WASHINGTON—Once a daily occurrence, White House press briefings have become nearly extinct under President Donald Trump.

Tax season is just around the corner, and this year, a new group of historically tax-exempt organizations could find themselves filling out paperwork for the IRS and preparing to hand over money to Uncle Sam.

WASHINGTON—Voters delivered a referendum on President Donald Trump in 2018, while he delivered on campaign promises about trade and the Supreme Court. The president also continued his bitter battle against special counsel Robert Mueller, who served up a steady stream of indictments. Meanwhile, the judiciary and immigration became fierce battlegrounds in an era of increasing political polarization. Here are the top political stories of the year.

The Arizona Republican who narrowly lost the election for one of the state’s U.S. Senate seats in November will fill the other one in January. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, announced Tuesday he had appointed U.S. Rep. Martha McSally to the seat of the late Sen. John McCain. She will replace Sen. John Kyl, a former senator who temporarily filled the role after McCain’s death from brain cancer in August. McSally will serve until the 2020 election, when voters will elect someone to serve the final two years of McCain’s term.

WASHINGTON—Russia’s social media campaign to sow discord and disinformation in U.S. politics is still an ongoing and far-reaching threat, two reports released Monday by the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded. The Senate commissioned two third-party research groups, Oxford University/Graphika and New Knowledge, to study Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election using data provided by the social media companies.

WASHINGTON—After years of delays, persecuted religious minorities victimized by Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014 in Iraq and Syria are set to get some relief from the U.S. government.

Congress last week unanimously passed The Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act, designed to provide aid to Christians, Yazidis, Shia Muslims, and other religious minorities that underwent displacement and genocide at the hands of ISIS.

Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith survived controversy Tuesday to win the U.S. Senate special election runoff in Mississippi, defeating Democratic challenger Mike Espy by 12 percentage points. Her victory allows Republicans to close the book on the Senate midterm elections with a 53-47 majority. The top two candidates in the race were forced into a runoff when neither earned more than 50 percent of the vote on Nov. 6.