The students from private, all-male Covington Catholic High School in northern Kentucky were in Washington for an anti-abortion rally on Friday when they were filmed surrounding Nathan Phillips and mocking the Native American's singing and drumming. Fellow students, many in clothing bearing President Donald Trump's "MAGA" slogan, cheered him on and chanted, "build that wall, build that wall," Phillips said.

The Weather Service issued winter storm warnings or advisories for a swath of the eastern United States that is home to 100 million people, said meteorologist Rich Otto of the U.S. Weather Prediction Center. The storm system, which was moving from west to east and was strengthened by arctic air from Canada, hit many parts of the Midwest on Friday, according to the National Weather Service. In Chicago, where some neighborhoods received 8 inches (20 cm) of snow, a third of flights were canceled at the city's two main airports, said Mark Duell, vice president of operations for tracking firm FlightAware.

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand made her maiden voyage to the critical primary state of Iowa over the weekend, laying out her case that she is the best Democrat to challenge President Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election in 2020. Gillibrand, from New York, joins a small field of Democratic contenders that is expected to expand by over a dozen more, all vying for the party's nomination and the right to challenge Trump, if he is the Republican's 2020 nominee. Criticized in the past by party left-wingers as too moderate, Gillibrand repeatedly emphasized her support for a "Medicare for all" proposal to create a national health care system.

Negotiators for 30,000 striking Los Angeles teachers and America's second-largest school district returned to the bargaining table on Saturday for a third day of contract talks mediated by the mayor, as educators took a weekend break from picket lines. Teachers staging the first strike against the Los Angeles Unified District in 30 years were pressing demands for higher pay, smaller class sizes and expanded support staff. School district Superintendent Austin Beutner said on Friday he was determined to clinch a deal in time for teachers to return to the job on Tuesday, avoiding a second week of disrupted classes for nearly 500,000 students.

The Weather Service has issued winter storm warnings or advisories for a swath of the eastern United States that is home to 100 million people, said meteorologist Rich Otto of the U.S. Weather Prediction Center.

Trump, locked in a battle with congressional Democrats that has led to a nearly month-long partial government shutdown, announced his trip via a pre-dawn tweet, saying he was going "to be with the families of 4 very special people who lost their lives in service to our Country!" Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House prior to departure that he planned to meet the families, a duty which he said "might be the toughest thing I have to do as president." He was greeted by military staff at Dover Air Force Base after a short flight from Joint Base Andrews, but did not speak to reporters before entering his motorcade. Flanked by military officials, Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan filed up a ramp leading onto a military transport aircraft, where a prayer was given to honor the memory of Scott Wirtz, a civilian Department of Defense employee from St. Louis.

Women's March, a national nonprofit organization that evolved from the initial Washington march, again hosted its main event in Washington, with hundreds of "sister" marches in other cities. "There is definitely huge, huge focus on the 2020 elections," said March On's Natalie Sanchez, an organizer of the 2017 Boston Women's March who is also with March Forward Massachusetts, which organized Saturday's march there. U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who launched her bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination this week, addressed the women's march in Des Moines, Iowa, the state that holds the first nominating contest and acts as a proving ground for White House hopefuls.

The episode, which followed years of tight budgets that left little money for medical staff, highlights the potential impact of a lack of nurses throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the key reasons Escobedo and her colleagues are on strike. In L.A., as in many districts across the United States, the school nurse is the first and sometimes only point of entry for many families into a complicated and expensive health-care system. Like most schools in the more than 1,200-campus district, Lockwood Elementary, where Escobedo teaches, has a nurse just once a week.

At the request of the Justice Department, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell issued the order, the first official U.S. confirmation of reports of the arrest of Marzieh Hashemi, an anchor for Iran's English-language Press TV news channel. The order, which approved the partial unsealing of information in the case, said Hashemi was arrested on a material witness warrant issued by a federal judge and that she was assigned an attorney but "has not been accused of any crime." Hashemi has made two court appearances, and the U.S. government expects her immediate release after she finishes testifying before a federal grand jury investigating violations of U.S. criminal law, the order continued.

A major winter storm was expected to clobber a large swath of the northern United States with heavy snow, gusty winds and frigid temperatures making travel difficult and dangerous starting on Friday and through the weekend, forecasters said. The storm system will dump 6 to 10 inches (15 to 25 cm) of snow in the Plains and Midwest on Friday night and Saturday and as it moves east at least a foot of snow in parts of the Northeast on Saturday and Sunday, the National Weather Service (NWS) said in several advisories. The system was expected to also bring freezing rain, wind gusts of 35 miles (56 km) per hour and quickly dropping temperatures that will to dip into the teens and even below zero Fahrenheit in several areas, the service said.