Free Republic

The president-elect appears to have settled on the Florida senator to be the nation’s top diplomat. President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to name Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as his secretary of state, three people familiar with his thinking said on Monday, as Mr. Trump moves rapidly to fill out his foreign policy and national security team. Mr. Trump could still change his mind at the last minute, the people said, but appeared to have settled on Mr. Rubio, whom he also considered when choosing his running mate this year. Mr. Rubio was elected to the Senate in 2010,...

Russia carried out a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that appears to have failed while President Joe Biden was in Ukraine on Monday, according to two US officials familiar with the matter. Russia notified the United States in advance of the launch through deconfliction lines, one official said. Another official said that the test did not pose a risk to the United States and that the US did not view the test as an anomaly or an escalation. The test of the heavy SARMAT missile – nicknamed the Satan II in the West and capable of delivering multiple nuclear...