INSIDE MCCARTHY’S TENTATIVE PLAN TO DEAL WITH GREENE: During a two-hour meeting Tuesday night with Greene, McCarthy explained to the QAnon supporter that her controversial past statements were coming to a head. The problem, McCarthy told her: Democrats are threatening to force a vote to remove her from her committees — and that puts the entire GOP Conference in a bad spot. McCarthy tried to give Greene options, according to a person familiar with their talk: She could denounce QAnon and apologize publicly for espousing hurtful conspiracy theories and endorsing violence on Democrats. She could remove herself from the panel to spare her colleagues a vote on the matter. Or, she could face removal from her own GOP peers.

It must not have gone as well as McCarthy hoped, because he then called a late-night meeting with the panel that designates committee assignments to discuss removing Greene. According to our sources, the room agreed that a House vote on this issue would be catastrophic politically for their members who are already angry at being associated with Greene’s crazy statements. That must be avoided, they concurred.

McCarthy told the room he would speak with House Majority Leader STENY HOYER to try to broker a deal. McCarthy would offer to remove Greene from one committee — Education and Labor — if Democrats back off a House floor vote to remove her from both. (Greene also sits on the Budget Committee.)

It is unclear whether Hoyer will go for this. The pressure on Democratic leaders to do something drastic to punish Greene is only increasing. McCarthy’s members also talked about re-appointing Greene to another committee Tuesday night, but that will never fly with Democrats.

Trader Joe’s has responded to the Seattle City Council’s recently passed mandate for large grocery stores within the city to raise pay by $4 for their front-line employees.

The grocer known for its quirky culture and unique offerings is raising pay for all its employees nationwide, albeit only temporarily.

“Effective February 1, 2021, the ‘thank you’ premium for all hourly, nonmanagement Crew Members, was increased by two dollars, for a total of $4 an hour,” Trader Joe’s wrote in an update on its website.

The post doesn’t mention Seattle, or the city’s new mandate requiring $4-an-hour hazard pay for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic, but a message to employees made clear that that’s the reason for the pay hike.

In its first publicly available test results, Russia’s already widely distributed vaccine, Sputnik V, was shown to be 91.6 percent effective against the coronavirus in Phase 3 trials, according to peer-reviewed findings published in the Lancet, a British medical journal.

The findings make Sputnik only the third vaccine to have an efficacy of over 90 percent, after a vaccine from U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, produced with German biotech firm BioNTech, and one from U.S. biotech firm Moderna.

MOSCOW — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny demanded his freedom in a Moscow court Tuesday, saying that a case against him for violating the terms of a 2014 suspended sentence was "completely fabricated." He vowed to continue his fight.

Navalny spoke after Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service called Tuesday for him to be jailed for 3 ½ years.

He said Russia was trying to jail him over a 2014 case in which the European Court of Human Rights had cleared him.

Navalny said Russian President Vladimir Putin would be remembered in history as a poisoner, not a statesman.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A firebrand conservative Virginia state senator seeking the Republican nomination for governor filed a federal lawsuit Monday that seeks to undo her legislative colleagues’ recent decision to censure her for an alleged “pattern of unacceptable conduct.”

In a bipartisan vote last week, the Virginia Senate approved a measure rebuking Sen. Amanda Chase over a series of incendiary incidents during her tenure, including remarks in which she seemed to voice support for those who participated in storming the U.S. Capitol last month. The decision to pass the censure resolution followed a long debate that featured scathing criticisms of Chase from both Democrats and Republicans.

In the lawsuit, Chase argues that she is being “singled out and selectively penalized for taking unpopular political positions.”

Chase alleges that she has suffered “public embarrassment, humiliation, mental anguish and loss of seniority” because of the censure and has been “negatively impacted” in her candidacy for higher office.

After floating the idea last week of filing a motion to censure President Donald Trump, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-V.A., said Tuesday he won’t file due to the lack of support from his colleagues.

“We don’t have enough support on the Republican side because they don’t want to bar Trump from running from office and I don’t have enough support on the Democratic side because for most of my colleagues, it’s impeachment or nothing,” Kaine said Tuesday.

The Virginia senator said Wednesday he was discussing a censure resolution with his colleagues as an alternative to impeachment to condemn Trump’s role in the deadly attack on the Capitol Jan. 6.

Kaine’s resolution was seen as acknowledgement that the Senate is unlikely to convict Trump. In order to convict Trump, the Senate needs two-thirds of a majority meaning that Democrats need 17 Republican Senators to vote with them.