By LISA MASCARO and FARNOUSH AMIRI

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden appears determined to return to the negotiating table with Sen. Joe Manchin, the holdout Democrat who effectively tanked the party’s signature $2 trillion domestic policy initiative with his own jarring year-end announcement.

Biden, responding to reporters’ questions Tuesday at the White House, joked that he holds no grudges against the conservative West Virginia senator whose rejection of the social services and climate change bill stunned Washington just days ago.

Instead, the president spoke passionately about the families that would benefit from the Democrats’ ambitious, if now highly uncertain, plan to pour billions of dollars into child care, health care and other services.

“Sen. Manchin and I are going to get something done,” Biden said.

The president’s off-the-cuff remarks constitute his first public statement as Democrats struggle to pick up the pieces from Manchin’s announcement over the weekend that he would not support the bill, as is. Manchin essentially crushed Biden’s sweeping policy measure in the 50-50 Senate, siding with all Republicans who oppose the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also struck a determined tone later Tuesday, telling Senate Democrats on 90-minute video call to expect a vote in January on the package as they push toward a deal.

Schumer acknowledged the frustration among Democrats but he told senators the party was “not giving up” on the proposal, according to a Democrat on the private call who provided details on the condition of anonymity.

But the Democrats face serious questions over whether the $2 trillion initiative can be refashioned to win his crucial vote or the party will be saddled with a devastating defeat.

Manchin and his party are so far apart, his relationships so bruised after months of failed talks, it’s unclear how they even get back to the negotiating table, let alone revive the sprawling more than 2,100-page social services and climate change bill.

Biden spoke forcefully of the economic pressures that strip away the “dignity of a parent” trying to pay the bills, and the assistance millions could receive from the federal government with the legislation. He also said his package would help ease inflationary pressures and pointed to analyses suggesting it would boost the economy.

“I want to get things done,” Biden said. “I still think there’s a possibility of getting Build Back Better done.”

The setback has thrown Biden’s signature legislative effort into deep doubt at a critical time, closing out the end of the president’s first year and ahead of congressional midterm elections when the Democrats’ slim hold on Congress is at risk.

Coupled with solid Republican opposition, Manchin’s vote is vital on this and other initiatives, including the Democrats’ priority voting rights legislation that Schumer also said would come to an early vote.

On Tuesday, Schumer said that if Republicans continued to block voting rights legislation in January, the Senate would bring forward proposals for changing the Senate rules, the Democrat on the call said. That’s a nod to long-running efforts to adjust or end the filibuster, which typically requires 60-vote threshold for measures to advance.

While Manchin has said he cannot explain the bill to constituents in West Virginia, a union representing coal miners, including some of the nearly 12,000 from his home state, put out a statement urging the lawmaker to “revisit his opposition” to the package.

Cecil Roberts, the president of the United Mine Workers of America, outlined the ways the package would benefit union members, including those in West Virginia, which is the most coal-dependent state in the country.

Some of those provisions include language that would extend the current fee paid by coal companies to fund benefits received by victims of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, or black lung. The bill would also provide tax incentives to encourage manufacturers to build facilities in the coalfields, potentially employing miners who have lost their jobs, according to the union.

The next steps remain highly uncertain for the president and his party, with Congress on recess for the holiday break.

The White House appeared to take interest in Manchin’s preference for a reimagined bill that would tackle a few top priorities, for longer duration, rather than the multifaceted and far-reaching House-passed version.

But it will be extraordinarily difficult for progressive and centrist Democrats to rebuild trust to launch a fresh round of negotiations having devoted much of Biden’s first year in office to what is now essentially a collapsed effort.

The sweeping package was among the biggest of its kind ever considered in Congress, unleashing billions of dollars to help American families nationwide — nearly all paid for with higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

For families with children, it would provide free pre-school and child care aid. There are subsidies for health insurance premiums, lower prescription drug costs and expanded Medicaid access in states that do not yet provide it. The bill would start a new hearing aid program for seniors. And it includes more than $500 billion to curb carbon emissions, a figure considered the largest federal expenditure ever to combat climate change.

A potential new deadline for Biden and his party comes with the expiration of an expanded child tax credit that has been sending up to $300 monthly directly to millions of families’ bank accounts. If Congress fails to act, the money won’t arrive in January.

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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville and Colleen Long contributed to this report.

By JOSH BOAK and RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

WASHINGTON (AP) — With the omicron variant on the march, President Joe Biden plans to announce 500 million free rapid tests for Americans, increased support for hospitals under strain and a redoubling of vaccination and boosting efforts.

In a speech scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, Biden is announcing major changes to his COVID-19 winter plan, his hand forced by the arrival of the fast-spreading omicron variant, whose properties are yet not fully understood by scientists.

The world is confronting the prospect of a second straight holiday season with COVID-19 as families and friends begin to gather. Scientists don’t yet know whether omicron causes more serious disease, but they do know that vaccination should offer strong protections against severe illness and death. The White House provided details on the proposals Biden will announce in his speech.

A cornerstone of the plan is Biden’s decision for the government to purchase 500 million coronavirus rapid tests and ship them free to Americans starting in January. People will use a new website to order their tests, which will then be sent to them by U.S. mail at no charge. It marks a major shift for Biden, whose earlier plan had called for many Americans to purchase the hard-to-find tests on their own and then seek reimbursement from their health insurance.

Public health experts had criticized Biden’s initial approach as unwieldy and warned that the U.S. would face another round of problems with testing at a critical time. They pointed to other advanced countries such as the United Kingdom, where the government ensures access to testing. In the U.S., rapid tests for at-home use are much more expensive than in Europe, and they have proved to be frustratingly hard to find in stores.

The federal government will also establish new testing sites and use the Defense Production Act to help manufacture more tests. The first new federally supported testing site will open in New York this week. The new testing sites will add to 20,000 already available. White House officials said they’re working with Google so that people will be able to find them by searching “free COVID test near me.”

To assist hospitals buckling under the new COVID-19 wave, Biden is prepared to deploy an additional 1,000 troops with medical skills. Additionally, he is immediately sending federal medical personnel to Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Arizona, New Hampshire and Vermont. There are also plans to ready additional ventilators and protective equipment from the national stockpile, expanding hospital resources.

As a backstop, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will deploy hundreds of ambulances and paramedic teams so that if one hospital fills up, they can transport patients to open beds in other facilities. Ambulances are already headed to New York and Maine, and paramedic teams are going to New Hampshire, Vermont and Arizona.

But vaccination remains the main defense, since it can head off disease in the first place. The government will stand up multiple vaccination sites and provide hundreds of personnel to administer shots. New rules will make it easier for pharmacists to work across state lines to administer a broader range of shots.

For those who are already fully vaccinated, a booster shot has been shown in lab tests to provide strong protection against omicron. Although reports of breakthrough cases abound, data show that vaccinated people who become infected are much less likely to suffer serious disease leading to hospitalization or death. To the unvaccinated, Biden plans to deliver a stern admonition that they’re risking their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

In a preview of Biden’s speech, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at Monday’s press briefing that the Democratic president doesn’t plan to impose any lockdowns and will instead be encouraging people to get inoculated — and, if they’re eligible, to get their booster shot.

“This is not a speech about locking the country down. This is a speech about the benefits of being vaccinated,” Psaki told reporters.

Biden has found himself in the delicate position of both alerting the country to the dangers posed by omicron and reassuring Americans that the vaccines will protect them. White House officials are looking to ease the nation back toward accepting the reality of an endemic virus with far lower stakes for the vaccinated. This has meant setting a difficult balance as cases rise and as deaths and serious illness among the unvaccinated dominate headlines.

There are 40 million eligible but unvaccinated American adults. Efforts to increase vaccination rates have struggled to overcome a series of political, social and cultural divides. Psaki said the president plans to appeal to survival instincts.

“Our health experts assess that you are 14 times more likely to die of COVID if you have not been vaccinated versus vaccinated,” she said Monday.

Scientists say omicron spreads even easier than other coronavirus strains, including delta. It has already become the dominant strain in the U.S., accounting for nearly three-quarters of new infections last week.

Underscoring how widespread the virus is, the White House said late Monday that Biden had been in close contact with a staff member who later tested positive for COVID-19. The staffer spent about 30 minutes around the president on Air Force One on Friday on a trip from Orangeburg, South Carolina, to Philadelphia. The staffer, who was fully vaccinated and boosted, tested positive earlier Monday, Psaki said.

Psaki said Biden has tested negative twice since Sunday and will test again on Wednesday. Citing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Psaki said Biden didn’t need to quarantine and would continue with his regular schedule.

In New York City, nearly 42,600 people citywide tested positive from Wednesday through Saturday — compared with fewer than 35,800 in the entire month of November. The city has never had so many people test positive in such a short period of time since testing became widely available.

The latest outbreak reflects the global challenges of stopping the coronavirus pandemic.

The Dutch government began a tough nationwide lockdown on Sunday to rein in sharply rising infections, but many European leaders have opted for something less. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said officials have decided against imposing further restrictions, at least for now.

France and Germany have barred most British travelers from entering, and the government in Paris has banned public concerts and fireworks displays at New Year’s celebrations. Ireland imposed an 8 p.m. curfew on pubs and bars and limited attendance at indoor and outdoor events, while Greece will have 10,000 police officers on duty over the holidays to carry out COVID-19 pass checks.

In Spain, the national average of new cases is double what it was a year ago. Neighboring Portugal is telling most nonessential workers to work from home for a week in January.

Stock markets in Asia, Europe and the U.S. fell on Monday with the expectation that the infections could weigh on global economic growth and worsen global supply chain challenges.

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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

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This story has been corrected to show the trip was from Orangeburg, not Orange.

By ASHRAF KHALIL

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Joe Manchin’s reluctance to endorse the Biden administration’s expanded child tax credit program is rippling through his home state of West Virginia.

Manchin, a moderate Democrat, is one of the last holdouts delaying passage of President Joe Biden’s massive social and environmental package, dubbed the Build Back Better Act. The West Virginia senator has expressed concerns over multiple aspects of the roughly $2 trillion package, including the continuation of the expanded Child Tax Credit program.

The expansion, passed earlier this year as part of pandemic relief legislation, boosted the monthly payments for parents and greatly expanded the scope of those eligible. In West Virginia, one of the country’s poorest states, the effect was immediate, advocates say.

“There is no state that’s more impacted by the CTC,” said Kelly Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. “West Virginia, frankly, wasn’t doing great before the pandemic. So this is absolutely needed now and in the long term.”

On Dec. 15, CTC payments went out to 181,000 West Virginia families, according to Treasury Department figures. The payments averaged $446 and reached 305,000 children. Those payments could end this month, if the Biden package doesn’t pass in the next few days.

A coalition of West Virginia groups has been lobbying Manchin from the local end, emphasizing the ground-level stories of families who benefitted from the expansion.

“We’re hearing it from every corner of the state,” said Jim McKay of TEAM for West Virginia Children. “This program is really having a profound impact in a positive way.”

Allen warned that 50,000 children in the state are in danger of slipping into poverty if the payments lapse, or the negotiations drag on so long that the Jan. 15 payment doesn’t happen. One in five West Virginia children is estimated to live in poverty and 93% of children in the state are eligible for the CTC payments, tied for the highest rates in the country.

“Households across the state would have trouble meeting their basic needs,” Allen said. “There is real urgency right now to make sure families don’t get left short.”

Faced with unified Republican opposition, Biden is trying to pass the package with Democrats alone, which the House has already done. But the path in the evenly split 50-50 Senate is more difficult, with no room for dissent. Biden has been in talks with Manchin, who appears to be the final obstacle for Democrats trying to pass the big bill by Christmas.

The rocky status of the Biden-Manchin talks was described Wednesday by a person who spoke only on condition of anonymity. The person said Manchin was pushing to eliminate the bill’s renewal of expanded benefits under the child tax credit, a keystone of Democratic efforts to reduce child poverty.

Manchin told reporters Wednesday that assertions he wants to strip the child tax credit improvements were “a lot of bad rumors.” Asked if he backed eliminating one of the bill’s child tax credit improvements — monthly checks sent to millions of families — he said, “I’m not negotiating with any of you.”

Last month, a group of West Virginians gathered outside Manchin’s office in the state capital, Charleston, to present the senator with a quilt covered in personal testimonials from CTC recipients describing how the payments had improved their lives.

“It’s a life-changer,” said Rick Wilson of the American Friends Service Committee who participated in the demonstration. ”People are saying they paid off debt, kept the lights on, or bought or repaired their car so they could go to work.”

Studies suggest the child tax credit expansions are expected to cut child poverty by 40% — with 9 of 10 American children benefiting. All told, some 4.1 million children are on track to be lifted above the poverty line, according to analysis from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

In West Virginia, recipients spent 52% of their CTC money on food, with 39% going toward clothing and other essentials for their children, according to a study by Washington University in St. Louis’ Social Policy Institute.

Allen, of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, said the CTC money doesn’t just benefit the recipient families. With few in a position to save the funds, the cash gets immediately spent in the community. She estimated that more than $530 million in CTC funds had flowed into the West Virginia economy.

“When families get money in their pockets, they’re spending it in grocery stores, clothing stores and child care centers,” she said. “Households know what they need and they’re spending it in a way that most folks would think is responsible.”

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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Alan Fram contributed to this report.