Senator John Kerry, the new senior senator from Massachusetts, stood with his eyes closed, his right hand on Ted Kennedy's flag-draped casket. Thirty seconds went by and, head bowed, Kerry crossed himself and stepped back. His hand reached toward the casket one last time for a final friendly pat. "As far as I'm concerned we still have a senior senator and we have to celebrate his life," Kerry says a few minutes later, backstage at the John F. ...

Sen. Ted Kennedy will be buried Saturday at Arlington National Cemetery after a private funeral Mass. The senator's funeral is scheduled for Saturday at Boston's Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston's Mission Hill section. Dozens of Kennedy's fellow senators are scheduled to attend as well as three former presidents -- Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. President Obama, who called Kennedy the "greatest U.S. senator of our time," will deliver a eulogy at the funeral, ...

In his sorrow last summer, he seemed larger than anyone had remembered. Forgotten were the early misadventures of the youngest son of a rich and famous family. Like Shakespeare's Prince Hal, he was not what he had seemed to be, and friends and critics alike saw not an immature Senator from Massachusetts but the legend's last guardian. That summer he avoided a chance for the presidential nomination. It would have been premature. But who could doubt that, if spared ...

For almost 50 years, Sen. Ted Kennedy pushed unsuccessfully for legislation that would reform the health care system and ensure coverage for every American. Ironically, his death might bring about a change of tactics that would help reach the goal he was unable to achieve in life, one veteran political analyst says. "Kennedy's departure may in fact increase the chances that we get a more sweeping health care bill," American Enterprise Institute analyst Norman Ornstein recently told CNN. As Congress ...

Edward M. Kennedy's death was one of those rare events that can pause politics — but nothing can stop politics. Massachusetts now has an open Senate seat for the first time in 25 years, and the maneuvering over succession has already begun. The first question is when that succession will happen. A 2004 law calls for the seat to remain vacant until an election in five months. At the time the law was formulated, the Democratic-dominated legislature wanted to ...

The legacy of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, who died on Tuesday, spreads far and wide, and across the ocean to now-independent Bangladesh. There, he is still revered for calling attention to what many deemed an unfolding genocide. It may have started as a politically prudent move by a Democratic senator eyeing the White House during a Republican regime. But Kennedy stood up to the Nixon administration in 1971 and alerted the world to the bloodshed that was engulfing then-East Pakistan. ...

Facing a recent erosion of public support for health-care overhaul, President Obama lashed out at his opponents Saturday for spreading "outrageous myths" on the Internet, television, and at town hall forums. Republican leaders, in turn, said it was Obama who is guilty of playing "fast and loose with the facts." They repeated their assertion that the president's proposed government-funded public health insurance option would destroy the current private insurance-based system. "I'm glad that so many are engaged," Obama said in ...

"No individual protected by Blackwater has ever been killed or seriously injured." So says Erik Prince, the 38-year-old former Navy Seal whose security company finds itself at the center of a growing debate over the use of private contractors in Iraq. Blackwater USA Chairman Prince is scheduled on Tuesday to make his first-ever appearance before Congress, along with three other witnesses who will line up before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. A ...

In recent seasons, "Dancing With the Stars" has given exposure to such unlikely dancers as "Cheers" and Pixar favorite John Ratzenberger, magician Penn Jillette and Oscar-winning octogenarian actress Cloris Leachman. But this year, the show is adding an even more unusual guest: A Hammer. Former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay -- known as "the Hammer" for his tough-minded tactics -- is among the contestants for the show's ninth edition, ABC announced Monday. Host Tom Bergeron and contestant Donny Osmond appeared ...

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, heavily criticized last month for skipping a candidates' debate, met two of his political rivals in a nationally televised debate Sunday night, just four days ahead of the war-torn country's presidential elections. Thursday's vote marks only the second presidential election in Afghanistan's history, and is seen as a test of efforts by the United States and Europe to bring stability to the country. Karzai is the front-runner in the election, with a recent poll conducted by ...