Monday morning news - February 7, 2022

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kent Covington. 

Top Biden aide says Ukraine invasion could come ‘any day’ » Russia could launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine at any time. That’s the warning from national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

SULLIVAN: We are in the window. Any day now, Russia could take military action against Ukraine.

U.S. officials over the weekend confirmed that Russia has assembled at least 70 percent of the military firepower it likely intends to have in place by the middle of this month. And that gives President Vladimir Putin the option of launching a full-scale invasion.

The White House has reportedly briefed lawmakers that Russia could quickly capture the capitol Kyiv … possibly leading to as many as 50,000 casualties.

GOP Senator Marco Rubio, who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, said an invasion would also send shockwaves throughout Europe, destabilizing the continent.

RUBIO: So if we now live in a world where you can just go in and take a country because you claim it or parts of it belong to you, and you can do so militarily, well, we’ve entered a very dangerous period in human history once again.

U.S. officials have reportedly sketched out a series of indicators suggesting that Putin intends to start an invasion in the coming weeks, although the size and scale are unclear.

But Sullivan said again on Sunday that Russia may still choose diplomacy over war.

Yuma mayor voices concern over border crisis with DHS secretary » Yuma, Arizona Mayor Douglas Nicholls said Sunday he is deeply concerned about the strain the border crisis is placing on Border Patrol agents in and around his city.

NICHOLLS: Really concerned about the health and safety of our agents working so much and being stretched so thin, operating at four times the capacity of their facilities at times. Those are things that are important because they’re members of our community too.

The Republican mayor recently met with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in Arizona for more than an hour. Nicholls said Mayorkas vowed to take action on the mayor’s concerns, including a follow-up meeting in the days ahead.

Since March of last year the Border Patrol has averaged nearly 200,000 encounters with unauthorized immigrants every month.

In late January, audio leaked online of a meeting between Mayorkas and Border Patrol agents in the Yuma sector in which frustrations boiled over. Some agents expressed their belief that the current administration doesn’t support them. One of the agents even turned his back on the secretary. That moment is heard here:

AUDIO: So how many years have you been in the Border Patrol, the gentleman who turned his back on me.

Mayorkas told agents that the pandemic is the reason the border crisis has worsened under the Biden administration.

COVID-19 cases continue to drop as omicron wave subsides » COVID-19 cases continue to fall sharply in the United States. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: At the height of the omicron wave, COVID cases hit a peak of more than 800,000 per day in mid-January. But since then, cases have fallen just as quickly as they surged.

New confirmed infections have dropped to about 300,000 per day.

And COVID-related deaths are now dipping as well. Daily totals are down only slightly, from about 2,500 in late January to a little over 2,200 now. Still, experts say hospitalizations and deaths will likely continue to fall.

But authorities are keeping an eye on a new sub-variant of omicron detected in several countries. Early evidence suggests it could be even more transmissible than the strain that has spread like wildfire around the globe. But there’s no evidence yet that the sub-variant is any more severe.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Pence: Trump is 'wrong' to say election could be overturned » Former Vice President Mike Pence over the weekend gave his most forceful response yet to Donald Trump’s assertion that he could have stopped President Biden from taking office.

Pence told a crowd at a meeting of the Federalist Society in Orlando that former President Trump “is wrong.”

PENCE: I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone.

Trump last week escalated his attacks against Pence. He said instead of investigating the Capitol riot, Congress should investigate—his words—“why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval.”

He said unfortunately, Pence did not exercise his power because—quote—“he could have overturned the Election!”

But Pence said “there is no idea more un-American than the notion that one person could choose the American president.”

I’m Kent Covington. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org. 

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.