National News

NEW YORK (AP) — Health care workers and nursing home residents should be at the front of the line when the first coronavirus vaccine shots become available, an influential government advisory panel said Tuesday. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the agency responsible for authorizing COVID-19 vaccines said Tuesday that it would take the time needed to “get this right,” despite increasing pressure from President Donald Trump to speed up the process. Read more

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to shorten the recommended length of quarantine after exposure to someone who is positive for COVID-19, as the virus rages across the nation. Read more

The next few weeks will likely see a lot of action as U.S. regulators assess COVID-19 vaccines and state officials get ready to start giving the shots to people. Shots for at most 20 million people are expected by year’s end. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell said he’s largely sticking with a partisan, scaled-back COVID-19 relief bill that has already failed twice this fall, even as Democratic leaders and a bipartisan group of moderates offered concessions in hopes of passing pandemic aid before Congress adjourns for the year. Read more

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — With unemployment still high and the pandemic threatening yet another economic slump, President-elect Joe Biden is assembling a team of liberal advisers who have long focused on the nation’s workers and government efforts to address economic inequality. Read more

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — With unemployment still high and the pandemic threatening yet another economic slump, President-elect Joe Biden is assembling a team of liberal advisers who have long focused on the nation’s workers and government efforts to address economic inequality. Read more

A disproportionately large number of poor and minority students were not in schools for assessments this fall, complicating efforts to measure the pandemic’s effects on some of the most vulnerable students, a not-for-profit company that administers standardized testing said Tuesday. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Scott Atlas, a science adviser to President Donald Trump who was skeptical of measures to control the coronavirus outbreak, is leaving his White House post. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — The coronavirus vaccine inching toward approval in the U.S. is desperately anticipated by weary Americans longing for a path back to normal life. But criminals are waiting, too, ready to use that desperation to their advantage, federal investigators say. Read more

(AP) — Homeland Security Investigations officials are preparing for a crush of new scams when the coronavirus vaccine is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which could come in a few weeks. Read more

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Faulting inaction in Washington, governors and state lawmakers are racing to get pandemic relief to small-business owners, the unemployed, renters and others whose livelihoods have been upended by the widening coronavirus outbreak. Read more

The nation’s top infectious disease expert said Sunday that the U.S. may see “surge upon a surge” of the coronavirus in the weeks after Thanksgiving, and he does not expect current recommendations around social distancing to be relaxed before Christmas. Read more