Turning the page? Republicans acknowledge Biden's victory

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than a month after the election, top Republicans finally acknowledged Joe Biden as the next U.S. president on Tuesday, a collapse in GOP resistance to the millions of voters who decisively chose the Democrat. Foreign leaders joined the parade, too, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Speaking from the floor of the U.S. Senate where Biden spent 36 years of his career, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell congratulated his former colleague as president-elect. The two men spoke later in the day.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, meanwhile, was to meet with his likely successor in the new administration, Antony Blinken. And GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of President Donald Trump's closest allies, said he'd spoken with some of Biden's Cabinet picks.

A similar shift unfolded in capitals across the world, where leaders including Russia's Putin and Mexico's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador acknowledged Biden's win.

The moves come a day after electors nationwide formally cast votes affirming Biden's victory in last month's presidential election. And while that clears a more stable path for Biden to assume the presidency, it does little to stop Trump from continuing to try to undermine confidence in the results with baseless allegations that have been rejected by judges across political spectrum.

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US vaccinations ramp up as 2nd COVID-19 shot nears

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds more hospitals around the country began dispensing COVID-19 shots to their workers in a rapid expansion of the U.S. vaccination drive Tuesday, while a second vaccine moved to the cusp of government authorization.

A day after the rollout of Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus shots, the Food and Drug Administration said its preliminary analysis confirmed the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine developed by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health. A panel of outside experts is expected to recommend the formula on Thursday, with the FDA's green light coming soon thereafter.

The Moderna vaccine uses the same technology as Pfizer-BioNTech's and showed similarly strong protection against COVID-19 but is easier to handle because it does not need to be kept in the deep freeze at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 70 Celsius).

Another weapon against the outbreak can't come soon enough: The number of dead in the U.S. passed a staggering 300,000 on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University, with about 2,400 people now dying per day on average.

The devastating toll is only expected to grow in the coming weeks, fueled by travel over Christmas and New Year's, family gatherings and lax adherence to mask-wearing and other precautions.

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Hopeful sign: Midwestern states see drop in new virus cases

After a punishing fall that left hospitals struggling, some Midwestern states are seeing a decline in new coronavirus cases. But the signs of improvement are offset by the virus's accelerating spread on both coasts: In California, officials scrambled to distribute body bags and deploy mobile morgues as infections rose at an alarming rate.

States including Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Nebraska have seen decreases in the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 over the past couple of weeks. All, however, are still experiencing an alarming number of deaths and hospitalizations because of the earlier surge of cases.

With winter weather driving people indoors, where the virus spreads more easily, there’s no guarantee the improving dynamic can be maintained, doctors and public health officials say.

“We have a vaccine rolling out, but that doesn’t change the overall picture,” Dr. James Lawler with the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Global Center for Health Security told the Omaha World-Herald. “Things could still turn south pretty easily.”

But he and others are encouraged by the figures. In Iowa, for example, the number of new virus cases reported daily has declined over the past two weeks from nearly 1,800 to about 1,250. In Nebraska, it has gone from about 1,800 a day to a little under 1,300.

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Pandemic backlash jeopardizes public health powers, leaders

Tisha Coleman has lived in close-knit Linn County, Kansas, for 42 years and never felt so alone.

As the public health administrator, she’s struggled every day of the coronavirus pandemic to keep her rural county along the Missouri border safe. In this community with no hospital, she’s failed to persuade her neighbors to wear masks and take precautions against COVID-19, even as cases rise. In return, she’s been harassed, sued, vilified and called a Democrat, an insult in her circles.

Even her husband hasn’t listened to her, refusing to require customers to wear masks at the family’s hardware store in Mound City.

“People have shown their true colors,” Coleman said. “I’m sure that I’ve lost some friends over this situation.”

By November, the months of fighting over masks and quarantines were already wearing her down. Then she got COVID-19, likely from her husband, who she thinks picked it up at the hardware store.

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Feds to delay seeking legal protection for monarch butterfly

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Federal officials on Tuesday declared the monarch butterfly “a candidate” for threatened or endangered status, but said no action would be taken for several years because of the many other species awaiting that designation.

Environmentalists said delaying that long could spell disaster for the beloved black-and-orange butterfly, once a common sight in backyard gardens, meadows and other landscapes now seeing its population dwindling.

The monarch's status will be reviewed annually, said Charlie Wooley, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Great Lakes regional office. Emergency action could be taken earlier, but plans now call for proposing to list the monarch under the Endangered Species Act in 2024 unless its situation improves enough to make the step unnecessary.

The proposal would be followed by another year for public comment and development of a final rule. Listing would provide a number of legal protections, including a requirement that federal agencies consider effects on the butterfly or its habitat before allowing highway construction and other potentially damaging activities.

Scientists estimate the monarch population in the eastern U.S. has fallen about 80% since the mid-1990s, while the drop-off in the western U.S. has been even steeper.

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Biden taps Buttigieg for transportation, Granholm for energy

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden nominated his former rival Pete Buttigieg as secretary of transportation on Tuesday and intends to choose former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm as his energy secretary.

Biden also plans to tap Gina McCarthy, a former Environmental Protection Agency chief, for the powerful new position of domestic climate chief to run his ambitious climate plans across the federal government.

All three will be central to Biden’s plan to remake the country’s automobiles and transportation systems to quickly cut climate-damaging petroleum emissions.

Buttigieg would be the first openly gay person confirmed by the Senate to a Cabinet post. At 38, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, would also add a youthful dynamic to an incoming administration that is so far dominated in large part by leaders with decades of Washington experience.

Biden said in a statement that Buttigieg was a “patriot and a problem-solver who speaks to the best of who we are as a nation.”

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Biden to take oath outside Capitol amid virus restrictions

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris aim to take their oaths of office outside the U.S. Capitol building as inauguration planners seek to craft an event that captures the traditional grandeur of the historic ceremony while complying with COVID-19 protocols.

Biden's team released some broad details for the Jan. 20 event on Tuesday. One big unknown: Will President Donald Trump participate?

The president, who continues to make unproven claims of widespread voter fraud, has not yet told current and former White House aides whether he will attend Biden’s inauguration. While many had assumed he would skip the event after his loss, some now do expect him to make an appearance for the sake of tradition, even if he tries to overshadow the event by, perhaps, announcing the launch of his 2024 campaign just before.

Despite this week's rollout of the new vaccine, its availability to the general public is still months away. So Biden's team is urging supporters not to come to Washington, D.C., to celebrate the inauguration.

“The ceremony’s footprint will be extremely limited, and the parade that follows will be reimagined,” Biden's inaugural committee said in a statement.

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US regulators OK genetically modified pig for food, drugs

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. regulators have approved a genetically modified pig for food and medical products, making it the second such animal to get the green light for human consumption. But the company behind it says there are no imminent plans to sell it for meat.

The pig is genetically engineered to eliminate the presence of alpha-gal, a type of sugar found in many mammals. The sugar makes its way into many products — including medications, cosmetics and food — and can cause allergic reactions in some people.

The main goal of the company behind the pig, United Therapeutics Corp., is to develop medical products, such as blood thinners, that won't set off such reactions, said its spokesman Dewey Steadman. Eventually, the Silver Spring, Maryland-based firm hopes to develop a way for the pig's organs to be transplanted into people.

The pig, called GalSafe, also has commercial potential as food, but Steadman said the company doesn’t know when it might be able to secure an agreement with a meat producer to process and sell it. He noted the meat allergy the pig addresses, called alpha-gal syndrome, isn't yet considered a major issue.

“It's known, but it's not well known," Steadman said.

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Boko Haram claims abduction of students in northern Nigeria

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Rebels from the Boko Haram extremist group claimed responsibility Tuesday for abducting hundreds of boys from a school in Nigeria's northern Katsina State last week in one of the largest such attacks in years, raising fears of a growing wave of violence in the region.

More than 330 students remain missing from the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara after gunmen with assault rifles attacked their school Friday night, although scores of others managed to escape.

The government and the attackers are negotiating the fate of the boys, according to Garba Shehu, a spokesman for Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

“The kidnappers had made contact and discussions were already on, pertaining to the safety and return” of the children to their homes, said Shehu on Twitter during talks with Katsina Gov. Aminu Masari. Neither official said whether the negotiations are with Boko Haram or another group.

Masari said security agencies "deployed for rescue operations have also informed us that they have located their position.”

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EXPLAINER: How Congress will count Electoral College votes

WASHINGTON (AP) — The congressional joint session to count electoral votes is generally a routine, ceremonious affair. But President Donald Trump’s repeated, baseless efforts to challenge Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential victory will bring more attention than usual to the Jan. 6 joint session of the Senate and the House.

The congressional count is the final step in reaffirming Biden’s presidential win, after the Electoral College officially elected him on Monday. The meeting is required by the U.S. Constitution, and includes several distinct steps.

A handful of House Republicans have signaled that they want to object to the results, a move that could force separate votes in the Senate and the House. But to do so, they would need a senator to sign on. And even if a senator did support the effort, the move would almost certainly fail.

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell privately asked his caucus not to do that, saying it would be a “terrible vote” for the Senate to have to take, according to two people familiar with the Republican meeting and granted anonymity to discuss it.

A look at the joint session: