NPR National News

Updated 5:40 p.m. ET

After senators were sworn in Tuesday afternoon as jurors in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, Sen. Rand Paul quickly pressed for a vote to force lawmakers on the record over the issue of the trial's constitutionality.

The Senate voted 55-45 to reject the Kentucky Republican's argument that the impeachment trial is unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office.

Acting U.S. Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman, in her first congressional testimony following the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, acknowledged her department's "failings" during the insurrection and said its members "fully expect to answer to you and the American people."

"I am here to offer my sincerest apologies on behalf of the Department," Pittman said.

President Biden's nominee for overseeing the U.S. Census Bureau, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, said she intends to depoliticize the 2020 census and listen to experts at a federal agency that had been caught in a partisan firestorm during the Trump administration.

"I believe that we need to take the politics out of the census, and we need to rely on the experts," Raimondo, a Democrat, told lawmakers Tuesday. "The experts and statisticians in the Census Bureau are top-notch, so I, once confirmed, intend to rely on them."

I began my global health career as a surveillance officer with Nigeria's National Programme on Immunization.

So of course I've been following the vaccine news with a close eye.

I was elated when the first COVID-19 vaccine was shown to be effective late last year. Knowing how effective vaccines can be in ending epidemics, I was hopeful that the end of the pandemic was in sight.

However, my joy was cut short when richer Western nations began buying up the vaccine doses. As a result, COVID-19 vaccines will not likely be widely available in Africa until 2022 or 2023.

Emergency crews continue to remove debris and conduct additional search and rescue efforts after a tornado ripped through a suburban area north of Birmingham, Ala., leaving at least one dead and dozens more injured.

Survey crews assessing the storm damage found that preliminary estimates indicate the tornado was at least a high-end EF-2 tornado, with winds up to 135 miles per hour, the National Weather Service in Birmingham said Tuesday afternoon.

Italians are used to hearing the words, "Once again, the government in Rome has collapsed." Now another Italian leader is resigning — but this time, it risks plunging the country into political chaos while still in the grips of the coronavirus pandemic and deep economic turmoil.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte handed in his resignation to the president on Tuesday following weeks of political uncertainty and a split in the governing coalition over his handling of the second wave of COVID-19 and recovery funds from the European Union.

Most of us take our voices for granted, but New Yorker writer John Colapinto got a scare several years ago when his failed him.

After working every day, mostly in silence, he damaged his vocal cords while singing with a rock band in the evenings after work.

A federal judge in Florida has ordered that videos which allegedly show Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, paying for sex must be destroyed. The videos are from a sting set up by Jupiter, Fla., police at a local massage parlor.

Misdemeanor solicitation charges against Kraft and other men were dropped last year after the Florida 4th District Court of Appeal ruled that the videos were not admissible as evidence.

News that AstraZeneca's promised COVID-19 vaccine deliveries to Europe will be delayed isn't sitting well with officials, who are pushing the company to honor the agreed-upon delivery schedule.

"Europe invested billions to help develop the world's first COVID-19 vaccines," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a video statement Tuesday. "And now, the companies must deliver. They must honor their obligations."

Tens of thousands of farmers rolled into India's capital Tuesday on tractors festooned with Indian flags, overshadowing a traditional military parade on a national holiday. They broke through barricades, clashed with police and occupied the ramparts of the 17th century Red Fort – a tourist attraction and symbol of Indian power.

It was one of the biggest protests in New Delhi in living memory, posing a fresh challenge to the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was reelected in 2019 in a landslide.

With bipartisan support, the Senate confirmed Antony Blinken as the new secretary of state on Tuesday. The final vote was 78-22.

Blinken, 58, was earlier approved overwhelmingly by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As the top U.S. diplomat, Blinken will face a number of national security challenges, including how to deal with China, Russia and Iran. Blinken has vowed to restore American leadership to the global stage. One of the first acts of the Biden administration was to start the process to rejoin the Paris climate accord.

Updated at 3:33 p.m. ET

Saying it's time to act "because that's what faith and morality require us to do," President Biden on Tuesday signed four executive actions aimed at advancing racial equity for Americans the White House says have been underserved and left behind.

Biden said Tuesday that the measures follow one of his core campaign promises: to restore "the soul of the nation," as he often said during the presidential race.

"Our soul will be troubled," he said, "as long as systemic racism is allowed to exist."

Twitter has suspended Mike Lindell, the CEO of My Pillow, from the social media platform. He had been using his Twitter account to spread disinformation about the 2020 election, including false claims of voter fraud and election rigging.

Lindell's account was "permanently suspended due to repeated violations of our Civil Integrity Policy," a Twitter spokesperson told NPR. It was not immediately clear which posts from Lindell led to his removal from the social media platform.

Palestine Howze died April 14, 2020, in a North Carolina nursing home.

She had developed a pressure ulcer — or bed sore as they're commonly known. It flared up in December 2018 and just grew worse, says her daughter Lisa Howze. Infection set in.

"We begged them to take her to the emergency room, but they assured us that they could handle it," Howze says.

Updated at 8:12 a.m. ET

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell dropped his demand that Democrats maintain the Senate filibuster — ending an early stalemate in the Senate that prevented party leaders from negotiating a power-sharing agreement.

Karen Butcher's son Matthew struggled for years with an addiction to opioids. She's convinced the pandemic made it worse.

The restaurant in Scott County, Ky., where Matthew worked as a bartender closed before the pandemic, and soon other establishments, from restaurants to stores, followed suit as states imposed lockdowns.

"One day you're a bartender and you're serving people and having a great time at it, and then the next day the doors are closed," Butcher recalls. "Then COVID hits. It was the perfect storm."

Every Sunday afternoon, Suzan Mubarak keeps an eye on her phone. That is when her boyfriend will call to let her know he's outside her house for their weekly wave.

Mubarak, 31, and Mitch Domier, 43, live a few miles apart in Bozeman, Mont., but those drive-by visits are the closest the couple has been for nearly 10 months. The coronavirus pandemic largely locked down the homes for adults with developmental disabilities where they each live, limiting them to video chats and the occasional drive-by.

Dutch demonstrators again defied the country's new curfew to protest government restrictions aimed at stopping the spread of the coronavirus. Hundreds of people have been arrested in recent days as the protests turned violent with rioters attacking police.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte disputed the motivations of the rioters.

"What motivated these people has nothing to do with protesting," he told reporters Monday. "It's criminal violence and we will treat it as such."

How to make sure the world is never so devastated by another pandemic?

Health officials from around the globe have been vigorously discussing that question over the past week at the annual meeting of the World Health Organization's Executive Board. The members, whose nine-day-long, mostly virtual gathering concludes on Tuesday, have heard recommendations from four separate panels.

Sixty-four years ago, residents of this tiny town in southwestern Kansas set a public health example by making it the first in the nation to be fully inoculated against polio.

It's a different story today.

People in Protection, like those in many rural communities, stand divided over how to slow the spread of the coronavirus and the safety of the vaccines being rolled out to protect them.