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.



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today's papers Double Trouble By Daniel Politi Posted Monday, March 3, 2008, at 6:20 AM ET The Washington Post leads with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspending all peace talks with Israel as violence continued to rage across the region yesterday, although with fewer casualties than on Saturday. More than 100 Palestinians (the Associated Press puts the number at 114) have been killed since Wednesday and Abbas said talks will resume once Israel ends its "criminal war on the Palestinian people." The Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with the Russian elections, where, to the surprise of no one, Dmitry Medvedev won a landslide victory by collecting more than 70 percent of the vote. Now the question on everybody's mind is whether Vladimir Putin and his hand-picked successor will be able to share power effectively. USA Today leads with the latest from the Democratic presidential race as Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama prepare for Tuesday's critical primaries. Both candidates were in Ohio yesterday and traded critical words on familiar issues, including Obama's inexperience and Clinton's poor judgment for voting to authorize the Iraq invasion. The New York Times leads with a look at how a number of states and cities are complaining that Wall Street's system to rate municipal bonds is unfair. It's a complicated issue but it comes down to a complaint that Wall Street gives municipal borrowers low credit scores compared to corporations, despite the fact that "states and cities rarely dishonor their debts." This lower rating makes it more expensive for cities and states to borrow money, forces them to buy expensive insurance policies, and ultimately ends up transferring billions of dollars in taxpayer money to the financial markets that could be used for local projects. But ratings agencies dispute these assertions, and emphasize that little or no money would be saved if the system changed. To continue reading, click here. Daniel Politi writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@slate.com. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE \| READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Business & Technology Oh, Come On. Call It a Recession Already. Arts & Life See Oprah Suck the Fun Out of Reality Television Arts & Life Help! My Fiancee Seems Overly Interested in My Death.	Advertisement
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But the big telephone and cable companies want to change the Internet as we know it. While in Israel, Obama met with Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. 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. "I've never been a heavy smoker," Obama told the Chicago Tribune. The speech was Obama's introduction to most of America. " The audio book edition earned Obama the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. 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.

"Obama has authored two bestselling books. He married in 1992 and has two daughters. Beginning in 2005, he co-sponsored the "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act" introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). He is a member of the Senate committees on Foreign Relations; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and Veterans' Affairs; and the Congressional Black Caucus. Obama's candidacy was boosted by an advertising campaign featuring images of the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and the late U.S. Of his early childhood, Obama writes: "That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind. Obama has encouraged Democrats to reach out to evangelicals and other religious people, saying, "if we truly hope to speak to people where they’re at—to communicate our hopes and values in a way that’s relevant to their own—we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse. An October 2005 article in the British journal New Statesman listed Obama as one of "10 people who could change the world. Obama's candidacy was boosted by an advertising campaign featuring images of the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and the late U.S. He received his B.A. degree in 1983, then worked for one year at Business International Corporation. " In January 2007, Obama spoke at an event organized by Families USA, a health care advocacy group. An October 2005 article in the British journal New Statesman listed Obama as one of "10 people who could change the world.