President Trump is denying reports, from NPR and other news outlets, that in a Thursday meeting at the White House, he disparaged African nations as "shithole countries" and questioned why the United States would admit immigrants from them and other nations, like Haiti.

Anthony Scaramucci is leaving his position as White House communications director — after less than two weeks on the job. Scaramucci's departure followed the Monday-morning swearing in of White House chief of staff Gen. John F. Kelly.

He rose from relative state-party obscurity and reached an unlikely pinnacle as the man responsible for the agenda of the president of the United States. Now, Reince Priebus is out of that job as White House chief of staff in the most significant shake-up of the rocky Trump presidency. President Trump announced on Twitter on Friday that Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has been named as Priebus' replacement.

University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum says the White House national strategy to address the decline in honeybee and monarch butterfly populations marks the federal government's first coordinated effort to deal with the issue.