Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday night during an appearance on the Mark Levin Show that "we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged" in a recently discovered cyberattack that breached dozens of federal agencies and companies. He added that while "we're still unpacking precisely" what happened, "this was a very significant effort," marking a slight change in tone for the secretary who had previously suggested the hack may not have been out of the ordinary.
The New York Times notes that Pompeo is the first member of the Trump administration to suggest the Kremlin was behind the attack, even after intelligence agencies have told Congress they suspect Russia's own elite intelligence agency, the S.V.R, was behind it. Russia has denied involvement.
President Trump has yet to address the issue, and Pompeo told Levin that he may keep quiet during the investigation. "I saw this in my time running the world's premier espionage service at the CIA," he said. "There are many things that you'd very much love to say, 'Boy, I'm going to call that out,' but a wiser course of action to protect the American people is to calmly go about your business and defend freedom." Read more at NBC News and The New York Times. Tim O'Donnell
Brazil says it will cut back on deforestation — for a price.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has sent a proposal to the Biden administration that involves reducing deforestation by 40 percent in exchange for $1 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports. Bolsonaro is often criticized as a "negligent steward" of the vulnerable Amazon rainforest, the Journal notes, but he and others, including residents of the Amazon region, have argued the only way to save the rainforest is by funding "nascent bio-industries" like fish farming "that would provide alternatives to poor farmers who slash and burn to raise crops cattle."
Ricardo Salles, Brazil's environment minister, said $1 billion is a "reasonable" amount, especially since President Biden mentioned during his campaign last year that he would work to gather $20 billion from around the world to help Brazil fight forest destruction. Salles told the Journal that one-third of the money would finance "specialized battalions" to enforce environmental laws, while the rest would go to the aforementioned sustainable economic activities.
Per the Journal, Brazil believes foreign aid would end deforestation by 2030, but not everyone is buying the talk. "The [Brazilian] government's credibility to collect funds from other governments is entirely damaged," Carlos Rittl, a senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability in Germany, told the Journal. "This is a blackmail discourse."
Bolsonaro will be one of around 40 heads of state to participate in a virtual climate summit hosted by Biden on Thursday and Friday. Read more at The Wall Street Journal. Tim O'Donnell
President Biden is urging all employers to give workers time off to get vaccinated against COVID-19, and his administration is rolling out a tax credit for small businesses that do so.
Biden on Wednesday again urged Americans to get their COVID-19 vaccine now that adults are eligible to receive one in every U.S. state. But he also addressed concerns from some Americans who say they can't afford to take time off from work to get vaccinated or recover from the vaccine's possible side effects.
"I'm calling on every employer, large and small, in every state, to give employees the time off they need with pay to get vaccinated, and any time they need, with pay, to recover if they're feeling under the weather after the shot," Biden said. "No working American should lose a single dollar from their paycheck because they chose to fulfill their patriotic duty of getting vaccinated."
To ensure small and medium-sized businesses can do so, Biden said businesses with fewer than 500 employees will be able to get reimbursed for the cost of giving workers paid leave to get vaccinated. These businesses will be eligible for refundable tax credits under the American Rescue Plan, according to the IRS. This credit "ensures that no small businesses or non-profits will lose a single dollar by providing such paid leave to workers receiving a vaccination," the White House said.
Biden on Wednesday also celebrated the fact that the administration has met his goal of administering 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in his first 100 days in office. He said during his remarks that the U.S. is still "on track" for looking "much closer" to normal by the Fourth of July, but that "we still have more to do in the months of May and June." Brendan Morrow
Wait for it...
Hulu has ordered a How I Met Your Mother sequel series called How I Met Your Father, which is set to star Hilary Duff in the lead role, according to Variety. Similar to the premise of the original CBS sitcom, Duff will play Sophie, a woman who, in the future, tells her son the story of how she met his father beginning in the year 2021.
If the idea of a How I Met Your Mother spin-off sounds familiar, that's because CBS actually ordered a pilot for one all the way back in 2013. At that point, the spin-off was called How I Met Your Dad, and it was to star Greta Gerwig. This series never ended up happening, but now the idea is being brought back all these years later with a new star and streaming home.
For Duff, this also comes after a planned Disney+ revival of her hit show Lizzie McGuire didn't move forward, reportedly due to creative differences as Duff and creator Terri Minsky hoped to tackle more adult themes than Disney was looking for. This Is Us co-showrunners Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger will reportedly write and executive produce How I Met Your Father, and How I Met Your Mother creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas will also return as executive producers. Duff will serve as a producer, as well.
Of course, the original How I Met Your Mother series famously concluded its run in 2014 with one of the most controversial TV endings in recent history, so it remains to be seen whether this one can ultimately wrap in a way that's legendary in a good way. Brendan Morrow
Vanita Gupta was never really in danger of being blocked from serving as associate attorney general (the Justice Department's no. 3 position), so long as she had the backing of all 50 Senate Democrats. But the upper chamber's GOP still put up a fierce fight by trying to paint the Biden nominee as a "radical" who would weaken law enforcement, as Politico reported earlier this week.
In the end, though, Gupta's confirmation is set to move forward, and Vice President Kamala Harris won't be needed to cast a tie-breaking vote. Instead, Sen. Lisa Murkowksi (R-Alaska) will cross the aisle. On Wednesday, Murkowski joined Democrats in voting to advance Gupta's confirmation, and she said she'll stay the course when the final vote comes around.
Murkowski explained that after looking at Gupta's record and sitting down with her, she was convinced by the "passion that she carries with the work she performs" as well as her determination to serve in the post despite the contentious nomination process. "I am going to give the benefit of the doubt to a woman who I believe has demonstrated through her professional career to be deeply, deeply committed to matters of justice," Murkowski said on the Senate floor. Tim O'Donnell