1/ Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there’s been “no meaningful pullback” of Russian forces at the Ukrainian border, disputing the Kremlin’s claim that it was withdrawing some troops. Blinken added that Russian troops “remain massed in a very threatening way along Ukraine’s borders. It would be good if they follow through on what they said. But so far, we haven’t seen it.” The NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, agreed with the U.S. assessment, saying that Russia remains capable “of a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine without any warning time.” U.S. analysts estimate that more than 150,000 Russian troops have amassed near the Ukrainian border. (New York Times / Politico)

2/ Biden rejected Trump’s claim that his White House visitor logs were subject to executive privilege, directing the National Archives to the send Trump administration logs to the Jan. 6 committee. In a letter to the National Archives, White House counsel Dana Remus said Biden had determined that executive privilege “is not in the best interests of the United States” and “in light of the urgency” of the committee’s work, the Archives should provide the records to the committee within 15 days. Trump was trying to block the release of the records, which show appointment information about who entered the White House on the day of the insurrection. (New York Times / Washington Post / Associated Press / NBC News / CNN)

3/ The Jan. 6 committee subpoenaed six more people tied to the plan to use false slates of electors to help Trump stay in office after losing the 2020 election. The committee subpoenaed two of Trump’s campaign aides and Republican Party officials from Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. All six are ordered to provide documents to the committee by March 1, and to submit to questioning from March 8 to March 15. (New York Times / Bloomberg)

4/ The EPA will reinstate California’s authority to adopt its own, stricter tailpipe emission standards. The Biden administration is expected to finalize the waiver within days, which would reverse a Trump-era rollback. In 2019, the Trump administration revoked California’s decades-old waiver that allowed it to set stricter air pollution standards for cars and light trucks than those required by the federal government. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia – representing more than a third of the U.S. vehicle market – follow California standards. (E&E News /

1/ Biden warned that a Russian invasion of Ukraine “remains distinctly possible” despite Putin’s claim that Moscow had withdrawn some troops from the border and that he was open to renewed talks to end the standoff with the West. Biden said the U.S. has not verified Russia’s claim that it has begun to withdraw troops, saying its forces “remain very much in a threatening position.” NATO added that it had not seen “any de-escalation on the ground” by the Russian military. Earlier in the day, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he saw reason for “cautious optimism” after Putin said Russia would “partially pull back troops.” Biden vowed to “give the diplomacy every chance” to prevent an invasion, but warned that if Russia does invade the “human” and “strategic” costs would be “immense” and an attack “would be met with overwhelming international condemnation.” Following a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Putin said Russia would continue pushing for a rollback of NATO’s presence in Eastern Europe and a guarantee that Ukraine would never join the alliance. The U.S. and its allies have rejected those demands, while Scholz suggested that NATO’s expansion was “not on the agenda” as a way of defusing the tensions. (New York Times / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / Politico / NBC News / Associated Press / CNN / CNBC)

2/ NOAA reported that U.S. shorelines are projected to rise by as much as a foot over the next 30 years as climate change accelerates, leading to a “dramatic increase” in exposure to flooding for millions of Americans. “Sea level rise driven by global climate change is a clear and present risk to the United States, now and for the foreseeable future,” the report said. Rick Spinrad, the NOAA administrator, said the U.S. “is expected to experience as much sea level rise in 30 years as we saw over the span of the entire last century,” noting that while “current and future emissions matter,” U.S. coasts will rise “no matter what we do about emissions.” (Politico / Washington Post / NBC News / Associated Press)

3/ Senate Republicans boycotted and delayed a Senate Banking Committee vote on Biden’s five nominees to the Federal Reserve because one of the candidates pledged to focus on the ways climate change threatens financial stability and the economy. In order to prevent Sarah Bloom Raskin’s advancement, Republicans held up the vote on all five nominees, including Fed Chair Jerome Powell for a second term and Governor Lael Brainard to be the Fed’s No. 2. Biden nominated Raskin to serve as vice chairwoman for...

1/ The White House said it believes Russia could invade Ukraine at “essentially any time,” and Britain’s prime minister said Europe is “on the edge of a precipice.” Russia, meanwhile, left the door open to further negotiations with Russia’s foreign minister suggesting that talks “are far from being exhausted” but “can’t go on indefinitely.” The Kremlin has continued to press Ukraine to drop its bid to join NATO, and on Monday, Ukraine’s president didn’t rule out the possibility, saying: “Maybe the question of open doors is for us like a dream.” On Sunday, Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain suggested that Ukraine was willing to be “flexible” over its goal to join the alliance in order to avoid war. The U.S., meanwhile, evacuated its diplomats and military advisers from Kyiv and is moving all remaining staffers to a city near the Polish border, citing the “dramatic acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces.” Russian has amassed more than 130,000 troops outside Ukraine – about 60% of its ground combat forces and more than half of its air power. Russia has also moved some long-range artillery and rocket launchers into firing position. The Pentagon ordered 3,000 additional troops to Poland, bringing the total number of troops sent to Europe in the past two weeks to 5,000. (NBC News / New York Times / Washington Post / CBS News / ABC News / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / Reuters / Politico / Associated Press / CNBC / CNN)

2/ The Western U.S. and northern Mexico are experiencing their driest period in at least 1,200 years, according to a new study. Scientists using tree ring data analyzed droughts in southwestern North America found that 2000-21 was the driest 22-year period since 800 A.D., which is as far back as the data goes. The last comparable multidecade megadrought occurred in the 1500s. The current drought is 5% drier than the old record. The study also calculated that 42% of the current megadrought can be attributed to human-caused climate change. (NPR / New York Times / Associated Press / CNBC)

3/ Trump’s long-time accounting firm cut ties with the Trump Organization last week, saying the annual financial statements it prepa...

1/ U.S. inflation accelerated to 7.5% in January compared with a year ago – the steepest year-over-year increase since February 1982. It was the eighth straight month that inflation has been above 5% despite claims by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that inflation would only be “transitory.” On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.6% from December to January. Over the past 12 months, the U.S. economy has added nearly 7 million jobs while average hourly earnings have climbed 5.7%. On an annual basis, however, inflation-adjusted average hourly earnings fell 1.7% in January from a year earlier, marking the 10th straight decline. Biden, meanwhile, said “while today’s report is elevated, forecasters continue to project inflation easing substantially by the end of 2022” and that there are “signs that we will make it through this challenge.” (Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / New York Times / Washington Post / Associated Press / CNBC / Politico / NBC News / CNN)

2/ Following the inflation report, Joe Manchin assailed the prospect of Biden’s roughly $2 trillion social and climate package, saying Congress should not add “more fuel to an economy already on fire.” Manchin effectively killed the package in December after announcing that he would not support the legislation, citing concerns about inflation and the cost of the bill. “It’s beyond time for the Federal Reserve to tackle this issue head on,” Manchin said. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard, meanwhile, said he supports raising interest rates by a full percentage point by July, calling it a “sensible response to a surprise inflationary shock.” (Bloomberg / The Hill / Business Insider)

3/ White House call records do not reflect the calls made to or from Trump during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. While there is no evidence that any official records were tampered with or deleted, the House committee investigating the attack said they’re finding few records of calls between Trump and lawmakers that have been publicly reported in the hundreds of records from the National Archives turned over after the Supreme Court ruled against Trump’s efforts to block their release. The committee, however, is still waiting for additional records from the National Archives, and from phone companies that have been subpoenaed for the personal cellphone records for more than 100 people, including Eric Trump and Kimberly Gui...

1/ New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois will ease mask requirements as the Omicron wave recedes, joining New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Oregon in lifting mandates. New York and Illinois will drop their mask-or-vaccine mandates for indoor businesses, while Massachusetts will end its statewide school mandate. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said it was time to “let counties, cities and businesses to make their own decisions on what they want to do with respect to ‘mask or the vaccination’ requirement,” citing “a new phase in this pandemic.” White House press secretary Jen Psaki, meanwhile, said Americans living in states that have lifted their mask mandates should still follow CDC guidance “because the data is changing. The science is changing.” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky added that despite encouraging trends in coronavirus case rates in several states, the country as a whole is “not there yet.” Instead, Walensky said, “We continue to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission. That’s much of the country right now, in public indoor settings.” The seven-day average of coronavirus cases in the U.S. has decreased by about 44% from the previous week, while hospitalizations have dropped by about 25%, and deaths, which lag behind those indicators, have increased by about 3%. (Washington Post / New York Times / Politico / Wall Street Journal / NBC News)

2/ The National Archives asked the Justice Department to investigate Trump’s handling of White House records. The referral came after it was revealed that Trump took 15 boxes of documents to Mar-a-Lago instead of handing them over to the agency, and that Trump had turned over other White House records that had been torn up. Archives officials contacted the Justice Department after suspecting that Trump had possibly violated laws concerning the handling of government documents, including classified ones. The Presidential Records Act requires that presidential records be immediately transferred to the agency when a president leaves office. Meanwhile, former Trump White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman claimed that Trump would sometimes eat torn-up documents, saying that “After Michael Cohen left the office and I walked into the Oval, Donald, in my view, was chewing what he had just torn up.” (Washington Post / Axios / The Independent)

3/ Rudy Giuliani and other Trump legal advisors asked a Michigan prosecutor to hand over the county’s voting machines to the Trump team. James Rossiter, the prosecuting attorney for Antrim County in northern Michigan, said Giuliani and his colleagues made the request during a call after the county initially misreported its election results in favor of Biden. Officials later said that Trump had beaten Biden by more than 3,000 votes in Antrim, which was confirmed by a hand recount of the paper ballots. The call came around Nov. 20, 2020, when Trump’s legal team was searching for evidence to support his false claims that the election had been stolen. (

1/ The House is scheduled to vote on a short-term funding bill to avert a shutdown and keep the federal government funded through March 11 while talks on a broader spending package continue. Funding is currently set to expire on February 18. Once the House passes the stopgap bill, the Senate would need to approve it before it can be sent to Biden to be signed into law. House Appropriations Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro said the stopgap bill is needed to allow time for more negotiations between Republicans and Democrats on a complete $1.5 trillion appropriations package that would keep the government funded at least through September. (Bloomberg / CNN / NBC News / Wall Street Journal / Politico)

2/ The Supreme Court allowed a congressional map drawn by Alabama Republicans to remain in place despite a lower court saying the map violated the Voting Rights Act. A lower court had ordered Alabama Republicans to redraw the map because it resulted in one congressional district with a majority of Black voters even though they make up more than a quarter of the state’s population. “Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress,” the lower court wrote, ruling that the state had likely violated the federal Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court’s 5-4 vote, however, means the upcoming elections will be conducted under the current map, drawn by Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the three liberal justices in dissent, who called the order “a disservice to Black Alabamians” who under Supreme Court precedent “have had their electoral power diminished — in violation of a law this Court once knew to buttress all of American democracy.” (Washington Post / New York Times / NBC News / CNN / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal)

3/ Mitch McConnell criticized the Republican National Committee for censuring two Republican lawmakers who serve on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. In remarks at the Capitol, McConnell called the attack a “violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.” On Friday, the RNC approved a resolution accusing Rep. Liz Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of participating in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” Cheney and Kinzinger are the only GOP members of the House panel. (NBC News /

1/ Jill Biden said that two years of tuition-free community college – her signature legislative initiative – is “no longer” part of the Build Back Better agenda, telling a group of educators that she is “disappointed” that the provision was dropped because of necessary “compromises.” In October, Joe Biden told lawmakers that community college would likely not be in the bill. Democrats also didn’t include it in the roughly $2 trillion version that passed the House last year. “Congress hasn’t passed the Build Back Better legislation yet. And free community college is no longer part of that package,” the first lady said during an appearance in Washington before the Community College National Legislative Summit. (New York Times / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal)

2/ New Jersey and Delaware will no longer require students and school employees to wear masks. New Jersey’s new policy will take effect the second week of March, while Delaware’s indoor mask mandate for public and private K-12 schools and child care facilities will end on March 31. The Democratic governors of New York and Connecticut also said they’re re-evaluating school mask mandates. The White House, meanwhile, said its “advice to every school district is to abide by public health guidelines. It continues to be at this point that the CDC is advising that masks can delay, reduce transmission.” (New York Times / NPR / CNN)

3/ Biden’s top science adviser bullied and demeaned subordinates, and created a hostile work environment, according to a White House investigation. Eric Lander, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, apologized for his behavior following the two-month investigation, which found “credible evidence” that he created a toxic work environment. While swearing in political appointees on Inauguration Day, Biden pledged to fire anyone who disrespected their colleagues “On the spot. No ifs, ands or buts.” The White House declined to comment when asked whether Biden would seek Lander’s resignation. Lander, however, promised “check-ins” to ensure “that every employee knows how to report conduct that concerns them.” (Politico / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal)

4/ The North Carolina Supreme Court blocked the state’s new Republican-drawn congressional map, ruling 4-3 that they violate the state constitution. The new map could have given Republicans control of 11 of the state’s 14 districts and would likely have helped Republicans gain at least two seats in the state’s delegation. The state Supreme Court gave the General Assembly until Feb. 18 to submit a new redistricting proposal. (Politico / CNN)

5/ Pence rejected ...

1/ The U.S. accused Russia of planning to fabricate a video showing an attack by Ukraine on Russia or Russian-speaking people as a pretext for an invasion. Defense Department press secretary John Kirby said the scheme to stage and film a fabricated attack, which could include “graphic scenes of a staged false explosion with corpses,” would be used to accuse Ukraine of conducting a genocide against Russian-speaking people. A senior Biden administration official said Russian intelligence is intimately involved in the effort, and that Moscow has already recruited people who would be involved in the fake attack. The White House declassified the intelligence to deny Russia the chance to use the video as a reason to mount an invasion. (Washington Post / New York Times / Associated Press / NBC News / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / ABC News / CNN)

2/ The leader of the Islamic State killed himself during an overnight raid by U.S. Special Operations commandos in Syria. Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi detonated an explosive, killing himself and 12 other people, including his wife and children, as U.S. forces approached with the intention of capturing him. Biden said that the raid serves as a “testament to America’s reach and capability to take out terrorist threats,” calling al-Quaryshi’s decision to detonate an explosive “a final act of desperate cowardice, with no regard to the lives of his own family or others the building.” (New York Times / Washington Post / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / Politico / NBC News / USA Today)

3/ Less than three weeks before the Capitol riot, Trump’s allies circulated a memo arguing that he should use the National Security Agency and Defense Department to find evidence of election fraud and foreign interference. The plan, according to the memo, called for Trump to appoint three men to lead an effort to seize and analyze “NSA unprocessed raw signals data,” and then declassify the purported evidence to help Trump win. There is no evidence of widespread fraud or indication that foreign interference helped Biden win. One informal adviser to Trump at the time called the effort “amateur hour.” In a separate ...

1/ Biden directed the Pentagon to deploy more than 3,000 American troops to Eastern Europe to reinforce NATO allies as Russia continues its military buildup near Ukraine’s borders. Roughly 2,000 troops will be going to Poland, while another 1,000 already based in Germany will be deployed to Romania. “These forces are not going to fight in Ukraine,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said. “We are making it clear that we’re going to be prepared to defend our NATO allies if it comes to that.” The administration, however, did not rule out sending additional troops to Europe, and still has 8,500 American troops on “high alert” for possible deployment if NATO activates its military response force. (Politico / New York Times / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / USA Today / CNN / NBC News)

2/ The EPA urged Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to reconsider his plan to spend up to $11.3 billion on as many as 165,000 new mostly gas-powered delivery vehicles, citing the damage the polluting vehicles could inflict on the environment and public health. DeJoy oversaw the agency’s decision to award the contract and signed off on a plan for limiting just 10% of the new trucks to be electric. The new, gas-powered trucks are expected average 8.6 miles per gallon – a 0.4 mpg improvement over the current fleet, which is nearly 30 years old and well below the industry standard for new service vehicles. DeJoy, however, justified the plan, claiming that the Postal Service couldn’t afford to buy more electric vehicles and that the current charging infrastructure was insufficient despite the Postal Service’s own analysis showing that 95% of mail routes could be electrified. Postal Service vehicles make up a third of the government’s fleet. (Washington Post)

3/ Biden relaunched the White House’s “Cancer Moonshot” initiative, which aims to reduce the death rate from the disease by 50% over the next 25 years. Biden called the goal “ambitious but doable,” noting that the death rate has fallen by about 25% in the past 20 years. The initiative promises improvements in prevention, detection, and treatment, but does not contain new money for the effort. In 2016, Congress authorized $1.8 billion for the program, which still has two years of funding left. Biden called on Congress to fund the effort, as well as his 2021 proposal to create a new health research agency, dubbed the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. (Washington Post / CNN)

4/ A member of the House Jan. 6 committee accused Trump of tampering with witnesses by promising to pardon those involved in the attack if reelected in 2024. “Absolutely,” Rep. Pete Aguilar said when asked if Trump was tampering with witnesses by discussing potential pardons. “And I think the question is more...

1/ Joe Manchin called Biden’s $2 trillion Build Back Better plan “dead.” When asked about the legislation, Manchin replied: “What Build Back Better bill? It’s dead.” Manchin, however, has said he remains open to a smaller bill aimed at reducing carbon emissions, creating free pre-Kindergarten programs, and increasing federal health care subsidies, but that he hasn’t yet taken part in any negotiations with the White House. In December, Manchin abruptly announced his opposition to the 10-year, roughly $2 trillion social and climate spending package, which had already passed the House. (Associated Press / Bloomberg / NBC News)

2/ At least 4 million people quit or changed jobs in December – down from last month’s all-time high but still near record levels. Job openings totaled nearly 10.9 million in December – more than 4.6 million above the total unemployment level. The White House, meanwhile, warned that Friday’s job report data for last month could overstate the number of unemployed people, saying the January surveys were taken at the height of Covid-19 absences stemming from the holidays. (Washington Post / CNBC / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal)

3/ The U.S. daily death toll from Covid-19 rose to an average of more than 2,400 fatalities over the previous seven days – up 39% over the past two weeks and the highest level since mid-February last year. The last time U.S. Covid-19 deaths were this high, vaccines weren’t yet widely available. (CNBC / Wall Street Journal)

4/ Pfizer asked the FDA to authorize their Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 6 months to 5 years. The FDA had urged Pfizer to apply for emergency use authorization for their two-dose vaccine now so that young children would be eligible for a booster by the time the results from the three-dose trial are available. In a clinical trial, the two-dose regimen, while safe, failed to produce the expected immunity in 2- to 5-year-olds in a clinical trial, although it did so for the babies up to age 2. Federal regulators, however, believe that two doses should provide enough protection against the Omicron variant. Data on a third shot is not expected to be available until at least late March. The FDA will convene a panel of independent researchers and physicians in mid-February to review the data, potentially making the first vaccine for young children by the end of the month. The Pfizer shots contain one-tenth of the dose given to adults. There are more than 19 million Americans under 5 years old. (CNN / NBC News /