New Delhi, July 22 -- U.S. President Joe Biden awarded the nation's second-highest civilian honor to 20 people at a White House ceremony Thursday evening.

"For the final time as president, I have the privilege of bestowing the Presidential Citizens Medal, one of our nation's highest honors, on an extraordinary - and I mean an extraordinary - group of Americans," Biden said in his remarks at the ceremony.

"Together, you embody - and I mean this from the bottom of my heart - an essential truth: We're a great nation. We're a great nation because we're good people," Biden later added.

The medal recipients include Representative Bennie Thompson and former Representative Elizabeth Cheney, who led a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6...