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      Fact-Checking Biden’s First Week in Office

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The New WashingtonliveLatest UpdatesExpanding Health CoverageBiden’s CabinetPandemic ResponseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFact CheckFact-Checking Biden’s First Week in OfficeAll but three of 20 claims the president made were accurate, demonstrating his regard for basic facts and his proclivity to err when speaking off the cuff.In the past week, President Biden used the presidential podium mostly to promote his policy priorities.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesJan. 30, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETPresident Biden, in his first week in office, typically stuck to vetted scripts and verified facts — a departure from his predecessor’s freewheeling and fact-free rhetorical style.Over all, Mr. Biden used the presidential podium to promote his policy priorities. His remarks were aspirational and light on empirical assertions. Of 20 factual claims The New York Times analyzed from Jan. 20 to Jan. 26, all but three were largely if not completely accurate. One claim was an overly optimistic projection, another falsely criticized former President Donald J. Trump and a third Mr. Biden corrected almost immediately.Here’s a review.The president got basic facts right on the toll and racial disparities of the pandemic.Mr. Biden most often used statistics from government agencies and think tanks to emphasize the severity of the coronavirus pandemic.His assertions that 900,000 Americans filed for unemployment the week before his inauguration, and that almost 16 million continued to claim unemployment benefits, that almost 10 percent of Black Americans and just over 9 percent of Hispanic Americans are unemployed, and that 600,000 workers in local education have lost their jobs are all backed by the latest Labor Department reports.His claims that one in seven households and more than one in five Black and Latino households “don’t have enough food to eat” come from a Census Bureau survey from December. (A day after Mr. Biden made those assertions while signing executive orders meant to promote racial equity, the Census Bureau released a more recent survey showing that the situation had improved slightly in January; one in 10 households and one in six Black and Latino households reported food insecurity.)He was also right that Black and Latino Americans are dying from and being hospitalized because of the coronavirus at rates almost three times that of white Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Research from the left-leaning think tanks the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Center for Economic and Policy Research buttress Mr. Biden’s claims that 14 million people are behind on rent and 40 percent of frontline workers are Black and Latino.And it was true, as he first claimed during his inauguration, that more Americans have died from the coronavirus (406,194 on Jan. 20) than in all of World War II (405,399, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs). He often accurately cited positive analyses of his plans, and sometimes omitted the less flattering.When promoting his policy priorities, Mr. Biden was armed with favorable citations.He accurately quoted Kevin Hassett, a former top economic adviser to Mr. Trump, as “absolutely” in favor of the Biden administration’s proposed $1.9 trillion fiscal rescue package.It would lift 12 million Americans out of poverty, Mr. Biden said, referring to a study by Columbia University. And he referred to estimates from Moody’s Analytics that the package would create 7.5 million jobs this year, and that his broader economic plan would create about 18.6 million over four years if enacted in full.Mr. Biden, unsurprisingly, did not mention other analyses of his economic plan that projected a smaller effect on employment. The research institution Oxford Economics, which is based in England, estimated that it would create two million more jobs in four years. Nor did the president cite Mr. Hassett’s October paper, written with another economist for the conservative Hoover Institution, estimating that it would result in 4.9 million fewer jobs over a decade.The plan’s call for a $15 minimum wage, Mr. Biden said, would lift people out of poverty. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2019 that a $15 minimum wage would bring 1.3 million people above the poverty line — and also put 1.3 million people out of work.The president also repeatedly urged masking up, twice claiming that “wearing masks from just now until April would save 50,000 lives.” That is in line with a study that found about 130,000 lives could be saved if 95 percent of people wore masks in the 160 days from Sept. 22, 2020, to Feb. 28, 2021, equivalent to about 52,000 lives saved in 70 days.The New WashingtonLive UpdatesUpdated Jan. 29, 2021, 9:45 p.m. ETThe retired general in charge of the Air Force Academy alumni association refuses to condemn Jan. 6 riot, angering its members.Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police officer who died from injuries at the Capitol riot, will lie in honor in the Rotunda.Biden intelligence briefings to be led by veteran C.I.A. officer, who previously briefed George W. Bush.He strayed from the facts when selling his own policies and critiquing his predecessor.During the 2020 Democratic primary and general election races, Mr. Biden was more prone to factual errors when speaking off the cuff, particularly in attacks on political opponents or as he defended or embellished his own record. The three inaccurate claims of his first week in office demonstrated those tendencies.While signing an executive order on strengthening domestic manufacturing, Mr. Biden suggested on Monday that his predecessor paid only lip service to supporting American businesses but “didn’t take it seriously enough.”“Under the previous administration, the federal government contracts awarded directly to foreign companies went up 30 percent,” Mr. Biden said.That was false. A White House spokesman said that Mr. Biden was referring to contract obligations that rose from 2017 to 2019. But a database of government contracts shows that the value awarded to foreign companies rose from about $11.9 million in the 2017 fiscal year to about $13.2 million in the 2019 fiscal year (an increase of 11 percent) and to about $12.9 million in the 2020 fiscal year (an increase of about 8.4 percent).Moreover, raw dollars do not take into account increased government spending or inflation. The same database shows that the share of foreign contracts actually decreased under Mr. Trump to 1.9 percent of all contracts in the 2020 fiscal year from about 2.3 percent in the 2017 fiscal year.At that same event, Mr. Biden overhyped the effect of one of his clean energy policies when he claimed that replacing all of the cars and trucks owned by the federal government with electric vehicles would create “a million autoworker jobs in clean energy.”It is dubious that electrifying the federal fleet of 645,000 cars and trucks would create one million auto jobs, even by the rosiest projections. After all, the entire auto sector employs just under three million people in manufacturing and dealership jobs, while 15 million to 20 million cars are sold a year.Existing research also shows a far more moderate influence on employment than Mr. Biden claims. For example, a 2010 study estimated 1.9 million jobs created if 123 million vehicles are powered by electricity, while a 2009 paper projected 129,000 to 351,000 jobs added if two-thirds of vehicles sold by 2030 are electric.The president also took aim at some critics of his goal to deliver 100 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine in 100 days.“I found it fascinating — yesterday the press asked the question: Is, you know, 100 million enough? A week before, they were saying, ‘Biden, are you crazy? You can’t do 100 million in a hundred days,’” he said last week. “Well, we’re going to, God willing, not only do 100 million, we’re going to do more than that.”Mr. Biden has a point that some were skeptical that the administration could meet that benchmark when he first made the pledge in early December, a few days before the Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer vaccine. Experts told The Times at the time that the goal was achievable, but optimistic. Mr. Biden himself noted in late December — when the country was administering about 200,000 vaccine doses daily — that it would take the United States years to adequately vaccinate the public.But by the week before he took office, the number of shots administered daily reached almost one million. That is the pace required to reach the 100 million doses goal, leading to some criticism that such a goal is now no longer ambitious enough.The president acknowledged in remarks this week that the 100 million number was a floor, not a ceiling.“I’m quite confident that we will be in a position, within the next three weeks or so, to be vaccinating people at the range of a million a day or in excess of that,” he said. “I think we may be able to get that to 1.5 million a day, rather than one million a day. But we have to meet that goal of a million a day.”After a reporter pointed out that the country had already crossed the threshold of one million, Mr. Biden readily corrected himself, using two words his predecessor virtually never uttered: “I misspoke.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The First Post-Reagan Presidency

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      Credit…Timo LenzenSkip to contentSkip to site indexOpinionThe First Post-Reagan PresidencySo far, Joe Biden has been surprisingly progressive.Credit…Timo LenzenSupported byContinue reading the main storyOpinion ColumnistJan. 28, 2021, 8:50 p.m. ETDuring Donald Trump’s presidency, I sometimes took comfort in the Yale political scientist Stephen Skowronek’s concept of “political time.”In Skowronek’s formulation, presidential history moves in 40- to 60-year cycles, or “regimes.” Each is inaugurated by transformative, “reconstructive” leaders who define the boundaries of political possibility for their successors.Franklin Delano Roosevelt was such a figure. For decades following his presidency, Republicans and Democrats alike accepted many of the basic assumptions of the New Deal. Ronald Reagan was another. After him, even Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama feared deficit spending, inflation and anything that smacked of “big government.”I found Skowronek’s schema reassuring because of where Trump seemed to fit into it. Skowronek thought Trump was a “late regime affiliate” — a category that includes Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover. Such figures, he’s written, are outsiders from the party of a dominant but decrepit regime.They use the “internal disarray and festering weakness of the establishment” to “seize the initiative.” Promising to save a faltering political order, they end up imploding and bringing the old regime down with them. No such leader, he wrote, has ever been re-elected.During Trump’s reign, Skowronek’s ideas gained some popular currency, offering a way to make sense of a presidency that seemed anomalous and bizarre. “We are still in the middle of Trump’s rendition of the type,” he wrote in an updated edition of his book “Presidential Leadership in Political Time,” “but we have seen this movie before, and it has always ended the same way.”Skowronek doesn’t present his theory as a skeleton key to history. It’s a way of understanding historical dynamics, not predicting the future. Still, if Trump represented the last gasps of Reaganism instead of the birth of something new, then after him, Skowronek suggests, a fresh regime could begin.When Joe Biden became the Democratic nominee, it seemed that the coming of a new era had been delayed. Reconstructive leaders, in Skowronek’s formulation, repudiate the doctrines of an establishment that no longer has answers for the existential challenges the country faces. Biden, Skowronek told me, is “a guy who’s made his way up through establishment Democratic politics.” Nothing about him seemed trailblazing.Yet as Biden’s administration begins, there are signs that a new politics is coalescing. When, in his inauguration speech, Biden touted “unity,” he framed it as a national rejection of the dark forces unleashed by his discredited predecessor, not stale Gang of Eight bipartisanship. He takes power at a time when what was once conventional wisdom about deficits, inflation and the proper size of government has fallen apart. That means Biden, who has been in national office since before Reagan’s presidency, has the potential to be our first truly post-Reagan president.“Biden has a huge opportunity to finally get our nation past the Reagan narrative that has still lingered,” said Representative Ro Khanna, who was a national co-chair of Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. “And the opportunity is to show that government, by getting the shots in every person’s arm of the vaccines, and building infrastructure, and helping working families, is going to be a force for good.” More

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      Democrats Prepare to Move on Economic Aid, With or Without the G.O.P.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The New WashingtonliveLatest UpdatesBiden’s Climate AmbitionsBiden’s CabinetPandemic ResponseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDemocrats Prepare to Move on Economic Aid, With or Without the G.O.P.President Biden is trying to persuade Republicans to back a $1.9 trillion spending package, but Democrats are pursuing another path to get the relief approved without bipartisan support.“We want it to be bipartisan always, but we can’t surrender if they are not going to be doing that,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesJim Tankersley and Jan. 28, 2021Updated 7:19 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Democrats are preparing to bypass Republican objections to speed President Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic aid package through Congress, rather than pare it back significantly to attract Republican votes, even as administration officials and congressional moderates hold out hopes of passing a bill with significant bipartisan support.On a day when new data from the Commerce Department showed that the economic recovery decelerated at the end of last year, Democratic leaders in Congress and administration officials said publicly and privately on Thursday that they were committed to a large-scale relief bill and would move next week to start a process that would allow it to pass with only Democratic votes, if necessary. Behind closed doors, congressional committees are already writing legislative text to turn Mr. Biden’s plans into law.Party leaders remain hopeful that Mr. Biden can sign his so-called American Rescue Plan into law by mid-March at the latest, even with the competing demands of a Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump, which is set to begin the week of Feb. 8.“We want it to be bipartisan always, but we can’t surrender if they are not going to be doing that,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said at a news conference on Capitol Hill. “I do think that we have more leverage getting cooperation on the other side if they know we have an alternative as well,” she added.Officials across the administration are engaged in a whirlwind series of virtual conversations with key lawmakers, governors, mayors, civil rights leaders and a wide range of lobbying groups in an effort to build as much support as possible for the aid package. It includes $1,400 checks to many individual Americans, extensions of supplemental safety net benefits through the fall, and hundreds of billions of dollars for vaccine deployment and other efforts to curb the coronavirus pandemic.Yet there are early signs that Mr. Biden will need to at least partially trim his ambitions in order to secure even the full support of his party in the Senate — which he almost certainly needs to pass any bill.Some moderate Democrats have joined many Republicans in pushing the administration to narrow the scope of recipients for the direct checks to more directly target low- and middle-income Americans. Such a move would shave hundreds of billions of dollars off the proposal’s overall price tag. Officials privately concede that they would consider reducing the income threshold at which the size of the checks would begin phasing out for individuals and families.Mr. Biden did not announce thresholds for the checks in his proposal, but in December congressional Democrats proposed $2,000 individual checks that would slowly begin phasing out for those earning more than $75,000 a year — and allow some families earning as much as $430,000 a year to receive smaller payments.On a private caucus call with Senate Democrats and Brian Deese, the director of Mr. Biden’s National Economic Council, Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia pushed for the party to go forward with a sweeping package that included another round of stimulus checks, arguing that the issue helped Democrats win both of the state’s Senate seats and clinch the majority, according to two people familiar with the comments. Mr. Ossoff declined to comment on the call because it was private.Some moderate lawmakers have also pushed the administration to justify the need for nearly $2 trillion in additional relief, warning that money already approved by Congress in previous rounds of aid — including in the $900 billion package passed in December — has not yet been spent. Some Democrats also fear Mr. Biden would be forced by parliamentary rules to drop his call for a $15-an-hour minimum wage if the bill circumvented the filibuster via the so-called budget reconciliation process, though it is unclear whether Mr. Biden could get the votes for it even if it were, as some Democrats believe, eligible for inclusion.Mr. Biden has said repeatedly that he will work with Republicans to craft a bill that could earn bipartisan support, and moderate Republicans have warned that cutting their party out of the process would undermine Mr. Biden’s calls for unity and jeopardize future attempts at negotiations.But White House officials said on Thursday that Democrats could move quickly without sacrificing bipartisanship.The New WashingtonLive UpdatesUpdated Jan. 28, 2021, 8:32 p.m. ETMatt Gaetz rallied against Liz Cheney in her own state.Representative Jim Jordan, a Trump loyalist, has decided not to run for an open Senate seat.Acting Capitol Police chief calls for permanent fencing and backup forces in wake of assault.“The president wants this to be a bipartisan package, regardless of the mechanisms,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters. “Republicans can still vote for a package, even if it goes through with reconciliation.”Mr. Biden recently called two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio, who are members of a bipartisan group intent on bridging the gap between the two parties. Ms. Psaki said the president would make more calls to Republicans and Democrats this week.Senator Rob Portman is among the Republican lawmakers whom President Biden called to try to bridge the gap between the two parties.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times“He hasn’t called me — he’s calling them and that’s good,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, told reporters. “I’m not being critical at all. But, you know, I think there’s been direct personal outreach by the president to these Republicans in the hopes that we can do this on a bipartisan basis.”But several Republicans, including those in the bipartisan group who have professed a willingness to negotiate a small package, warned that pursuing the reconciliation process and bypassing their conference would hurt relations. (When Republicans controlled both chambers and the White House in 2017, they used the process twice.)“Covid relief presents the best avenue for bipartisanship right out of the gate,” said Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia and a member of the bipartisan group. Ramming a bill through reconciliation, she added, “is a signal to every Republican that your ideas don’t matter, and I think — does that end it? No, but it certainly puts a color on it.”Administration officials have shown little willingness to push a significantly smaller bill than Mr. Biden has proposed. They worry privately that moving a package that includes only the provisions most likely to gain Republican support — the direct checks and money for vaccines — would risk stranding other elements of the plan they call critical for the recovery, like hundreds of billions of dollars in state and local aid.Mr. Deese pushed back on such suggestions during the call with Democrats and in a post on Twitter. “The needs of the American people aren’t partial; we can’t do this piecemeal,” he wrote.Many Democrats say privately that they see little hope of attracting the 10 Republican votes they would need to overcome a filibuster and avoid using the budget reconciliation process to advance the bill unless they significantly scale back Mr. Biden’s ambitions. Haunted by what Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, referred to as the “mistake” of 2009, when the Democratic Party was in control of both chambers and the White House but was “too timid and constrained in its response to the global financial crisis,” top Democrats are pushing to avoid settling for a small package.“If our Republican colleagues decide to oppose this urgent and necessary legislation, we will have to move forward without them,” Mr. Schumer said, adding that he planned to press ahead with a budget resolution as early as next week. The effort is complicated by Democrats’ tenuous grip on power in the Senate, which is split 50-50 but where Vice President Kamala Harris can break ties in her party’s favor. Those numbers give enormous sway to the most conservative members of the Democratic caucus, including Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana. Any one of them could balk at the size of Mr. Biden’s demands and force a smaller package.Mr. Tester hinted at such possibilities on Thursday, in a nomination hearing for Cecilia Rouse, Mr. Biden’s pick to lead the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He raised concerns about federal borrowing and repeatedly pressed Ms. Rouse to commit to “targeted” spending programs to lift the economy.“They need to be targeted,” Ms. Rouse replied. “They need to be smart. They need to be in those areas where we know the economic benefit outweighs the cost.”Administration officials are juggling the rescue package with a broader proposal, which Mr. Biden refers to as a recovery plan, that would spend trillions more on infrastructure improvements, clean energy deployment and a series of other initiatives rooted in Mr. Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda from the presidential campaign. That plan will be financed, all or in part, by tax increases on corporations and high earners. Mr. Biden has promised to detail it publicly next month.Nicholas Fandos More

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      Giuseppe Conte to Resign as Italian Prime Minister

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesVaccine InformationTimelineWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyItaly’s Prime Minister to Quit, Adding Political Chaos to PandemicPrime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government is likely to collapse, leaving Italy in an uncertain political situation with Covid-19 infections still very high.Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy, center, addressing the Senate in Rome on Tuesday.Credit…Alessandro Di Meo/EPA, via ShutterstockJason Horowitz, Gaia Pianigiani and Jan. 25, 2021Updated 5:15 p.m. ETPrime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy will offer his resignation on Tuesday, his office said on Monday evening, likely leading to the collapse of Italy’s teetering government and plunging the country deeper into political chaos as it faces a still serious coronavirus epidemic and a halting vaccine rollout.Mr. Conte’s resignation will put Italy back in the familiar situation of government instability, but in extraordinary times, with tens of millions of Italians struggling to stay healthy and get by under pandemic restrictions and a deep, global recession. The coronavirus has killed more than 85,000 Italians, one of the world’s highest death tolls. The government, which was making slow but steady progress in vaccinating public health workers, has hit a speed bump and threatened to sue Pfizer for a shortfall in vaccine doses.What will happen after Mr. Conte offers his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella remains unclear. Mr. Conte could remain in charge, heading a new governing coalition with a different lineup of parties, but the possibilities also include a more thorough reorganization under a different prime minister, or even elections to choose a new Parliament.Mr. Conte, who is serving his second consecutive stint as Prime Minister — first as the head of an alliance of right-wing nationalists and populists, and then as the leader of a coalition of populists and the center-left establishment — desperately wants to stay in power.But last week, Matteo Renzi, a wily former prime minister and critic of Mr. Conte, unexpectedly pulled his small center-left party out of the government, depriving it of majority support in the Senate. Mr. Conte, who leads a coalition of the populist Five Star Movement and the center-left Democratic Party, has been unable to attract enough new support in Parliament to replace the votes Mr. Renzi took away.Mr. Renzi said he withdrew from the coalition to protest Mr. Conte’s management of the epidemic, his lack of vision in deciding where to allocate hundreds of billions of euros in recovery funds that Italy is set to receive from the European Union, and his undemocratic methods in icing out Parliament by relying on unelected task forces.A food distribution site in Milan earlier this month. The pandemic has devastated Italy’s economy.Credit…Alessandro Grassani for The New York TimesBut many here instead saw Mr. Renzi as performing a complicated political maneuver designed to take revenge on his enemies and gain more influence in the government, perhaps even in a third consecutive government led by Mr. Conte.Mr. Mattarella, the Italian president, is imbued with extraordinary powers during a government crisis and has several options for resolving the crisis.He could, in theory, ask the current coalition to continue, but it is seen as all but certain that he will accept that the government has collapsed. He could task Mr. Conte with forming a new government, which would essentially require the support, and appeasement, of Mr. Renzi’s party, with or without him. That would lead to what was in essence a glorified cabinet reshuffle.On Monday night, a third Conte government seemed, at least publicly, to be the governing coalition’s first choice.Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of the Democratic Party, which Mr. Renzi once led, said in a Twitter post Monday evening that he was “with Conte for a new government.” The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez Led a Musically Earnest Inauguration

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential InaugurationHighlightsPhotos From the DayBiden’s SpeechWho Attended?Biden’s Long RoadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookAt Biden’s Inaugural Events, the Music Was Earnestly ReassuringArtists including Bruce Springsteen, Demi Lovato and John Legend tried to bring together an America that couldn’t gather in person, and irony and bombast were banished.At the swearing-in, Lady Gaga sang a “Star-Spangled Banner” that hinted at Kate Smith but made its way into gospel-R&B.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 21, 2021Updated 1:35 p.m. ETThroughout President Biden’s inauguration, music sent every possible signal of unabashed earnestness. Irony was banished; so were arrogance, bombast, triumphalism and confrontation. Echoing the Biden campaign, and tightly coordinated with the speeches and imagery of his first day in office, the music insisted on unity after division, hope after pain.On Wednesday morning, President Trump had jetted away, in a final burst of self-glorification, to the Village People’s booming “Y.M.C.A.” and to Frank Sinatra’s boastful “My Way.” By contrast, Mr. Biden’s prime-time “Celebrating America” broadcast on Wednesday night promised humility and a determined inclusiveness, interspersing tributes to everyday Americans — nurses, teachers, cooks, delivery drivers — with songs.It opened with Bruce Springsteen, alone with a guitar at the Lincoln Memorial, singing about migration, mutual aid and welcome in “Land of Hope and Dreams.” It was a reprise of a song by Mr. Springsteen, a career-long voice of workers’ dignity and a steady supporter of Democratic candidates, that played at President Obama’s farewell address.Mr. Biden’s events presented music as balm and consolation, as a peace offering and a promise of community, even as the pandemic — along with security concerns after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — made a public gathering impossible. At “Celebrating America,” he and his vice president, Kamala Harris, spoke briefly from inside the Lincoln Memorial, where Mr. Biden said their inauguration was “not about us, but about you.”Tyler Hubbard, left, of Florida Georgia Line performing “Undivided” with Tim McGraw on the “Celebrating America” special.Credit…Biden Inaugural Committee, via ReutersEarlier that day at the swearing-in ceremony, Lady Gaga wore a voluminous red dress, a navy jacket and large brooch with a dove holding an olive branch as she sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” starting it with a foursquare declamation and grand vibrato hinting at Kate Smith but making her way toward gospel-R&B melismas before she was done. Jennifer Lopez, wearing suffragist white, crescendoed from a soft-rock “This Land Is Your Land” to a fervent “America the Beautiful,” shouting part of the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish and slipping in a phrase from her own “Let’s Get Loud.”The afternoon’s “virtual inaugural parade” strove to recapture the endearing roll call at the Democratic convention. It offered quick glimpses of musical, military and athletic groups from all of the states, along with rhythmic delights from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Andra Day sang “Rise Up” on a rooftop overlooking a Black Lives Matter mural in Hollywood, accompanying a skating routine by the young viral-video star Kaitlyn Saunders on Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., and the New Radicals played their one hit from 1998, “You Get What You Give” — a favorite of the president’s son Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015. The show’s giddy finale was a deftly edited, crowdsourced, TikTok-style montage of hundreds of people flaunting their moves to Martha and the Vandellas’ Motown classic “Dancing in the Street.”During the prime-time “Celebrating America,” another onscreen contingent, predominantly health care workers, joined Demi Lovato as she belted Bill Withers’s “Lovely Day”; a time-stamped cutaway showed the Biden family watching and dancing along, live, at the White House. It was as close as the public could gather in pandemic America.“Celebrating America” included live but physically isolated performances from a small stage by the Lincoln Memorial. Lincoln’s statue gazed down the stairs at Mr. Springsteen, John Legend, Katy Perry and the event’s host, Tom Hanks. Other performances, largely prerecorded, came from remote locations.Katy Perry’s “Firework,” and real-life fireworks over Washington, provided the finale.Credit…Biden Inauguaral Committee, via Associated PressThe songs and titles weren’t subtle. From Nashville, Tyler Hubbard (a member of Florida Georgia Line) and Tim McGraw sang “Undivided,” which insists, “I’m tired of looking left or right/So I’m just looking up.” Jon Bon Jovi scratchily sang the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” with a band on a pier in Miami. Justin Timberlake and Ant Clemons predicted “Better Days” with a band inside the Stax Museum in Memphis; then they joined a gospel choir singing on the street with a bluesy train whistle cutting through — a glimpse of a particular American locality.Dozens of Broadway singers — including Chita Rivera, Laura Benanti, Vanessa Williams, Anthony Rapp, Betty Buckley, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Audra McDonald and Rosie Perez — contributed home-recorded vocals to a virtual medley of “Seasons of Love” (from “Rent”) and “Let the Sunshine In” (from “Hair”). John Legend revived Nina Simone’s arrangement of “Feeling Good,” declaring, “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day.” And for the finale, Katy Perry sang her positive-thinking pep talk, “Firework,” before fireworks lit up the Washington skies.During the inaugural events, there were multiple renditions of “Amazing Grace,” the English hymn that became a Black spiritual in the United States. It’s a song about finding redemption and salvation; it’s also a staple at funerals. Garth Brooks sang it at Mr. Biden’s swearing-in, inviting home audiences to sing along. The cellist Yo-Yo Ma played it (in a solo medley of hymns with “Goin’ Home” and “Simple Gifts”) on “Celebrating America.” And Lori Marie Key, a nurse from Michigan who sang the song at a hospital in a popular online video, sang it again devoutly and exultantly on Tuesday at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, in a ceremony recognizing the 400,000 U.S. deaths from Covid-19.The newest and sultriest songs on the Biden inaugural stages weren’t sung in English. DJ Cassidy, who had performed at both of Mr. Obama’s inaugurations, brought his “Pass the Mic” video format to both the virtual parade and “Celebrating America,” presenting performers singing along to their recorded hits. During the virtual parade, he had members of Earth, Wind & Fire singing and playing “Sing a Song,” and Kathy Sledge of Sister Sledge, along with the songwriter and producer Nile Rodgers and three remote choirs, performing “We Are Family” — declarations of solidarity.Later, in prime time, he was joined by Puerto Rican hitmakers. Ozuna sang “Taki Taki”; Luis Fonsi delivered his global smash “Despacito.” Both songs are cheerful, amorous flirtations — lighthearted exceptions to all the sober declarations of purpose. But for the most part, the Biden inaugurals were soothingly wholesome, unhip and affirmative — family entertainment hoping to reunite a fractious American family.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Trump Financial Disclosure Reveals a Business Upended by the Coronavirus Pandemic

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutLatest UpdatesInside the SiegeVisual TimelineNotable ArrestsCapitol Police in CrisisAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump Financial Disclosure Reveals a Business Upended by the PandemicRevenues for the Trump Organization fell nearly 38 percent in 2020 as the coronavirus took a steep toll on the hospitality industry. Mar-a-Lago was a bright spot.Trump National Doral, a golf club outside Miami, saw revenue drop by more than 40 percent.Credit…Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesBen Protess, Steve Eder and Jan. 20, 2021, 7:22 p.m. ETOver the past year, former President Donald J. Trump’s family business suffered steep declines in revenue as the pandemic upended the nation’s hospitality industry, according to a financial disclosure report released hours after Mr. Trump departed office on Wednesday.The report detailed a revenue drop of more than 40 percent at Mr. Trump’s Doral golf club outside Miami, and a 63 percent decline at his signature hotel in Washington, just blocks from the White House. All told, the Trump Organization declared revenue of at least $278 million in 2020 and the early days of this year, a nearly 38 percent decline from the company’s reported 2019 results.The disclosure, which represents the final public snapshot of Mr. Trump’s finances, documents the toll the pandemic has taken on his luxury hospitality business, which essentially ground to a halt last spring when the coronavirus started sweeping through the country. Trump hotels and golf courses shuttered, and even after reopening, some faced restrictions on indoor dining and gatherings.“There were places that due to government mandates we were not able to operate,” Eric Trump, the former president’s son who helps run the business, said in an interview on Wednesday. “Those are places you are going to lose the season because of it.”The Trump Organization, he said, remained stable and had steady cash flow and relatively low debt compared with other real estate businesses — though as Mr. Trump left office, the company had more than $300 million in debt coming due in the next few years that the former president has personally guaranteed.The disclosure portends greater tumult ahead for the business, which has faced widespread shunning of its brand after the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. The violent rioting by Mr. Trump’s supporters led to his second impeachment and prompted many of the company’s corporate partners — in banking, insurance, golf and real estate — to abandon it. Morgan Lewis, the law firm that handles its taxes, became the latest to distance itself from the Trumps on Wednesday, by indicating that it would not take on new business with Mr. Trump or the company.The scenes of rioters storming and looting the Capitol in Mr. Trump’s name, some of them armed and dressed in animal skins, also undermined the image of stately luxury that the Trump Organization had created and is expected to cost the president’s five-star hotels bookings and group outings.Revenue at the Trump hotel near the White House decreased by 63 percent.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesThe biggest blow came when the P.G.A. of America announced it would strip Mr. Trump’s New Jersey golf club of a major tournament, setting off a wave of other ruptures, including a decision by New York City to cancel contracts with the Trump Organization for two ice rinks, the Central Park Carousel and the Trump Golf Links in the Bronx.Even before the pandemic and the riot, the Trump presidency had complicated business for the Trump brand.For much of his term, the company was stuck in neutral as the family name was removed from several properties and potential new deals never emerged. Mr. Trump’s polarizing politics also appeared to create a red-blue divide, leaving his hotels in Democratic bastions like New York and Chicago struggling, while his golf club in North Carolina boomed..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1cs27wo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1cs27wo{padding:20px;}}.css-1cs27wo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.One bright spot in 2020 was Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club in Florida and his intended new residence. Revenues at Mar-a-Lago rose from $21.4 million to $24.2 million, an increase of 13 percent. The company’s retail business also grew, more than doubling its revenues to nearly $2 million.The Trump golf business saw mixed results. While many of the courses had losses of 10 percent or more, revenues rose at clubs in West Palm Beach, Fla., and another near Charlotte, N.C., as golf became a popular outdoor escape from the dangers of Covid-19.But at Doral, Mr. Trump’s biggest revenue generator, revenues fell from $77.2 million in 2019 to $44.2 million, down nearly 43 percent.Trump Turnberry, a golf club in Scotland, had a significant downturn last year. Revenue fell from $25.7 million to $9.8 million, about 62 percent, as Scottish authorities closed it because of the virus.Some of the Trump Organization’s biggest declines came in its hotel business, as the virus halted travel and the company cut back on staff to stem its losses. The hotel in Washington, which the Trumps had considered selling before the pandemic, was particularly hard hit. The restaurant and the famed hotel lobby — long a gathering place for lobbyists, White House aides and other Trump supporters — have been closed for extended periods over the past year, and hotel occupancy is down significantly.Mr. Trump reported assets worth at least $1.3 billion, down slightly from 2019.He also reported receiving 10 gifts, including an Ultimate Fighting Championship belt, golf gear, a leather bomber jacket and a computer from Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, worth $5,999.Eric Lipton contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      For Many Across America, a Sigh of Relief as a New Era Begins

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential InaugurationliveLatest UpdatesScenes From the DayBiden’s SpeechBiden Sworn InBiden’s Long RoadCredit…Jason Andrew for The New York TimesFor Many Across America, a Sigh of Relief as a New Era Begins“I feel lighter,” said a woman in Chicago. For many in an exhausted, divided nation, the inauguration was a sea change, not just a transition.Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyJan. 20, 2021, 7:01 p.m. ETEarly Inauguration Day morning, she slipped into her pandemic-era work clothes of gray sweatpants and white shirt and ground the beans. Then, with her mug of coffee, she watched on her kitchen television as the green-and-white helicopter took air, removing from the White House grounds the outgoing 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.In that kitchen, in a brick Colonial house in Watertown, Mass., tears came to the eyes of the woman, Karolyn Kurkjian-Jones. Tears of unabashed joy.“It’s over, it’s over, it’s over,” Ms. Kurkjian-Jones, a retired kindergarten teacher and pandemic-furloughed concierge at the Boston Park Plaza hotel, said later. “He’s gone.”Since the election in November of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the 46th president, a great deal of attention has been paid to the conspiracy theories of Republicans who supported Mr. Trump — especially those who, heeding his combustible words about a stolen election, overran the Capitol in a surge of violence and vandalism on Jan. 6.Vice President Kamala Harris celebrated after being sworn in Wednesday.Credit…Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesBut so many more Americans, nearly 81.3 million of them, are like Ms. Kurkjian-Jones, people who voted for Mr. Biden and against Mr. Trump. And, on Wednesday, exactly two weeks after the attack on the Capitol, they celebrated with liquor and baked goods, with Zoom calls and “Amazing Grace” and tears of joy, a new day: a day in which a nation pushed a reset button.In Chicago, not far from a bakery doing a brisk business in inauguration-themed treats — a Wonder Woman cake featuring the face of Vice President Kamala Harris, for example — Sarah Rassey, 40, made plans to watch the inauguration with her daughter, Madeleine, who also happened to be turning 5.“I feel lighter,” Ms. Rassey said of Mr. Biden’s presidency. “I’m just grateful, relieved, happy — and, honestly, I’ve been crying tears of joy since last night.”In Texas, a pair of sisters — both special-education teachers from Killeen — drove more than an hour to be in front of the State Capitol in Austin in time to watch the inauguration on a cellphone. Norma Luna, 49, and Sylvia Luna, 43, were there in part to honor a third sister, Veronica, 56, who died of the coronavirus on Election Day.Norma Luna, left, and her sister Sylvia watched a livestream of the inauguration from the Texas Capitol.Credit…Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times“It’s a relief,” Norma Luna cried as she watched the ceremony. “I didn’t think we could get here. We’re proud to be Americans again.”In Annandale, Va., Isra Chaker, 30, an advocate for refugees and asylum seekers at Oxfam America, felt unburdened of the need to justify her “Americanness” during the Trump administration — even though she was born and raised by Syrian immigrants in Boulder, Colo.“Today I know that I belong here,” Ms. Chaker, a Muslim who wears a hijab, said. “It was reaffirmed that we are all America and America is all of us.”And at the Calamari’s Squid Row restaurant in Erie, Pa., vodka was the noontime alcohol of choice among some women who call themselves the Drinking Girls. Mary Jo Campbell, 70, a retired university professor and an official in the Erie County Democratic Party, was there, along with her friends Linda, and Kathy, and Alice, and Cheryl, and Karen, and Amy, and Emily — a band assembled in commiseration after Mr. Trump’s election in 2016.The Presidential Inauguration More

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      On Night Before Inauguration, Biden Leads Mourning for Virus Victims

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential InaugurationliveLatest UpdatesQuestions, AnsweredWho’s PerformingHeightened SecurityPast Inaugural FirstsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn Night Before Inauguration, Biden Leads Mourning for Virus Victims“To heal we must remember,” Mr. Biden said, standing in front of the Reflecting Pool, which was surrounded by 400 lights meant to mark the 400,000 people who have died from Covid-19.President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. with his wife, Jill Biden, and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff. Mr. Biden paid tribute to the victims of the pandemic on the same day that the death toll in the United States topped a staggering 400,000.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesJan. 19, 2021Updated 9:56 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrived in the nation’s capital on Tuesday for the first time since his election, and on the eve of his inauguration, he did what his predecessor declined to do by leading a national mourning for Americans killed by the coronavirus.In a somber sundown ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in a city virtually occupied by troops on guard against political violence, Mr. Biden paid tribute to the victims of the pandemic on the same day that the death toll in the United States topped a staggering 400,000 — and almost a year to the day from the first report of the virus appearing in the country.“To heal we must remember,” Mr. Biden said, standing in front of the Reflecting Pool, which was surrounded by 400 lights meant to mark the 400,000 victims of the virus. “It’s hard sometimes to remember. But that’s how we heal. It’s important to do that as a nation. That’s why we’re here today. Between sundown and dusk, let us shine the lights in the darkness along the sacred pool of reflection and remember all whom we lost.”As the incoming president spoke, the bells at Washington National Cathedral began to chime and the Empire State Building in New York and the Space Needle in Seattle were illuminated. Cities from Miami to San Diego also lit buildings for the occasion while Mr. Biden’s inaugural committee encouraged Americans to light candles in their windows in a show of national solidarity. Events were also held in the two cities that Mr. Biden calls his hometowns, Wilmington, Del., and Scranton, Pa.A field of flags on the National Mall represents the thousands of Americans who would normally attend the inauguration.Credit…Todd Heisler/The New York TimesThe evocative ceremony provided a moment of catharsis that the nation has not experienced until now and underscored the change in store as Mr. Biden takes the oath of office on Wednesday as the 46th president of the United States. Throughout the pandemic, President Trump has refused to hold a similar event of national mourning and offered little public empathy for its victims, even as he and members of his family and staff have themselves been infected and recovered from the virus.Mr. Trump made no mention of the grim new landmark of 400,000 dead on Tuesday in his farewell address to the nation and referred to the victims in just a single sentence. “We grieve for every life lost, and we pledge in their memory to wipe out this horrible pandemic once and for all,” he said in the address, which was released on video.Otherwise, he focused on the “brutal toll” the virus took on the economy and boasted of his success in developing a vaccine in record time, without mentioning the troubles in distributing the lifesaving shots.For Mr. Biden, 78, it was a melancholy day as he prepared to take the reins of a country in crisis on Wednesday. In leaving Wilmington for Washington to achieve a goal he spent three and a half decades seeking, he was openly emotional, wiping tears from his eyes and choking up. He mused aloud about his own death and said he wished it was his dead son, Beau Biden, who was becoming president rather than him. But he insisted that dark days would be followed by brighter ones.“It’s deeply personal that our next journey to Washington starts here, a place that defines the very best of who we are as Americans,” the president-elect said at a send-off ceremony at the Major Joseph R. “Beau” Biden III National Guard/Reserve Center in New Castle, Del., named for the son who served in Iraq and as the state’s attorney general before dying of brain cancer in 2015. “I know these are dark times, but there’s always light. That’s what makes this state so special. That’s what it taught me: There’s always light.”Paraphrasing James Joyce, who once said, “When I die, Dublin will be written on my heart,” Mr. Biden paused to compose himself and his voice trembled. “Excuse the emotion, but when I die, Delaware will be written on my heart,” he said. Referring to Beau Biden, he added: “I only have one regret, that he’s not here. We should be introducing him as president.”The Presidential Inauguration More