From Biden to Covid: Some of the best premium stories you may have missed this week

November 1972: Joe Biden celebrating his 30th birthday with his wife, Neilia, and their children. Photo / Getty Images

Welcome to the weekend.

Settle down with a cuppa and catch up on some of the best content from our premium syndicators this week.

Happy reading.

Photo essay: Joe Biden's long road to the presidency

When Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, it was a moment of political triumph that had been decades in the making. His long career in public office spanned eight presidents, from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, but the nation's highest office always eluded him. Now, Biden, 78, finally joins their ranks.

The New York Times explores Biden's path to the top job through a series of photos.

June 1987: A campaign kickoff rally in Wilmington, Delaware. Photo / Keith Meyers, The New York Times

NZ's delayed vaccine rollout threatens early Covid success

New Zealand's "go hard, go early" strategy to combat Covid-19 attracted global praise and eliminated local transmission of the virus. But the country's slow rollout of vaccines is putting people at unnecessary risk and threatens to delay its economic recovery, critics warned.

The Financial Times looks at how the NZ Government is accused of complacency as health experts warn of fast-spreading strains.

The Government has been accused of complacency as health experts warn of fast-spreading strains. Photo / AP

A QAnon 'digital soldier' marches on, undeterred by theory's unravelling

Every morning, Valerie Gilbert, a Harvard-educated writer and actress, wakes up in her Upper East Side apartment in New York City; feeds her dog, Milo, and her cats, Marlena and Celeste; brews a cup of coffee; and sits down at her oval dining room table.

Then, she opens her laptop and begins fighting the global cabal.

Gilbert, 57, is a believer in QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory. Like all QAnon faithful, she is convinced that the world is run by a Satanic group of paedophiles that includes top Democrats and Hollywood elites, and that Donald Trump has spent years leading a top-secret mission to bring these evildoers to justice.

She unspools this web of falsehoods on her Facebook page, where she posts dozens of times a day.

The New York Times looks at how the story of this "meme queen" hints at how hard it will be to bring people like her back to reality.

Valerie Gilbert posts dozens of times a day on Facebook to promote QAnon from her Manhattan apartment. Photo / Meghan Marin, The New York Times

The financial minefield awaiting an ex-President Trump

Not long after he walked across the White House grounds for the last time as president, Donald Trump stepped into a financial minefield that appears to be unlike anything he has faced since his earlier brushes with collapse.

The baseless election fraud claims and the Capitol riot have compounded already-looming threats to his bottom line. And the cash lifelines he once relied on are gone.

The New York Times investigates.

The Trump hotel in Washington became a destination for government officials and others seeking to curry favour with a sitting president. Photo / Gabriella Demczuk, The New York Times

Kamala Harris will make history. So will her 'big, blended' family

When Kamala Harris was sworn in as vice president, she represented many firsts: First woman vice president. First Black woman. First woman of Indian descent. But there was another milestone on display: that of her family.

As Harris ascended to this barrier-breaking role, with her loved ones looking on, millions of Americans saw a more expansive version of the American family staring back at them — one that could broaden rigid ideas of politically palatable family dynamics or gender roles.

Stepkids. Nieces. A doting husband. His ex-wife. The New York Times looks at what the Harris-Emhoffs can show the world.

Vice President Kamala Harris, and her husband Doug Emhoff, and family, walk near the White House during a Presidential Escort to the White House. Photo / AP

Regina King: Speaking truth to power through her art

One Night in Miami is a fictional account of a real 1964 meeting of four legends. On February 24 of that year, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Sam Cooke and Malcolm X got together several hours after the boxer won his first World Heavyweight Championship. Although in real life they did share ice cream as they do on screen, in the film's imagining, they also listened to music and vigorously debated their roles in and the goals of the civil rights movement.

The actress-turned-director talks to The New York Times about bringing the film to life.

For Regina King, the One Night in Miami screenplay was "a love letter to the Black man's experience." Photo / Micaiah Carter, The New York Times

Melania Trump's legacy: Missteps, mystery and, in the end, absence

Melania Knauss Trump came to her role as first lady as an enigma. No one knew how the former Slovene model who became Donald Trump's third wife would adapt to the role her predecessor Michelle Obama had redefined.

Even as Melania Trump's husband ignored the traditions of his predecessors, she at first tried to follow hers. But as the years went by, her efforts lost steam.

The New York Times looks at how Melania Trump will be remembered as the first lady who arrived at the White House late and checked out early.

After four weathering years of tumult, what was most memorable at the end was not how different Melania Trump seemed from her husband, but how similar she was. Photo / Doug Mills, The New York Times

'I let you down': Swimmer's path from Olympics to Capitol riot

Of the dozens of people now facing charges and possible prison sentences for invading the Capitol, only a handful have drawn more attention than Klete Keller, a three-time Olympian who won two gold medals as a relay teammate of Michael Phelps.

Yet within days after he was spotted in videos of the pro-Trump crowds that assaulted the Capitol, friends and former teammates turned him in to the FBI. Strangers demanded that he go to prison. And prominent voices called for him to be stripped of his Olympic medals.

But as he makes tearful apologies and faces federal charges, even his closest confidants tell The New York Times they aren't sure why he was there at all.

Olympic swimmer Klete Keller has apologised after taking part in the Capitol riot. Photo / Getty Images

Amanda Gorman captures the moment, in verse

At 22, Amanda Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet ever in the United States. She joined a small group of poets who have been recruited to help mark a presidential inauguration, among them Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Miller Williams, Elizabeth Alexander and Richard Blanco.

But none of her predecessors faced the challenge that Gorman did.

Gorman tells The New York Times about how she stayed up late into the night following the riots at the Capitol to finish work.

American poet Amanda Gorman reads a poem during the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the US Capitol. Photo / AP

One year, 400,000 coronavirus deaths: How the US guaranteed its own failure

Nearly one year since the first known coronavirus case in the United States was announced north of Seattle on January 21, 2020, the full extent of the nation's failures has come into clear view: The country is hurtling toward 400,000 total deaths, and cases, hospitalisations and deaths have reached record highs, as the nation endures its darkest chapter of the pandemic yet.

The New York Times spoke with more than 100 health, political and community leaders around the country and a reviewed emails and other state government records to offer a fuller picture of all that went wrong.

A July gathering in South Dakota that was attended by President Trump. The state ended the year with one of the country's highest coronavirus death rates. Photo / Anna Moneymaker, The New York Times

For many across US, a sigh of relief as one era ends and another begins

Since the election in November of Joe Biden as the 46th president, a great deal of attention has been paid to the conspiracy theories of Republicans who supported Trump — especially those who, heeding his combustible words about a stolen election, overran the Capitol in a surge of violence and vandalism January 6.

But so many more Americans, nearly 81.3 million of them, voted for Biden and against Trump. And this week, exactly two weeks after the attack on the Capitol, they celebrated with liquor and baked goods, with Zoom calls and "Amazing Grace" and tears of joy, a new day — a day in which a nation pushed a reset button.

As The New York Times reports, for many in an exhausted, divided nation, the inauguration was a sea change, not just a transition.

A giant US flag is stretched out on the National Mall as dawn breaks over Washington. Photo / Jason Andrew, The New York Times