Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said Thursday that after receiving a request for help from the District of Columbia on Wednesday, he immediately mobilized the state police and National Guard, but was repeatedly denied authorization to deploy.

Hogan explained that while on a video conference call with Japan's ambassador, his chief of staff interrupted to tell him "the U.S. Capitol was under attack." He organized an emergency meeting to mobilize the police and Maryland National Guard, he said, and during the meeting, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the No. 2 House Democrat, called from "an undisclosed bunker" to tell Hogan that Capitol Police were "overwhelmed" by the pro-Trump mob storming the Capitol.

Hoyer was "pleading with us" to send the National Guard, Hogan said, and he had to tell him authorization had not yet come through. About 90 minutes later, Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy called Hogan to ask, "Can you come as soon as possible?" The governor responded, "Yeah, we've been waiting. We're ready."

"I can't tell you what was going on on the other end, on the decision-making process," Hogan said. "There's been lots of speculation in the media about that, but I'm not privy to what was going on inside the White House or inside the Pentagon." There are 500 Maryland National Guard members on standby outside of D.C., Hogan said, and he wants to "assure all Americans that the state of Maryland will do anything and everything we possibly can to continue to secure the core of our nation's capital and to ensure the peaceful transition of power." Catherine Garcia

Protesters in Moscow were reportedly able to take advantage of police efforts to clamp down on their demonstrations and spread their message of support for jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny further across the city than expected, The Associated Press reports.

Per AP, police closed seven subway stations in the vicinity of Lubyanka Square in central Moscow and restricted pedestrian traffic in the area where the rally was supposed to start. To counter, Navalny's team relayed information via a messaging app, telling protesters to head to two other subway stations that were still open, allowing the demonstrators to move through different parts of the city. Along the way, they reportedly attracted "considerable attention" from the city's populace, which may not have witnessed the events if they had been confined to the center of the city.

Of course, the day was far from easy for the protesters — in Moscow alone more than 1,450 people were reportedly arrested (more than 4,000 were reportedly detained across Russia), and some were beaten by police in the process. But the pro-Navalny, anti-Putin message was clear. Read more at The Associated Press. Tim O'Donnell

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) bestowed some bipartisan praise on the Biden administration Sunday, telling ABC News' Martha Raddatz that the vaccine distribution in his state has been "seamless" lately and he's grateful President Biden and his team are "working to assure" the Arkansas-U.S. government partnership remains in tact.

When asked if he thought Biden was doing enough, Hutchinson said he "was delighted that we had a 14 percent increase in vaccine supply last week." And, given the global vaccine supply shortage, he's happy "we have that partnership, which is good, with the federal government." Tim O'Donnell

John Weaver, a longtime Republican strategist who helped run presidential campaigns for the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2000 and 2008 and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) in 2016, has been accused of online harassment by 21 men, The New York Times reports.

In interviews, the men said that over the course of several years Weaver — who is also a co-founder of, but not longer involved with, the Lincoln Project, a prominent anti-Trump group formed by Republican — sent unsolicited and sexually provocative over the internet. The exchanges reportedly did not lead to physical encounters except in one consensual case, and the men did not accuse Weaver of unlawful conduct, the Times notes, but they did describe being "preyed upon by an influential older man in the field in which they wanted to work."

Weaver even sent messages to a 14-year-old boy, eventually inviting him to come to Las Vegas with him after he turned 18. One of the men who received messages from Weaver last year when he was a recent college graduate looking for a job in politics said "it just seemed like he was exploiting his power."

The Times' provided new, specific details about the situation, but allegations of Weaver's solicitations were first reported earlier this month by The American Conservative. In response to that story, Weaver acknowledged sending the inappropriate messages and apologized. Read more at The New York Times. Tim O'Donnell

Former Vice President Mike Pence is trying to remain out of the spotlight these days, NBC News reports, but there's now some clarity about his future plans.

The big one, per NBC, is the formation of a non-profit social welfare organization, which will likely be active on conservative political issues and keep Pence in touch with donors should he decide to run for president in 2024. The group will not be allowed to engage in campaigning, however. An announcement is expected within the next month, NBC reports.

Other than that, Pence, who has returned to his home state of Indiana, reportedly may write a book and will campaign for Republican candidates ahead of races in 2022. He has not made a decision about whether he's considering a White House bid, and he likely won't make that public until after the mid-terms.

Pence's relationship with former President Donald Trump, which, to put it mildly, faltered after the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, does not appear to have improved over the last few weeks, NBC reports. Read more at NBC News. Tim O'Donnell

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) led a group of 10 Republican senators — including fellow moderates Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) — that on Sunday announced plans to unveil a $600 million COVID-19 relief package they believe could serve as a bipartisan alternative to President Biden's $1.9 trillion plan, which the GOP has deemed too expensive.

The details are expected to be released Monday, though The Washington Post reports it will likely not include Biden's proposal to increase the federal minimum wage and it will also reportedly narrow eligibility for a new round of $1,400 stimulus checks to individuals earning $50,000 per year or less or couples earning $100,000 per year or less.

The Republicans want to meet with Biden to discuss their counterproposal. "We want to work in good faith with you and your administration to meet the health, economic, and societal challenges" of the COVID-19 pandemic, they wrote in a letter.

Whether Democrats will be open to discussing the idea remains to be seen (Biden's top economic adviser reiterated Sunday that the president is determined to act swiftly), but, as the Post notes, the fact that 10 Republicans are on board with the plan is significant. If the two sides do reach a compromise that would give the Senate the 60 votes required to pass legislation without the Democrats having to seek a workaround. Read more at The Washington Post. Tim O'Donnell

Saturday Night Live returned to the airwaves Saturday night after its winter hiatus, and the show jumped out of the gate with a cold open parodying Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), the GameStop saga, Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerburg, and O.J. Simpson.

In the skit, Kate McKinnon interviews the SNL version of those figures while questioning whether anything in the United States still works. The answer, McKinnon begins to realize, is no, except for her final guest, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady (played by host John Krasinski), who, at age 43, is headed to his 10th Super Bowl. Watch the full clip below. Tim O'Donnell