Russian hackers were able to get into a server belonging to Burisma, the Ukrainian company at the center of President Trump's impeachment, security experts told The New York Times.

The security firm Area 1, which first detected the hacking on New Year's Eve, told the Times that Russian efforts began in early November, when Trump's impeachment was all over the news. The hackers are from a Russian military intelligence unit formerly known as the GRU, and they used phishing emails that tricked users into entering their usernames and passwords, giving the hackers their login credentials. The tactics mirror the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016, Area 1 co-founder Oren Falkowitz told the Times. "The Burisma hack is a cookie-cutter GRU campaign," he said. "Russian hackers, as sophisticated as they are, also tend to be lazy. They use what works. And in this, they were successful."

It is unclear what the hackers were looking for, or what they found. Hunter Biden, the son of 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden, once sat on the board of Burisma. During a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump asked him to investigate the Bidens and Burisma, a request that ultimately triggered the events that led to his impeachment. Experts told the Times the timing of the hacking could indicate the Russians wanted to find any information about the Bidens that could be incriminating.

Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates told the Times that Trump "tried to coerce Ukraine into lying" about Biden because "he recognized that he can't beat the vice president," and now it's clear Russian President Vladimir Putin "also sees Joe Biden as a threat." For more on Area 1's research, visit The New York Times. Catherine Garcia

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has faced quite a bit of criticism over his decision to not discipline any players over their role in what was mostly a player-orchestrated, technology-infused sign stealing scheme in 2017, the year they won the World Series. In a wide-ranging interview with ESPN's Karl Ravech about the cheating scandal published Sunday, he explained his reasoning behind that choice.

Manfred said he understands why opposing players and fans would like to see Astros other than former general manager Jeff Lunhow and former manager A.J. Hinch face consequences, but if players were suspended or disciplined in some way MLB would have had to deal with grievances from the Players' Association. Theoretically, in Manfred's view, the MLBPA would have argued Lunhow never fully articulated a 2017 MLB memo on the use of technology during games to the clubhouse.

"So we knew if we had disciplined the players in all likelihood we were going to have grievances and grievances that we were going to lose on the basis that we never properly informed them of the rules," he told Ravech.

Besides, he doesn't think it's fair to say the players were let off the hook because the scrutiny they're facing is harsh enough. "I think if you watch the players, watch their faces when they have to deal with this issue publicly, they have paid a price," he said. "To think they're skipping down the road into spring training, happy, that's just a mischaracterization of where we are." Read more at ESPN and watch Manfred's full 45-minute interview here. Tim O'Donnell

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway thinks Democrats should spend some time self-reflecting if they're really considering the possibility of backing billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as the party's presidential nominee.

Fox News' Chris Wallace asked Conway on Sunday if it would be fair for President Trump to go after Bloomberg for sexist comments he's reportedly made in the workplace in the past. In Conway's mind that's absolutely fair game, and she's not sure why Democrats aren't already doing that themselves.

Wallace asked Conway how the Bloomberg revelations found in The Washington Post compared to Trump's infamous Access Hollywood tape. "It's far worse," Conway said. "Oh my goodness, it's far worse. And, by the way, that was fully litigated."

Bloomberg's Democratic competitor former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg also appeared on Fox News Sunday and Wallace asked him to comment on the allegations of sexism and racism being waged at Bloomberg. Buttigieg said Bloomberg will have to answer for that, and he thinks voters want a candidate without that kind of baggage, but did say there was no comparison to Trump's rhetoric. Tim O'Donnell

Sonic the Hedgehog just sped right past the bad buzz of its first trailer to an impressive box office debut.

The Paramount Pictures film based on the video game franchise grossed an estimated $57 million at the domestic box office through Sunday, and it's expected to take in $68 million during the four-day holiday weekend. The three-day haul sets a new record for the best domestic opening weekend for a movie based on a video game, beating the $54 million debut of 2019's Pokémon Detective Pikachu, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Sonic's domestic opening also came in above previous tracking that suggested it would take in between $40-45 million, Variety reports.

This was quite a comeback for a film that some thought was headed toward disaster when the first trailer dropped last year, revealing a Sonic whose design was widely panned. But in a move that's almost unheard of, the movie was delayed three months from its original November release so Sonic could be completely redesigned. That decision paid off, as when the tweaked version of the character was revealed in November, fans were largely satisfied.

Sonic the Hedgehog also ended up receiving surprisingly solid reviews from critics, as it currently holds a 63 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, joining a rare group of video game adaptations to be fairly well received, and its A CinemaScore indicates general audiences thought even more highly of the film. Now, when it comes to a sequel, Paramount likely can't go fast enough. Brendan Morrow

Yemen's Houthi rebels said air raids conducted by the Western-backed Saudi-UAE-led military coalition killed more than 30 civilians Saturday just one day after the rebels said they shot down a Saudi jet fighter with a surface-to-air missile. The United Nations confirmed Saturday's death toll.

The Houthis said women and children were among the dead, and the coalition acknowledged the "possibility of collateral damage" during their search-and-rescue mission for the downed plane.

The conflict which began in 2015 after the Houthis, who are backed by Iran, forced out former Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, prompting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to support loyalist forces. Since then, Lise Grande, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said there's been little done to protect the Yemeni people.

"So many people are being killed in Yemen — it's a tragedy and it's unjustified," she said in light of the most recent attacks. "Under international humanitarian law parties which resort to force are obligated to protect civilians. Five years into this conflict and belligerents are still failing to uphold this responsibility. It's shocking." Read more at Al Jazeera and BBC. Tim O'Donnell

Former Vice President Joe Biden zeroed in this weekend on one of his top competitors, who many consider to have eclipsed him as the Democratic presidential frontrunner.

In an interview set to air on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, Biden waded into a controversy surrounding Sanders supporters who have been accused of threatening members of Nevada's Culinary Workers Union for not backing Sanders' Medicare-for-All proposal. Biden said Sanders is necessarily directly responsible for such behavior, but he's not sure he's done enough to put a stop to it, either.

Biden also criticized Sanders' policy proposals, arguing that while the senator has talked about Medicare-for-All for 35 years, he has nothing to show for it. Biden said people, like those in the Culinary Workers Union, have "broken their necks" to procure their current insurance, and he's not sure why Sanders wants to force them to give it up.

And on Saturday evening, the former vice president put Sanders' 2005 vote to exempt gun manufacturers from liability in shootings on blast. He didn't name Sanders outright, but he called out "some of the people running for office" who voted for the exemption. Sanders, for what it's worth, has since changed his position on the matter. Read more at The Associated Press. Tim O'Donnell

People are very upset about the NBA dunk contest.

The Miami Heat's Derrick Jones Jr. won the event Saturday during the NBA's All-Star Weekend, outlasting the Orlando Magic's Aaron Gordon, but the victory came with a lot of controversy.

After advancing to the final, Jones and Gordon each received perfect scores, and they did so again during the first dunk-off, setting up a second tie-breaker. Jones' dunk in that round garnered a score of 48 out of 50 from the judges, while Gordon's — in which he jumped over 7-foot-5 Boston Celtic center Tacko Fall — only notched a 47 even though two of the judges, hip hop artist Common and WNBA star Candace Parker, who gave Gordon a perfect 10 said the panel had previously agreed to end that round in a tie, as well.

Gordon, who felt he deserved to win, said he's done with the dunk contest after losing in the similarly controversial 2016 edition. "I feel like I should have two trophies," he said. "It's over for that."

The crowd was booing the judges all the night, and several of Gordon's NBA colleagues felt justice wasn't served.

Even Jones thought his 48 in the final was unfair, though he does believe the fact that Gordon clipped Fall's head on the way up validated his competitor's lack of a perfect score.

Anyway, check out the final two displays of athleticism below that spurred all the furor. Tim O'Donnell