10 things you need to know today: January 18, 2021

1.

President-elect Joe Biden's incoming White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, predicted on Sunday that the coronavirus death toll would reach 500,000 in the first weeks of the new administration. The current toll is 397,600, and it is expected to exceed 400,000 by Biden's inauguration on Wednesday. "The virus is going to get worse before it gets better," Klain said on CNN's State of the Union. "People who are contracting the virus today will start to get sick next month, will add to the death toll in late February, even March, so it's going to take a while to turn this around." Biden has vowed to step up the pace of vaccinations, aiming for 100 million inoculations within 100 days. Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading infectious-disease authority on the federal coronavirus task force, said on NBC News' Meet the Press that Biden's goal "is absolutely a doable thing." [The New York Times, The Washington Post]

2.

Small groups of right-wing protesters, some armed, gathered in front of heavily guarded statehouses on Sunday. Authorities had feared violence, but no clashes were reported. The FBI has warned of continuing threats through Wednesday's inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, with the possibility of more attacks like the one by supporters of President Trump that left five people dead at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. On Sunday, about a few dozen people showed up to protest at some statehouses, including those in Ohio and Michigan. Some of the protesters repeated false claims that Biden's win was tainted by fraud. Police arrested Guy Berry, a 22-year-old Trump supporter from Virginia, as he carried a Glock 22 firearm, three high-capacity magazines, and 37 rounds of unregistered ammunition near the U.S. Capitol. [The Associated Press, The Washington Post]

3.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny returned to Moscow from Germany on Sunday and was immediately detained, as expected. Navalny spent five months in Germany after being poisoned, allegedly by Russia's FSB spy agency. Moscow's prison service said it had orders to detain Navalny for violating conditions of the suspended sentence he received after being convicted for embezzlement. He could face up to three-and-a-half years in prison. Navalny said in a statement that the cases against him had been fabricated. He added that the European Court of Human Rights had ruled in his favor, and that is "why I'm not afraid of anything." He said he never considered not returning home despite the risk. [NPR]

4.

Communities around the nation are holding scaled down events to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday. Marches, parades, and other events that normally draw crowds honoring the slain civil rights leader were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has hit Black Americans particularly hard. The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, normally hosts up to 12,000 visitors on the day, offering activities for families, but this year it is marking the holiday online. The altered celebrations follow months of Black Lives Matter civil rights protests after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police, and the attack on the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6 by a mob of Trump supporters that included white nationalists. [USA Today]

5.

Parler, the social media site popular with conservatives fleeing Facebook and Twitter, came back online Sunday after finding a new hosting platform. "Hello world, is this thing on?" Parler CEO John Matze said in a message dated Saturday, Jan. 16. Parler had been down since Jan. 10 after getting the boot from Amazon Web Services in the aftermath of the deadly storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters. AWS said it had spotted dozens of threats of violence on Parler that violated its terms of service. Parler responded with a lawsuit against Amazon, asking a federal court to block Amazon's decision. Parler's app remained unavailable for download after being booted from the Apple and Google app stores. [CNN, Reuters]

6.

Twitter on Sunday temporarily suspended the account of freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a firebrand conspiracy theorist whose last post repeated debunked claims of widespread election fraud. Twitter said Greene was being locked out of her account for 12 hours due to "multiple violations of our civic integrity policy." Greene supports numerous conspiracy theories, including the QAnon claim that President Trump is fighting a cabal of Satan worshippers. Twitter has suspended 70,000 Twitter accounts connected to the QAnon believers in the wake of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, many of them QAnon believers. Greene criticized Twitter for suspending her, and called for Congress to "act swiftly" to "protect free speech in America." [CNN, NPR]

7.

The federal government is screening the 25,000 National Guard troops being deployed to secure the nation's capital ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, seeking any potential threat of an insider attack by extremists in the ranks. The move came after investigators found that some of the pro-Trump rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 had military ties. A U.S. defense official confirmed that the Army is working with the FBI to review the service members supporting inauguration security. "We're continually going through the process, and taking second, third looks at every one of the individuals assigned to this operation," said Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. Thousands of troops are patrolling the streets of the nation's capital, which has been locked down and fortified with security barriers and fences. Many of the National Guard members are armed. [The Washington Post, The Associated Press]

8.

Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket successfully reached orbit on Sunday and deployed nine small CubeSat satellites that are part of a NASA educational program involving universities. The 70-foot-long LauncherOne was released from underneath the wing of a Boeing 747 off the coast of Southern California. The two-stage rocket then ignited and shot into space. Virgin Orbit spun off from Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, which is working on suborbital human spaceflight, in 2017. Sunday's mission came eight months after the failure of the company's first air-launch rocket system. "Everyone on the team who is not in mission control right now is going absolutely bonkers," Virgin Orbit tweeted after the LauncherOne reached orbit. [CNN, The Associated Press]

9.

The Kansas City Chiefs will host the AFC championship for the third consecutive year after a 22-17 win over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday. The Chiefs looked dominant early, but quarterback Patrick Mahomes left the game with a concussion. The Browns stayed close enough to have a chance to take the lead in the 4th quarter, but Kansas City made a crucial stop and managed to run out the clock behind backup quarterback Chad Henne. The defending Super Bowl champions will play the surging Buffalo Bills next week. Later on Sunday, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the New Orleans Saints 30-20 after forcing four turnovers, three of which led to touchdowns. The Bucs next head to Green Bay to take on Aaron Rodgers and the top-seeded Packers in the NFC title game. [ESPN]

10.

Music producer Phil Spector, who had been in prison for the 2003 murder of Lana Clarkson, has died from complications of COVID-19 at age 81. Spector was taken to San Joaquin General Hospital in French Camp, California, on New Year's Eve. He was intubated in January and died Saturday, his daughter, Nicole Audrey Spector, said Sunday. Spector was known for his rich instrumental treatment known as the wall of sound. He generated a string of hits starting in the early 1960s, and became one of the most influential record producers in rock 'n' roll. He went to prison in 2009 after his conviction for second-degree murder in the death of Clarkson, a nightclub hostess who went to Spector's house after a night of drinking. [The New York Times]