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They're on the list: Biden's guests at the State of the Union address

In the highly theatrical ritual of the State of the Union address, delivered each year by the president of the United States before a joint audience of congressmen and senators on Capitol Hill, the most eagerly awaited list in the hours leading up to it is that of those invited by the president to attend to his words in the hemicycle of the House of Representatives. They are carefully chosen to underline with their presence the points that the president wants to emphasize. This year there are everyone from rock stars (Bono) to anonymous citizens unwittingly placed at the center of a whirlwind of tragedy and media attention, like the parents of Memphis youth Tire Nichols, the latest name to enter the history of brutality infamy. police in this country.

What follows is a list of some of those illustrious guests at tonight's speech in Washington:

Bond. Singer of the Irish band U2 and activist for the most varied just causes, in whose fight he uses his planetary fame and his agenda.

Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States. She was already invited last year, when Biden's first speech came six days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Almost a year later, the end of the war seems far away, but the US commitment to the kyiv cause remains unwavering.

RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, mother and stepfather of Tire Nichols. He was beaten to death by five police officers last month in Memphis. His case, and the aplomb of his parents, have reopened the debate on police abuse in the United States, an issue that seemed to be in the process of being settled after the death by suffocation of the African-American George Floyd at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer on 25 May 2020.

Brandon Tsai: Another anonymous man at the center of American political power. Tsay disarmed the killer of 11 people in one of the latest mass shootings to shock the country. It happened in Monterey Park, California, and the tragedy tore the Asian American community in half.

Deanna Branch. They found lead in her son's blood from the water that came out of the pipes in the house. The Biden administration has set a goal of replacing all lead pipes in the country within the next decade.

Mitzi Colin Lopez. Immigrant rights activist specializing in defending immigrants dreamers.

Doug Griffin. Arrives from Newton, New Hampshire. She lost a daughter to a fentanyl overdose. Biden intends to stress the importance of the fight against opioids. Drugs have taken the lives of 100,000 Americans in 2022.

Amanda Zurawski, Texas neighbor. She almost died from the restrictive anti-abortion laws that came out of the Supreme Court ruling that eliminated women's federal right to decide.