Trump Hails Vaccine ‘Miracle’

President Donald Trump celebrated the expected approval of the first U.S. vaccine for the coronavirus Tuesday as the White House worked to instill confidence in the massive distribution effort that will largely be executed by President-elect Joe Biden Trump said the expected approvals are coming before most people thought possible. "They say it's somewhat of a miracle and I think that's true," he declared.

Trump led Tuesday's White House event celebrating "Operation Warp Speed," his administration's effort to produce and distribute safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19. The first vaccine, from drugmaker Pfizer, is expected to receive endorsement by a panel of Food and Drug Administration advisers as soon as this week, with delivery of 100 million doses - enough for 50 million Americans - expected in coming months.

"Every American who wants the vaccine will be able to get the vaccine and we think by spring we're going to be in a position nobody would have believed possible just a few months ago," Trump said.

Pfizer developed its vaccine outside of "Operation Warp Speed," but is partnering with the federal government on manufacturing and distribution.

Pfizer vaccine moves closer to US OK

U.S. regulators Tuesday released their first scientific evaluation of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine and confirmed it offers strong protection, setting the stage for the government to green light the biggest vaccination effort in the nation's history.

The analysis by Food and Drug Administration scientists comes ahead of a Thursday meeting where the agency's independent advisers will debate if the evidence is strong enough to recommend vaccinating millions of Americans. A final FDA decision and the first shots could follow within just days.

They are among a whirlwind of developments that are expected to make multiple vaccines available by early next year, in the U.S. and beyond.

Britain on Tuesday began vaccinations with the shot made by Pfizer and German partner BioNTech. The FDA later this month will consider one developed by Moderna. Also Tuesday, a medical journal published early data suggesting a third vaccine candidate, AstraZeneca's, also protects people, though not as much as the two other frontrunners.

The vaccines emerged from an all-out worldwide race and are reaching the market less than a year after the virus was even identified - a remarkable scientific achievement that shaved years off the usual process.

US virus deaths hit record levels

Deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. have soared to more than 2,200 a day on average, matching the frightening peak reached last April, and cases per day have eclipsed 200,000 on average for the first time on record, with the crisis all but certain to get worse because of the fallout from Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's.

Virtually every state is reporting surges just as a vaccine appears days away from getting the go-ahead in the U.S.

"What we do now literally will be a matter of life and death for many of our citizens," Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Tuesday as he extended restrictions on businesses and social gatherings.

While the impending arrival of the vaccine is reason for hope, he said, "at the moment, we have to face reality, and the reality is that we are suffering a very dire situation with the pandemic."

Elsewhere around the country, North Carolina's governor imposed a 10 p.m. curfew, and authorities in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley sent a mass cellphone text alert Tuesday telling millions about the rapid spread of the virus and urging them to abide by the state's stay-at-home orders.

High court rejects GOP bid to halt tally

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Republicans' last-gasp bid to reverse Pennsylvania's certification of President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the electoral battleground.

The court without comment refused to call into question the certification process in Pennsylvania. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf already has certified Biden's victory and the state's 20 electors are to meet on Dec. 14 to cast their votes for Biden.

Biden won 306 electoral votes, so even if Pennsylvania's results had been in doubt, he still would have more than the 270 electoral votes needed to become president.

Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly of northwestern Pennsylvania and other plaintiffs pleaded with the justices to intervene after the state Supreme Court turned away their case. The Republicans argued that Pennsylvania's expansive vote-by-mail law is unconstitutional because it required a constitutional amendment to authorize its provisions.

MINNEAPOLIS

Legal panel: Free man jailed for life as teen

A national panel of legal experts recommended the immediate release of a Black man sentenced to life in prison as a teenager nearly two decades ago.

The panel also said Minneapolis police appear to have suffered from "tunnel vision" while investigating the case of Myon Burrell, who was convicted of killing a little girl hit by a stray bullet in 2002. In addition, the panel said, among the other serious flaws in the high-profile case, police ignored witnesses and evidence that might have helped eliminate Burrell as a suspect.

The panel, which was created to examine Burrell's conviction and sentence, released it's report Tuesday. Many of its findings mirrored those uncovered by an Associated Press and APM Reports investigation earlier this year. They included unreliable testimony from the sole eyewitness; a heavy reliance on jailhouse informants who received "extraordinarily generous" sentence reductions in exchange for their testimonies; and a failure to retrieve surveillance video from a corner store - footage that Burrell, now 34, has always maintained would have cleared him.

The eight-member panel was unable to address Burrell's guilt or innocence, saying its work was hampered by Hennepin County Prosecutor Mike Freeman's failure to provide all of the evidence the panel requested. It recommended that the case be handed over to the state's new conviction review unit for further investigation, noting that the missing police and prosecution files, witness interviews, tape recordings and details about deals cut with jailhouse informants "may yield new evidence of actual innocence or due process issues."

COLUMBUS, OHIO

Family: Black man shot did not hold gun

Civil rights and FBI investigators will help look into the fatal shooting by an Ohio sheriff's deputy of a Black man whose family says that he was holding not a gun, but a sandwich, and that he was shot in front of two toddlers and his grandmother while inside his home, not outside it, as authorities assert.

The office of U.S. Attorney David M. DeVillers in Ohio said Tuesday that it would step in - along with the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the FBI in Cincinnati and the Columbus police - after the state attorney general's office declined to investigate the shooting of Casey Goodson Jr., 23, because it said the police department didn't ask soon enough.

Goodson had just gone to the dentist, she told the dispatcher, and she didn't know what had happened or who shot him.

- The Associated Press