News Roundup: Biden Considers Deploying Troops to Eastern Europe as Russian Invasion Threat Mounts

BY JACK CROWE

January 24, 2022

Good morning and welcome to the News Editor's Roundup, a weekly newsletter that will ensure you're up to date on the developments in politics, business, and culture that will shape the week's news cycle — as well as those that might escape mainstream attention.

Biden Considers Deploying Troops to Eastern Europe as Russian Invasion Threat Mounts

President Biden is considering deploying U.S. troops to Eastern European nations due to fears of a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Pentagon officials presented Biden with several options to move American troops closer to Russia during a meeting at Camp David on Saturday, Biden administration officials told the New York Times. Those options included moving 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European nations, with the potential to increase that amount.

The White House attempted to downplay the report in comments to Politico on Monday morning.

"The president has publicly said that he'd deploy troops to Eastern Europe if the Russians invade so I don't really get how the NYT story advances that?" a senior White House official told Politico Playbook.

Trial Begins in Sarah Palin's Libel Suit against the New York Times

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's libel suit against the New York Times is set to be argued before a jury on Monday.

Palin alleges that the paper and former editorial page editor James Bennett defamed her in an op-ed on June 14, 2017, by linking her political action committee to the 2011 shooting of former Arizona Democratic representative Gabrielle Giffords. The editorial was published after the shooting of Representative Steve Scalise (R., La.) by a left-wing extremist.

Jury selection begins Monday morning after four-and-a-half years of litigation and could be followed by opening statements as soon as Monday afternoon. The trial will likely last five days, according to Reuters.

California DA Claims 'Rogue Prosecutors' Are Emboldening Criminals

Sacramento County district attorney Anne Marie Schubert claimed that "rogue prosecutors" in California have been incentivizing offenders to perpetrate crimes with their relaxed penalty policies.

"This is just yet another example of the chaos that we're seeing here in California and the violence," Sacramento County DA Anne Marie Schubert told Fox & Friends on Friday. "And it's not just that, it's the fact that we've got a tsunami of poor public policies, and you've got rogue prosecutors that are not holding people accountable to the fullest extent of the law that we can."

Progressive prosecutors in major cities have come under fire recently for passing policies that seem likely to embolden criminals even as violence and crime rates mount.

Schubert specifically targeted Los Angeles prosecutor George Gascon and San Francisco prosecutor Chesa Boudin. She said their tough-on-crime posturing is a façade, backed mostly by rhetoric rather than action.

"When they try to talk tough, it's really just a show because when you actually follow them through with those cases, what we're seeing is that they're really not being tough on crime, they're not holding people accountable," she added.

UPenn Trans Swimmer Defeats Harvard Women's Team in Two Races

Lia Thomas, the transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer who has beat women's swimming records this season after formerly competing as a male, defeated Harvard University's women's team in two major races Saturday.

Thomas swept the 100-meter and 200-meter freestyle races against Harvard, finishing the former in 50.55 seconds and the latter in 1:47.08 seconds.

The second-place competitor came about a second shy of Thomas at 51.51 in the first race and 1:48.44 in the second race.

Thomas, a biological male, competed on UPenn's men's swimming team for three years before switching over to the women's team after transitioning.

Arizona Democratic Party Censures Sinema over Filibuster Stance

The Arizona Democratic Party's Executive Board passed a motion to censure Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) on Saturday, as a result of her refusal to push Democrat-backed voting bills through the Senate by changing filibuster rules earlier this week.

"While we take no pleasure in this announcement, the ADP Executive Board has decided to formally censure Senator Sinema as a result of her failure to do whatever it takes to ensure the health of our democracy," ADP chair Raquel Terán said in a statement.

"In the choice between an archaic legislative norm and protecting Arizonans' right to vote, we choose the latter, and we always will," Terán said.

State Department Tells Families of Embassy Workers to Leave Ukraine

The State Department has ordered families of workers at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country beginning as soon as Monday, U.S. officials told Fox News.

The State Department will also begin telling American civilians in Ukraine next week to leave the country on commercial flights "while those are still available," one U.S. official told Fox on Saturday. With Russian fighter jets currently stationed in Belarus, the country on Ukraine's northern border, another official said the Pentagon is concerned Ukraine's capital of Kyiv is "now in the crosshairs."

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv had already requested authorization to begin an evacuation of nonessential personnel as well as their families, CNN reported earlier on Saturday. When asked for comment, a State Department spokesperson told CNN the agency had "nothing to announce at this time."

Fairfax County Tells Principals to Suspend Maskless Students in Defiance of State Order

The superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools has instructed principals in the district to suspend students who refuse to wear a mask in school, defying an order by Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin that grants parents the authority to select whether their children wear masks.

Superintendent Scott Brabrand issued a "Principal Briefing" on Friday telling administrators to "continue to follow existing regulations and practices" on masking, nearly one week after Youngkin issued an executive order immediately after being sworn in that "delivers on [Youngkin's] Day One promise to empower Virginia parents in their children's education and upbringing by allowing parents to make decisions on whether their child wears a mask in school."

The briefing, obtained by Parents Defending Education, adds: "Any student who refuses to wear a face covering while indoors on school property or during FCPS-provided transportation, and who is not otherwise exempt will be precluded access to face-to-face instructional programming until they comply with the requirements of this regulation."

Marchers for Life Vow to Continue Fight Even If Roe Overturned: 'Abortion Won't Go Away'

Thousands of pro-life demonstrators converged on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. Friday for the 49th annual March for Life with a collective conviction and commitment to defeating abortion in their lifetime.

Given the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, many protestors were filled with optimism that Roe v. Wade, the hallmark decision that legalized abortion nationally, would be overturned in the coming judicial season. In that event, the abortion issue would return to the state legislatures. That has begged the question: what will become of the March for Life if Roe is reversed?

The consensus among those whom National Review interviewed, including former Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker, is that the fight to defend the unborn would be far from over.

"I think the march would continue because there will be momentum to put pressure on policy makers to create a constitutional amendment. We've got to work together nationally to make sure there's good legislation in the states to protect the sanctity of life," he said.

"For so long we focused on the court of law, we've got to shift to the court of public opinion," he added.

FBI Says Texas Synagogue Hostage Situation Was a 'Federal Hate Crime'

FBI officials said Friday that a British national taking a rabbi and three other people at a Texas synagogue last weekend was an "act of terrorism" and a "federal hate crime."

"This is a federal hate crime," said FBI Special Agent in Charge Matthew DeSarno during a news conference on Friday, noting that as negotiators began to engage with hostage-taker Malik Faisal Akram, he "repeatedly demanded the United States release a convicted al-Qaida terrorist in exchange for the safe return of the hostages. In doing so, his actions clearly met the definition of terrorism."

Akram, 44, took Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three other people hostage at Congregation Beth Israel during Shabbat services on Saturday while demanding the release of Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of attempting to murder U.S. soldiers while in their custody in Afghanistan in 2010.