Monday morning news - January 18, 2021

Secret Service, law enforcement prep security for inauguration » The Secret Service and law enforcement agencies are gearing up for Wednesday’s inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. 

Secret Service special agent Matt Miller said the agency is preparing for the possibility that an extremist group will try to disrupt the event. 

MILLER: There’s a great deal of very concerning chatter, and it is what you don’t know that we are preparing for. So I don’t know if anyone has raised their hand to say we are coming, we will be there. But we are preparing as if they are. 

Miller said “we cannot not allow a recurrence of the chaos and the illegal activity” that we witnessed at the Capitol on Jan. 6. 

Up to 25,000 troops have been authorized to be deployed to Washington for Inauguration Day.

Harris resigns Senate seat » Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is resigning her Senate senate today. 

That clears the way for California Gov. Gavin Newsom to appoint fellow Democrat Alex Padilla to serve the final two years of Harris’ term. Padilla is now California’s secretary of state. 

Newsom announced his choice last month. Padilla will be the first Latino senator from the state. 

Harris will not give a farewell Senate floor speech. The Senate is not scheduled to reconvene until tomorrow.

Apple CEO defends Parlor app suspension » Apple CEO Tim Cook is defending his company’s decision to suspend conservative social media app Parler from its app store. He told Fox News Sunday…

COOK: We looked at the incitement to violence that was on there, and we don’t consider the free speech and incitement to violence has an intersection. 

He said postings on the platform violated the app store’s terms of service. 

But Cook said his company did not ban that app from its store but merely suspended it. He said if Parler can—quote—“get their moderation together” Apple will lift the suspension. 

Google also also booted Parler from its app store.

And Amazon kicked the platform off of its hosting service, prompting Parler to file a lawsuit against the tech giant. 

Fauci: Two more vaccines are likely close » The government’s top infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci says two more coronavirus vaccines are likely close to gaining approval. 

He told NBC’s Meet the Press that he expects drugmakers Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca to make their pitches to the FDA soon. 

FAUCI: I would imagine within a period of a week or so, or at the most a couple of weeks, they’re going to be getting their data together and showing it to the FDA. 

He said with that in mind, President-elect Joe Biden’s goal of delivering a 100-million doses in his first 100 days in office is very attainable. He said vaccinations are already trending toward a million doses per day. 

North Dakota and West Virginia continue to be the most efficient states in terms of getting vaccine shots into the arms of its residents. 

According to a New York Times tally, those are the only two states to have used at least 65 percent of the doses they’ve received. 

West Virginia’s Republican Gov. Jim Justice told CBS’ Face the Nation he’s proud of what his state’s accomplished so far. 

JUSTICE: We’re saving all kinds of lives. We’re putting our kids back in school. West Virginia’s been the diamond in the ruff that a lot of people have missed.

Texas has administered the most shots in total, about 1.2 million. It’s the only highly populated U.S. state that has administered more than half of vaccine shots it’s received. 

Navalny arrested at Moscow airport upon return to Russia » Russian authorities handcuffed opposition leader Alexei Navalny Sunday at a Moscow airport. 

Russia’s prisons service claimed he had violated parole terms. He was convicted in 2014 of embezzlement, though outside rights groups said charges against him were trumped up by the Kremlin. 

Navalny is President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic. The 44-year-old spent months recovering in Germany after being poisoned with a Soviet era nerve agent. 

Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth said Navalny’s return to Russia was a “real act of bravery … given that government agents already tried to kill him once.” But added that Navlany “understandably wants to be part of the pro-democracy movement in Russia, not a dissident in exile.”

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci) A view of the White House, Monday, Jan. 11, 2021, in Washington. 

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