State Dept. condemns arrests, repression in Russia
It called for the release of protesters and opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
This is the fifth day of the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Top headlines:
Senate passes waiver, paving way for defense secretary nomination vote
The Senate has confirmed retired Gen. Lloyd Austin's waiver to serve as Secretary of Defense shorty after the House passed the measure Thursday by a vote of 69-27.
The four-star general retired from the Army in 2016, short of the requirement that requires commissioned officers to be out of the service for seven years before taking a civilian post.
McConnell expected to propose a delay of impeachment trial
GOP senators say Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to propose a delay of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial when he pitches a framework later Thursday to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The delay is designed to give the still-emerging Trump legal team time to prepare.
Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., said it's his understanding from a conversation earlier in the day that the trial will not start "until sometime mid-February due to the fact that the process, as it occurred in the House, evolved so quickly, and that it is not in line with the time you need to prepare to prepare for a defense in a Senate trial."
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told Capitol Hill reporters, “I think, in fairness to anybody who's accused of impeachable offenses, there needs to be some fair process."
-ABC News' Trish Turner and Allison Pecorin
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene introduces impeachment articles against Joe Biden
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who did not attend Biden's inauguration and was one of the leaders of the effort to overturn the election results in the House, says she has filed impeachment articles against Biden and that the case against him "is vast and detailed."
ABC News has asked Greene's office for the text of the impeachment articles but has not heard back.
Any member can file impeachment articles, however they are not guaranteed a vote on the floor or in the House Judiciary Committee.
-ABC News' Ben Siegel
House passes waiver to allow Biden's pick to serve as defense secretary
The House has passed a waiver allowing retired Gen. Lloyd Austin to serve as defense secretary, if confirmed by the Senate. The retired four-star general retired from the Army in 2016, short of the requirement that commissioned officers be out of the service for seven years before taking a civilian post.
The Thursday vote to grant Austin a waiver, which passed 326-78, was bipartisan, with a handful of Democrats voting with dozens of Republicans against the waiver, citing abiding concerns with permitting a second career military officer to run the Pentagon in the place of a civilian.
--ABC News' Benjamin Siegel
Murthy on vaccine supply, distribution: There are lots of challenges
In his appearance on ABC's "This Week" Sunday, Biden’s nominee for Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said that when it comes to meeting the goal for 100 million vaccines in the first 100 days of the president's administration, there are things that could go right or wrong.
"I think President Biden fully understands there's a larger goal here, as we all do, which is that we've got to vaccinate as many Americans as possible. And that's going to take a lot of work, work dispelling this disinformation, working on the supply, increasing distribution channels," he told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos. "And that's some of what the vaccine plan that he announced over the last week is intended to -- to achieve."
Stephanopoulos pressed Murthy on whether there are ways to increase the supply and equitably distribute the vaccines.
"It appears, at least in these first vaccines that have gone out, they've been going largely to wealthier areas of the country, largely to whiter areas of the country," Stephanopoulos said.
"Well, it's the right question, George, because success has to be gauged not just by the number of vaccines we deliver but also by how fairly we deliver those vaccines -- how equitably we deliver them," he said in response. "What we've got to do here is not just, again, increase supply, which we can do using the Defense Production Act ... but we've also got to set up the kind of distribution channels, like mobile units, like strategically placed community vaccination centers, that can reach people who traditionally are hard to reach and don't have access to health care."
He added, "We have got to track our progress. We have got to make sure that we have data on where the vaccine is being administered, so that we can ensure that it, in fact, is being distributed equitably."