Tamara Keith

The Biden administration will send $1.7 billion to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local and state governments and other research efforts, starting early next month to find and track coronavirus variants lurking in the United States. Already, the more contagious U.K. variant, B.1.1.7, is now the dominant strain in this country, fueling surges in Michigan and the Northeast.

When President Biden was asked about actions he would take on gun violence prevention and said "it's a matter of timing," and pivoted to talk about infrastructure, it wasn't what Kris Brown had been expecting.

"I am disappointed, I will say, at what I heard from him," said Brown, who is president of Brady United Against Gun Violence.

Finding the right message — and right messengers — to persuade skeptical conservatives to get the COVID-19 vaccine has become an urgent concern for public health experts pushing to contain the coronavirus.

President Biden said on Tuesday that a key milestone in the fight against COVID-19 could be reached two months faster than earlier projected. By the end of May, there should be enough vaccine doses for every adult in America, he said — a dramatic improvement to his initial timetable for late July.

A turning point in speeding up that pledge came a few weeks ago, on a Sunday afternoon in early February, during a phone call with Johnson & Johnson executives that had been planned for 15 minutes but stretched for longer than an hour, two senior administration officials told NPR.

When the school district in Pima, Ariz., got its first round of federal pandemic relief last summer, Superintendent Sean Rickert put it toward the expenses incurred while suddenly shifting classes online at the start of the pandemic.

Now, as some Republicans in Congress question why COVID-19 aid for schools has not yet been spent, Rickert is just learning how much his district will get from a second relief bill approved in December.

Updated at 5:30 p.m. ET

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Friday its much-anticipated, updated guidance to help school leaders decide how to safely bring students back into classrooms, or keep them there.

Updated at 2 p.m. ET

When Mesa, Ariz., Mayor John Giles looks out his window at city hall, he can see tangible signs of how the COVID-19 pandemic has hurt his community.

From his perch, he can see the city's convention center, which has become a hub for those seeking help. Sometimes, there are lines a thousand cars long with people coming to pick up food from a food bank. Other days, it's people lined up for COVID-19 vaccines.

"It's a pretty sobering view from the mayor's office," Giles said in an interview with NPR.

Updated at 11:10 a.m ET

As Democrats in Congress take the initial steps to pass President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package using a process that won't require any Republican votes, the White House is working to rack up endorsements from state and local elected officials and business groups — a strategy that it argues is making the bill bipartisan.

In his first two weeks in office, President Biden has signed nearly as many executive orders as Franklin Roosevelt signed in his entire first month. And President Roosevelt holds the record.

Adding his signature to three executive orders on immigration Tuesday, Biden has now signed 28 executive orders since taking office. FDR signed 30 in his first month.

"By sheer volume, Biden is going to be the most active president on this front since the 1930s," said Andy Rudalevige, a professor of government at Bowdoin College.

On his way out the door, then-President Donald Trump released his aides from ethics commitments that were supposed to last years after the end of his administration. The revocation of his order freed the way for staffers to cash in on lobbying gigs.

Updated at 10:10 a.m. ET

Unwilling to admit defeat but with his time in office at its end, President Trump left the White House early Wednesday, skipping the Inauguration Day ceremony that generations of outgoing presidents have attended — a symbolic peaceful transfer of power that had been made all but impossible by his actions after losing the election to Joe Biden.

Updated at 9:40 a.m. ET

When Joe Biden gives his inaugural address this week, he will do so from a place that will illustrate the magnitude of the challenge he faces as the 46th U.S. president — and will test his ability to find the right words to begin to unite a divided nation.

Updated at 2:45 p.m. ET

For a vice president who has navigated service to a mercurial president with praise and public acts of loyalty, Vice President Pence faced the ultimate challenge on Wednesday as he presided over a joint session of Congress that will make official Joe Biden's election — and President Trump's loss.