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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -FBI employees were ordered on Sunday to answer a questionnaire about any work they may have done on criminal cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, stoking fear about a fresh round of firings at the law enforcement agency. The list of questions in the memo, seen by Reuters, direct employees to give their job title, any role they played in the investigations into the Jan. 6 riot by supporters of President Donald Trump and whether they helped supervise such investigations.

...California denies Trump claim US military turned on water in state... \/ .... The federal government restarted federal water pumps...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed on Tuesday how to build ties with Donald Trump, prospects for a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine and Moscow's firm support for Beijing's position on Taiwan. Xi and Putin, who spoke for an hour and 35 minutes by video call after Trump was sworn in as U.S. president on Monday -snip- Putin, 72, speaking from his Novo-Ogarevo residency outside Moscow and Xi, 71, speaking from the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, called each other "dear friends", and Xi told Putin about a call with Trump...

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday that Russia's abandonment of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad led to his downfall, adding Moscow never should have protected him in the first place and then lost interest because of a war in Ukraine that never should have started. "Assad is gone. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by (President) Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer," Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. "There was no reason for Russia to be there in the first place," Trump wrote. "They lost all interest in...

Donald Trump selected U.S. Senator Marco Rubio to be his secretary of state, the New York Times reported on Monday, putting the Florida-born politician on track to be the first Latino to serve as America's top diplomat once the Republican president-elect takes office in January. Rubio was arguably the most hawkish option on Trump's shortlist for secretary of state, and he has in years past advocated for a muscular foreign policy with respect to America's geopolitical foes, including China, Iran and Cuba. Over the last several years he has softened some of his stances to align more closely with Trump's...

North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine, South Korean lawmakers said on Wednesday after being briefed by the national intelligence agency, an estimate that is twice the previous figure. Pyongyang had promised to provide a total of about 10,000 troops, whose deployment was expected to be completed by December, the lawmakers told journalists. The latest numbers came after Seoul's National Intelligence Service said on Friday the North had sent some 1,500 special forces to Russia by ship. "Signs of troops being trained inside North Korea were detected in September and October," Park Sun-won,...

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk said on Thursday that Moscow would support Pakistan's inclusion in BRICS. "We would be supportive of it," Overchuk, who is on a two-day visit to Islamabad told a joint press conference with Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar in Islamabad, in response to a question about Pakistan's request to become part of the grouping of the world's leading emerging market economies.

Russia's air defence units destroyed at least seven Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow, while 59 of the air weapons were downed over the Bryansk region near the border with Ukraine, local officials said on Tuesday. "According to preliminary information, there is no damage or injuries at the site of the fall of the debris," Moscow's Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote in a post on the Telegram messaging app. The drones were destroyed in the Lyubertsy and Ramenskoye districts of the Moscow region, as well as in the Podolsk city district, Sobyanin said. Podolsk is some 38 km (24 miles) south of the...

Sweden will send its 17th aid package to Ukraine with further military support totalling 4.6 billion Swedish crowns ($443 million), Defence Minister Pal Jonson said on Monday. The new package will include ammunition for infantry fighting vehicles already donated by Sweden, as well as purchases that would facilitate a transfer of Gripen fighter jets in the future, though no such transfer has been decided on yet. "We want to have the ability to donate Gripens to Ukraine at a possible later stage," Jonson told a press conference. Jonson said support included additional combat boats, missiles and camouflage gear as well...

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin sent greetings to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the occasion of North Korea's founding anniversary, state media KCNA said on Monday. "I am sure that the comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and the DPRK will be strengthened in a planned way thanks to our joint efforts," Putin said, according to KCNA.

LONDON (Reuters) - Russia and Ukraine should negotiate an end to their conflict to avoid the war spilling over into Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko, a key ally of Vladimir Putin, said in an interview with Russian state television. Lukashenko was speaking against the backdrop of a Ukrainian incursion into Russia that began on Aug. 6 when thousands of Kyiv's troops smashed through Russia's western border in a major embarrassment for Putin's top military brass. In a wide-ranging interview, Lukashenko said that only "high-ranking people of American origin" wanted the Ukraine-Russia war to continue. The West, he said, was encouraging Kyiv...

Putin has appointed his ex-bodyguard, who is considered a likely successor for the Russian leader, as an 'angel of vengeance' tasked with trying to reclaim the territory seized by Ukraine. Former bodyguard Alexei Dyumin, who once single-handedly scared off a bear from the president's mountain residence, will lead the charge on 'Operation Revenge' to reclaim the 386 square miles of Russian soil now under Ukrainian control. Dyumin, 51, grew up in the Kursk region, where a state of emergency was implemented almost immediately after thousands of Kyiv's troops surged across the border and began seizing territory. Putin has now chosen...

KYIV, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Ukraine will need $20 billion in investments to develop its renewable power sector under a plan which seeks to boost its share in the country's energy mix to 27% by 2030, the government said on Tuesday. The country's energy sector has lost half of its generating capacity as a result of Russian missile and drone attacks, which intensified in spring 2024, forcing it to rely on its nuclear plants as well as solar and wind generation. The plan approved by the government aims to add around 10,000 megawatt of new generation facilities. The share of...

Dozens of former Republican and Democratic officials announced on Wednesday a new national political third party to appeal to millions of voters they say are dismayed with what they see as America's dysfunctional two-party system. The new party, called Forward and whose creation was first reported by Reuters, will initially be co-chaired by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. They hope the party will become a viable alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties that dominate U.S. politics, founding members told Reuters. Party leaders will hold a series of...

The three-day poll, completed on Sunday, showed Vice President Harris supported by 43% of registered voters, with former President Trump supported by 42%, within the poll's 3.5 percentage point margin of error. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week showed Harris up 44%-42%.

The Kremlin said that any peace plan for Ukraine proposed by a possible future U.S. administration of Donald Trump would have to reflect the reality on the ground but that Russian President Vladimir Putin remained open to talks. Reuters reported on Tuesday that two key advisers to Trump have presented him with a plan to end the war in Ukraine -- if he wins the presidential election -- that involves telling Ukraine it will only get more U.S. weapons if it enters into peace talks. "The value of any plan lies in the nuances and in taking into account the...

May 31 - Supporters of former President Donald Trump, enraged by his conviction on 34 felony counts by a New York jury, flooded pro-Trump websites with calls for riots, revolution and violent retribution. After Trump became the first U.S. president to be convicted of a crime, his supporters responded with dozens of violent online posts, according to a Reuters review of comments on three Trump-aligned websites: the former president's own Truth Social platform, Patriots.Win and the Gateway Pundit. Some called for attacks on jurors, the execution of the judge, Justice Juan Merchan, or outright civil war and armed insurrection. “Someone...

Russia will have to increase its entire missile arsenal to deter the West as Moscow is now in an open confrontation with the United States and its allies, a Russian diplomat was quoted as saying on Monday. President Vladimir Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine touched off the worst breakdown in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, according to Russian and U.S. diplomats. Russia has ramped up weapons production and is now forecast by the United States to manufacture this year more artillery than all of NATO's 32 members combined. "We are now at the...

Kremlin-owned gas giant Gazprom said on Thursday it plunged to a net loss of 629 billion rubles ($6.9 billion) in 2023, its first annual loss in more than 20 years, amid dwindling gas trade with Europe, once its main sales market. The results highlight the dramatic decline of Gazprom, which since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been one of Russia’s most powerful companies, often used as a leverage to solve disputes with its neighbors, such as Ukraine and Moldova. Analysts had expected net income of 447 billion rubles, according to Interfax news agency. According to Reuters analysis, it...

Ukrainian drones attacked Russia's third largest oil refinery on Tuesday about 1,300 km (800 miles) from the front lines, hitting a core unit which processes about 155,000 barrels of crude refining per day. -snip- Pictures from the scene indicated the drone hit the primary refining unit, CDU-7, at the Taneco refinery. The unit accounts for around a half of the plant's total annual production capacity. "A drone attack was carried out on one of the enterprises in Nizhnekamsk," Ramil Mullin, the mayor of Nizhnekamsk, said. -snip- The attack was one of several in Tatarstan, a highly industrialised region south-east of...