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After months of weak fundraising, the   Democratic National Committee ’s CEO will reportedly leave the job after less than a year. According to NBC News , Jess O’Connell will leave her job next month as the   DNC ’s top day-to-day official, overseeing the party headquarters during a chairman’s usual absences on high-profile tasks. DNC   fundraising also has stabilized, though it hasn’t recovered completely, NBC News reported. New   DNC   chairman Tom Perez took that post in the wake of cratering fundraising and renewed intra-party bickering over   DNC   favoritism in the 2016 presidential primaries. Mr. Perez immediately began the search for a new CEO and Ms. O’Connell will help in the task, NBC reported Monday evening. According to a   DNC   official, Ms. O’Connell is leaving the post for personal reasons and to avoid interference with the 2018 midterm elections. “Rebuilding the party will take time. While it isn’t an easy t...

Border Patrol agents in   San Diego   arrested two illegal immigrant “Dreamers” last week over their purported roles in separate smuggling operations, with one 22-year-old admitting to having been part of a number of such smuggling attempts. The arrests are black eyes on the Obama-era DACA program, which is currently the subject of heated debate in Washington. In one incident Thursday, agents had just arrested two illegal immigrants and then spotted two suspicious vehicles in the area. They followed on and eventually conducted a stop at a border checkpoint. SEE ALSO: Two ‘Dreamers’ caught smuggling illegal immigrants into U.S. The 22-year-old driver admitted to being a scouter for a smuggling crew, and said he’d been informing the other car about Border Patrol operations in the area to help them with their smuggling. The man is currently under DACA protection, the government said. Agents said they determined the man had been part of successful smuggling operat...

Illegal immigrants snared by deportation officers have “the freedom to say goodbye” to their families, a federal judge in   New York   ruled Monday, ordering the government to release a prominent activist to his family. Judge   Katherine B. Forrest , whom President Obama appointed to the bench, said the government was following the law when it picked up Ravidath   Lawrence Ragbir , the illegal immigrant. But she said “larger, more fundamental” rights were at stake. “In sum, the court finds that when this country allowed petitioner to become a part of our community fabric, allowed him to build a life with and among us and to enjoy the liberties and freedom that come with that, it committed itself to allowance of an orderly departure when the time came,” she wrote. “By denying petitioner these rights, the government has acted wrongly.” PHOTOS: Best new handguns for 2018 She becomes the latest federal district judge to delve deeply into immigration — an a...

Dozens of Dreamers will look on from the viewing galleries Tuesday as President   Trump   uses his State of the Union address to push for a deal that will finally grant them a full pathway to citizenship, coupled with serious border security efforts and major policy changes. More than any other president in modern political history,   Mr. Trump   has been proactive on the issue, leaning into   Congress   from his first days in office to press for solutions on immigration. During last year’s address to a joint session of   Congress ,   Mr. Trump   devoted more time than any previous president to immigration, and he said Monday it will again be a big part of his “important” speech. “For many, many years they’ve been talking immigration, they never got anything done. We’re going to get something done, we hope,” the president said. He has called for a grand bargain, proposing a generous amnesty that would grant citizenship rights to ...

By giving Florida a waiver from its massive offshore drilling proposal, the   Trump administration   has opened a door that virtually every East Coast state, including those led by Republicans, is now trying to rush through. Republican governors over the past 10 days have increasingly spoken out against Interior Secretary   Ryan Zinke ’s plan, which if implemented could result in oil exploration off almost all of America’s coastlines. Liberal governors on the West Coast, not surprisingly, vehemently oppose the idea. But Republicans on the East Coast also are demanding their states be given a pass just like the one given to Florida, which   Mr. Zinke   said must be exempted because of unique geological and water current conditions — a conclusion he reached only after a closed-door meeting with Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican and likely Senate candidate in a key swing state. Other GOP-controlled states say they, like Florida, will face grave harm from dri...

Longing to beat the winter blues with a   warm-weather getaway ? If you're tired of drab and dreary conditions and you want to trade snow blowers and ice scrappers for sunshine and swimsuits, there are plenty of arresting tropical hot spots that won't burst your budget. Here are enticing wallet-friendly tropical retreats for when you want to trade snow and ice for surf and sand.

President   Trump   marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Saturday by tweeting a message of resolve to prevent another genocide. “On Holocaust Remembrance Day we mourn and grieve the murder of 6 million innocent Jewish men, women and children, and the millions of others who perished in the evil Nazi Genocide. We pledge with all of our might and resolve: Never Again!” the president said on Twitter. The president spent the day at the White House, after returning Friday night from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. First lady Melania Trump   toured the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington on Thursday. “My thoughts and prayers are with the people whose lives and families were broken by the horrors of the Holocaust,” she said after the tour. “Yet it is also through our shared humanity that we come together now in commemoration, strength, and love. My heart is with you, and we remember.”

BANGUI ,   Central African Republic   | Yazinon Florence took a sip of water as she prepared to cook two bowls of rice, the only food she and her grandson could expect for the day. “We cannot say we live. We survive,” the 55-year-old Ms. Florence said. “We pray to God that the war ceases and we return home.” Almost five years ago, when Muslim rebels calling themselves Seleka — “Coalition” in a local language — overthrew   Francois Bozize , the former president of the   Central African Republic , Ms. Florence and other Christians fled to a camp for internally displaced people near Bangui M’Poko International Airport amid the fighting because she knew French peacekeepers could protect her there. “What alerted me were detonations and rocket launchers,” she said. “Then I saw Muslim women slaughtering Christian women and their babies with sharp knives like animals. They even killed a pregnant woman in front of me.” But the sense of security she enjoyed has ev...

Olympic figure skater   Adam Rippon   has slammed the   White House ’s selection of Vice President   Mike Pence   to lead the 2018 U.S. Olympic delegation. Mr. Rippon , who is believed to be the first openly gay U.S. Winter Olympian,   told   USA Today during an   interview   Tuesday night that he “wouldn’t go out of [his] way” to meet with the vice president if given the opportunity before the 2018 Olympics kick off in PyeongChang, South Korea. “If it were before my event, I would absolutely not go out of my way to meet somebody who I felt has gone out of their way to not only show that they aren’t a friend of a gay person but that they think that they’re sick,”   Mr. Rippon   said. “I wouldn’t go out of my way to meet somebody like that.” The Olympic skater was referring to a common belief in the LGBT community that   Mr. Pence   supported gay conversion therapy when he was a congressional candidate in Indiana...

Sen. Tammy Duckworth , an Iraq war veteran, took direct aim at President   Trump ’s multiple draft deferments to Vietnam, saying that his lack of service puts him in no position to question his critics’ support for the U.S. military. The Illinois Democrat, who lost both legs when her Blackhawk helicopter was shot down in 2004, has been one of the Trump administration’s staunchest critics on national security and foreign policy. Referring to the president as “Cadet Bone Spurs” on CBS’ “Face the Nation,”   Ms. Duckworth   chastised   Mr. Trump ’s taunting rhetoric with North Korea’s leader. “I have a message for ‘Cadet Bone Spurs.’: If you cared about our military, you’d stop baiting King Jong-un into a war that could put 85,000 American troops and millions of innocent civilians in danger,” she said, referring to the medical condition   Mr. Trump   cited to defer military enlistment during the Vietnam War. Ms. Duckworth   repeatedly has accu...