US News Roundup: United States drops in global corruption index on election aftermath; U.S. Congress Republicans face dilemma in controversies around Cheney, Greene

President Joe Biden has called the initial phase of the vaccination campaign a "dismal failure" and with vaccinations in the United States at around 1 million per day, the new administration wants to expand and improve the program.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

United States drops in global corruption index on election aftermath

"Serious departures" from democratic norms were a core factor in driving the United States to its lowest in eight years on a global corruption index in 2020, watchdog Transparency International said on Thursday. The group's annual report on business leaders' perceptions of corruption - which gave the United States a score of 67 out of 100, down from 69 in 2019 - also cited weak oversight of the country's $1 trillion COVID-19 relief package.

U.S. Congress Republicans face dilemma in controversies around Cheney, Greene

The deep divisions roiling the U.S. Republican Party came into clear focus this week in controversies about Representatives Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene - two politicians with little in common beyond their work address. House of Representatives Republicans already were debating whether to punish Cheney, the No. 3 member of party leadership, for voting to impeach Donald Trump when CNN reported that Greene in online posts had expressed support for executing Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Hopeful signs on pandemic lead some U.S. states to ease coronavirus restrictions

Severe COVID-19 infections are beginning to abate in many parts of the United States even as the death toll mounts, signaling an end to the pandemic's post-holiday surge and prompting some states to ease public health restrictions. A slow but steady reduction in the number of Americans entering hospitals with the disease has paralleled a choppy rollout of vaccines that also are expected to reduce spread of the coronavirus that causes it. Biden to reopen online health insurance marketplaces

U.S. President Joe Biden will reopen the nation's online health insurance marketplace for people who cannot obtain coverage through their employers, the White House said on Thursday. Biden, who took office last week, will restore access to healthcare.gov with an executive order on Thursday afternoon, the latest in a blizzard of moves by the Democratic president to quickly reverse the policies of his Republican predecessor Donald Trump. At the urging of nursing homes, a law is amended and COVID court claims are slowed

Garnice Robertson wants accountability for her mother's death from COVID-19 caught while she was living at a Kansas nursing home that allegedly failed to prevent an outbreak of the disease. An unexpected legal hurdle stands in her way. The nursing home argues it has complete legal immunity for lawsuits like Robertson's stemming from COVID-19. It cites recent changes to a 2005 law by the former Trump administration that had been sought by the senior care industry. U.S. faces higher risk of domestic extremist violence after Capitol assault, says government

The United States could face a heightened threat of domestic extremist violence for weeks from people angry at Donald Trump's election defeat and inspired by the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Homeland Security warned on Wednesday. The advisory - which said there was no specific and credible threat at this time - comes as Washington remains on high alert after hundreds of Trump supporters charged into the Capitol on Jan. 6 as Congress was formally certifying President Joe Biden's election victory. Five died in the violence. Ghislaine Maxwell denied seeing Jeffrey Epstein being massaged in New York

Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, has testified she never saw him receive massages from anyone other than herself at his home in New York, where prosecutors are pursuing criminal charges that she helped the late financier procure underage girls for sex. The denial came in a July 2016 deposition that Maxwell gave in a long-settled civil defamation lawsuit against her by Virginia Giuffre, one of dozens of women who have accused Epstein of sexual misconduct. Exclusive: Proud Boys leader was ‘prolific’ informer for law enforcement

Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys extremist group, has a past as an informer for federal and local law enforcement, repeatedly working undercover for investigators after he was arrested in 2012, according to a former prosecutor and a transcript of a 2014 federal court proceeding obtained by Reuters. In the Miami hearing, a federal prosecutor, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and Tarrio’s own lawyer described his undercover work and said he had helped authorities prosecute more than a dozen people in various cases involving drugs, gambling and human smuggling. Pandemic spurs quest to enroll more Black Americans in vaccine trials

Infectious disease doctor Angela Branche needed help. Branche and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York were running a clinical trial for a vaccine against the coronavirus, which kills Black people at three times the rate it kills whites - yet it was mostly whites signing up. They needed more African Americans. Exclusive: Pharma distributors in talks with U.S. for cut of COVID-19 vaccine shipping deal - sources

U.S. pharmaceutical distributors are talking to federal officials about increasing the number of companies shipping coronavirus vaccines as part of the Biden administration's push to speed up inoculations, according to an industry executive and three people familiar with the matter. President Joe Biden has called the initial phase of the vaccination campaign a "dismal failure" and with vaccinations in the United States at around 1 million per day, the new administration wants to expand and improve the program.

(With inputs from agencies.)