Emily Sullivan

A day after Deputy National Security Adviser Mira Ricardel faced public criticism from the office of the first lady, the White House on Wednesday announced that she will be leaving her post.

Ricardel "departs the White House to transition to a new role within the administration," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement on Wednesday. Sanders did not specify the aide's new role.

In a highly unusual move on Tuesday, Melania Trump's office called publicly for the ouster of a senior member of her husband's staff earlier this week.

Michael Avenatti, the attorney for adult film star Stormy Daniels in her legal battles with President Trump, was arrested Wednesday following an allegation of domestic violence, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Avenatti, who has denied the allegation, was booked Wednesday afternoon after police took a report on Tuesday of the alleged incident. He was released on $50,000 bail.

Tyler Barriss, 26, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to making a false report resulting in a death, after he placed a hoax call late last year that resulted in police fatally shooting an unarmed man in Wichita, Kan.

Barriss pleaded guilty to a total of 51 charges as part of a plea deal. He will be sentenced in January, The Associated Press reports.

An Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip that sparked a round of rocket fire and retaliatory air strikes appears to have been quieted after both sides agreed to an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire.

Hamas said in a statement that "the Egyptian efforts have resulted in re-enforcing the ceasefire with the Israeli occupation." The statement thanked "the efforts of Egypt, Qatar, Norway, and UN exerted to stop the Israeli attack."

President Trump on Tuesday announced the nomination of retired Army Gen. John Abizaid as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia — a move that would fill a vacancy that has been open since the administration's first days.

Abizaid, known for serving as the commander of the U.S. Central Command and overseeing the war in Iraq, is currently the Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and works as a private consultant.

Rep. Steve King, the Iowa Republican known for hard-line stances on immigration and for controversial remarks, challenged a conservative magazine to release audio to prove that he had compared immigrants to "dirt."

So The Weekly Standard did.

The magazine reported last week that King, who won re-election earlier this month despite being called out for his white nationalist views, made the incendiary comment.

Updated at 4 a.m. ET on Wednesday

When police arrived after reports of a shooting over the weekend at a bar outside Chicago, witnesses say Jemel Roberson, a 26-year-old security guard who worked there, had already subdued the alleged assailant in the parking lot, pinning him to the ground.

Douglas Rain, a Shakespeare actor who provided the eerie, calmly homicidal voice of HAL in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, has died at the age of 90.

The Canadian actor died Sunday morning, according to the Stratford Festival, where Rain spent 32 seasons acting in such roles such as Othello's Iago and Twelfth Night's Malvolio. He was also a founding member of the company. The Winnipeg-born actor had dozens of theater, film and television credits.

Updated at 4:20 p.m. ET

Days after midterm voting, as ballots are still being counted, Republican lawmakers who are holding on to tight leads in midterm states are alleging foul play and voter fraud. The claims were amplified by President Trump, without evidence, on Friday morning.

"You mean they are just now finding votes in Florida and Georgia — but the Election was on Tuesday?" he wrote in a tweet. "Let's blame the Russians and demand an immediate apology from President Putin!"

Police in Australia shot and killed a knife-wielded assailant who stabbed three people, killing one, in a busy section of Melbourne on Friday.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack and authorities say they are investigating it as an act of terrorism.

Witnesses told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that a four-speed utility truck sped down Bourke Street in the southern Australia city's central business district and crashed after missing a tram.

A U.S. district judge has issued an order blocking construction of the controversial transnational Keystone XL Pipeline until the State Department conducts further study of its impact on the environment.

Judge Brian Morris' 54-page order, issued late Thursday, overturns the Trump administrations's approval last year of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline and at least temporarily prevents it from being built.

Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman acquitted days ago of blasphemy, has been freed from jail after spending more than eight years in solitary confinement awaiting execution.

Tesla has named a new chair to replace Elon Musk, after the CEO agreed to step down from the company's board as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Musk's successor as chair, effective immediately, will be Robyn Denholm, a Tesla board member and technology executive.

It all started with an Aug. 7 tweet. In it, Musk said he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share — and had funding secured.

The SEC accused him of manipulating the market and sued him in late September for making "false and misleading" statements to investors.

A male donkey and a female emu have reportedly "fallen in love," creating an unexpected roadblock for a North Carolina animal shelter in rehousing them.

The unlikely pair have been "comforting each other" for possibly as far back as years at a farm in Kershaw, S.C., Jennifer Gordon of the Carolina Waterfowl Rescue told The Charlotte Observer. The animals were discovered after the owner of the farm seemingly abandoned it last week.

A bus that ran off a bridge in China's southwestern Chongqing city earlier this week, plunging into the Yangtze River and killing at least 15 people apparently occurred when a passenger assaulted the driver, according to newly recovered video taken inside the vehicle.

The footage, distributed by state media, was retrieved from the bus's video recorder.

In the video, a female passenger approaches the driver, hitting him directly in the face with her phone. The driver, with one hand on the wheel, hits back.

The Pacific archipelago of Palau has become the first nation to ban sunscreens that some researchers believe are killing off coral reefs and damaging marine environments.

Updated at 2:40 p.m. ET

Google employees worldwide are walking off the job to protest the company's treatment of women and its handling of sexual assault cases.

They walked out of Google offices at 11:10 a.m. local time Thursday in Singapore, Zurich, London, Dublin and New York City, filling nearby streets, sidewalks and parks.

And in California, home to Google's headquarters, employees streamed out of its offices into plazas.

Divers have located one of two black box recorders from Lion Air flight JT610, which crashed into the Java Sea earlier this week with 189 people aboard, offering a critical piece of evidence in the investigation into what caused the disaster.

Search-and-rescue officials first heard a "ping" believed to be emitted by one of the black boxes on Wednesday, two days after the Boeing 737 Max 8 went down.

The groundskeeper who won a massive civil suit against Bayer's Monsanto claiming that the weedkiller Roundup caused his cancer has agreed to accept $78 million, after a judge substantially reduced the jury's original $289 million award.

Dewayne "Lee" Johnson, a Northern Californian groundskeeper and pest-control manager, was 42 when he developed a strange rash that would lead to a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in August 2014.

Human remains are being recovered in the aftermath of the crash of an Indonesian airliner into the Java Sea with 189 passengers and crew aboard and searchers now believe they may have found a large piece of the plane's fuselage.

Updated at 8:15 a.m. ET

Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday announced the acquittal of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was convicted and sentenced to death in 2010 for blasphemy in a case that has roiled the country.

In the courtroom, it took less a minute for the chief justice, Saqib Nisar, to upturn a series of legal rulings that had kept Bibi on death row for eight years.

In terse remarks to the hushed, packed courtroom, he said that Bibi's conviction and sentence had been voided.

The Southern California Edison utility company says its electrical equipment is at least partly to blame for starting the deadly Thomas Fire last year that engulfed hundreds of thousands of acres as it swept through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

The search continued Tuesday for bodies and the "black box" from an Indonesian airliner that crashed in the Java Sea with 189 people aboard.

Hundreds of search-and-rescue personnel worked into Tuesday to find victims from JT610, a Boeing 737 Max 8 operated by the low-cost airline Lion Air. Rescuers handed 24 body bags to police, the National Search and Rescue Agency says. Others sorted through recovered materials, including passports and wallets.

Cesar Sayoc, accused of mailing potentially explosive devices to a number of prominent Democrats and Trump critics, had a list of more than 100 potential targets, multiple reports say.

A couple fell to their deaths last week while visiting a scenic overlook in Yosemite National Park, the National Park Service said.

Vishnu Viswanath, 29, and Meenakshi "Minaxi" Moorthy, 30, had hiked to Taft Point, an overlook that features breathtaking views thanks to a steep plunge into Yosemite Valley. The two fell approximately 800 feet, the NPS said.

The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to enact a complete ban on some single-use plastics — such as drinking straws and disposable cutlery — across the European Union and a reduction on others in an effort to reduce ocean waste.

Members of the European Parliament passed the measure overwhelmingly, by a vote of 571 to 53, with 34 abstentions.

Before the legislation goes into effect, the European Parliament must negotiate with the European Council of government ministers from its member states. The council is expected to make a decision on Dec. 16.

A knife-wielding woman stabbed 14 children at a kindergarten in the Chinese city of Chongqing on Friday, according to police statements.

The attack took place as children were returning to classes, according to The Associated Press.

Sphen and Magic, a pair of male gentoo penguins at Sea Life Sydney Aquarium in Australia, are the proud new dads of a 91-gram chick, the aquarium has announced.

The tiny, as-yet unnamed penguin will stay with its dads for the first five to six weeks of its life, the aquarium says. Sphen and Magic — nicknamed Sphengic — will feed the chick up to 10 times a day by regurgitation.

Updated at 9:19 p.m. ET

The Justice Department charged a Florida man on Friday in connection with a wave of improvised explosive devices sent to political critics of President Trump.

Cesar Altieri Sayoc, 56, is facing five federal charges after he was arrested in Plantation, Fla., following a national investigation. He faces a potential total of 48 years in prison.