NPR Staff

The House Intelligence Committee has released the transcript of the closed-door deposition at the impeachment inquiry into President Trump by a foreign service officer detailed to work in the office of Vice President Pence.

Jennifer Williams was assigned to Pence's team in the spring to work on European and Russian issues. She was the first person from his office to testify in the inquiry into whether Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine while seeking a political favor. Trump denies he made such an offer.

Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who was recalled in the spring amid what she previously described as a "concerted campaign" against her, told lawmakers Friday she did not understand Rudy Giuliani's "motives for attacking me."

Yovanovitch's remarks were part of an opening statement to the House Intelligence Committee in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, has been named by other witnesses in the inquiry as pressing for Yovanovitch's removal.

The White House released Friday the rough transcript of the April 21 call between President Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the then-newly elected Ukrainian leader.

The 16-minute call was conducted from Air Force One and came three months before the July 25 conversation between the two men that prompted the impeachment inquiry into Trump.

In the April 21 call, Trump congratulates Zelenskiy, a political outsider, for the campaign he ran and invites him to the White House at an unspecified date.

A senior State Department official testifying before the open-hearing phase of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump said Rudy Giuliani's "effort to gin up politically motivated investigations were ... infecting U.S. engagement with Ukraine."

Updated at 1:06 p.m. ET

William Taylor, acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, is presenting fresh information in the first public hearing of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, telling lawmakers that Trump had asked Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, about "the investigations" during a phone conversation that was witnessed by an aide to Taylor.

The House has released the testimony of Catherine Croft, a Ukraine specialist with the State Department. The transcript is one of a number released ahead of the first public hearings of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

Foreign service officer Christopher Anderson's testimony has been released by Congress, as part of a new, public phase of the House impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

Anderson worked for U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and served as a special adviser for Ukraine negotiations from August 2017 through July 12, leaving days before a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that helped trigger the inquiry.

House investigators have released the testimony of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a top specialist on Ukraine on the National Security Council.

Vindman is an Army foreign area officer and is believed to have listened in to the July 25 call in which President Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart for the "favor" that would have involved investigations that could help Trump in the 2020 election.

That makes Vindman a key witness in House Democrats' impeachment inquiry.

House investigators have released the deposition of Fiona Hill, who until earlier this year served as the top Russia policy specialist on the National Security Council.

Hill was said to have told investigators that she registered concerns about President Trump's policy to pressure the government of Ukraine in exchange for commitments to launch investigations that might help him in the 2020 election.

House investigators have released the deposition by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, who talked behind closed doors about the Ukraine affair.

According to those who heard his testimony, Kent told investigators that the White House picked "three amigos" — diplomats Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry — to run Ukraine policy.

House investigators have released the deposition by William Taylor, who runs the U.S. diplomatic mission in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

Taylor, a career foreign policy specialist in the State Department, has been a central witness in the Ukraine affair. He described the intent by President Trump, as described by another diplomat, to put Ukraine's president "in a public box" committing to investigations that Trump thought might help him in the 2020 elections.

House investigators released the transcript of former senior State Department adviser Michael McKinley's deposition on Monday.

McKinley, who was an aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, stepped down because he said he objected to the practices within the administration in connection with the Ukraine affair.

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Zhou Fengsuo was a top university student when the first protests broke out in the heart of the ancient imperial city of Beijing, set off by the death of reformist leader Hu Yaobang in April 1989.

Updated at 9:37 p.m. ET

The Justice Department has released a redacted copy of special counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

» A copy of the document is available here.

President Trump delivered his State of the Union address Tuesday night, a speech that had been delayed during the government shutdown.

The annual remarks came as a bipartisan group of lawmakers continue to negotiate border security funding and Trump's wall proposal — the central issue that led to the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

At the beginning of 2018, we made predictions about what the year in global health and development might look like in the countries we cover.

The pundits we interviewed forecast that 2018 would bring a decline in the number of health workers around the world, inspire more humanitarians to share their #MeToo stories and see more conflict that would drive the world's humanitarian crises.

Christine Blasey Ford has accused Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were in high school in the early 1980s. On Thursday the psychology professor is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Read her opening statement below.

Updated at 6:46 p.m. EDT

The Democratic National Committee filed an attention-grabbing lawsuit against the Russian government, WikiLeaks and Donald Trump's presidential campaign that says they conspired to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The suit — which faces legal obstacles because of the Justice Department's investigation into Russia's attack and the difficulties involved with suing a foreign government — develops a theory about alleged collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russians.

Warning: This episode contains obscenities and descriptions of sex and violence.

A lot of communities today are taking a hard stand against sexual harassment and assault. Using social media shaming, ostracism, professional excommunication, whatever punishment is painful enough to shift the moral code by brute force. Through one incident in the Richmond Virginia hardcore punk scene, Hanna Rosin, co-host of NPR's Invisibilia, chronicles a social media callout and asks what pain can accomplish.

Updated at 2:52 p.m. ET

A Pennsylvania judge has dismissed the most serious charges filed against 11 members of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity in the hazing-related death of Timothy Piazza.

Judge Allen Sinclair dismissed involuntary manslaughter charges filed against the fraternity brothers.

But he allowed new charges of "conspiracy to commit hazing" to proceed against some of the fraternity brothers.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a statement that he was "disappointed by the decision" and is "assessing our legal options."

In an impromptu 30-minute interview with The New York Times on Thursday, President Trump said 16 different times that there has been "no collusion" proved in the Russia investigation. Trump also asserted he will win re-election in 2020 because the media need him for ratings and made inaccurate claims about his role in the Alabama Senate race, the state of the Affordable Care Act and more.

Much has changed in the year since Donald Trump gave his election night victory speech. Journalists across the NPR newsroom have annotated his remarks in retrospect, providing context and analysis to his policy promises and noting who, among the people he thanked, is still in the inner circle.

President Trump says he will not certify the 2015 Iran nuclear deal ahead of a Sunday deadline, but the move does not automatically withdraw the U.S. from the agreement. Trump laid out his strategy in an address on Friday. Below are his full remarks, as released by the White House.

Twenty-nine years ago, Morning Edition launched what has become an Independence Day tradition: hosts, reporters, newscasters and commentators reading the Declaration of Independence.

Church bells rang out over Philadelphia as the Continental Congress adopted this draft of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Below is the original text of the Declaration, alongside photos of the NPR staff members who performed the reading.

President Trump announced Thursday that the U.S. will leave the Paris climate deal.

Here are five things that could be affected by the decision.

1. The coal industry

Even coal companies had lobbied the Trump administration to stay in the agreement.