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Biden's Day: President Biden receives an economic briefing and visits wounded service members at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The White House also holds a coronavirus-response briefing.

Washington Wire: Senate Republicans’ campaign arm continues to promote a February fundraiser for Sen. Josh Hawley’s Fighting for Missouri PAC. That and more in this week’s Washington Wire.

Stock Market: High-speed trading firms that execute orders for individual investors faced technical hiccups this week because of exploding volume in GameStop, AMC Entertainment and other popular stocks.

The White House left the door open to changes to President Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief proposal but ruled out splitting up the package in the face of dimming chances for a bipartisan aid deal, Ken Thomas and Andrew Duehren report. Many Republicans and some Democrats have questioned the price tag of the plan.

Mr. Biden signed executive orders directing the government to re-examine Trump-era health-care policies, Stephanie Armour reports. But the process is likely to be long and involve legal battles. He also ended a policy barring federal funding of foreign-aid groups that perform abortions.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has suspended the onboarding process for several last-minute Trump administration nominees to Pentagon advisory boards, effectively preventing them from being seated, Nancy Yousef reports.

Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee signaled a favorable view of  Cecilia Rouse, the nominee to be Mr. Biden's top economic adviser. Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) praised her for writing in 2017 that diversity be viewed not solely along demographic lines but also ideological ones, reports Paul Kiernan.

• Republicans were more skeptical of Rep. Marcia Fudge's nomination for secretary of Housing and Urban Development because of remarks she has made suggesting that Republicans don’t care about people of color.

Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona may have the most leverage with a Senate that's evenly divided between the two parties. Here's how they could determine the fate of the Biden administration’s agenda.

U.S. hospitalizations were the lowest since Dec. 7, and new cases were below 200,000 for the 12th day in a row on Thursday. The country’s daily death toll remained high as it has for most of January, with more than 3,800 fatalities reported for Thursday. Johnson & Johnson said Friday its experimental Covid-19 vaccine was 66% effective at protecting people from moderate to severe disease in a large clinical trial, positive results that could pave the way for its deployment across the U.S. within weeks.

• The first U.S. cases of a variant first detected in South Africa, which may evade some treatments, have been reported in South Carolina.

• As a WHO team investigates the origins of the virus in China, WSJ explains what the scientists are looking for—and what they may find during their politically sensitive mission. (▶️Video)

• The number of nursing-home deaths in New York due to Covid-19 may have been undercounted by more than 50% at some facilities, according to a new report from the state Attorney General’s office.

• Vaccination Guide: How to get a Covid-19 vaccine, by state

President Biden’s national-security team foresees a rocky road in pursuing one of his principal foreign-policy promises: persuading Iran to return to the 2015 nuclear deal and then pressing for a follow-on accord that sets tougher limits, report Ian Talley and Michael R. Gordon.

• In addition, Iran’s leadership insists the U.S. revoke all the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration. Top Biden administration officials said they plan to preserve some sanctions.

The U.S. called on Pakistan to continue detaining or hand over the man convicted in 2002 of orchestrating the abduction and killing of WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl, after Pakistan’s Supreme Court cleared him of wrongdoing in the case and ordered his release, reports Saeed Shah.

U.S. households have money to spend but limited ways to spend it, priming the economy for stronger growth this year once the pandemic recedes and businesses fully reopen, Josh Mitchell reports.

Securities lawyers expect the Securities and Exchange Commission to probe the two-week rally in shares of GameStop, which has captivated the stock market and prompted complaints of market manipulation, report Dave Michaels and Alexander Osipovich. 

Mr. Biden’s freeze on drilling leases on federal land has raised concerns across New Mexico, where local officials, state representatives and businesses dependent on oil and gas are trying to size up the impact for an industry that made up roughly a third of the state’s general fund revenue last year, report Collin Eaton and Dan Frosch.

Democrats and Republicans are united in Iowa behind defending the state’s political golden goose: the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, reports John McCormick. A botched Democratic vote-counting effort almost exactly a year ago that marred the start of the presidential nomination race—and boosted skepticism about the complex process of holding caucuses instead of primaries—has left Iowa political leaders feeling vulnerable.

• Conservatives are rallying around a common complaint that big government, big media and big business are trying to silence them. (Axios)
• A report that the state of New York undercounted coronavirus nursing-home deaths has tarnished Gov. Andrew Cuomo's image as a leader who handled the pandemic smoothly. (CNN)
• A former KGB spy says the Russian intelligence agency cultivated former President Donald Trump for years. (The Guardian)

This newsletter is a production of the WSJ Washington bureau. Our newsletter editors are Kate Milani, Troy McCullough, James Graff, and Toula Vlahou. Send feedback to capitaljournal@wsj.com. You can follow politics coverage on our Politics page and at @wsjpolitics on Twitter.