The 55-year-old economist had been considered for Fed chair during Trump’s first term.

Reports claiming that the settlement of Zlahoda on the border of the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions has allegedly come under Russian control are not true.

Fighters of the 151st Reconnaissance Battalion have thwarted an attempt by Russian forces to break through toward Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi in the Kharkiv region.

Russian troops plan to recruit more than 1,300 people from special contingents, including former prisoners and people with hepatitis C, to staff assault units in the southern direction.

Seven villages in the Starosaltivska community in the Kharkiv region have announced the forced evacuation of families with children.

Russia said the US president requested a pause in strikes on Kyiv until 1 February, a move Trump said was prompted by the cold weather.

The UN said "credible sources" had counted more than 400 strikes in the same period.

Kurdish-run prisons hold about 8,000 suspected IS fighters and around 34,000 of their family members in camps.

Tehran has threatened to treat an attack by the US as part of last summer’s war, and its response could be more dramatic.

US First Lady Melania Trump and her husband President Donald Trump have walked the black carpet at the premier of her new documentary.