Scott Detrow

The same Russian hackers who carried out the SolarWinds attack and other malicious campaigns have now attacked groups involved in international development, human rights and other issues, according to Microsoft. The company said the breach began with a takeover of an email marketing account used by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

In what appears to be a mostly symbolic step toward finding common ground with Senate Republicans, the Biden administration has lowered its spending proposal on its infrastructure and jobs proposal, from more than $2 trillion to $1.7 trillion.

As Hamas rockets have rained down on Israeli cities, Israeli airstrikes and artillery have crumbled buildings in the Gaza Strip, and violent mobs have attacked one another in Israel's streets, President Biden has remained mostly muted about the escalating crisis.

With a 50-50 Senate and a paper-thin Democratic majority in the House, Louisa Terrell would have a tough job no matter what.

But the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has created a lot of unique challenges for the director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs.

"You're not able to do the pull-asides you can do in an Easter egg roll [event], when people are there with their families — a great way to connect," Terrell told NPR. "Members are not roaming the halls all the time."

With college classes going online because of COVID-19, Joe Spofforth put his double major in political economies and educational studies on hold to move West and find work. When the pandemic was over, he'd go back.

"You can get real into this stuff," the 21-year-old Ohioan said, grinning at his mountain surroundings as his fellow Montana Conservation Corps crew members saw, chop and lop branches and logs away from a dirt path — trail work.

Standing, unshowered, in the shade of a tall stand of lodgepole pine in northwest Montana, he said it's a bit scary though.

For all of the statecraft that went into it, President Biden's virtual climate summit this week ultimately boiled down to one thing: the diplomatic version of a grand romantic gesture.

Biden needed to prove that the United States was committed to its relationship with the global coalition fighting climate change. To show that he knew the country had strayed before, but this time, other nations could trust that the U.S. was really serious about making it work.

President Biden opened a global summit on climate change Thursday morning by announcing that the United States will aim to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half, based on 2005 levels, by the end of the decade.

That aggressive 2030 goal, which the White House is framing as a "50-52 percent reduction," will be formalized in a document called a "nationally determined contribution," or NDC.