With supporters calling it was more than 100 years in the making, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Wednesday that makes lynching a federal hate crime for the first time in U.S. history.

The Emmett Till Antilynching Act was approved in a vote of 410-4. Only four Republican representatives voted against it.

Advocates say there have been more than 200 attempts to pass the legislation in the past, and the latest effort has been in the works for nearly two years.

Tanvi Madan (@tanvi_madan) is a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy and director of the India Project at the Brookings Institution. She is the author of Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped U.S.-India Relations During the Cold War.

Following President Trump's two-day trip to India, his first official visit to the country, there's been some debate about its value. This is not unusual for U.S.-India leader-level trips, which — more so than in the case of other countries — seem to be measured on the basis of whether they produce a big deal.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is telling Americans that they should be prepared for the possibility of a COVID-19 outbreak in their community.

But what does preparedness look like in practice? The short answer: Don't panic — but do prepare.

Updated at 6:52 p.m. ET

The U.S. health care system is trying to be ready for possible outbreaks, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned communities this week to prepare for the kind of spread now being seen in Iran, Italy, South Korea and other areas outside the virus's epicenter in China.

Updated at 7:30 p.m. ET

Hours after the White House rejected the idea of appointing a coronavirus czar, President Trump on Wednesday put Vice President Pence in charge of the administration's coronavirus response.

"We're doing really well, and Mike is going to be in charge," Trump said, noting that Pence's experience as governor of Indiana made him adept at working with state and local health authorities.

"This is not a czar," he said.

As fears spread of a wider coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., experts in global health pandemics as well as some of President Trump's leading political adversaries contend that the federal government's response may be lacking a key figure: a coronavirus czar.