The more that special counsel Robert Mueller and federal prosecutors reveal, the darker grow the legal clouds over President Donald Trump. Trump's own Justice Department has now implicated him in a crime, accusing him of directing illegal hush-money payments to women during his 2016 presidential campaign. Mueller keeps finding new instances of Trump associates lying about their contacts with Russia during an election the Kremlin worked to sway in the Republican's favor. The president hasn't been charged with any crimes. He may never be. Whether a president can be prosecuted while in office remains a matter of legal dispute. Get More

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly will be leaving his post at the end of the year, President Donald Trump told reporters outside the White House Saturday, amid an expected West Wing reshuffling reflecting a focus on the 2020 re-election campaign and the challenge of governing with Democrats reclaiming control in the House. Kelly did not immediately respond to his boss' comment, but four sources had recently told NBC News that Kelly's departure would occur in the coming days. Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, is Trump's top choice to replace Kelly, and the two have held discussions for months about the job, a White House official said. Get More

Key pieces of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation appear to be falling into place. In three court filings Friday, prosecutors for the first time connected President Donald Trump to a crime involving hush money payments to a porn actress. They revealed new details about outreach from Russia early in Trump's presidential campaign. They detailed how they say two central figures, lawyer Michael Cohen and onetime campaign chairman Paul Manafort , were continually tripped up by lies. Here are some takeaways from the latest round of court documents from Mueller's investigation. Get More

The FBI's counterintelligence investigation into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia initially focused on four Americans and whether they were connected to Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, former FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers during hours of closed-door questioning. Comey did not identify the Americans but said President Donald Trump, then the Republican candidate, was not among them. He also told the House Judiciary Committee that, contrary to Trump's claims, he was "not friends in any social sense" with special counsel Robert Mueller, who is now leading the Russia investigation. Trump has repeatedly portrayed the men as close as part of a long-running effort to undermine the investigation and paint the lead figures in the probe as united against him. Get More

Pressure mounted on French President Emmanuel Macron to announce concrete measures to calm protests marked by violence when he addresses the nation Monday evening, and breaks a long silence widely seen as aggravating a crisis that has shaken the government and the whole country. The president will consult in the morning with an array of national and local officials as he tries to get a handle on the ballooning and radicalizing protest movement triggered by anger at his policies, and a growing sense that they favor the rich. Macron will speak from the presidential Elysee Palace at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT), an Elysee official said. The official wasn't authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity. Get More

The more that special counsel Robert Mueller and federal prosecutors reveal, the darker grow the legal clouds over President Donald Trump. Trump's own Justice Department has now implicated him in a crime, accusing him of directing illegal hush-money payments to women during his 2016 presidential campaign. Mueller keeps finding new instances of Trump associates lying about their contacts with Russia during an election the Kremlin worked to sway in the Republican's favor. The president hasn't been charged with any crimes. He may never be. Whether a president can be prosecuted while in office remains a matter of legal dispute. Get More

With a crucial parliamentary vote on Brexit looming, British Prime Minister Theresa May warned lawmakers Sunday that they could take Britain into "uncharted waters" and trigger a general election if they reject the divorce deal she struck with the European Union. May is fighting to save her unpopular Brexit plan and her job ahead of a showdown in Parliament on Tuesday, when lawmakers are widely expected to vote down the deal she negotiated with Brussels. Her Downing Street office insisted that the vote will go ahead despite speculation that the government may be forced to delay it. Get More

New York officials tout their deal to land a new Amazon headquarters as can't-miss math. The city and state put up $2.8 billion in tax breaks and grants. In return, they get an economic engine expected to generate $27 billion in new tax money over a quarter-century. "This is a big moneymaker for us. Costs us nothing," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said when the agreement was announced. Experts say the economic equation isn't that simple. The state's predicted 9-to-1 return on its investment was based on a widely used economic model that compares the costs of tax incentives with expected tax gains, but it didn't factor in the substantial costs of accommodating Amazon's growth in the city, economic development researchers said after reviewing the documents. Get More

Stargazers have something extra to look forward to this holiday season: The brightest comet of 2018 will pass closest to Earth on Dec. 16. The comet 46P/Wirtanen, which passes Earth every 5.4 years, was one of three comets discovered by Carl Wirtanen in 1948 at the Lick Observatory in California, NBC News reported. This orbit will be one of the closest comet orbits to Earth since the 1950s, according to Space.com. Comets are "loosely bound masses of ice, dust and rock." The central core of the structure is often only a few miles across. These cosmic phenoms usually have tails that are a result of the dust and gases that are spewed when comets heat up as they near the sun. Currently, NASA reports that there are 3,535 known comets. Get More at NBC News

A massive storm brought snow, sleet, and freezing rain across a wide swath of the South on Sunday — causing dangerously icy roads, immobilizing snowfalls and power losses to hundreds of thousands of people. Accidents on snow-covered interstates are causing major delays, hundreds of flights have been cancelled and drivers in North Carolina and Virginia are getting stuck in snow or losing control on icy patches. Meanwhile, kids and the young at heart are taking advantage of heavy snow totals with snowball fights and snowmen. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper strongly urged residents to stay off the roads Sunday, asking drivers not to put lives of first responders needlessly at risk. Cooper said emergency crews, including the National Guard, had worked overnight to clear traffic accidents on major roadways. One tractor-trailer ran off a road and into a river, Cooper said. Get More

South Carolina's congressional delegation will be able to ask for more funds to provide relief following Hurricane Florence, thanks to a move by the state's governor. In a letter obtained Saturday by The Associated Press, Gov. Henry McMaster told U.S. Rep. Tom Rice that he was increasing the estimate for community development block grant relief from $108 million to $435 million at Rice's request. Thousands of residents along the coasts of North and South Carolina were evacuated as Florence slowly swirled in the Atlantic Ocean in September. As the storm gradually came ashore near the border of the two states, Florence dumped days' worth of rain on the Carolinas, leaving widespread flooding in which dozens of people were killed. Get More

China summoned the U.S. ambassador to Beijing on Sunday to protest the detention of an executive of Chinese electronics giant Huawei in Canada at Washington's behest and demanded Washington cancel an order for her arrest. The official Xinhua News Agency said Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng "lodged solemn representations and strong protests" with Ambassador Terry Branstad against the detention of Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou. Meng, who is reportedly suspected of trying to evade U.S. trade curbs on Iran, was detained on Dec. 1 while changing planes in Vancouver, Canada. The Xinhua report quoted Le as calling Meng's detention "extremely egregious" and demanded the U.S. vacate an order for her arrest. It quoted Le as calling for the U.S. to "immediately correct its wrong actions" and said it would take further steps based on Washington's response. Get More

He survived the flames of Southern California's Woolsey Fire that ripped through his habitat in the Santa Monica Mountains, but a mountain lion known as P-64 has now been found dead of unknown causes, National Park Service officials said Friday. P-64, who was dubbed the "Culvert Cat" for repeatedly using a culvert to cross the Ventura (101) Freeway in the Liberty Canyon area, was found dead Monday by a biologist tracking his movements using information from the lion's GPS collar. NPS officials said a cause of death was unknown, but P-64's paws were "visibly burned." Get More