‘Best inaugural address I ever heard.’ That’s Fox News’ Chris Wallace on the launch of Joe Biden’s presidency.
■ Stephen Colbert went live last night: “It’s so nice to have a president with a soul again.”
■ As Biden was sworn in, a lone person in uniform sat at the Delaware grave of his son Beau.
‘After nearly 250 years, we finally passed it.’ Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse says that, for 62 seconds of the inauguration, the United States breathtakingly met the bar set by the Bechdel test.
■ The Sun-Times’ Mary Mitchell: “While it was Biden’s day, it was [Kamala] Harris who really made us proud.”
■ Here’s the deal with Bernie Sanders’ mittens.
Now what? Politico: The Democrats have been “caught flat-footed” by their “total control of Washington”—because “almost no one expected Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to both win in Georgia.”
■ A trio of law professors offers Biden advice on how to heal the urban-rural rift.
■ The New York Times: “Hours After Biden Inauguration, Federal Agents Use Tear Gas in Portland.”
‘Relieved.’ Chicago immigrants are looking forward to not being “a scapegoat anymore for the president of the United States.”
■ “The wall” is going on hiatus.
■ In case you’ve forgotten what it’s like to have an informative White House news briefing, here you go.
■ But, Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan warns, journalists need to beware “being seduced by an administration that, in many cases, closely reflects our values.”
Lightfoot investigation. Chicago’s inspector general is probing “possible misconduct” by the mayor’s office for the mishandling of a botched police raid that put an innocent woman into handcuffs, naked.
■ Block Club Chicago: “City’s Carjacking Surge Shows No Sign Of Slowing, So Residents Are Buying Guns.”
■ The mayor’s planning a “reunion weekend” to invite the city’s expatriate Black residents to “come back home.”
Vaccine tourism. That’s a thing now, as Americans hit the road to visit places where COVID-19 shots are (more) plentiful.
■ Walgreens is inviting Illinois seniors and essential workers to sign up for the vaccine “at select stores.”
■ Other health systems expect to do the same within days.
■ Chicago Public Schools teachers are due back in the classroom Monday, but the union is encouraging them to stay home as the pandemic endures.
■ Chicago’s museums are coming back to life.
‘Worse than we could have imagined.’ Biden’s COVID-19 czar tells reporters Donald Trump’s administration left behind a “broken” pandemic infrastructure.
■ The Proud Boys hate group is dissing Trump.
■ The U.S. Army admits that it concealed for days the role Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn—brother of Trump’s convicted-then-pardoned, Biden-victory-denying ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn—played in the flat-footed response to the riot at the Capitol.
■ The woman accused of helping to steal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop in the siege has been freed from jail.
‘It was so remote it wasn’t even funny.’ Among the manifold pardons Trump issued on his way out the door: An NBC News reporter’s uncle—who never asked for one.
■ A few Illinoisans made the cut, too.
■ Here’s the full list.
■ In a last-minute move that could cost taxpayers millions, Trump extended Secret Service protection to his adult kids for six months.
World’s latest newspaper? The Chicago Tribune* is being sued over $4.8 million in unpaid rent on its Prudential Plaza offices.
■ Happy 35th anniversary to Newcity.**
‘This whole damn world could fall apart / You’ll be okay, follow your heart.’ Among the Biden administration’s first achievements: Reuniting the New Radicals …
■ USA Today rounds up video of standout moments from last night’s Celebrating America special …
■ … which also included a reading by a teenager with a stutter—inspired by Biden’s own experience with that challenge.
■ The Trib rounds up ways in which the Chicago area marked Inauguration Day.
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** With which your correspondent also has had a long relationship.