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As the dust settles on Donald Trump's historic US election win, the president-elect will begin the process of choosing who will be in his administration for his second stint in the White House.During his presidential campaign, Mr Trump - who will become the 47th president of the United States, having also served as its 45th - avoided directly confirming any appointments but frequently dropped hints about who will be in his top team. Mr Trump's picks for positions within the cabinet, the wider administration and advisory roles will likely be announced in the coming days and weeks, as his transition team prepares for the Republicans to move back into the White House in January.US election latest: Trump's lawyers plan to halt criminal casesSo who are the top contenders? Here are the people be...

A man described by not one but two of his closest former aides as a fascist will become the most powerful man in the world when he takes office. How worried should we be?Very, say another dozen White House staffers who served under Donald Trump and watched him in action for his first four years in power. In a second term, they are warning that those who once tried to prevent him from acting on his worst impulses will no longer be there to rein him in.Follow latest: Trump wins US election - as world leaders congratulate him"The grown ups", as they were called in Mr Trump's first administration, will have gone, replaced by people more aligned with his agenda and pushing their own. What is that agenda and what is to come? That is harder to say. We have learned not to take Donald J Trump liter...

So the worst kept secret in Irish politics is finally out, and the people look set to head to the ballot boxes on 29 November.The taoiseach employs several lofty explanations for why he has decided upon an early election, but it's hard to look beyond political expediency. The Fine Gael party has been flying in the polls since Simon Harris became leader in April, while the opposition is in freefall. Sinn Fein, Ireland's main opposition party, dropped to 16% in one recent poll - the lowest level of support since 2019.Its leader Mary Lou McDonald - once seen as Ireland's first female taoiseach in waiting - has been battling a serious decline in support for a year, and is bogged down in firefighting a damaging series of internal party scandals, north and south of the border.Why wait until next...