By ALEXANDRA JAFFE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden laid out an ambitious agenda for his first 100 days in office, promising swift action on everything from climate change to immigration reform to the coronavirus pandemic.

He hits his 50th day in office on Wednesday as his administration eyes a major milestone: final congressional passage of his massive $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package. The bill includes direct payments to millions of Americans and money to help the White House deliver on a number of Biden’s biggest campaign promises, like reopening schools and getting more Americans vaccinated.

Fifty days in, Biden has made major strides on a number of key campaign pledges for his earliest days in office, while others are still awaiting action. Where he stands on some of his major promises:

COMPLETED GOALS

Biden prioritized addressing the coronavirus pandemic during his first weeks in office, and the focus has paid off. He’s on pace to hit his goal of 100 million vaccine doses administered in his first 100 days as soon as the end of next week. The daily rate of vaccinations now averages more than 2 million shots, and more than 75 million doses have been administered since Biden was sworn in.

Biden also took took several early actions that fulfilled pledges on climate policy. He signed an executive order on Inauguration Day that revoked the permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, halted development of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and ordered the review of Trump-era rules on the environment, public health and science. A Jan. 27 executive order halted new oil and gas leases on federal lands and offshore waters.

Biden also easily delivered on top campaign pledges that involved rolling back Trump administration moves on everything from climate change to immigration. Early on, the Biden administration rejoined the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accord, halted construction of the border wall, ended travel restrictions on people from a variety of Muslim-majority countries and created a task force to reunite families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.

On immigration, Biden pledged to deliver a comprehensive reform bill to Congress within his first 100 days, and it was unveiled last month, although Biden already has signaled an openness to a piece-by-piece approach if necessary. Biden also issued an executive order directing the Homeland Security secretary to “preserve and fortify” protections for young immigrants brought to the U.S. by their parents.

Biden also made some early moves to deliver on a pledge to tighten ethical standards in his administration, including a Jan. 20 executive order imposing an ethics pledge on appointees governing activities such as lobbying and taking gifts, which included prohibiting political interference in the Justice Department.

IN PROGRESS

Still other Biden promises remain a work in progress.

Biden’s national COVID-19 strategy pledged to establish 100 new, federally supported vaccination centers across the nation by the end of February. So far, the administration is at about 20 mass vaccination sites run end-to-end by the federal government and staffed by active-duty troops deployed by the Pentagon. Overall, the administration says, at least 441 vaccination sites are now federally supported. Many of those were not new sites, but nearly all have expanded capacity with the additional federal resources.

On immigration, Biden pledged to reverse the “public charge” rule put in place by the Trump administration to discourage immigrants from using public benefits, to streamline the naturalization process and to reform the U.S. asylum system within his first 100 days. An executive order he signed in early February directs the relevant agencies to review those policies and recommend changes within 60 days.

The administration has made some moves to reform the asylum system, including a move by the Department of Homeland Security on Biden’s first day in office to suspend a Trump-era program requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims were under review. But Biden has yet to articulate a plan to manage asylum flows beyond proposing that billions of dollars be spent to address root causes in Central America.

The president has also kept in place pandemic-related powers that allow his administration to immediately expel people at the border without an opportunity to seek asylum. Biden aides have said they have no immediate plans to end the authority, which Trump introduced a year ago using an obscure 1944 public health law.

Biden also promised to end the long-term detention of migrant families. Immigration and Customs Enforcement signaled last week it plans to discontinue the use of one such facility, but ICE will continue to hold families for three days or less at two other facilities in Texas. And the Biden administration is expanding capacity at a number of long-term facilities that hold immigrant children, to address an ongoing surge of unaccompanied minors at the border.

On climate change, Biden pledged to establish enforceable commitments from other nations to reduce emissions in global shipping and aviation and to convene a climate world summit to discuss new and more ambitious pledges to address climate change, within his first 100 days. The U.S. will hold such a summit on April 22, Earth Day.

Reopening America’s schools is one of Biden’s major campaign promises that’s proven tougher to execute, in part because the decision on whether to return to in-person learning is left up to local officials and teachers’ unions. After some back-and-forth over the details of his goal, Biden said last month that his 100-day mission was to have most elementary schools open five days a week for in-person learning.

This month he directed states to prioritize vaccinating teachers and announced he was directing federal resources toward vaccinating teachers in March. The Biden administration hopes that with the passage of the coronavirus relief bill and distribution of millions in aid for schools to improve safety measures, teachers will feel more comfortable returning to in-person learning.

According to Burbio, which tracks school reopening plans, about 47% of kindergarten through 12th grade students have access to in-person school every weekday.

AWAITING ACTION

The Biden administration has yet to take significant action on criminal justice reform, aside from an executive order terminating private prison contracts. Biden pledged to set up a police oversight board within his first 100 days, but there’s been no clear movement in that direction so far.

Other 100-day pledges also awaiting movement: creating a Cabinet-level working group focused on promoting union participation, and ordering an FBI review of issues with gun purchase background checks.

Some of Biden’s 100-day pledges will require congressional action, like his promise to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and increase taxes on corporations. Biden also promised to make passage of the Equality Act, which bars discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, a priority in his first 100 days. That bill has passed the House but not the Senate.

And some of his promises are waiting on Biden’s Cabinet secretaries to be confirmed by the Senate. On gun control, Biden has said he would direct his attorney general to deliver recommendations to restructure key Justice Department agencies to more effectively enforce the nation’s gun laws. He also pledged to have his secretary of Housing and Urban Development lead a task force to create recommendations for making housing a right for all Americans.

Both his attorney general nominee, Merrick Garland, and his nominee to lead the Housing Department, Rep. Marcia Fudge, are expected to win confirmation this week.

By JOSH BOAK and LISA MASCARO

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden wants America to know that he’s from the government and he’s here to help.

That sentiment became a well-worn punchline under Ronald Reagan and shaped the politics of both parties for four decades. Democrat Bill Clinton declared the era of big government over in the 1990s, Barack Obama largely kept his party in the same lane and Republican Donald Trump campaigned on the premise that Washington was full of morons, outplayed by the Chinese and others.

But Biden is now staking his presidency on the idea that the government can use his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan not only to stop a pandemic and jobs crisis but also to catapult the country forward to tackle deep issues of poverty, inequality and more. The massive bill could be approved by Congress as early as Tuesday.

“When I was elected, I said we were going to get the government out of the business of battling on Twitter and back in the business of delivering for the American people,” Biden said after the huge bill passed the Senate on Saturday. “Of showing the American people that their government can work for them.”

Taken together, provisions in the 628-page bill add up to one of the largest enhancements to the social safety net in decades, pushing the country into uncharted territory.

Besides stopping the pandemic and jumpstarting hiring, money in the rescue package — now awaiting final approval in the House — is supposed to start fixing income inequality, halve child poverty, feed the hungry, save pensions, sustain public transit, let schools reopen with confidence and help repair state and local government finances. And Biden is betting that the government can do all of this with the speed of a nation mobilizing for war without touching a tripwire of inflation.

“People have lost faith government can do good for them,” says Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who spoke daily with Biden while ushering the bill through the Senate last weekend. Now, as vaccines become more available and other changes take place, “people are going to see that government actually is making their lives better — which is how Americans used to think of it, and we’ve gotten away from it.”

Republicans say Americans have plenty of reason to be skeptical, calling the American Rescue Plan excessive and wasteful. They warn the sweeping package will run up the national debt to precarious new heights after $4 trillion in aid has already been provided.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell argues against the package as missing the moment — too big at a time when the virus is showing signs of easing and the economy is poised to come “roaring” back.

Instead of working across the aisle toward unity, as Biden has promised, McConnell says Democrats are “ramming through what they call ‘the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation,’” quoting the White House chief of staff.

“They explained their intent very clearly: to exploit this crisis as ‘a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision,’” McConnell says. This is the first COVID-19 bill that had zero support from Republicans in the House or Senate.

Biden’s bet, more than others in modern politics and economics, is full of questions.

Can the federal money push economic growth above 6% for the first time since Reagan in 1984? Will the 9.5 million lost jobs quickly return? Will inflation surge? Will the national debt spook voters in next year’s midterm elections? Biden has placed the biggest of markers on the theories of the 20th Century British economist John Maynard Keynes that the government can stimulate a dormant economy back to health.

Sweeping in scope, Biden’s plan largely relies on existing health care and tax credits, rather than new programs, but it expands that standard fare in ambitious new ways that are designed to reach more people who are suffering in an unprecedented time.

“We haven’t done this before,” said Syracuse University economics professor Len Burman, a co-founder of the Tax Policy Center. “If it actually does work the way it does in theory and the economy is back at full employment in a year, that would be amazing. It would save a lot of hardship and suffering.”

But Burman also has misgivings about the design of Biden’s package because it distributes direct payments and other benefits to almost every household in the United States, rather than directing the money to the poor and to businesses and organizations most damaged by the pandemic and ensuing shutdowns.

“It kind of reminded me of this idea when I was in grad school of helicopter money — which was basically dropping money from the air and seeing if it raised incomes,” he said. “The money could have been better targeted.”

Final passage of the bill is expected this week — before expanded unemployment benefits are set to expire mid-March. But Biden’s signing celebration will just be the start. His administration will have to show that the funds can be spent effectively and efficiently, helping those in need while giving the broader public enough confidence to awaken growth through hiring and spending.

Felicia Wong, CEO of the liberal Roosevelt Institute, sees parallels to the Great Depression, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt brought about an unprecedented series of government interventions that realigned U.S. politics. Wong said she is monitoring the process by which the money from the COVID-19 relief package gets distributed.

“That’s going to matter as much as the scale of the package because it’s going to build trust,” Wong said.

Republicans are poised to portray the spending as bloated and inefficient, much the way they attacked the Obama-era recovery act during the 2009 financial crisis.

At the same time, much of the aid is temporary, set to expire in a year or so, leaving Congress to assess Biden’s approach ahead of the next election season.

___

Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

By MIKE STOBBE

NEW YORK (AP) — Fully vaccinated Americans can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing, according to long-awaited guidance from federal health officials.

The recommendations also say that vaccinated people can come together in the same way — in a single household — with people considered at low-risk for severe disease, such as in the case of vaccinated grandparents visiting healthy children and grandchildren.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the guidance Monday.

The guidance is designed to address a growing demand, as more adults have been getting vaccinated and wondering if it gives them greater freedom to visit family members, travel, or do other things like they did before the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world last year.

“With more and more people vaccinated each day, we are starting to turn a corner,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.

During a press briefing Monday, she called the guidance a “first step” toward restoring normalcy in how people come together. She said more activities would be ok’d for vaccinated individuals once caseloads and deaths decline, more Americans are vaccinated, and as more science emerges on the ability of those who have been vaccinated to get and spread the virus.

The CDC is continuing to recommend that fully vaccinated people still wear well-fitted masks, avoid large gatherings, and physically distance themselves from others when out in public. The CDC also advised vaccinated people to get tested if they develop symptoms that could be related to COVID-19.

Officials say a person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the last required dose of vaccine. About 31 million Americans — or only about 9% of the U.S. population — have been fully vaccinated with a federally authorized COVID-19 vaccine so far, according to the CDC.

Authorized vaccine doses first became available in December, and they were products that required two doses spaced weeks apart. But since January, a small but growing number of Americans have been fully vaccinated, and have been asking questions like: Do I still have to wear a mask? Can I go to a bar now? Can I finally see my grandchildren?

The guidance was “welcome news to a nation that is understandably tired of the pandemic and longs to safely resume normal activities,” said Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former acting director of the CDC.

“I hope that this new guidance provides the momentum for everyone to get vaccinated when they can and gives states the patience to follow the public health roadmap needed to reopen their economies and communities safely,” said Besser, in a statement.

But Dr. Leana Wen called the guidance “far too cautious.”

The CDC did not change its recommendations on travel, which discourages unnecessary travel and calls for getting tested within a few days of the trip. That could seem confusing to vaccinated people hoping to visit family across the country or abroad.

The new guidance also says nothing about going to restaurants or other places, even though governors are lifting restrictions on businesses, said Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University who was formerly Baltimore’s health commissioner.

“The CDC is missing a major opportunity to tie vaccination status with reopening guidance. By coming out with such limited guidance, they are missing the window to influence state and national policy,” Wen said, in an email.

The CDC guidance did not speak to people who may have gained some level of immunity from being infected, and recovering from, the coronavirus.

___

Associated Press reporter Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.