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Joe Biden's Oval Office: what changes has the new president made?
The Oval Office has long symbolised the power and grandeur of the US presidency, and incoming White House incumbents traditionally change the decor to reflect the tone of their administration.
Joe Biden has unveiled the new ceremonial backdrop to his administration, marking a number of significant changes from that of his predecessor.
Curtains
Biden kept the curtains that hung during Donald Trump’s administration and had previously been used during Bill Clinton’s presidency. The carpet, taken from storage, is a darker blue than the Trump model. More - in Elections
Joe Biden challenges Americans to 'mask up' for first 100 days – video
Joe Biden has urged Americans to wear face masks for 99 days as part of a challenge for his first 100 days in office during a speech on Thursday in which he unveiled his administrations’s national Covid strategy.
Biden signed an executive order to mandate face coverings during interstate travel and within federal buildings as he noted the US coronavirus death toll is higher than that from the second world war. More - in Elections
California has environmental allies once again with Biden in the White House
California has led the resistance to Donald Trump’s efforts to roll back environmental regulations in the past four years, with the state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, filing a whopping 122 lawsuits challenging Trump administration rules, most of them focused on climate and public health.Now, following Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s swearing in on Wednesday, the Golden state once again has allies in the White House when it comes to environmental protections.Faced with a host of challenges caused by the climate crisis, including growing water scarcity, intensifying heat waves and an ever more dire wildfire risk, environmental regulations are high on California’s policy priority list. The Biden administration shares many of the state’s concerns, and isn’t wasting any time in addressing the deregulation efforts of the previous administration.On his first day in office, Biden released a long, non-exclusive list of Trump policies that will be up for review as part of his new initiative to prioritize public health and climate change. The list is intended as a roadmap for US officials, especially those at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Interior where Trump made significant headway in gutting regulations, and shows how the president plans to use his ambitious environmental goals to bring the country back in line.Many of his outlined priorities neatly align with California’s goals and will ring familiar in the state. “The really ambitious goals that [Biden] has in his plan, a lot of them are modeled on California,” said Jared Blumenfeld, the state’s top environmental regulator, told Politico. “We really want to work with the administration to show what is possible. Whether it’s his goal of getting 2035 carbon-free energy or how we think about zero-emission vehicles or building standards or all the things we’ve done over the last 30 years, what we want to do is work with him to scale that.”Here’s a look at some of the key environmental issues for California in Biden’s plan.Vehicle standardsCalifornia has long set its own pace for climate policy, but the Trump administration sought to stomp out the state’s attempts, particularly when it comes to fuel-efficiency regulations. The EPA revoked the state’s Clean Air Act waiver, barring California from setting its own greenhouse gas standards on vehicles.Biden is expected to reverse that decision and his presidency will pave the way for California to have more control on car manufacturers, a crucial part of the state’s carbon-cutting plan. The California governor, Gavin Newsom, has proposed a plan to stop the sale of gasoline-powered passenger cars and trucks in the next 15 years, a move that, if approved, will push the industry to move faster toward electric.Oil and gas drillingUnder Trump, the Bureau of Land Management changed its evaluation process for leasing to the oil and gas industry to fast-track and expand development on public lands. At the end of 2019, the agency, which is housed under the US Department of the Interior, moved forward with a plan to open up roughly 1.2m acres across California’s central valley for oil and gas drilling. Environmentalists are hopeful the Biden administration will reset the rules and revoke leases that are already underway.California also challenged Trump’s repeal of regulations governing hydraulic fracturing – the process more commonly known as “fracking” that uses high-pressure injections of water, chemicals, and other substances, to extract natural gas housed in underground rock formations. The process has been tied to increases in seismic activity and can cause dangerous substances to leach into the water supply. Trump overturned regulations that required companies to detail plans to prevent leakage and data on chemicals used, and those repeals are now under review.Water warsTrump waded deep into California’s complex water wars with a plan to divert more of the scarce and valuable water resource from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to farmers in the central valley, who are among his strongest supporters in the state. Trump openly ridiculed California’s conservation policies, including protections for a fish called the delta smelt, which is nearing extinction from long periods of drought. California officials bristled at the intervention, arguing that it would harm delicate ecosystems and the endangered fish, and fishermen also filed a suit to challenge the rules. Biden’s review list includes the changed determination for the smelt, and California officials may have the final word.Protecting animalsThe Trump administration in 2019 revised the Endangered Species Act of 1973, adding new criteria for listing and removing animals that may be at risk. The changes increase the opportunity to remove some animals from protection or weigh commercial and corporate needs when considering how to designate critical habitat. Biden has put the rule change up for review, as well as some specific cases where changes in designation have already been made. The northern spotted owl, an inhabitant of the forests in the Pacific north-west, had 3.5m acres – more than a third of its habitat – slashed to give the timber industry more access. The monarch butterfly, which migrates across the US to Mexico each year, didn’t make the list last year even though less than 2,000 were counted in an annual tally taken along California’s coast this year. That marks a 99.9% drop since the 1980s. Protections for the sage-grouse, an imperiled bird known for their unique mating dances that lives in a geographically isolated area along the California-Nevada border, were eased by the Trump administration to pave the way to open up mining and drilling in the area. More
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Joe Biden hits the ground running by outlining national Covid strategy
Joe Biden began his first full day as president confronting a host of major crises facing his fledgling administration, starting with a flurry of actions to address his most pressing challenge: the raging Covid-19 pandemic.At a White House event on Thursday afternoon, Biden unveiled a new national strategy to combat the coronavirus, which has killed more than 404,000 Americans and infected more than 24 million since it first began spreading across the US one year ago, by far the highest totals in the world.“For the past year, we couldn’t rely on the federal government to act with the urgency and focus and coordination we needed,” Biden said, referring to the administration of Donald Trump, which ended at midday the day before.“And we have seen the tragic costs of that failure,” he said.Biden again braced the nation for continued hardship, saying “it’s going to get worse before it gets better” and predicting the death toll could rise to 500,000 by the end of next month.Outlining his approach, Biden told Americans: “Help is on the way.”The actions on Thursday included an order to require mask-wearing on federal property, in airports and on many flights, trains, ships and long-distance buses, and also a huge push to speed up vaccinations, which have fallen far behind the government’s own schedule.“Mask up,” he said, waving a face mask. “For the first 100 days.”Even as he charted an aggressive approach to gain control of the virus, he was met with more bad news about the economy as another 900,000 people filed for unemployment benefits last week and he inherited the worst jobs market of any modern-day president.Biden and Harris began their day joined by family at the White House, where they virtually attended an inaugural prayer service held by the Washington National Cathedral, a tradition that has been reshaped by the pandemic.The president, members of his family as well as his vice-president, Kamala Harris, and her husband sat physically distanced in the Blue Room of the White House to stream the interfaith service. Many of the speakers extended prayers and blessings to the new leaders.The Rev William Barber, a preacher from North Carolina and civil rights leader who leads an anti-poverty campaign, delivered the homily, calling on the new administration to address what he called the “five interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation/denial of healthcare, the war economy, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism”.“No, America has never yet been all that she has hoped to be,” Barber said. “But right here, right now, a third reconstruction is possible if we choose.”And on Thursday morning John Kerry warned, in his first remarks as the US’s new climate envoy, that the world was lagging behind the required pace of change needed to avert catastrophic impacts from the climate crisis.Kerry, the former US secretary of state in the Obama-Biden administration, acknowledged that America had been absent from the international effort to contain dangerous global heating during Donald Trump’s presidency but added: “Today no country and no continent is getting the job done.”The FBI director, Christopher Wray, will remain in the role, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Thursday. During her first press briefing on Wednesday, Psaki raised speculation that his job was in jeopardy when she declined to publicly state whether Biden had confidence in him.“I caused an unintentional ripple yesterday, so wanted to state very clearly President Biden intends to keep FBI Director Wray on in his role and he has confidence in the job he is doing,” she said in a tweet on Thursday.Wray took the helm at the agency in 2017 after Trump fired his predecessor, James Comey, just four years into what is traditionally a 10-year term. Wray’s future had been in doubt for much of the past year, as Trump openly criticized the director and the agency.Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Biden’s nominee for transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, appeared at his Senate confirmation hearing while the House prepared to initiate Trump’s second impeachment trial.In an opening statement, Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who ran against Biden for the Democratic nomination, said there was a “bipartisan appetite for a generational opportunity to transform and improve America’s infrastructure”.The Senate, which officially switched to Democratic control on Wednesday after the swearing-in of three new senators, two from Georgia, has never held an impeachment trial for a former president.Some Republicans have argued that it is not constitutional to try an official who has left office, but many scholars disagree. Democrats say they are ready to move forward as negotiations continue between the chambers over the scope and timing of a trial.After impeaching Trump for an unprecedented second time last week, the House has yet to transmit to the Senate the article charging Trump with “incitement of insurrection” over his role in encouraging a crowd of loyalists that attacked the US Capitol on 6 January in an effort to stop the certification of his defeat.At a press conference on Thursday, Pelosi refused to say when the House would send the article beyond that it “won’t be long”. More
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Amanda Gorman books top bestselling lists after soul-stirring inaugural poem
Amanda Gorman’s star continued its remarkable climb Thursday following the presidential laureate’s resounding delivery of her poem during the US presidential inauguration.
Within hours of Wednesday’s delivery, her soul-stirring reading of The Hill We Climb, at the swearing-in of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had landed the 22-year-old’s two upcoming books at the top of Amazon’s bestseller list.
“I am on the floor. My books are number 1 and number 2 on Amazon after day 1,” the Los Angeles native wrote on Twitter.
Gorman, who described herself as a book worm as a child, overcame a speech impediment in her youth to become the first US national youth poet laureate in 2017.
She has now joined the ranks of inaugural poets such as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou.
With the honor of being the youngest poet in US history to mark the transition of presidential power, Gorman’s collection debuted her collection, also titled The Hill We Climb, which won the Harvard University graduate the top spot in online retailer’s sale charts.Barack Obama
(@BarackObama)
On a day for the history books, @TheAmandaGorman delivered a poem that more than met the moment. Young people like her are proof that “there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it; if only we’re brave enough to be it.” pic.twitter.com/mbywtvjtEHJanuary 20, 2021
Her upcoming project geared to youth titled Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem followed closely behind. Both books are both due out in September.
According to the New York Times, Gorman said she had been struggling to write the inaugural poem. But then came the 6 January assault on the US Capitol, compelling her to stay up all night to finish it, this time certain of what she wanted to say.
“Being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it,” Gorman read as her yellow coat beamed from the steps of the US Capitol, just two weeks after the attempted insurrection and following a year of global protests for racial justice.The performance stirred instant acclaim, with praise from across the country and political spectrum including the Republican-backing Lincoln Project and the former president Barack Obama.
“Wasn’t [Gorman’s] poem just stunning? She’s promised to run for president in 2036 and I for one can’t wait,” tweeted the former US secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.AprilDRyan
(@AprilDRyan)
I can’t help but think that Maya Angelou is looking down from Heaven proud at the #BlackGirlMagic that is Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman.Amanda’s #InaugurationDay poem “The Hill We Climb” was beautiful and wonderfully delivered.#AmandaGorman #Inauguration2021January 20, 2021
The poet’s social media also boomed, surging from her initial tens of thousands to well over a million in new followers to her Twitter fanbase.
By Wednesday night, an audibly stunned Anderson Cooper echoed the public’s admiration on his show, revealing he was “transfixed” by the young poet’s words.
A humble Gorman took the praise in stride, however, thanking followers while sharing her mantra she said not only motivates her before performances, but also spoke to the significance of the historic inauguration .
“I’m the daughter of Black writers,” Gorman said. “We’re descended from freedom fighters who broke through chains and change the world.
They call me.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report. More - in US Politics
The Guardian view on UK-US relations: rebuilding with Biden | Editorial
In British politics, everyone now loves President Joe Biden. That the UK opposition parties are foundation members of the Biden appreciation club is not surprising. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens all identify most naturally with the Democrats and thus with the new administration in Washington. But the changing of the guard at the White House this week has won strikingly broad support across the entire political spectrum too.Many Conservatives now take an enthusiastic view of Mr Biden as well. In some cases this is hard to believe – or forgive. Not long ago, many of the same Tory politicians who now enthuse about Mr Biden tried to bet the house on Donald Trump. Theresa May rushed to Washington to court him. Michael Gove conducted a gushing interview. Boris Johnson said he should get the Nobel peace prize. A US trade deal was obsessively talked up. Today, these same politicians are all friends of Joe and behave as if they barely knew Mr Trump.Even so, the resetting of the dial with America is welcome. But if it is not to be merely opportunistic, it must be accompanied by more honesty, humility and clarity. Mr Trump was never the ally that the last two prime ministers imagined. He was never going to agree a good trade deal. He was always an embarrassment. And he was always a threat to the democratic and liberal values that Britain and the United States once stood for and which went absent without leave after 2016.Over decades, British leaders have often tended to exaggerate Britain’s importance to the US. Mr Johnson, an inveterate truth stretcher, is the same. The necessary modesty about what is realistically possible in the post-Trump era will not come naturally to him. The security relationship undoubtedly remains strong and important. But the new starting point should be the recognition that, in different ways, Britain and America are emerging from unprecedentedly difficult eras internally and in their international relations, for which they themselves bear responsibility.In any event, there can and should be no instant return to some of the US-UK relationships of the recent past. The two countries are not cold war allies, because there is no cold war. They are not military interventionist allies either, because there is no appetite in either country for such projects after Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither Mr Biden nor Mr Johnson is proposing some new grand strategic project.This ought to be a phase of rebuilding in US-UK relations. After the past four years, neither country is in a position to preach to others about democratic institutions and values. The US has just survived a potential coup, supported by a significant proportion of its citizens, to overthrow an election result. Britain has just backed down from a threat to get its way in relations with Europe by breaking international law. It has needlessly damaged relations with Ireland, our nearest neighbour, from which Mr Biden proudly traces his origins. It has now started a petulant row over the EU’s diplomatic status.This is not the way to win friends and influence people. Britain needs allies in the wake of Brexit and amid the rise of Asia and the waning of American global hegemony. Values and interests such as democracy and the rule of law matter in those alliances. To that end, Britain must make more and better use of soft power assets like the BBC, its universities and the aid budget. Mr Biden’s arrival in office opens up new international possibilities on issues like Covid, climate and internet freedom. But we need to be realistic. Britain must treat partnership seriously, not pick fights we do not deserve to win or make claims we can never hope to fulfil without allies. More
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Hope and inspiration at Joe Biden inauguration | Letters
In years to come, we may recall Wednesday’s inauguration ceremony by reading again Amanda Gorman’s words, delivered to a spellbound inauguration assembly (Biden offers a message of resilience in America’s ‘winter of peril’, 20 January). The authority of her poem comes from the clarity of its imagery and the uncompromising challenge of its rhetoric.
What it says ensures that, to relief at the end of America’s political nightmare and goodwill towards the two principals in the drama that unfolded, must now be added the assertion that we can “raise this wounded world into a wondrous one”.Frank PaiceNorwich
• Amid the analysis of Joe Biden’s inauguration speech, it is worth noting that he referred to the evil of racism twice, specifically mentioning “systemic racism”. At a time when the UK’s Conservative government is determined to pretend systemic racism doesn’t exist, this is refreshing.
But is any Labour politician willing to show a similar awareness of how racism operates in Great Britain? Will Keir Starmer step up to the mark and challenge the government’s denial and strongly condemn the systemic racism that blights the lives of too many people in this country? I worry that the Labour leadership’s fear of a “culture wars” backlash has already induced a reluctance to speak out for these fundamental values.Geoff SkinnerKensal Green, London
• Perhaps Donald Trump could take solace in the fact that the crowd at his inauguration was definitely bigger than that at President Biden’s. Size matters to him after all.Joan FurtadoWhitworth, Lancashire More
