Live updates: Biden to participate in national day of service ahead of inauguration; Trump prepares pardons

Workers had just fenced off all of Capitol Hill — not just the congressional complex, but Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s Capitol Hill: the wide plaza that locals bike across on sunny days and the gentle hill where they take their children to sled in the snow.

Bowser (D) looked at her city’s geographical and symbolic heart, transformed into a militarized zone. Then she laced her hands together, pivoted toward a group of 50 National Guard troops in her high-heeled boots — and made a pitch, of all things, for their tourism.

“I know you probably won’t have a lot of time to enjoy our beautiful city,” she said to the volunteers from Virginia who had left their homes and families to protect the nation’s capital from insurrectionists, catching snatches of sleep on the Capitol’s cold marble floors. “When you come back, please be sure to do exactly that.”