Tim Mak

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr sold off a large amount of stocks before the coronavirus market crash, and now the Justice Department is looking into his statements around this time period, NPR can report.

Updated at 11:28 p.m. ET

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee warned a small group of well-connected constituents three weeks ago to prepare for dire economic and societal effects of the coronavirus, according to a secret recording obtained by NPR.

The remarks from U.S. Sen. Richard Burr were more stark than any he had delivered in more public forums.

On Feb. 27, when the United States had 15 confirmed cases of COVID-19, President Trump was tamping down fears and suggesting that the virus could be seasonal.

It's 2016 all over again — at least from Russia's perspective.

Russia's state-sponsored messaging about Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign was more neutral in the fall.

But over the past six weeks, this coverage has shifted to mirror pro-Sanders talking points first used in the last presidential campaign, said Clint Watts of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, who has been monitoring Russian interference continuously.

"What's really come on strong just in the last 30 to 45 days are very similar narratives that we saw in 2016 about Sanders," Watts told NPR.

American Alan Gross, a prisoner in Cuba for five years during the Obama administration, is accusing Bernie Sanders of commending the communist country when the senator came to visit him behind bars.

Sanders visited Cuba as part of a congressional delegation in 2014, along with Sens. Heidi Heitkamp and Jon Tester.

During the one-hour meeting, Sanders told the prisoner that he didn't understand why others criticized Cuba, Gross said in an interview with NPR.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi believes that the impeachment inquiry underway has uncovered evidence that President Trump's actions amounted to bribery.

Multiple witnesses have alleged that the president leveraged U.S. foreign policy — a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart and security assistance funds appropriated by Congress — for investigations that could benefit him politically.

Updated at 4:29 p.m. ET

Republican members of Congress disrupted the closed-door proceedings of the House impeachment inquiry, preventing a Pentagon official from giving her testimony.

Arguing that the inquiry's interviews should not be held behind closed doors, GOP lawmakers entered the secure area in the Capitol Wednesday where witnesses are typically questioned.

Updated at 6:40 p.m. ET

Ambassador James Jeffrey, the U.S. special envoy for Syria engagement, told senators Tuesday that the Turkish military offensive had led to hundreds of deaths among the Kurdish-led militias in Syria.

That military offensive, which followed President Trump's decision to abruptly withdraw troops from northern Syria, may have also led to a war crime.

The Russian government's interference in the 2016 U.S. elections singled out African Americans, a new Senate committee report concludes.

Using Facebook pages, Instagram content and Twitter posts, Russian information operatives working for the Internet Research Agency had an "overwhelming operational emphasis on race ... no single group of Americans was targeted ... more than African Americans."

Updated at 4:04 p.m. ET

The National Rifle Association acted as a "foreign asset" for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election, according to a new investigation unveiled Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Drawing on contemporaneous emails and private interviews, an 18-month probe by the Senate Finance Committee's Democratic staff found that the NRA underwrote political access for Russian nationals Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin more than previously known — even though the two had declared their ties to the Kremlin.

President Trump said he is willing to get behind some changes to background checks for gun buyers as long as Democrats don't move the goalposts and lead him down a "slippery slope."

The president told reporters on Wednesday that he continues to support new or altered checks, without going into detail, and he acknowledged that he has been taking counsel on the issue from the National Rifle Association.

A new legislative proposal by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., would ban elements of social media he views as addictive.

As Americans are spending more and more time glued to social media apps like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, concerns with technological addiction are merging with rising political anger against Big Tech.

And it's leading to some out-of-the-box thinking.

"Their business model is increasingly exploitative in nature and I think that these are companies that are trying to evade accountability," Hawley told NPR.

The National Rifle Association's sway in the nation's capital may be waning at a time when two mass shootings in Ohio and Texas are reigniting the debate about enacting new gun restrictions.

In the past few months, the gun rights group's president stepped aside; its top lobbyist resigned; and allegations of financial misconduct at the highest levels of the group have burst into the open.