Warning signs mount on Russia-Ukraine

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Feb 11, 2022 View in browser   By Renuka Rayasam and Tyler Weyant With help from Myah Ward National security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during the daily White House press briefing. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images 'THREAT IS IMMEDIATE' — That was national security adviser Jake Sullivan's assessment of the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. The appearance by Sullivan at today's White House briefing, along with a flurry of evacuation moves and continued intelligence reports on Russian troops, painted a gloomy picture for the days ahead. Here's is the latest from POLITICO reporters around the world: — Americans, Britons urged to leave: Sullivan urged Americans still in Ukraine to depart the country within the next 24 to 48 hours, saying President Joe Biden would not send troops into harm's way to evacuate U.S. citizens who could have left the Eastern European country when they had the chance. In a statement late today, the U.K. urged British nationals to "leave now via commercial means while they remain available." — More troops headed to Poland: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered 3,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Infantry Brigade Combat Team to Poland, a senior DoD official told POLITICO. The contingent will add to forces ordered to deploy there last week and will bring the total number of U.S. troops sent to Poland and Germany to 5,000. — Invasion could come before Olympics end: Three official sources in Washington and Europe told Nahal Toosi and Paul McLeary that intelligence shared with them by the United States pinpointed Feb. 16 as a possible start date for the invasion. Publicly, however, aides to Biden would not confirm a specific date other than to say that — counter to much public speculation and some previous assessments from Washington — an invasion could begin before the Feb. 20 end of the Beijing Winter Olympics. — Biden and Putin plan to talk Saturday: Biden and the Russian leader will hold a call on Saturday morning, a senior administration official told POLITICO. Russia proposed a Monday call, the official said, but the U.S. counterproposed Saturday, and Moscow accepted. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight's authors at rrayasam@politico.com and tweyant@politico.com, or on Twitter at @renurayasam and @tweyant .   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     AROUND THE NATION THE LULL THE LULL MIGHT END — Renu emails Nightly: When the pandemic first settled into our daily life — when we started to realize that two weeks to flatten the curve was woefully inadequate — many predicted that so much forced home life would also spark a divorce surge. Nearly two years later, it's clear that marriages didn't buckle under the virus. But now, on the cusp of our second pandemic Valentine's Day, with mask and other mandates lifting, there's a sense among divorce lawyers that some long-delayed splits are on the way. The Covid lull may end the divorce lull.  "Some speculate there may be, quote unquote, pent up demand," said Cary Mogerman, a St. Louis-based attorney who is the president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. "I will say this: Last month, I've seen a lot of new traffic and it's different than last year at this time." The divorce rate has been on the decline for decades , and so far, the pandemic hasn't disrupted that long-term trend, said Wendy Manning, founder of the Center for Family and Demographic Research at Bowling Green State University. Manning and her team looked at administrative data in 35 states and found that the number of divorces continued going down in 2020. In some states, divorce declined more than it had in previous years. The pandemic absolutely increased relationship conflict , Manning said. Couples continued to fight over many of the same issues, child care, money, housework, rather than social distancing or masking. But couples are generally less likely to get divorced during times of economic uncertainty, Mogerman said. In the aftermath of the 2008 recession, he said that his phone didn't ring for six months. So the reason that divorces didn't spike before — the economy and life uncertainty — may also be the reason that they could start to take off this year. Divorce is expensive, moving out can be tricky and court proceedings were delayed by the pandemic. Even so, Manning isn't ready to predict a 2022 divorce surge. She believes there are also pandemic-related reasons why fewer couples are splitting up — it's been harder to have an affair and some families benefited from extra bonding time at home. Marriage rates, as well as divorce rates, are on the decline. Those who are getting married tend to be more educated and wealthier, giving them a better chance of weathering the pandemic with minimal economic disruption. "There is a lot of media right now about how marriage is the pathway to success in life," Manning said. But as much as Democrats and Republicans want to support stable families and marriage, there isn't a readymade policy that can just promote marriage and prevent potential divorce surge, she said. "You can't just slap marriage on people," she said. Still, romantics have at least one reason to take heart this year. Nearly 2.5 million weddings are expected to take place in 2022, according to the Wedding Report, an industry trade group. That's the most weddings since 1984, which is also around the time that divorce rates started dropping.   DON'T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO's new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE.     What'd I Miss? — FDA delays meeting on kid vaccines as Pfizer promises more data: The Food and Drug Administration is delaying its planned Tuesday meeting of outside advisers to consider recommending Covid-19 vaccines for children under 5 years old after new data from Pfizer and BioNTech convinced regulators to wait for more information about the effectiveness of a third dose. Peter Marks, director of the agency's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, declined to explain what new information prompted the decision. — Trucker convoy forces Canada's largest province into state of emergency: Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency today in a province struggling to break up trucker protests besieging Ottawa and jamming an economically crucial bridge to the United States. The leader of Canada's most-populous province said his Cabinet will enact orders making it illegal to block and impede the movement of goods, people and services along critical infrastructure. The punishments include fines as high as C$100,000 and up to a year in prison. Hundreds of truck drivers and their supporters gather to block the streets of downtown Ottawa, Ontario. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images — American truckers distance from Canada protests: The vehicle blockades that have snarled North American supply chains, paralyzed Canada's capital and inspired threats of a copycat convoy to Washington, D.C., may have started with truck drivers irate about mask and vaccine mandates. But the grievances of the protests' biggest champions bear little similarity to the demands that U.S. truck drivers' union reps and trade groups typically bring to Washington. — Dem duo's warning of CIA 'warrantless backdoor searches' revives domestic spying debate: A newly declassified letter from two Democratic senators warning that the CIA has been conducting "warrantless backdoor searches" of Americans' data is roiling Washington's long-running debate over balancing national security with civil liberties. In an April letter declassified on Thursday, Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico allege that the CIA "has secretly conducted its own bulk program … outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection." — Sarah Palin's lawyers: New York Times libeled her amidst pattern of sliming conservatives: Sarah Palin's lawyers offered jurors a simple explanation for why The New York Times used a 2017 editorial to link Palin to a deadly shooting in Arizona six years earlier: a long-standing political vendetta against conservatives . On several occasions during his summation of the evidence in a Manhattan courtroom, Turkel argued that the Times' decision to reference Palin's political action committee in the editorial spurred by a shooting at a GOP congressional baseball practice in Virginia was part of a pattern at the newspaper of slurring Republicans. Nightly Number 8 The number of accounts a POLITICO analysis found associated with deceased politicians that still have money in the bank , some with hundreds of thousands of dollars, or debts that, according to Federal Election Commission records, remain unpaid. These zombie PACs and campaign committees have been paying for such things as communications consulting, campaign contributions, car rentals, or fees for former associates.  PUNCHLINES COLD SOUP TURNS HOT TOPIC — Political cartoonists and satirists had a field day with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's gestapo-gazpacho mixup, and Matt Wuerker and Brooke Minters found the best bits on the incident for the latest Weekend Wrap. Parting Words A view of SoFi Stadium as workers prepare for Super Bowl LVI in Inglewood, Calif. | Ronald Martinez/Getty Images BIG GAME, BIGGER SPORT — Before you get your snacks and drinks ready for the Super Bowl, read Derek Robertson 's essay, coming Sunday in POLITICO Magazine, on the NFL's unlikely journey to becoming America's most resilient institution. Here's an excerpt: A recent Los Angeles Times/SurveyMonkey poll found that one-third of its respondents declared themselves less of a football fan than they were five years ago, and that those in that cohort were far more likely to express discomfort with the league's recent gestures toward solidarity with the movement for racial justice. Keep in mind, however, that people say plenty of surprising things to pollsters, and then consider the disconnect between said responses and the league's reality: NFL ratings are the highest they've been since 2015, and football is consistently and overwhelmingly the most-watched thing on television. Franchise values continue to climb to dizzying heights. Even in-person attendance is slightly up from before the pandemic. Disgruntled fans can claim all they want that they've kicked the habit over some cultural grievance, but all evidence indicates they're still crawling back each autumn and winter Sunday. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Myah Ward @myahward   Follow us

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