Politics

Speaking at a memorial service for fallen law enforcement officers and their families, President Biden acknowledged the pain that accompanies losing a loved one.

"It's like losing a piece of your soul," Biden said at the 40th National Peace Officers' Memorial Service on Saturday. "Some of you still have that feeling like you've been sucked into a black hole in your chest, wondering, 'My God, will it ever change?' "

The event is held annually at the U.S. Capitol to honor law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty.

The U.S. Department of Defense says it will provide money to the families affected by the botched drone strike on Aug. 29 that killed 10 civilians, including up to seven children, in Kabul, Afghanistan.

At a Pentagon news briefing on Tuesday, a Wall Street Journal reporter asked if anyone in the U.S. military or in the Defense Department had made contact with any of the victims' families.

When Texas enacted a controversial ban on most abortions in September, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff sent a message to his staff in the state, punctuated with a heart emoji.

"Ohana if you want to move we'll help you exit TX. Your choice," Benioff wrote in a tweet, using the Hawaiian word for family.

A president picks a former rival for secretary of state, who happens to be a woman.

What follows, in the new novel from best-selling author Louise Penny and — in her mystery writing debut — Hillary Clinton, involves intrigue, terrorist attacks, unlikely allies, brilliant young foreign service officers, and perhaps the most vivid love scenes ever co-authored by a former secretary of state.

If the Republicans take the House back in the 2022 midterm elections, they get to pick a speaker, and there's no requirement that the speaker has to be an elected representative.

"Can you just imagine Nancy Pelosi having to hand that gavel to Donald J. Trump?" mused Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a vocal Trump loyalist, when he spoke to a crowd in Iowa this summer. "She didn't like when that Jan. 6 guy was sitting in her chair in her office. She is sure not going to like seeing Donald Trump sitting in her chair."

Like thousands of Haitians, Gibbens Revolus, his wife, Lugrid, and their 2-year-old son, Diego, made the treacherous journey to the U.S.-México border from Chile and ended up under the international bridge in Del Río, Texas, last month.

Photos from the makeshift camp in Del Río show desperation and unsanitary conditions where almost 15,000 Haitians hoped to apply for asylum. U.S. Border Patrol officers on horseback were seen corralling people, pushing them back to the Río Grande and onto México.

A veteran officer with the U.S. Capitol Police was arrested Friday for allegedly encouraging a suspect in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to hide evidence of their involvement in the attack. He is facing two counts of obstruction of justice, and has been placed on administrative leave while the case is ongoing.

The officer, Michael Angelo Riley, has worked for the Capitol Police for nearly 25 years, the department told NPR, and most recently served as a technician with the K-9 unit.

Democrats in Congress are attempting a seemingly impossible feat: trimming a trillion or more dollars from their plan for passing much of President Biden's agenda without undermining the policies they've promised to voters.

Foreign tourists who have been shut out of the United States since the early days of the pandemic will be allowed to visit starting on Nov. 8, as long as they can show that they are fully vaccinated, the White House said.

The White House had previously announced it would lift the travel ban but had not given a date for doing so until now.

Cities that count on foreign tourists for revenue — as well as families who have been separated by the bans — have been urging the government to allow people to travel.

Six years ago, the brutal murder of 14-year-old Argentinian Chiara Páez sparked a movement.

Páez, who was pregnant at the time, allegedly wanted to keep the baby. But her then-16-year-old boyfriend didn't. And so, he beat her to death.

Her death, along with other similar high-profile murders of young women in Argentina at the time, was a breaking point for women there.

Former President Bill Clinton, who has been hospitalized at the University of California Irvine Medical Center for a "non-Covid-related infection," is expected to be discharged on Sunday, his spokesperson said Saturday afternoon.

"President Clinton has continued to make excellent progress over the last 24 hours," Angel Ureña said in a statement released on Twitter.

The White House says the United States will donate more than 17 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine from its domestic supplies to the African Union.

The Justice Department has agreed to restore full law enforcement benefits and provide some attorney fees for former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired by the Trump administration only hours before his retirement three years ago.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson is vowing to prosecute the staff of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after the newspaper says it uncovered security vulnerabilities on a state agency website.

The governor is characterizing the paper's actions as a hacking that the state will investigate. He said it could cost taxpayers $50 million.

After failing to show for a deposition on Thursday, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol said it would move forward with criminal contempt proceedings against Trump ally and political strategist Steve Bannon.

Meanwhile, three other former Trump administration officials will have their depositions postponed, according to a committee aide.

Educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune will soon make history as the first Black person to have a state-commissioned statue in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall, when her statue replaces that of a Confederate general.

It's a milestone many years in the making. So what exactly will that groundbreaking statue look like?

Texas lawmakers are considering legislation that would give workers legal grounds to refuse COVID-19 vaccine mandates for "reasons of conscience" — and to sue their employers if they don't agree. The measure would codify Gov. Greg Abbott's ban on vaccine mandates into state law.

Facebook will expand its current harassment policies to further protect users from abuse and harmful content on the platform.

On Wednesday, the company announced it would ban content that degrades or sexualizes public figures, such as elected officials, celebrities, activists, and journalists. This builds on the company's current policies that exist to protect ordinary users in the same way.