Barack Obama

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. (born in Nyanza Province, Kenya) and Ann Dunham (born in Wichita, Kansas). Barack Hussein Obama (born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a member of the Democratic Party.

Obama grew up in culturally diverse surroundings. He spent most of his childhood in the majority-minority U.S. state of Hawaii and lived for four years in Indonesia. Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention while still an Illinois state legislator. Since announcing his candidacy in February 2007, Obama has emphasized ending the Iraq War and implementing universal health care as campaign themes.

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, Obama co-sponsored the enactment of conventional weapons control and transparency legislation, and made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Obama's parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. His father went to Harvard University to pursue Ph.D. studies, then returned to Kenya, where he died in an auto accident when the younger Obama was twenty-one years old.

MD Bridge Closing for Rehab

Another one of the region's bridges is scheduled to undergo a rehabilitation project this summer. The Maryland State Highway Administration plans to shut down the Central Avenue bridge over the Patuxent River on Monday for a $3 million project scheduled to last until late fall. The 72-year-old, two-lane steel truss bridge on the Prince George's-Anne Arundel line carries nearly 11,000 vehicles daily. Though it lacks the scale of the Douglass and Legion bridges, the rehab project caused some of the same concerns among the commuters who use it on their way toward Washington and now will have to use detours. Some in the Davidsonville area would have prefered that the state find a way to work only at night or keep the bridge partly open to traffic during rush periods. But the state figured it was best to get in, get it done and get out of a project that

washingtonpost.com Fri, 03 Aug 2007 05:41:02 EDT

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/08/03/BL2007080300388.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns
--
To unsubscribe from this feed, click here
To manage other subscriptions, click here
~
Powered by RssFwd, a service of Blue Sky Factory, Inc

On the first day of the Democratic-controlled 110th Congress, in a column published in the Washington Post, Obama called for an end to "any and all practices that would lead a reasonable person to believe that a public servant has become indebted to a lobbyist. The Chicago Tribune credits the large crowds that gathered at book signings with influencing Obama's decision to run for president. His second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, was published in October 2006, three weeks before the 2006 midterm election. His mother married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian foreign student, with whom she had one daughter, Maya. I've got an ironclad demand from my wife that in the stresses of the campaign I don't succumb.

The "Coburn-Obama Transparency Act" provides for a web site, managed by the Office of Management and Budget, listing all organizations receiving Federal funds from 2007 onward, and providing breakdowns by the agency allocating the funds, the dollar amount given, and the purpose of the grant or contract. " Speaking in November 2006 to members of Wake Up Wal-Mart, a union-backed campaign group, Obama said: "You gotta pay your workers enough that they can actually not only shop at Wal-Mart, but ultimately send their kids to college and save for retirement.

"In 1988, while employed as a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley & Austin, Obama met Michelle Robinson, who also worked there. Obama was sworn in as a Senator on January 4, 2005.

I've got an ironclad demand from my wife that in the stresses of the campaign I don't succumb. Following Obama's statement, opinion polling organizations added his name to surveyed lists of Democratic candidates.

It was an immediate bestseller and remains on the New York Times Best Seller List. In 2003, Obama began his run for the U.S. Senate open seat vacated by Peter Fitzgerald.