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. |