Emma Bowman

The presidential inauguration ceremony on Wednesday looked a lot different than in previous years. Masks were a reminder of a pandemic still raging. The ceremonial parade was canceled and some customs went virtual.

As surging coronavirus cases push intensive care units across Los Angeles to the breaking point, Mayor Eric Garcetti says what's needed more than hospital space and safety equipment right now is trained health workers and more vaccine doses.

"The toughest thing right now isn't just space — though it's pinched — it's really personnel and getting enough people to be there for the shifts to save lives," Garcetti tells All Things Considered. "That's increasingly where we are feeling the crunch."

A Trump administration spokesman on Sunday said top officials in the three branches of government would be among the first to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, but later in the evening, the president himself said most White House staff members will have to wait.

As it turns out, all it takes to bust stubborn gender norms is for a few injuries to heal, a global pandemic and being in the right place at the right time. At least that's how Sarah Fuller did it.

The soccer goalkeeper made history last month when she became the first woman to play a football game in the Power Five — a group of the largest and most popular conferences in college sports.

The first COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. could get authorized for emergency use in a matter of days. But for state health officials, any excitement over any potential breakthrough is tempered by an overwhelming logistical test: distributing a vaccine to millions of Americans.

Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, said there's "no shortage of challenges" for the people charged with planning the vaccination rollout for their state.

In the best of times, service industry workers are typically paid below the minimum wage and rely on tips to make up the difference. Now, those still working in an industry battered by the coronavirus pandemic are on the front lines, enforcing COVID-19 safety measures at the expense of both tip earnings and avoiding harassment.

James Ramos, the first member of a California Native American tribe to serve in the state legislature, authored a trio of new laws bolstering the rights of Native Americans in the state.

The measures, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September, will go into effect on Jan. 1. One such law will make it easier for tribes in the state to reclaim sacred artifacts and the remains of their ancestors that have been held by museums and other institutions for decades.

A federal judge handed the Trump campaign a definitive loss on Saturday in its final attempt to delay the certification of votes in Pennsylvania, where President-elect Joe Biden leads by more than 81,000 votes.

Georgians shattered voting records in the 2020 election. Roughly 5 million people voted in the state, up from around 4.1 million in 2016.

Fair Fight Action, a Georgia-based organization founded in 2018 by former state House minority leader and 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, is credited with being instrumental in the voter participation boom.

Basketball superstar Sue Bird cleared many hurdles alongside her teammates over the course of an unusual season to win her fourth WNBA championship with the Seattle Storm earlier this month.

But long before her victory on the court, she joined her WNBA teammates in leading a bigger fight, through activism on social justice issues.

Updated at 7:45 a.m. ET Monday

With eight days until Election Day, the White House again faces the coronavirus in its ranks and controversy over its national strategy for the pandemic, after President Trump's chief of staff said the administration would not control the spread of the disease.

Two top advisers to Vice President Pence have tested positive for the virus in recent days, as Pence — who tested negative on Saturday and Sunday — crisscrosses the country for rallies in swing states.

A conservation group is warning that the development of an effective coronavirus vaccine on a global scale could ravage shark populations worldwide, as researchers race to produce a vaccine using an oil derived from sharks.

Squalene, a compound that is harvested from the livers of sharks, is a common moisturizing ingredient in cosmetics. It's also used in malaria and flu vaccines as an agent that boosts the immune system's response.

As a champion for women "leaning in" at work, Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer at Facebook, is worried.

The coronavirus pandemic, and related issues like lack of childcare and school, are taking a disproportionately heavy toll on working women, with effects that will be felt for years to come, according to a new report from Sandberg's Lean In foundation and McKinsey & Company.

Young adults are known for taking to the streets in protest. Now, there's a youth-driven push to bring more of them to the ballot box.

Tyler Okeke, a 19-year-old activist, is among those who champion lowering the voting age from 18 to 16.

Carmen Best, Seattle's first Black police chief, is leaving her post on Wednesday, in the midst of protests against police brutality in her city and across the country.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice is overseeing the investigation into the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was left paralyzed after he was shot seven times in front of his three kids by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis.

Until recently, it was common practice that any time an officer fired a gun, the police department conducted the investigation. In 2014, Wisconsin became the first state to end that process – one that has led to accusations of conflicts of interest and police cover-ups.

Updated at 5:43 p.m. ET

The Wisconsin National Guard has been deployed to Kenosha, Wis., after a Black man was shot several times at close range in the back during an encounter with police over the weekend.

The shooting was caught on video that has since gone viral on social media, sparking outrage.

Sal Khan, the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, built an education enterprise on virtual learning. But as many communities across the country prepare to start the fall with online-only instruction, even he admits that distance learning is a less than perfect substitute for in-person schooling.

The former hedge fund analyst first hatched the idea for Khan Academy as a way to tutor his younger cousins in math. Since its launch in 2008, the site has been providing free video tutorials and lectures. Today, it serves more than 100 million users worldwide.

The National Hockey League resumed play on Saturday, with players emerging from the "bubbles" they've been hunkering down in since July 26.

And so far, players are staying healthy. Since relocating to the bubbles — in two Canadian cities, Edmonton and Toronto — the league says it's given more than 7,000 tests to players on 24 teams, and none have come back positive for COVID-19.

The key to keeping the league safe, says NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, has been to "be as flexible as possible."

The Department of Homeland Security has reassigned its top intelligence official, according to media outlets, following news that his office compiled intelligence reports on journalists and protesters in Portland, Ore.

Scientists are in a sprint to find a vaccine that could stamp out the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert, said on Friday he's "cautiously optimistic" that a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine will be ready for distribution in early 2021.

In the late 1950s, Kenneth Felts met a young man who became the love of his life.

Felts, now 90 years old, had not revealed that relationship to his family until a few months ago, when he finally told his daughter, Rebecca Mayes, that he is gay — a secret he'd been keeping for more than 60 years. It happened in mid-March, when Felts was quarantining because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The two spoke about Felts' first love, Phillip, during a remote StoryCorps conversation from Arvada, Colo., this month.

Raphael Bostic, president and CEO of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, says racism is a danger to the health of America's economy.

In a recent opinion piece, Bostic reflected on the recent protests against police brutality that he says are fueled, in part, by economic inequalities that stem from systemic racism.

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 prompted educator Jane Elliott to create the now-famous "blue eyes/brown eyes exercise."

As a school teacher in the small town of Riceville, Iowa, Elliott first conducted the anti-racism experiment on her all-white third-grade classroom, the day after the civil rights leader was killed.

In a Fourth of July speech aimed at commemorating the military on Saturday, President Trump hit on familiar divisive themes, condemning the "radical left" and the media, which he accused of "slander."

During the second annual Salute to America event held on the South Lawn of the White House, the president drew a comparison between historical American wartime victories and stopping the "radical left."

Vivian Garcia Leonard studied to become a pharmacist in Cuba before coming to the U.S. in 1961.

Her daughter, also named Vivian, eventually followed in her mother's footsteps. So, too, did her daughter, Marissa Sofia Ochs. Today, the three generations of pharmacists live near each other and work in New York City.

But recently, the elder Vivian, who's 82, stopped working to limit her exposure to the virus.

In a remote StoryCorps conversation recorded last month, the women talked about living through the coronavirus pandemic.

Aidan Sykes was just 6 years old when he joined his dad, Albert, to protest the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. They've been attending protests against racial injustice ever since.

President Trump is barring the entry of most non-U.S. citizens who have been in Brazil within the past 14 days, the White House announced on Sunday, citing concerns over Brazil's rapidly worsening coronavirus crisis.

"Today's action will help ensure foreign nationals who have been in Brazil do not become a source of additional infections in our country," White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement.

In Texas, as more businesses get the green light to reopen, those plans have been delayed in some areas where the governor says jump in positive COVID-19 cases follow ramped-up testing capacity.