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Image posted, EPA
In exceptional circumstances, today the president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, officially takes office.
The opening ceremony will take place in Washington, DC, at 12:00 local time (17:00 GMT).
The inauguration ceremony was preceded by intense security preparations in the US capital.
Thousands of National Guard soldiers were deployed to Washington after supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, the seat of Parliament, on January 6, killing five people.
Only a limited number will be able to attend the opening, not hundreds of thousands as usual.
Trump is considered one of the most prominent absentees as he heads to Florida on Wednesday morning to be the first president to avoid attending his successor’s inauguration in nearly 150 years.
So far, Trump has not fully accepted his defeat in last November’s election.
Biden and his wife, Jill, left their Delaware home on Tuesday for Washington, where the president-elect spent 36 years as a senator, before assuming the post of Vice President Barack Obama from 2008 to 2016.
On the eve of his inauguration, Biden led a memorial service in Washington for the American victims of Covid-19 disease, numbering at least 400,000.
On Wednesday, Biden will head to the White House and then to the Capitol, where the groundbreaking ceremony will take place.
Some 200,000 American flags were erected on the National Mall in front of the Capitol to represent the crowds who could not attend.
