President Donald Trump is heading to hurricane-battered western North Carolina and wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles on Friday, using the first trip of his second administration to tour areas where politics has clouded the response to deadly disasters.

By a 74-25 vote, lawmakers approve a former director of national intelligence accused of politicizing intelligence assessments.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate confirmed former Texas Congressman John Ratcliffe to serve as the next director of the CIA on Thursday.

The Senate confirmed John Ratcliffe as CIA director, making him President Trump's second cabinet member. Ratcliffe plans to enhance the CIA's use of technology to counter threats like Russia and China while safeguarding civil rights.

No president has ever exercised this constitutional power, but "this remains a significant possibility in the eyes of the White House," one source said.

Five days after assuming the White House, President Donald Trump is racking up a number of wins and losses after issuing a flurry of executive orders. On Friday, he travels to disaster-hit states of North Carolina and California while new developments play out over his immigration policy and cabinet confirmations.

Texans have been tapped to run the CIA, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Agriculture.

John Ratcliffe has been confirmed to lead the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after the Senate confirmed his appointment. Notably, this is the second major appointment under the second Trump administration after Marco Rubio was appointed the US Secretary of State,

President Donald Trump has issued a new executive order calling for the declassification of documents connected to three of the most significant assassinations in United States history: those of John F Kennedy (JFK),

President Donald Trump says his administration will move to suspend the security clearances of the more than four dozen former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the hallmarks of a “Russian information operation.

The Senate on Thursday confirmed John Ratcliffe as CIA director, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead America’s premier spy agency and his second nominee to win Senate approval. Ratcliffe was director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term and is the first person to have held that position and the top post