Biden to meet in-person Wednesday with families of Americans taken hostage by Hamas
CBSN
Washington — President Biden is poised to meet Wednesday at the White House with family members of Americans who were taken hostage by the militant group Hamas during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel, a White House official confirmed to CBS News.
Mr. Biden's meeting will be the first held in-person with the family members and follows an earlier video conference call he held with the families of 14 Americans who were missing in October. Other senior members of the Biden administration, including Vice President Kamala Harris, second gentleman Doug Emhoff and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, have met in-person with the families.
It's not clear how many families will be participating in the meeting. During a campaign fundraiser in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Mr. Biden pledged the U.S. is "not going to stop until every hostage is returned home."
President Joe Biden said France was America's "first friend" at its founding and is one of its closest allies more than two centuries later as he was honored with a state visit Saturday by French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at showing off their partnership on global security issues and easing past trade tensions.
The Consumer Federal Protection Bureau last week launched an inquiry into what the agency is calling "junk fees in mortgage closing costs." These additional fees, involving home appraisal, title insurance and other services, have spiked in recent years and can add thousands of dollars to the final cost of buying a home.
Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic "Earthrise" photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.