NPR Staff

Across the country, a national reckoning with race has sparked wide-ranging debates on defunding police, racial profiling, public monuments and systemic racism. This comes as protests continue nationwide, sparked by high-profile deaths of African Americans.

Updated at 10:30 p.m. ET

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., is stepping aside temporarily as chairman of the Intelligence Committee amid a Justice Department investigation of his stock trades, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Thursday.

The White House released guidance on coronavirus testing on Monday, which reiterates the administration's work on testing and includes recommendations for states to further develop and implement their own testing plans.

COVID-19 is keeping most of us inside, isolated from others, for days on end.

For kids (and parents!), school work can only extend so far into the day. Earlier, the NPR Arts team offered some of our favorite distractions when we are feeling worried. Now we have some heart-felt recommendations for how to enjoy the rest of the time you have in close-quarters with your family.

Adventure Time

The challenges that COVID-19 poses for governments around the world are formidable. For Taiwan, there have been additional hurdles.

Experts say the island's response to the novel coronavirus has been remarkably effective so far, despite many serious challenges, starting with its close links to China, and may even hold lessons for others to follow.

Updated at 3:55 p.m. ET

Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee after the Justice Department took the unusual step of intervening in Roger Stone's sentencing recommendation.

President Trump hailed Barr on Wednesday for making the recommendation.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer delivered the English language Democratic response to President Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday night. She spoke speaking from her daughters' school — East Lansing High School.

In brief remarks, she focused on Democrats' plans to improve infrastructure, education and health care coverage.

President Trump delivered his third State of the Union address Tuesday night, the day before his Senate impeachment trial is scheduled to wrap.

Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's personal attorney, says the president should not back away from investigating Joe Biden even after Trump's expected acquittal Wednesday by the U.S. Senate.

"Absolutely, 100%," Giuliani told NPR's Steve Inskeep in an interview Tuesday. "I would have no problem with him doing it. In fact, I'd have a problem with him not doing it. I think he would be saying that Joe Biden can get away with selling out the United States, making us a fool in the Ukraine."

Updated at 4:30 p.m. ET

As jurors in President Trump's impeachment trial, senators have remained silent as House impeachment managers and Trump's defense team make their cases. But now they have their opening.

The trial adjourned on Monday, giving senators their chance to take the floor. That window was still open on Tuesday; senators had up to 10 minutes each to speak.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., spoke first on Tuesday, dismissing the two articles of impeachment against Trump as "constitutionally incoherent."

In Iowa, voters expect candidates to come to them. Homes, churches and schools serve as intimate venues for presidential hopefuls to meet and greet with folks who could have an impact on the momentum of their campaigns.

"We expect to shake their hands, we expect to look them in the eye, we expect to be able to ask them the questions we care about," says Rachel Paine Caufield, a political science professor at Drake University in Des Moines.

Senators are debating whether to include witnesses in the Trump impeachment trial.

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts is presiding over the Senate trial, and senators have been sworn in to act as jurors, vowing to render "impartial justice." Senators are not allowed to speak, so they are submitting written questions to Roberts to read.

Updated Jan. 21 at 2:26 p.m. ET

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made last-minute, handwritten changes Tuesday to the parameters for how President Trump's impeachment trial process will play out. Departing from a draft resolution he released Monday night, the resolution now allows impeachment managers and the president's defense to have 24 hours to make arguments over three session days. The draft had stipulated 24 hours over two days. McConnell also altered the rules for admitting the House evidence into the record.

House impeachment managers released their formal response to the summons sent by the Senate last week, a procedural part of the impeachment process ahead of the trial that begins on Tuesday.

"President Trump's conduct is the Framers' worst nightmare," they said in the brief released Saturday.

Read the brief here.

The White House released its formal response to the summons sent by the Senate last week, a procedural part of the impeachment process ahead of the trial that begins on Tuesday.

"The articles of impeachment submitted by House Democrats are a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president," the White House's response says. "This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election."

News organizations and journalists' advocates are challenging restrictive new ground rules for reporters assigned to cover the Senate impeachment trial.

Correspondents who submit to an official credentialing process are granted broad access throughout the Capitol complex and usually encounter few restrictions in talking with members of Congress or others.

But now Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger has imposed new requirements for the impeachment trial, negotiated in part with Republican leadership:

An important federal watchdog released a report on Thursday concluding President Trump's actions in the Ukraine affair broken a budget law.

House Democrats impeached Trump in part because they said he abused his power in freezing military aid that Congress had allocated to help Ukraine in its war against Russia. Trump asked Ukraine's president to conduct an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential rival for the 2020 election.

We don't have a crystal ball, but as journalists covering global health and development, we have a pretty good nose for emerging trends (with some help from our favorite expert sources).

Some likely trends give cause for optimism — signs of progress in solving the world's problems. Other trends are pessimistic — threats and challenges that are expected to worsen in the year ahead.

Here are 11 trend lines we'll be watching in 2020. First we'll give you the bad news — then the hopeful predictions.

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Seven candidates are onstage Thursday night for the sixth Democratic presidential debate. It is the smallest and least diverse group yet.

PBS NewsHour and Politico are hosting the debate in Los Angeles, beginning at 8 p.m. ET. It is expected to last about three hours.

The House Judiciary Committee unveiled its report on President Trump's impeachment late Sunday, one that combines the views of majority Democrats and minority Republicans.

Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said the release of the report summarizing the cases for and against action was "customary" and followed the practices of the committee in the administrations of former Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

Updated at 11:43 a.m. ET

House Democrats announced Tuesday that they will bring two articles of impeachment against President Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

"President Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States," the resolution reads.

The Justice Department's inspector general released his report on Monday examining authorities' use of their surveillance powers in the Russia investigation.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been looking into early phases of the Russia inquiry for several months following questions raised by President Trump, Attorney General William Barr and others about how it was conducted.

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Wednesday's Democratic presidential debate in Atlanta took place in the middle of a flurry of impeachment hearings and less than three months away from the first primary votes.

On Monday evening, House committees released the transcript of a State Department official who testified in the impeachment inquiry Nov. 15 that he overheard the president tell the U.S. envoy to the European Union that he was seeking political investigations from Ukraine's president.