Joe Biden

It was announced Wednesday that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will be stepping down at the end of the term. The move comes as a surprise because he recently penned a book talking about not wanting his seat to be a political one.

The Court has increasingly grown more radical and far-right due to appointees from former President Donald Trump and one justice denied to former President Barack Obama in 2016. Breyer's resignation won't change the makeup of the court, however.

After 27 years on the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen Breyer will retire, CNN and MSNBC reported on Wednesday.

The retirement is expected to occur at the end of the current term in June.

The United States believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin remains poised to use force against Ukraine by mid-February despite a pressure campaign to stop him, a top diplomat said Wednesday.

"I have no idea whether he's made the ultimate decision, but we certainly see every indication that he is going to use military force sometime perhaps (between) now and the middle of February," Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told a forum.

Conservative podcaster Steve Bannon on Wednesday suggested that Europe would be better off with the Germany of 1942, when over a hundred thousand Jews were murdered in concentration camps.

During his War Room: Pandemic podcast, Bannon complained that President Joe Biden is focusing on Russia's imminent invasion of Ukraine instead of the southern border of the United States.

On CNN Wednesday, former federal prosecutor and legal analyst Elie Honig explained how the GOP plot to submit fake Trump electors in states Joe Biden won could constitute a crime.

"What specific law or laws might have been broken with these fake electoral receipts, if you want to call them that, ballots?" asked anchor Jim Sciutto.

On Wednesday, TIME Magazine reported that the anti-vaccine movement is increasingly allying itself with far-right conspiracy theorists, including Trump supporters who believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen, in order to promote their cause.

"The anti-vaccine movement, once a fringe cohort, has repositioned itself as an opposition to mandates and government overreach," reported Vera Bergengruen. "The distinction has attracted legions of supporters by tapping into the anger, exhaustion, grief and frustration of millions of Americans as the pandemic enters its third year."

Senate Democrats are using a Republican-pushed maneuver to swiftly confirm judicial nominees, but some realize they may need to pick up the pace.

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) is continuing a GOP move to end the veto power of home-state senators over circuit court nominees, which Republicans used during Barack Obama's presidency but ended under Donald Trump, and has sped up the confirmation of President Joe Biden's nominees, reported Politico.

President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday formally withdrew the Covid vaccination-or-testing mandate for large businesses that was struck down by the Supreme Court.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said that although it was withdrawing the mandate it "strongly encourages vaccination of workers against the continuing dangers posed by Covid-19 in the workplace."

Russia hit back Wednesday at US threats of direct sanctions against President Vladimir Putin, saying moves against the Russian leader would be ineffective and hurt efforts to lower tensions over Ukraine.

Officials from France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine were set for talks in Paris on Wednesday in the latest bid to ease a crisis sparked by fears that Moscow is preparing an invasion of its pro-Western neighbor.

During an interview with CNN's Tom Foreman this week, Christopher Krebs, who served as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under former President Donald Trump, tore into the draft executive order that was meant to execute a coup and overturn the results of the 2020 election.

"It reads like a fictional thriller," said Foreman. "The inauguration postponed, voting machines seized by the military and Donald Trump's time extended by weeks. The December 2020 draft executive order could have triggered all of that if it had been signed and enacted before Joe Biden's win was certified."

Fox News host Laura Ingraham had a go at Kate McKinnon of "Saturday Night Live" fame on Monday, bizarrely breaking out her own impression of McKinnon imitating her.

Ingraham's foray into self-referential humor came in response to McKinnon's SNL cold open this past Saturday, in which the comedian played a comical version of Ingraham railing against Biden and the left.