
President Joe Biden will award the nation’s highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to the man he and Barack Obama defeated in the 2008 election, the late Arizona senator John McCain.
Mr Biden will also honour another prominent Republican, ex-Wyoming senator Alan Simpson, and another famous Arizonan — former representative Gabby Giffords — at the same 7 July ceremony at which he will posthumously award the Medal of Freedom to McCain’s family.