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When José moved his family to the United States from Mexico nearly two decades ago, he had hopes of giving his children a better life.

Updated at 3:39 a.m. ET

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, held onto his seat Saturday after a tough challenge from his Republican opponent, Eddie Rispone, a wealthy businessman and political newcomer who was supported by President Trump.

Edwards defeated Rispone by about 40,000 votes. Edwards benefited from strong support and high voter turnout in the state's more populated urban areas while Rispone carried most of Louisiana's rural parishes. Polls showed a close race in the final week.

Tim Morrison, the top Russia official on President Trump's National Security Council, testified to House investigators that Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador of the European Union, was leading an effort to get Ukraine to reopen an investigation into a company with ties to the son of former Vice President Joe Biden.

The House Intelligence Committee has released the transcript of the closed-door deposition at the impeachment inquiry into President Trump by a foreign service officer detailed to work in the office of Vice President Pence.

Jennifer Williams was assigned to Pence's team in the spring to work on European and Russian issues. She was the first person from his office to testify in the inquiry into whether Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine while seeking a political favor. Trump denies he made such an offer.

Impeachment investigators have released the testimony transcript of Tim Morrison, the former top European affairs official on President Trump's National Security Council.

In his Oct. 31 testimony, Morrison confirmed he was on the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine's president. He also said that Trump had indeed sought help from his Ukrainian counterpart, but he argued the conduct wasn't unlawful.

Attorney General William Barr vociferously attacked Democratic lawmakers and federal judges on Friday and accused them of trying to limit Trump's presidential power.

During a sweeping speech at a conference of The Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization, Barr said Democrats "essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government."

After 12 seasons of leading the University of Colorado Boulder's football team onto the field, Ralphie V, the 13-year-old, 1,200-pound buffalo, is officially retiring as the school's mascot.

The reason? The athletic department says she's too fast.

At least eight people were killed and dozens injured in the Bolivian city of Sacaba on Friday, after security forces fired on supporters of ousted president Evo Morales, according to the Associated Press.

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

Breaking his silence, Britain's Prince Andrew has told the BBC that he let the royal family down by staying at the home of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The Duke of York, who is the third child of Queen Elizabeth II and eighth in line to the throne, has faced intense scrutiny for his connection to the disgraced New York financier.

On Nov. 16, 1989, a housekeeper named Lucía Cerna was startled awake by a violent commotion outside her window.

"I heard shooting, shooting at lamps, and walls, and windows," Cerna writes in her memoir, La Verdad: A Witness to the Salvadoran Martyrs. "I heard doors kicked, and things being thrown."

Armed soldiers broke into the José Simeón Cañas Central American University on the outskirts of El Salvador's capital, and raided the residence where six Jesuit priests were sleeping.

It might be called "Revenge of the Pin-Stripes."

In this week's House Intelligence Committee hearings, career diplomats dressed in somber suits who have often been derided as "elites," "insiders," "the establishment," and even "the Deep State" got the chance to tell Americans how they have been nonpartisan representatives of America from administration to administration.

Those parts of their testimony weren't news "bombshells." But their words are worth noting.

What did a meal taste like nearly 4,000 years ago in ancient Babylonia? Pretty good, according to a team of international scholars who have deciphered and are re-creating what are considered to be the world's oldest-known culinary recipes.

The recipes were inscribed on ancient Babylonian tablets that researchers have known about since early in the 20th century but that were not properly translated until the end of the century.

The first week of Trump impeachment inquiry hearings is in the books.

If you were paying attention to the thousands of pages of closed-door testimonies, you would recognize some of the details that emerged.

But there were some new and important wrinkles from the public hearings with acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor; George Kent, a top State Department official with oversight of Ukraine affairs; and Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who described a plot to oust her led by President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Hemp farming exploded after the 2018 Farm Bill passed last December. The bill decriminalized the plant at the federal level, opening the door for many U.S. farmers to grow and sell hemp.

Over the past year, licensed hemp acreage increased more than 445%, according to the advocacy and research group Vote Hemp. More than 510,000 acres of hemp were licensed in 2019, versus about 112,000 acres in 2018.

The question of exactly why the Trump administration held up close to $400 million in security assistance to Ukraine came up many times during the first two days of public hearings in the House of Representatives' impeachment inquiry.

Less discussed has been what motivated President Trump's abrupt decision on Sept. 11 to lift the hold on that aid.

President Trump has issued pardons for two Army officers accused of war crimes in Afghanistan and restored the rank of a Navy SEAL who was acquitted of murder in Iraq.

"For more than two hundred years, presidents have used their authority to offer second chances to deserving individuals, including those in uniform who have served our country," said White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham in a statement released late Friday. "These actions are in keeping with this long history."

Gubernatorial wasn't a word I thought much about until I started editing pieces about gubernatorial elections.

In fact, there's a gubernatorial election in Louisiana on Saturday between the only Democratic governor in the deep South and his Republican challenger, a wealthy Trump-backed businessman.

Updated 9:07 a.m. ET

A State Department aide testifying behind closed doors on Friday confirmed to House impeachment investigators that he overheard President Trump asking a top U.S. diplomat about political investigations that he was seeking from the president of Ukraine.

The official, David Holmes, was the aide mentioned Wednesday by William Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, as having overheard a phone call between Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and Trump.

Updated at 8:25 p.m. ET

The shooting suspect in Santa Clarita, Calif., has died one day after the attack at Saugus High School that killed two students. Authorities identified him as Nathaniel Tennosuke Berhow, 16, a junior at the school. Officials say he died at a hospital where he was being treated for a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

President Trump is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep his personal tax records out of the hands of the House Oversight Committee, marking the second time in two days that he has challenged a subpoena for those documents.

As the global effort to eradicate polio gets tantalizing close to its goal, the program is running in to new challenges.

One of the biggest obstacles this year is the proliferation of so-called "vaccine-derived" polio outbreaks.

Nissan is recalling nearly 400,000 vehicles in the U.S. because of a braking system defect that could cause them to catch fire. Owners are advised to park affected vehicles outside and away from structures if the anti-lock brake system warning light comes on for more than 10 seconds.