President, First Lady Arrive at White House

President Biden has entered the White House for the first time as chief executive after walking an abbreviated parade route amid sounds of "Hail to the Chief." The 46th president and first lady Jill Biden walked through a military cordon lining the White House driveway with the flags of US states, leading the first couple to the main entrance under the North Portico on Wednesday, the AP reports. Biden was expected to immediately begin working, with a stack of executive orders on immigration and other matters awaiting his signature.

The final ceremonial flourish completed an abbreviated inaugural afternoon unlike any Washington has seen, with Biden being seen in person by only a relative smattering of Americans given security lockdowns after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and public health protocols amid the ongoing pandemic. Donald Trump, meanwhile, was in Mar-a-Lago, where he arrived minutes before the end of his presidency, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports. After Trump, the first president to skip his successor's inauguration since Andrew Johnson snubbed Ulysses Grant in 1869, landed in Palm Beach after his final trip on Air Force One, supporters and a handful of protesters lined the route of his final presidential motorcade.

(More Inauguration Day stories.)