Your Thursday Briefing
repercussions of the U.S. leadership change and the
record death toll from Covid-19.
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A fist bump between President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the Capitol in Washington.Credit.Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
‘This is democracy’s day’
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. on Wednesday became the 46th president of the United States, promising to move the nation forward on a path of unity, while Kamala Harris became the first woman and the first person of color to be sworn in as vice president.
“Democracy has prevailed,” Mr. Biden said during a sober, no-surprises inaugural event, as he urged Americans to put aside the bitter divisions that have deepened over the past four years and to come together to confront “cascading crises,” including the coronavirus pandemic. (Watch highlights or read the full speech, annotated by one of our Washington correspondents.)
IRE announces winners of 2020 Philip Meyer Journalism Award
The New York Times’ groundbreaking coronavirus tracking project took first place in the 2020 Philip Meyer Journalism Awards. Other top awards go to investigations that uncovered how deeply race and income determine causes of death in Massachusetts and how qualified immunity impacts excessive force cases against police.
“In this difficult year, journalists and news organizations stepped up to fill the void of important information for the public,” said Sarah Cohen, a contest judge and the Knight Chair in Data Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. “In the tradition of Philip Meyer, they created data and analyzed information using social science methods to help the public understand the pandemic, racial justice and other key issues.”