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Here are the week’s top stories, and a look ahead.
1. Even with a new president, the Trump legacy lingers over Washington.
The House will transmit its article of impeachment for former President Donald Trump to the Senate on Monday. But under a deal struck between Senate leaders, the chamber will then pause until Feb. 9 to give the prosecution and defense time to draft and exchange written legal briefs.
It will also give President Biden the time to put crucial members of his cabinet in place and push forward on a large coronavirus aid package.
Mr. Trump, who was impeached for the second time earlier this month, is charged with “incitement of insurrection” for urging on a mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 to protest the results of the election.
We looked at a crucial moment during the attack as the insurrectionists closed in on lawmakers and a Capitol Police lieutenant fatally shot a woman who was vaulting through a window. Our investigation showed a dire set of circumstances that left a lone officer to confront a mob.
In the month leading up to the riot, Mr. Trump was devising his own plan: He and a Justice Department official plotted to oust the acting attorney general to try to advance baseless election claims, interviews showed, and only backed down after top department officials threatened to resign.
2. President Biden got right to work this week.
In his first 48 hours in office, Mr. Biden cranked out about 30 executive actions, 14 of which target a broad range of former President Trump’s executive mandates, with the remainder aimed at implementing emergency measures intended to deal with the pandemic and the economic crisis.
While Mr. Trump came to rely on executive action for many of his achievements, Mr. Biden seems to understand that it is best used to repeal someone else’s legacy, not build his own, our White House reporter writes.
Among Mr. Biden’s actions was a reversal of Mr. Trump’s so-called Muslim ban. Few foreigners welcomed Mr. Biden’s victory as much as the tens of thousands of Muslims who had been barred from the U.S.
In his first days in office, Mr. Biden devoted more attention to issues of racial equity than any new president since Lyndon Johnson. Historians see the moment as a unique opening for change.
4. A year ago this weekend, Wuhan, China, went into lockdown.
The city, the first epicenter of the coronavirus, offered the world a preview of the dangers of the virus. Now, it heralds a post-pandemic world where the relief of unmasked faces, concerts and daily commutes conceals the emotional aftershocks.
“I always thought I wasn’t afraid of death,” one delivery worker said. “But I found out during the epidemic that I’m terrified of it.”
5. 13,000 school districts. 13,000 approaches to teaching during a pandemic.
To assess how public schools have navigated remote and in-person learning and the impact on students, The Times examined seven representative districts. With little federal guidance, the answer looks vastly different across the country.
In Washington, D.C., some teachers spend one day a week going door to door, above, tracking down students who aren’t logging on, and whose education is suffering.
And in Las Vegas, the reminders of lockdown-driven suffering among students have come in droves. By December, 18 students had taken their own lives in Clark County, Nev., pushing the county’s schools toward bringing students back as quickly as possible.
6. Tens of thousands of Russians rallied in support of the jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny on Saturday. It was the biggest nationwide showdown in years between critics of the Kremlin and the Russian authorities.
More than 3,000 people were arrested. The broad scope of the protests — from the Far East to Moscow — signaled widespread fatigue with the stagnant, corruption-plagued political order that President Vladimir Putin has presided over for two decades.
Mr. Navalny, a 44-year-old anticorruption activist and Mr. Putin’s most prominent domestic critic, was poisoned in August in Siberia and recovered in Germany. After flying home to Moscow last Sunday, he was arrested at passport control.
7. We remember two legends of their fields.
There are Hall of Famers. And then there’s Hank Aaron, who faced down racism to become one of baseball’s greatest players and its home run king. He died at 86. This is how his fellow Hall of Fame players will remember him.
“Hank Aaron,” the pitcher Jim Palmer said, “it’s like getting to the top of the mountain.”
Here is our full obituary, a collection of photographs of Aaron, a longtime Atlanta Braves slugger, and one of his final interviews.
And in five decades on radio and TV, Larry King interviewed presidents, psychics, movie stars and swindlers — anyone with a story to tell. He died at 87. No cause of death was given, but Mr. King had recently been treated for Covid-19.
He spoke to The Times Magazine in 2015 about death. “I can’t get my head around one minute being there and another minute absent,” Mr. King said.
8. Around this time last year, there was a lot of speculation that Tom Brady, 43, would retire. Now Brady, the longtime New England Patriots quarterback, is a game away from the Super Bowl with another team.
Brady will lead the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the N.F.C. championship against the Green Bay Packers today. Kickoff is at 3:05 p.m. Eastern. The winner of that game will meet either the Buffalo Bills or the Kansas City Chiefs. That game starts at 6:40 p.m. Here are our predictions.
To say Bills fans are excited for the possibility of their first Super Bowl title is an understatement. Their longstanding ritual of slamming into folding tables makes the ridiculous look routine.
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