Why flags are to be flown at half-staff

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - President Joe Biden has ordered the lowering of flags to half-staff immediately as a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence perpetrated in Lewiston, Maine.

The flag should be flown at half-staff until sunset on Monday, Oct. 30, 2023.

The president's order overlaps with an existing half-staff flag directive from the Office of the Governor to honor 36-year-old Post Falls Police Officer Nicholas McDaniel, who died while on duty Sunday. The Governor's Office is updating its flag directive to end at sunset on Monday, October 30.

Therefore, U.S. and State of Idaho flags should remain at half-staff until sunset on Monday, October 30, 2023, for both flag directives.

The Presidential Proclamation follows:

As a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence perpetrated on October 25, 2023, in Lewiston, Maine, by the authority vested in me as President of the United States by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, October 30, 2023. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half-staff for the same length of time at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-sixth day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-eighth.