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 No Way Out By Daniel Politi Posted Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 6:16 AM ET The Washington Post leads with a detailed look at how the "wall" that has long existed between local law enforcement and intelligence gathering on national security matters is coming down more quickly than most realize. After Sept. 11, police agencies began to link up their systems to share more information than ever before and these efforts are going to step into high gear this month as some local and state agencies will connect to a new Justice Department System known as N-DEx (National Data Exchange). USA Today leads with word that U.S. postal service officials approve almost all the requests from law enforcement to record information that is on the outside of letters and packages. A Freedom of Information Act request revealed that more than 97 percent of the requests are approved and there have been more than 10,000 of these authorizations since 1998, a number that doesn't even take into account the mail that was monitored as part of national security investigations. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with, and everybody else fronts, a look at the state of the Democratic presidential race after Sen. Hillary Clinton's victories this week. No one doubts that winning three out of the four primaries on Tuesday has revived Clinton's bid for the White House, but in reality she wasn't able to cut into Sen. Barack Obama's lead by a significant margin. The full results from Texas aren't in yet, but the NYT estimates that Clinton will get a net gain of anywhere from five to 15 delegates, while the Associated Press thinks the number will be around 12. Estimates vary, but Clinton still trails Obama by more than 100 delegates, including superdelegates. 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 News & Politics Shafer: More Plagiarism, Same Times Reporter News & Politics Why Didn't Prince Harry Have To Get a Military Haircut? News & Politics If Obama Won't Fight Dirty, I'll Do It for Him	Advertisement
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