1. “In A Surprise Send-Off, Obama Awards Biden Presidential Medal Of Freedom”

2. President Obama awarded outgoing Vice President Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Thursday afternoon. Calling the former longtime Delaware senator "the best vice president America's ever had" and a "lion of American history," Obama gave his White House partner the surprise award in an emotional ceremony, initially billed as a farewell. After praising the job that Biden has done, Obama ended it with the unexpected news that he was giving the vice president the nation's highest civilian honor, with distinction — a designation previously given only to President Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Gen. Colin Powell. "To know Joe Biden is to know love without pretense, service without self-regard, and to live life fully," Obama said. Overcome with tears and completely caught off guard by the award, Biden remarked "I don't deserve this, but I know it came from the president's heart.” Obama has frequently said that picking Biden, his former primary rival, as his running mate in 2008 was one of the best decisions he ever made.

3. In Other News
A downtown section of Birmingham, Ala., including the church where four black girls were killed in a Ku Klux Klan bombing in 1963, has been declared a national monument by President Obama. The 16th Street Baptist Church will be the focal point of the Birmingham Civil Rights National Historical Park. The bombing, which also injured 22 other people, proved to be a turning point in the civil rights struggle. In his order signed Thursday, a week before the end of his administration, Obama also designated two other sites central to the civil rights struggle as national monuments. In Anniston, Ala., the new Freedom Riders National Monument includes the Greyhound Bus station where a bus carrying an interracial group of activists was attacked in Another site, the Reconstruction Era National Monument commemorating a post-Civil War community of freed slaves will be established in Beaufort County, S.C. With these designations under the authority of the Antiquities Act of 1906, Obama has sought to preserve and protect more natural, cultural and historic sites than any other president in history, according to the Washington Post.