An Olympic gymnast, a nun and a priest walked into the White House East Room on Thursday joined by 13 other Americans, including a former Republican senator and one of the most decorated women in the history of the US military, to receive the nation’s highest civilian honour — the Presidential Medal of Freedom — from President Joe Biden.
The medal, which is awarded at the discretion of the president “for especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, or world peace, or cultural or other significant public or private endeavours,” was established under an executive order signed by President John F Kennedy not long before his assassination in 1963.
