue spruce from Elgin, on Friday night. 

Chicago’s 106th official Christmas tree officially arrived at Millennium Park Friday evening.

President Donald Trump on Friday dismissed a Chinese official’s assertion that his administration has agreed to roll back some of the higher tariffs it’s imposed on Chinese goods. The Chinese official said Thursday that the two sides had agreed to a phased cancellation of their tariff hikes as part of an emerging agreement. Trump’s pushback suggested that negotiations haven’t progressed...

President Donald Trump’s behavior can be so erratic that most top administration officials have pre-written resignation letters ready to submit, an anonymous author claiming to be a senior official in the Trump administration says in a book scheduled to be published this month, NBC News reported....
To complicate matters, the president’s decision-making abilities are getting worse with time, according to excerpts...

A senior U.S. diplomat told Congress that he was briefed on conversations President Donald Trump had with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban in which the two foreign leaders talked Trump into a negative view about Ukraine and its new leader. George Kent, a senior State Department official responsible for Europe, told House investigators that Putin...