Mr. Biden, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, had been scrambling to draft a bipartisan resolution that would grant Mr. Bush the authority to use military force against Iraq, but was more restrictive than the war authorization that the president had sought.

As he often had in his long career, Mr. Biden sought bipartisan middle ground — this time, between those opposed to potential war and the White House desire for more open-ended power. Some antiwar members of his committee resisted his effort, worried that it would still pave the way to conflict. “We disagreed very strenuously,” said former Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California.

Mr. Biden’s plan ultimately did not succeed, and he chose to focus on Mr. Bush’s reassurances of a diplomacy-first approach.

“At each pivotal moment,” Mr. Biden said of Mr. Bush, “he has chosen a course of moderation and deliberation, and I believe he will continue to do so. At least that is my fervent hope.”

On Oct. 11, he was one of 77 senators to authorize the use of military force in Iraq. Twenty-three colleagues, some of whom harbored grave doubts about the danger Iraq posed at the time, refused to back the president’s request.

Lobbyists either helped draft or made extensive revisions to opinion columns published by three state lawmakers in a way that warned against the dangers of Medicare-for-all and other government involvement in health care, according to emails obtained by The Washington Post.

Montana state Rep. Kathy Kelker (D) and Sen. Jen Gross (D) acknowledged in interviews that editorials they published separately about the single-payer health proposal included language provided by John MacDonald, a lobbyist and consultant in the state who disclosed in private emails that he worked for an unnamed client.

Gross said MacDonald contacted her on behalf of the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, a multimillion-dollar industry group founded in 2018 and funded by hospitals, private insurers, drug companies and other private health-care firms.

The Vatican said on Monday the head of its financial regulator would leave, weeks after unprecedented police raids on his organization and another key arm of the Catholic Church’s bureaucracy.

Rene Bruelhart, a 47-year-old Swiss lawyer, told Reuters he had resigned from the top job at the Financial Information Authority (AIF), but did not go into further detail.

Vatican police entered the offices of the AIF and of the Secretariat of State - the administrative heart of the Catholic Church - on Oct. 1, as part of an investigation into an investment the Secretariat hade made in London real estate.

The officers, operating under a search warrant secured by the Vatican’s own prosecutor, seized documents and computers.

Dignity Health said its employee, an ER nurse, failed to meet the deadline to add her premature newborn to its health plan, so she was responsible for the medical bills. It rejected her appeals for a year until ProPublica called.

Lauren Bard opened the hospital bill this month and her body went numb. In bold block letters it said, “AMOUNT DUE: $898,984.57.”

Last fall, Bard’s daughter, Sadie, had arrived about three months prematurely; and as a nurse herself, Bard knew the costs for Sadie’s care would be high. But she’d assumed the bulk would be covered by the organization that owned the hospital where she worked: Dignity Health, whose marketing motto is “Hello humankindness.”

DURHAM, N.H. — Former Vice President Joe Biden suffered a precipitous drop in the latest New Hampshire poll, falling to the lowest point his campaign has seen this election, while Sen. Bernie Sanders recaptured his first-place spot narrowly over Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Sanders was the first choice of 21 percent of likely Democratic primary voters, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 18 percent, Biden at 15 percent and South Bend (Ind.) Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 10 percent, according to the Granite State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire and co-sponsored by CNN.

Even though polls largely show that Biden continues to be in the lead, the apparent limit for Biden to appeal to big donors and his failure to light a fire among small-money donors “has served as a flashing warning sign about the potential limits of his appeal,” notes the Times. Where are all the would-be donors? Maybe with Mayor Pete Buttigieg. The host of a recent fundraiser for Buttigieg claimed that the crowd was filled with “a lot of those people you would have thought would be Biden people. And they weren’t.” Many of those who were there had an overwhelming feeling that “Biden has already lost,” according to the Bradley Tusk, who was manager of Michael Bloomberg’s reelection campaign for mayor of New York City.

Bernie Sanders releases a plan to legalize marijuana nationwide, expunge certain marijuana convictions and invest in grants to boost communities disproportionately affected by current drug laws.