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President Biden and his top aides unleashed a new volley of warnings Thursday that the Kremlin is preparing for a military invasion of neighboring Ukraine, perhaps in the next few days, as the administration brushed aside Russian protestations to the contrary. The extraordinarily blunt comments from Mr. Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior U.S. officials set off more fears of a shooting war in the heart of Europe, sent U.S. stocks plunging in value, and seemed to leave only a small and shrinking window for a diplomatic way out of the conflict. U.S. and NATO officials again said they saw no signs on the ground of a promised Russian pullback of some of the more than 130,000 troops that have methodically surrounded Ukraine on three sides in recent weeks. Mr. Biden told ...

Record-high inflation, geopolitical tensions abroad and warnings about the price of gasoline reaching $7 per gallon have Democrats in Washington scrambling to address costs directly hurting Americans’ pocketbooks. One response from a small group of Senate Democrats would suspend the federal gas tax, currently at 18.4 cents per gallon. Democrats have begun taking a more public stance in acknowledging the need to combat inflation, which has reached a 40-year high in a midterm election year. The idea has quickly become a political lightning rod on Capitol Hill. Senate Republicans accuse Democrats of trying to provide cover for vulnerable lawmakers and say a gas tax holiday would leave a roughly $20 billion hole in the Highway Trust Fund, which pays for transportation infrastructure projects...

OPINION: Call it what it is: the “Reelect Vulnerable Democrats Act.” When Senate Democrats Mark Kelly of Arizona and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire proposed a temporary tax cut on gasoline last week, they unwittingly highlighted two of the dirtiest secrets of the green agenda. First, every “solution” of the eco-left is a massive tax increase on families. Second, and perhaps more surprisingly, their motivation is less related to the environment and more grounded in politics.  Before going any further, my sincere apologies if you’re reading this with dismay and realizing money you sent to those eco-causes will not actually make a difference for the planet. The left-wing special interest groups in Washington have perfected their grifting machine. Take a look at the cosponsors of the Ke...

Republican-led states pleaded Wednesday with a federal judge in Ohio to nix the Biden administration’s limits on immigration arrests and deportations, saying the Homeland Security Department’s new rules amount to an “abdication” of duty under the law. Deportations have plummeted for murderers, burglars, sexual assault convicts and nearly every other category of criminal, Ohio Deputy Solicitor General May Mailman told the judge. “This is an abdication framework,” Ms. Mailman said. Ohio, Arizona and Montana are challenging the rules written last year by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that restrict which immigrants are targeted for arrest or deportation. Mr. Mayorkas said being in the country illegally is not enough reason to be picked up or removed. Criminal records or case...

More transgender convicts than ever are making their way to women’s prisons, a victory for the gender identity movement but not necessarily for female inmates forced to share their living spaces with the new arrivals. Take convicted murderer Janiah Monroe, formerly Andre Patterson, who won a transfer to the Logan Correctional Center for women in Illinois after years of harassment, physical assault and sexual abuse in the men’s prison, according to the 2019 complaint. Shortly thereafter, Monroe stopped hormone therapy, threatened other inmates and became sexually active, a prison psychiatrist testified. Another prisoner accused Monroe of rape. Monroe’s attorney said the accusations are “part of a campaign to get her removed from Logan.” Concerns about transgender safety are fueling legisl...

The Biden administration signaled Wednesday that COVID-19 guidance might be relaxed in the coming weeks as businesses and state and local governments, including Walt Disney World and city leaders in the nation’s capital, lift indoor mask rules ahead of the federal government. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said her agency will look at hospitals, in particular, and their ability to juggle COVID-19 cases with treatment for other conditions. She said changes from her agency might coincide with state changes that do not take effect until the end of February or the start of March. “We want to give people a break from things like mask-wearing when these metrics are better, and then have the ability to reach for them again should things worsen...

ANALYSIS: Special counsel John Durham’s explosive court filing has complicated any attempt by the Biden administration to shut down his investigation of the FBI’s Russian election interference probe because of the political firestorm it would ignite. Mr. Durham said in the case against Democratic attorney Michael Sussmann that people affiliated with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign exploited access to Donald Trump’s internet data to link him to Russia. The revelation puts the Biden administration in the hot seat because several top Clinton campaign officials have made their way to the White House. One of them is National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, a foreign policy adviser for the campaign. “The first thing I wondered when I read the filing is the closer this thing zeroes in on Jake S...

War felt a little less inevitable Tuesday as Russia announced it was pulling back some troops from their positions near the Ukrainian border, but U.S. and NATO leaders said they could not verify those claims and President Biden again bluntly warned the Kremlin of severe consequences if it started “a war without cause or reason” against its smaller neighbor. Mr. Biden used an afternoon speech at the White House to again urge his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to change course and de-escalate what has become a tense, long-running military standoff between Russia and Ukraine. Russia now has more than 130,000 troops along Ukraine’s border, including detachments in Belarus that Moscow says have been conducting routine exercises and soon will return to their permanent bases. Russian offici...

IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig acknowledged Tuesday that the tax agency faces “enormous challenges” in providing service this year, but he said taxpayers should direct their anger at Congress for not providing enough money. Mr. Rettig said the COVID-19 pandemic also took a toll but cost-cutting has starved his agency of the employees and technology it needs to process returns, answer questions and chase after “ultra-wealthy” tax cheats. “Today, millions of people are still waiting for prior years’ returns to be processed and refund checks to arrive in the mail while preparing for their upcoming tax filing,” the commissioner wrote in an op-ed for Yahoo Money. “While we can’t immediately solve these significant issues, our employees are doing everything they can, and I am committed to re...

OPINION: On Oct. 31, 2016, Jake Sullivan, then senior policy adviser for Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, issued a press statement citing a Slate report purporting to show that the Trump Organization had a secret server registered to Trump Tower that was covertly communicating with Russia. “This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow,” Mr. Sullivan, who is now President Biden’s national security adviser, warned ominously. “This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia. … This line of communication may help explain Trump’s bizarre adoration of Vladimir Putin and endorsement of so many pro-Kremlin positions throughout this campaign.” “We can only assume that federal authorities will now explore this direct co...