Jason Breslow

Despite urgent pleas from governors and mayors across the country, Defense Secretary Mark Esper cautioned on Wednesday that the U.S. military is not positioned to deploy nearly enough medical resources to address the scale of the coronavirus outbreak. And warning that the pandemic will "inevitably" alter the global strategic balance, he said the virus cannot be allowed to overtake national security as the Pentagon's top priority.

With the Trump administration hoping to inject as much as $1 trillion into the economy to deal with the mounting coronavirus crisis, Vice President Pence warned on Tuesday that disruptions from the outbreak could continue until at least midsummer.

In a new recording made public on Saturday, President Trump can be heard speaking with two men he has claimed to not know and ordering the firing of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

The hour-long recording from April 2018 captures a meeting between Trump and a group of donors that includes two associates of his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who in recent weeks have emerged as central figures in the impeachment inquiry: Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas.

Updated on Saturday at 3:01 p.m.

With the State Department facing continued questions over the treatment of Marie Yovanovitch before she was recalled as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would not say on Friday whether he owed the career diplomat an apology.

"I've defended every single person on this team," Pompeo said in an interview with NPR. "I've done what's right for every single person on this team."

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, known more commonly as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, are no longer working members of the British royal family and will stop receiving public funds for royal duties, Buckingham Palace announced Saturday.

The palace also said the couple will stop using their HRH titles — shorthand for His/Her Royal Highness — and they will be "required to step back from Royal duties, including official military appointments," according to the palace.

With Democrats in the House of Representatives formally moving to draft articles of impeachment against President Trump, the top Republican on the committee that will author those articles is saying the White House should participate in the impeachment inquiry. But participation should happen only, he says, "when there is an actual opportunity in which it is a situation in which they can present, do the presentation that they need to."

Updated Sunday at 12:43 p.m. ET

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was released from the hospital Sunday, two days after she was admitted for chills and fever.

"She is home and doing well," the court said in a statement.

Ginsburg checked in to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on Friday.

Three days after Attorney General William Barr sent Congress a four-page summary of Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, the special counsel wrote to Barr to voice concerns about that memo.

John Boehner has been known to enjoy the occasional adult beverage. He famously nicknamed his negotiations over raising the nation's debt ceiling in 2011 the "Nicorettes and Merlot sessions." Nicorette because that's what President Obama would chew during the talks. Merlot because that was the drink of choice for the former speaker of the House.

Updated April 12, 2019, at 9:12 p.m. ET

Since his death on Friday at the age of 94, George H.W. Bush has been remembered for his decades in the public eye as a congressman, diplomat, CIA director, vice president, and of course, president.

One minute, Seamus Hughes was reading the book Dragons Love Tacos to his son. A few minutes later, after putting him to bed, Hughes was back on his computer, stumbling on what could be one of the most closely guarded secrets within the U.S. government: The Justice Department may be preparing criminal charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The former attorney general under President George W. Bush is voicing doubt about whether President Trump has the authority to appoint Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general, saying there are "legitimate questions" about whether the selection can stand without Senate confirmation.

In an interview with NPR, Alberto Gonzales, who served as attorney general from 2005 to 2007, also said that critical comments made by Whitaker about Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election "calls into question his impartiality."

Updated at 7:35 a.m. ET Sunday

The FBI on Saturday began its first full day of work on an additional background investigation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and has reached out to the woman who alleges that the Supreme Court nominee exposed himself to her while the two were students at Yale University.

The woman, Deborah Ramirez, has agreed to cooperate with the FBI investigation, according to a statement issued by her attorney, John Clune. "Out of respect for the integrity of the process, we will have no further comment at this time," the statement said.

Updated at 9:41 p.m. ET

A vote on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court was at risk of delay on Sunday as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee from both parties said allegations of sexual assault from 35 years ago may require additional review.

It took less than two minutes for the first protester to be ejected from Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh's opening day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Seconds later, a second demonstrator was thrown out of the hearing room, followed by another, followed by another.

Updated at 3:55 p.m. ET

With his decision two summers ago to not stand for the national anthem, Colin Kaepernick became the face of a protest movement in the NFL against racial injustice and police brutality. Now, the former quarterback has become a face of one of the most iconic advertising campaigns in the history of sports: Nike's "Just Do It" campaign.

For five years, Beck Dorey-Stein was Barack Obama's "professional stalker," she says. "His creeper."

As a former White House stenographer — a job she found on Craigslist of all places — Dorey-Stein was part of a team responsible for going anywhere the president went, recording his every public utterance and then transcribing it for posterity.

Donald Hall, a former poet laureate of the United States whose writing explored everything from nature to mortality to the toss of a baseball, has died at the age of 89.

Hall died on Saturday at his family farm, known as Eagle Pond, in the small town of Wilmot, N.H. His death was announced by his literary agent, Wendy Strothman.

Hall was a prolific author who began writing when he was just 12 years old. Over the course of a career that spanned more than seven decades, he wrote over 40 books, about half of which were works of poetry.

In her first interview since resigning in May, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Roberta Jacobson, gives a blistering critique of the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" immigration agenda. Jacobson tells NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro enforcement actions that result in children being separated from their parents, as well as a recent decision to narrow the definition of what qualifies someone for asylum, are "draconian" and "un-American."