Rapper Kodak Black thanked former President Donald Trump for commuting his sentence in one of his final acts before departing the White House.
— FOX News
Author: Michelle Dryden
To assess how public schools have navigated the pandemic and the impact on students, The Times examined seven representative districts. The answers were strikingly different.
— NYT: Top Stories
The white supremacist rally in 2017 prefigured the rise of right-wing violence in President Trump’s name. Now, as President Biden calls for national unity, residents say it requires accountability first.
— NYT: Top Stories
Isaac Smith, of Boston, speaks to a reporter near the Massachusetts Statehouse in Boston about the new incoming administration, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021. Smith, a 21-year-old Harvard University student, said he voted for Biden and was excited for what’s to come. “No matter which way you look at it, it’s historic. Things are going to change,” he said. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Normally quiet streets around U.S. state capitol buildings have looked more like battlegrounds recently, putting those who live and work there on edge.
More than most people, these Americans will have front-row seats on whether the change of leadership Wednesday in the White House will lead to a lessening of tension that has been afflicting the nation. They’ll be watching what the next chapter brings from storefronts and the porches and stoops of their own homes.
Their sense of foreboding was lightened, just a little, by Wednesday’s inauguration. As President Joe Biden was sworn into office, demonstrations at state capitols were scant, with only a few protesters showing up, and some cities, none at all.
Some expect Biden’s focus on unity — a word he used eight times in his inaugural address — will have an effect, but they say how the people react will be key.
Jonathan Jones’ front-row seat to what happens next is his restaurant that is decorated with Black Lives Matter signs and art near the Oregon State Capitol. Epilogue Kitchen and Cocktails has been vandalized by a white supremacist. One day, police showed up as Jones, who is Black, and his friends were being accosted by neo-fascist Proud Boys. The police at first confronted Jones’ group as if they were the threat.
“There’s not a person who stood with me that day who didn’t think that they might die,” Jones said. “And the most awful part was not knowing if it was going to come from the police or from the Proud Boys.”
Jones watched Biden’s inauguration on TV, and in the afterglow called it “a beautiful moment.”
“It was fantastic to see the president of the United States denounce and repudiate white supremacy multiple times and to acknowledge that we’re long overdue as a country to actually achieve some form of racial justice,” Jones said. “My hope is that things are dealt with quickly, but my expectation is that it will take quite some time to to see any actual change.”
Brian Henderson, minister of First Baptist Church of Denver that sits across an avenue from the shuttered Colorado Capitol, was so close to the upheavals of 2020 that he was struck in the left knee with a pepper ball. Henderson had been handing out water from the front steps of his small brick church as thousands battled police during riots over George Floyd’s killing.
Many neighboring businesses and state government buildings have boarded up their windows and doors in anticipation of possible violence but the church has not, to avoid giving the wrong message.
“We can’t let fear stop us from doing what we have to do,” Henderson said.
Henderson watched the inaugural with church staff and then stepped outside to reflect and bask in the historic moment.
“There was this strong breeze. The sun was warm. The sky was blue. The air felt fresh. It’s a new day. We have a new president,” Henderson said.
In Washington state, a neighborhood next to the Capitol in Olympia boasts mid-century and 100-year-old homes. On normal days, the tranquil scene is one that Normal Rockwell could have depicted in idyllic portraits of American life, residents say.
But in recent weeks, frequent protests involving people in tactical gear and armed with guns have created a climate of fear. People shout into megaphones, loud trucks drive down narrow streets, residents are called names or harassed, media helicopters and police planes fly overhead.
“There’s no retreat, because it’s your house, it’s where you live. It’s been a little jolting, and exhausting,” said the woman, who is so afraid for the safety of herself and her family that she spoke to a reporter only on condition she not be identified.
She said she is optimistic that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will be able to accomplish many things.
“But I’m not sure that will change the real divisions we’ve all seen,” she said. ”People are behaving so differently, openly, that I don’t know — moving forward as a country — if we’ll be able to find each other again.”
Near the gold-domed statehouse in Boston, Catya Kurban said Wednesday she’s looking forward to more stability under Biden but worries about backlash and violence from supporters of former President Donald Trump.
“I’m also trying to be realistic about changes,” she said. “I know they won’t happen overnight.”
Isaac Smith, a 21-year-old Harvard University junior walking across the street, said he voted for Biden and was excited for what’s to come.
“No matter which way you look at it, it’s historic. Things are going to change,” he said. “The previous administration harmed American Democracy, and I think I’m with a lot of my fellow Americans in that I hope this administration can start to repair some of the relationships with our allies and the damage he’s done in terms of climate change and immigration.”
In Washington, D.C., a restaurant named We, the Pizza is located just one block from barricades surrounding the U.S. Capitol, where Biden was sworn in. The pizzeria has been feeding thousands of National Guard troops and other security and first responders, using donations from around the nation.
Manager Rob Earley said a girl around 6 years old brought in a check for $1,000 on Tuesday — money she had raised to feed the soldiers.
“I had tears in my eyes,” Earley said. “It’s good to see people that young that are wanting to be so involved in what’s going on and wanting to be part of making change.”
He believes Biden’s new tone “will help ease tensions and make things a little bit better. It will help mellow things out a little bit.”
Back in Oregon, Jones has been buoyed by people coming out in support of his restaurant, as customers and guardians. On Sunday, Robert Fox, a glass-blowing artist, sat in his sedan parked in front of the restaurant, keeping watch before Jones and his wife, Maura Ryan, showed up to prepare meals, available only for takeout during coronavirus shutdowns.
“I’m just making sure nothing happens,” Fox said as a dozen gun-toting, far-right protesters stood outside the Capitol, three blocks away.
Jones said actions like that give him hope.
“I think that in spite of how loud the far right is, I think the bulk of the country is not that,” Jones said. “And I think that the more that we can embolden people to show that solidarity and be willing to stand up and stand next to everybody and present that unified front, then I think the quicker we’ll get to the end of this.”
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Associated Press writers Rachel La Corte in Olympia, Washington; James Anderson in Denver; and Philip Marcelo in Boston, contributed to this report.
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Follow Andrew Selsky on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andrewselsky
— Associated Press
President Joe Biden speaks during the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021.(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden planned Wednesday to return the United States to the worldwide fight to slow global warming in one of his first official acts, and to immediately launch a series of climate-friendly efforts that would transform how Americans drive and get their power.
“A cry for survival comes from the planet itself,” Biden said in his inaugural address. “A cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear now.”
Biden was to sign an executive order rejoining the Paris climate accord within hours of taking the oath of office, fulfilling a campaign pledge. The move undoes the U.S. withdrawal ordered by predecessor Donald Trump, who belittled the science behind climate efforts, loosened regulations on heat-trapping oil, gas and coal emissions, and spurred oil and gas leasing in pristine Arctic tundra and other wilderness.
The Paris accord commits 195 countries and other signatories to come up with a goal to reduce carbon pollution and monitor and report their fossil fuel emissions. The United States is the world’s No. 2 carbon emitter after China.
Biden’s move will solidify political will globally, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday.
“Not a single country in this world, however powerful, however resourceful one may be, can do it alone,” said Ban, speaking virtually at a briefing in the Netherlands for an upcoming Climate Adaptation Summit. “We have to put all our hands on the deck. That is the lesson, very difficult lesson, which we have learned during last year,” as Trump made good on his pledge to pull out of the global accord.
Biden also will use executive orders to start undoing other Trump climate rollbacks. He will order a temporary moratorium on new oil and gas leasing in what had been virgin Arctic wilderness, direct federal agencies to start looking at tougher mileage standards and other emission limits again, and revoke Trump’s approval for the Keystone XL oil and gas pipeline.
Another first-day order directs agencies to consider the impact on climate, disadvantaged communities, and on future generations from any regulatory action that affects fossil fuel emissions, a new requirement. Human-caused climate change has been linked to worsening natural disasters, including wildfires, droughts, flooding and hurricanes.
However, there was no immediate word on when Biden would make good on another climate campaign pledge, one banning new oil and gas leasing on federal land.
After Biden notifies the U.N. by letter of his intention to rejoin the Paris accord, it would become effective in 30 days, U.N. spokesman Alex Saier said.
Rejoining the Paris accords could put the U.S. on track to cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 40% to 50% by 2030, experts said.
“There’s a lot we can do because we’ve left so much on the table over the last four years,” said Kate Larsen, former deputy director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality under the Obama administration.
Biden has promised that the needed transformations of the U.S. transportation and power sectors, and other changes, will mean millions of jobs.
Opponents of the climate accord, including Republican lawmakers who supported Trump’s withdrawal from it, have said it would mean higher gas prices and higher electricity prices — even though wind and solar have become more affordable than coal, and competitive with natural gas, in generating electricity.
“The Paris climate agreement is based on the backward idea that the United States is a culprit here, when in reality the United States is the leading driver of climate solutions,” said Sen. John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican.
Republican senators are expected to introduce legislation that would require Biden to submit the Paris plan to the Senate for ratification. It’s not clear whether the narrowly divided Senate would have the two-thirds votes needed to ratify the agreement, which was never approved by Congress.
Supporters say congressional approval is not needed. Most of the pollution-reduction goals set by the agreement are voluntary.
The climate deal is based on each nation setting a goal for cutting carbon pollution by 2030. Other countries submitted theirs by last month. The U.S did not. Saier said America just needs to submit its goal some time before November climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland.
A longtime international goal, included in the Paris accord with an even more stringent target, is to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. The world has already warmed 1.2 degrees (2.2 degrees Celsius) since that time.
As of 2020, U.S. emissions were 24% below 2005 levels, but that reflected the extraordinary economic slowdown stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, said climate scientist Zeke Hausfather, energy and climate director for the Breakthrough Institute.
There are two big areas where climate policy deals with day-to-day American life. One is electricity generation, and the other is transportation.
There’s been a quiet transformation, because of market forces that have made wind and solar cheaper than dirtier coal, toward cleaner fuels, and that’s expected to continue so that eventually nearly all of the nation’s power will be low or zero carbon, Larsen and other experts say.
What happens to cars, trucks and buses will be far more noticeable. Several experts foresee the majority of new cars purchased in 2030 being electric.
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Knickmeyer reported from Oklahoma City. Borenstein reported from Kensington, Maryland. Associated Press writers Matthew Daly in Washington, Michael Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Frank Jordans in Berlin also contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://www.apnews.com/Climate
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Follow Ellen Knickmeyer on Twitter at www.twitter/ellenknickmeyer and Seth Borenstein at www.twitter.com/borenbears.
— Associated Press
President-elect Joe Biden has taken the oath of office to become the 46th president of the U.S.
— File photo
President Biden now gives his inaugural address where he congratulates Vice President Kamala Harris on becoming the first Black and South-Asian American woman to hold this office.
President Biden goes on to pledge that he will be a just president.
“I will be a president for all Americans…And I’ll fight as hard for those who didn’t support me as much as for those who did.”
The 46th President speaks of his devotion to his office, and the reasons he ran for the presidency.
He also talks about the importance of defending the truth and defeating the lies.
Biden reminds us that America has been tested by a raging virus, attacks on our democracy, climate changes and other cascading crises, but that the country has been proven strong.
He asked, “Will me meet our obligations and pass on a better world for our children?”
President Biden encouraged us to write the next chapter of the American story.
“…America, America, I gave my best to you,” he recited.
Women across the country are pledging to wear pearls on Inauguration Day to support the country’s first female vice president.
Kamala Harris has just been sworn in as Vice President. History has been made, and many barriers have been broken.
— NYT: Top Stories
Joseph R. Biden Jr. will be sworn in as president of the United States today around 12 p.m. Eastern. In the evening, Tom Hanks will host a prime-time celebration.
— NYT: Top Stories
For Joe Biden, and for our country, it’s been a long road to this day.
— NYT: Top Stories
Donald Trump issued a pardon to rapper Lil Wayne.
— FOX News