WASHINGTON (AP) — Oksana Markarova, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, and Frances Haugen, the former Facebook employee who exposed what the company may have known about damage caused by its social media platforms, will sit with Jill Biden for President Joe Biden's State of the Union address, the White House said Tuesday.

Also sitting with the first lady are Patrick Gelsinger, the CEO of Intel Corp., and several people she met during the past year of traveling around the country on behalf of the Biden administration. They include a community college student-parent, a military spouse, a middle school student, a nurse, a member of a Native American tribe and a labor union member.

The guest list marks a big change from last year when Biden delivered a speech — not called a State of the Union address — to a joint session of Congress a few months after he took office in 2021.

The coronavirus pandemic was raging at the time and attendance for the annual presidential appearance in the House chamber in the U.S. Capitol was severely limited so that lawmakers, who were required to wear face coverings, could spread out and be socially distant.

Guests that lawmakers usually bring to the speech were barred last year because of the pandemic. The first lady attended alone, after having a virtual meeting with a group of guests.

But the COVID-19 situation has improved in the year since.

The federal government recently made mask-wearing optional in much of the U.S., including...

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