A prisoner swap between the United States and Afghanistan’s Taliban freed two Americans in exchange for a Taliban figure imprisoned for life in California on drug trafficking and terrorism charges

Former Rep. Lee Zeldin’s financial disclosures show his firm was paid by Heritage Advisors, which was linked to the case that brought down the New Jersey senator last year.

The Biden administration is putting pressure on a deal before the inauguration, which will see President-elect Donald Trump return to the White House.

Negotiators were close to reaching the final details of a ceasefire in Gaza on Wednesday after marathon talks in Qatar, with the U.S. and Egyptian leaders promising to stay in close contact about a deal over the coming hours.

(Reuters) -Mediator Qatar has handed Israel and Hamas a "final" draft of a ceasefire and hostage release agreement designed to end the war in Gaza, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters on Monday.

In the very last hours of President Joe Biden’s time in office, a prisoner exchange years in the making was finally struck: the Taliban agreed to swap two Americans being held in Afghanistan for one Taliban member serving a life sentence in a US prison.

Months of tedious talks over a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza – negotiations that required officials from an outgoing and incoming presidential administration to put aside their fundamental differences – culminated in an intense late-night push for an agreement that finally came to fruition on Wednesday.

Ceasefire talks via middlemen from Qatar, Egypt and the US had been dragging on for several months, at times without hope. Now the key players were all inside one building in Doha and the pace was frantic.

Rarely have representatives of current and new presidents of different parties worked together at such a high-stakes moment. But the president and the president-elect didn’t quite share credit.

The two were exchanged for a man arrested in eastern Afghanistan two decades ago who has been serving a life sentence in a California prison.

Qatar might be a small country in the gulf region but they have played a critical role in negotiating on high stakes issues the last few years. […]

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump will be sworn in as US president on Monday (Jan 20), ushering in another turbulent four-year term with promises to push the limits of executive power, deport millions of immigrants,