President Trump fired the country’s senior military officer on Friday after weeks of turmoil at the Pentagon, injecting a political element into selecting the nation’s top military leader. Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., a four-star fighter pilot known as C.Q. who became only the second African American to hold the chairman’s job, is to be…
President Trump took control of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington only last week. But his administration is already making plans for reshaping the institution’s programming. Chief among them: a celebration of Christ planned for December. Richard Grenell, whom Mr. Trump named as the Kennedy Center’s new president, told a…
To the Editor: Re “U.S. and Russia Eye Thaw in Relations as Diplomats Meet” (front page, Feb. 19) and “Zelensky Urges ‘More Truth’ After Trump Suggests Ukraine Started the War” (nytimes.com, Feb. 19): President Trump is now blatantly and irresponsibly blaming Ukraine for the Ukraine war — “You should have never started it” — as…
Pete Marocco has spent much of this month hunkered in an office suite on the seventh floor of the State Department overseeing the dismantling of the architecture for how the United States delivers foreign aid. But he did have time to greet a foreign guest who had been making the rounds in Washington during the…
The thousands of people who work for the U.S. government’s main agency for humanitarian aid and disaster relief have been on the front lines of efforts to fight famine, contain virulent infectious diseases like H.I.V. and Ebola, and rebuild infrastructure in impoverished and war-torn countries. On Friday evening, just hours before the vast majority of…
The director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra, was fired on Saturday, prematurely ending a five-year term that was scheduled to run through late 2026. “With so much power concentrated in the hands of a few, agencies like the C.F.P.B. have never been more critical,” Mr. Chopra wrote in a letter he posted…
The Trump administration is considering sending 24,000 assault rifles to Israel that had been held up at the State Department on the orders of Antony J. Blinken, the former secretary of state, a U.S. official said. Mr. Blinken had asked the State Department not to move forward with fulfilling Israel’s request, which comprises three tranches…
Senators of both parties sharply questioned Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump’s pick to be director of national intelligence, during a tense and at times combative hearing on Thursday that could signal a challenging confirmation fight. Over more than two hours, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sounding by turns skeptical and outraged, pressed Ms. Gabbard about…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio walked into the State Department on Tuesday for the first time in his new job, taking the reins of the main agency carrying out U.S. foreign policy at a time of violent global crises and as other nations begin engaging with President Trump. After greeting employees at a ceremonial gathering,…
A transition team for President-elect Donald J. Trump has asked scores of senior career diplomats to resign from their positions on Monday, as soon as Mr. Trump takes office, and many of those asked to step down intend to do so, two U.S. officials said. The practice is common when a presidential transition occurs, but…