BIDEN IS PRESIDENT

Joe Biden has officially been sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, in a uniquely quiet, National Guard-filled day at DC’s Capitol building that, among others, saw politicians, musicians, reverends, and poets come together to stress the concept of unity.

As ABC explains the event, which replaced spectators with flags in the nearby National Mall, also confirmed Kamala Harris as “the first black, South-Asian and female American to be vice-president”.

In comments echoed across all speeches, Biden denounced “this uncivil war that pits red against blue”. He also hit out at a world where “facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured”, and, tellingly, called on Americans to “stop the shouting and lower the temperature”.

Performances included Lady Gaga singing the national anthem; Jennifer Lopez doing a medley of This Land is Your Land and America the Beautiful; Garth Brooks — who hugged Barack Obama without his mask, pandemic be damned — singing Amazing Grace; and, in easily the standout, National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman reading self-composed poem The Hill We Climb.

Former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were also in attendance, along with former vice-president Mike Pence but, in a historic snub, not Donald Trump. 

DONALD DUCKS OUT

Donald Trump has officially left the White House, breaking tradition by ditching Biden’s inauguration for a farewell event at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland before flying to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

As CNN reports, Trump issued an oddly sad farewell speech at his large, taxpayer funded send-off, lauding achievements such as Space Force and stacking the Supreme Court with Republicans, refusing to name Biden but wishing the “new administration great luck and great success”, and hardly dancing at all to one of his favourite songs, YCMA. He leaves with an under 40% approval rating.

Hours earlier, the now former president issued last minute pardons for 143 people, including to his former adviser and head of far-right website Breitbart Steve Bannon. As The Guardian reports, the list included rapper Lil Wayne and former Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidy, but not Trump himself, his family, Rudy Giuliani, or, and it was always an outside chance, Australian journalist Julian Assange. 

PS: While it received less coverage amid the mess of the last few weeks, the BBC explains Trump also spent his last week in office overseeing five rushed executions, none of which were blocked by the now Republican-stacked Supreme Court.

TIME TO STEP ON THE GAS

According to The Australian ($), Scott Morrison has announced a two-year extension of a Turnbull-era deal with east-coast LNG exporters to offer uncontracted, but not price-controlled gas first to Australian companies.

The deal, which Morrison announced with another dubious claim that “gas is critical to our economic recovery”, extends a 2017 agreement aimed at heading off supply shortfalls. It does not include formal price controls, a measure manufacturers reportedly called for but the LNG industry opposed.

Elsewhere, The Age reports that Morrison reiterated his support for coal mining for the next “10, 20, 30 years” on a tour of South32 Cannington Mine in McKinlay, Queensland, while offering a vague acknowledgement miners understand “things change over time”.