Obama made his DNC debut 20 years ago. He's returning to make the case for Kamala Harris Barack Obama was days shy of his 43rd birthday and months from being elected to the U.S.
Senate when he stepped onto a Boston stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. A state lawmaker from Illinois, he had an unusual profile to be a headline speaker at a presidential convention. But the self-declared “skinny kid with a funny name” captivated Democrats that night, going beyond a requisite pitch for nominee John Kerry instead to introduce the nation to his “politics of hope” and vision of “one United States of America” not defined or defeated by its differences.
Kerry lost that November to Republican President George W. Bush. But Obama etched himself into the national consciousness, beginning a remarkable rise that put him in the Oval Office barely four years later.
And now, eight years removed from the presidency, Obama returns Tuesday night to the Democratic convention as the elder statesman with a different task. Speaking in his political hometown of Chicago, the nation’s first Black president will honor President Joe Biden's legacy after his exit from the campaign while making the case for another historic figure, Vice President Kamala Harris. It's poised to be a significant moment as she takes on former President Donald Trump in a matchup that features the same cultural and ideological fissures Obama warned against two decades ago.
“President Obama is still a north star in the party,” said Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who credits the 44th president with helping her become her state’s first Black woman lieutenant governor.
The Latest: Day 2 of the DNC will feature the Obamas and second gentleman Doug Emhoff The Democratic National Convention heads into its second day Tuesday. Former President Barack Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will speak at the DNC, a day after the unofficial farewell for President Joe Biden, who served eight years as Obama’s vice president. Biden won’t be in the hall to see his former running mate speak, as he departed Chicago Monday after delivering his own speech.
With President Biden having addressed delegates, the week’s full focus now turns to Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov Tim Walz. Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024 .
Here’s the Latest: Trump is visiting battleground states this week as he struggles to adjust to Harris as his new rival YORK, Pa. (AP) — As Democrats kick off their convention in Chicago, Donald Trump is trying to regain his footing after weeks of struggling to adjust to Vice President Kamala Harris as his rival. The former president and GOP nominee delivered a speech at a factory in Pennsylvania on Monday as he attempts to undercut the Democratic celebration with a jam-packed schedule.
He is holding daily events in battleground states tied to subjects where Republicans think they hold an advantage, including the economy, crime and safety, national security and the border. “Kamala Harris is an economy wrecker and a country destroyer,” Trump told factory workers and supporters gathered at Precision Custom Components, a company that makes components for military and nuclear use. It is Trump's busiest week of campaigning since the winter, when he faced a large field of challengers in the Republican primary.
And his focus on policy in battleground states reflects the concerns of Trump allies, who have urged him to try to broaden his appeal with swing voters as they grow more nervous about Harris’ competitiveness. In the weeks since President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid, Trump has appeared at times in denial and has launched a series of deeply personal attacks on Harris. He has lied about her crowds by claiming images of them were generated by AI, talked about her looks, and played on racist tropes by questioning her racial identity as she runs to become the first woman, the first Black woman and the first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office.
Why is Israel demanding control over 2 Gaza corridors in the cease-fire talks? Israel's demand for lasting control over two strategic corridors in Gaza, which Hamas has long rejected, threatens to unravel cease-fire talks aimed at ending the 10-month-old war, freeing scores of hostages and preventing an even wider conflict. Officials close to the negotiations have said Israel wants to maintain a military presence in a narrow buffer zone along the Gaza-Egypt border it calls the Philadelphi corridor and in an area it carved out that cuts off northern Gaza from the south, known as the Netzarim corridor. It's unclear if Israeli control of these corridors is included in a U.
S.-backed proposal that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on Hamas to accept to break an impasse in cease-fire talks. Blinken, who is back in the region this week, said Monday that Israel had agreed to the proposal without saying what it entails.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says control of the Egyptian border area is needed to prevent Hamas from replenishing its arsenal through smuggling tunnels and that Israel needs a "mechanism" to prevent militants from returning to the north, which has been largely isolated since October. Hamas has rejected those demands, which were only made public in recent weeks. There was no mention of Israel retaining control of the corridors in earlier drafts of an evolving cease-fire proposal seen by The Associated Press.
Ukraine has destroyed or damaged all three bridges over Russia's Seym River, Russian sources say KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces have either destroyed or damaged all three of the bridges over the Seym River in western Russia, according to Russian sources, as Kyiv's incursion into western Russia entered its third week Tuesday. Kyiv's incursion into Russia's Kursk region is changing the trajectory of the war and boosting morale among Ukraine's war-weary population, though the ultimate outcome of the incursion — the first attack on Russia since World War II — remains impossible to predict. Even as Ukraine hails its success on Russian territory, the Russian push in eastern Ukraine is poised to claim another key center, the city of Pokrovsk.
Ukraine's attacks on the three bridges over the Seym River in Kursk could potentially trap Russian forces between the river, the Ukrainian advance and the Ukrainian border. Already they appear to be slowing down Russia’s response to the Kursk incursion, which Ukraine launched on Aug. 6.
Over the weekend, Ukraine’s Air Force commander posted two videos of bridges over the Seym being hit, and satellite photos by Planet Labs PBC analyzed Tuesday by The Associated Press confirmed that a bridge in the town of Glushkovo had been destroyed. What is known about the sinking of a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily and those aboard PORTICELLO, Sicily (AP) — Specialist cave divers working in 12-minute underwater shifts were searching Tuesday for six missing passengers and crew, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, believed to be in the submerged wreck of a luxury yacht that was slammed by a powerful storm and swiftly sank off Sicily. The sleek yacht, named the Bayesian, was carrying a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers when it suddenly sank near the Mediterranean island that is part of Italy at about 4 a.
m. on Monday. One body has been recovered and 15 people survived.
Fire rescue officials have said the six believed to remain in the sailboat's hull will be considered missing until they are located in the wreckage. Here's what we know so far about the sinking and those who were on board. Italian civil protection officials believe a sudden and fierce storm that battered the coast of Sicily in the early hours of Monday whipped up a waterspout in the exact spot where the 56-meter (184-foot) British-flagged Bayesian was moored.
Final report outlines missed opportunities to stop Maine's deadliest shooting LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Both the Army Reserve and police missed opportunities to intervene in a gunman’s psychiatric crisis and initiate steps to seize weapons from the spiraling reservist responsible for the deadliest shootings in Maine history, according to the final report released Tuesday by a special commission created to investigate the attacks, which killed 18 people. The independent commission, which held 16 public meetings, heard from scores of witnesses and reviewed thousands of pages of evidence, reiterated its earlier conclusion that Maine law enforcement officers had authority under the state’s yellow flag law, but didn't use it, to seize reservist Robert Card’s guns and put him in protective custody weeks before the shootings. The 215-page report also faulted the Army Reserve for failing to do more to ensure Card's health and deal with his weapons.
And it pointed out that no one used New York’s red flag law to initiate steps to seize the gunman’s weapons when he was hospitalized last summer, even though the law had been used on non-New York residents before. The commission, created by Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, announced its conclusions at Lewiston City Hall, less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the two sites where the shootings took place Oct.
25, 2023. “Our ability to heal — as a people and as a state — is predicated on the ability to know and understand, to the greatest extent possible, the facts and circumstances surrounding the tragedy in Lewiston. The release of the independent commission’s final report marks another step forward on that long road to healing,” the governor said in a statement.
‘Hitting kids should never be allowed’: Illinois bans corporal punishment in all schools SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — This school year, Illinois will become just the fifth state in the nation to prohibit corporal punishment in all schools. Legislation that Gov.
JB Pritzker signed into law this month bans physical punishment in private schools while reiterating a prohibition on the practice in public schools implemented 30 years ago. When the ban takes effect in January, Illinois will join New Jersey, Iowa, Maryland and New York in prohibiting paddling, spanking or hitting in every school. State Rep.
Margaret Croke, a Chicago Democrat, was inspired to take up the issue after an updated call by the American Association of Pediatrics to end the practice, which it says can increase behavioral or mental health problems and impair cognitive development. The association found that it's disproportionately administered to Black males and students with disabilities. “It was an easy thing to do.
I don’t want a child, whether they are in private school or public school, to have a situation in which corporal punishment is being used,” Croke said. Powell may use Jackson Hole speech to hint at how fast and how far the Fed could cut rates WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve officials have said they're increasingly confident that they've nearly tamed inflation. Now, it's the health of the job market that's starting to draw their concern.
With inflation cooling toward its 2% target, the pace of hiring slowing and the unemployment rate edging up, the Fed is poised to cut its benchmark interest rate next month from its 23-year high. How fast it may cut rates after that, though, will be determined mainly by whether employers keep hiring. A lower Fed benchmark rate would eventually lead to lower rates for auto loans, mortgages and other forms of consumer borrowing.
Chair Jerome Powell will likely provide some hints about how the Fed sees the economy and what its next steps may be in a high-profile speech Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at the Fed's annual conference of central bankers. It's a platform that Powell and his predecessors have often used to signal changes in their thinking or approach. Powell will likely indicate that the Fed has grown more confident that inflation is headed back to the 2% target, which it has long said would be necessary before rate cuts would begin.
Economists generally agree that the Fed is getting closer to conquering high inflation, which brought financial pain to millions of households beginning three years ago as the economy rebounded from the pandemic recession. Few economists, though, think Powell or any other Fed official is prepared to declare “mission accomplished." Same-sex couples and LGBTQ+ activists rally in Nepal's capital during the annual Pride parade KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Hundreds of LGBTQ+ people and their supporters rallied in Nepal’s capital Tuesday during the annual Pride parade, the first since gay couples were able to register same-sex marriages officially in the Himalayan nation following a Supreme Court order in Nov 2023.
The annual event brings together the sexual minority community and their supporters in Kathmandu during the Gai Jatra festival. Tuesday's rally was participated by a government minister, diplomats and officials, which began at the city's tourist hub and went around its main streets. “Gai Jatra festival is a festival that is a long tradition that has been carried for years and we all are here to help preserve and continue the tradition, and as a sexual minority are doing our part to save the tradition.
We also celebrate the day as a pride parade,” said Bhumika Shrestha, a gay rights activist who was at the parade. The Gai Jatra festival is celebrated to remember family members who have passed away during the year but has long had colorful parades that brought in sexual minorities to join the parade..
