NPR News

After the Capitol was cleared of insurrectionists on Jan. 6, there was work to be done. You may have seen the video of a group of Capitol workers cleaning up the great halls, trying to restore order and dignity to rooms that had been trashed and defaced.

Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden's nominee for Secretary of State, is appearing Tuesday afternoon before a Senate panel to begin his confirmation process. He's vowing to restore American leadership on the world stage and work for the "greater good."

The New York Mets have fired the team's new general manager Jared Porter over alleged sexual harassment of a female reporter.

Updated at 1:03 p.m. ET

Avril Haines, President-elect Joe Biden's nominee for director of national intelligence, opened her confirmation hearing Tuesday morning with an implicit criticism of President Trump's management of the country's vast intelligence network.

"When it comes to intelligence," Haines said in her opening statement, "there is simply no place for politics, ever."

Updated at 1:29 p.m. ET

President-elect Joe Biden's nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, appeared before a Senate panel Tuesday to begin his confirmation process, vowing to do everything he can so that an attack on the Capitol like the one on Jan. 6 "will not happen again."

Mayorkas, who would be the first Latino and first immigrant to lead that department, was previously the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a DHS agency, during the Obama administration. He then served as deputy secretary of DHS.

President-elect Joe Biden is nominating Pennsylvania health expert Dr. Rachel Levine to be assistant secretary for health in the department of Health and Human Services, in a move that could make Levine the first openly transgender federal official to win Senate confirmation.

Levine is currently the secretary of health in Pennsylvania, where she leads the state's fight against COVID-19. She is also professor at the Penn State College of Medicine. Levine began her medical career as a pediatrician at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

When Amanda Gorman was asked to write a poem for President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration on Wednesday, she didn't know where to begin. The nation has just been through a bitter election. Americans are as divided as ever. And the pandemic continues to rage.

"It was really daunting to begin the poem because you don't even really know the entry point in which to step into the murk," she said in an interview Monday with NPR's Steve Inskeep.