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WASHINGTON (AP) — Declaring "our journey is not complete," President Barack Obama took the oath of office for his second term before a crowd of hundreds of thousands Monday, urging the nation to set an unwavering course toward prosperity and freedom for all its citizens and protect the social safety net that has sheltered the poor, elderly and needy. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais President Barack Obama waves after his speech while Vice President Joe Biden applauds at the ceremonial swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol d...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Declaring "our journey is not complete," President Barack Obama took the oath of office for his second term before a crowd of hundreds of thousands Monday, urging the nation to set an unwavering course toward prosperity and freedom for all its citizens and protect the social safety net that has sheltered the poor, elderly and needy. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais President Barack Obama waves after his speech while Vice President Joe Biden applauds at the ceremonial swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol d...
WASHINGTON — Pressing toward his second term, President Barack Obama touted "the importance of giving back" as he kicked off three days of inaugural celebrations Saturday with a National Day of Service. AP Photo/Susan Walsh First lady Michelle Obama stains a bookshelf at Burrville Elementary School in Washington, Saturday, as the first family participated in a community service project for the National Day of Service as part of the 57th Presidential Inauguration. The president, along with first lady Michelle Obama and d...
WASHINGTON — Pressing toward his second term, President Barack Obama touted "the importance of giving back" as he kicked off three days of inaugural celebrations Saturday with a National Day of Service. AP Photo/Susan Walsh First lady Michelle Obama stains a bookshelf at Burrville Elementary School in Washington, Saturday, as the first family participated in a community service project for the National Day of Service as part of the 57th Presidential Inauguration. The president, along with first lady Michelle Obama and d...
WASHINGTON — Pledging to revive a "rising, thriving middle class," President Barack Obama promised Tuesday night to create solid new jobs without raising the federal deficit. He's calling for a "smarter government" but not a bigger one. In excerpts released ahead of his State of the Union address, Obama called job creation his "North Star" and implored a divided Congress to center its work on attracting more jobs to the U.S., equipping Americans to compete for those positions and making sure hard work leads to a decent l...
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Friday they have agreed to speed up slightly the schedule for moving Afghanistan's security forces into the lead across the country, with U.S. troops shifting fully to a support role. The leaders also said Obama agreed to place battlefield detainees under the control of the Afghan government. The capabilities of the Afghan army are "exceeding initial expectations," the two said in a joint statement released after their private White House meeting a...
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Friday they have agreed to speed up slightly the schedule for moving Afghanistan's security forces into the lead across the country, with U.S. troops shifting fully to a support role. The leaders also said Obama agreed to place battlefield detainees under the control of the Afghan government. The capabilities of the Afghan army are "exceeding initial expectations," the two said in a joint statement released after their private White House meeting a...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will nominate Chuck Hagel as his next defense secretary, a senior administration official said Sunday, choosing a former Senate colleague and a decorated Vietnam veteran and signaling he's ready for a contentious confirmation fight likely dominated by questions about Hagel's stands on Israel and Iran. AP Photo/Nati Harnik Then-Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., speaks during an appearance at Bellevue University, in Bellevue, Neb., on Feb. 21, 2007. President Barack Obama will nominate Hagel a...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will nominate Chuck Hagel as his next defense secretary, a senior administration official said Sunday, choosing a former Senate colleague and a decorated Vietnam veteran and signaling he's ready for a contentious confirmation fight likely dominated by questions about Hagel's stands on Israel and Iran. AP Photo/Nati Harnik Then-Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., speaks during an appearance at Bellevue University, in Bellevue, Neb., on Feb. 21, 2007. President Barack Obama will nominate Hagel a...
MINNEAPOLIS — With his gun proposals dividing Congress, President Barack Obama conceded Monday the challenges he faces in winning support for measures ranging from criminal checks on gun buyers to an assault weapons ban. But, he declared: "We don't have to agree on everything to agree it's time to do something." Obama argued that there's bipartisan support for universal background checks and for gun trafficking laws. But, acknowledging the political challenges he faces, he would say only that the assault weapons ban d...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Working with Congress against a midnight deadline, President Barack Obama said Monday that a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" was in sight but not yet finalized. The emerging deal would raise tax rates on family income over $450,000 a year, increase the estate tax rate and extend unemployment benefits for one year. "There are still issues left to resolve but we're hopeful Congress can get it done," Obama said at a campaign-style event at the White House. "But it's not done." The parties were at an impasse o...
WASHINGTON — The Democratic Party is moving to include support for gay marriage in the official party platform for the first time, a Democratic official said Monday, marking a key milestone for advocates of same-sex unions. The party's platform drafting committee voted to include language backing gay marriage during a weekend meeting in Minneapolis, the official said. Democratic delegates will formally approve the platform during the party convention in Charlotte, N.C. in early September. President Barack Obama will o...
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday nominated Sen. John Kerry as his next secretary of state, elevating the longtime lawmaker and foreign policy expert to the top diplomatic job he had coveted. "He is not going not need a lot of on-the-job training," Obama said, standing alongside Kerry at the White House. "Few individuals know as many presidents and prime ministers or grasp our policies as firmly as John Kerry." AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., leads a hearing Thur...
he reloaded. But the ban and other U.S. gun laws wouldn't have prevented his mother's purchase of the pTowerful assault rifle or the especially deadly ammunition that he used to kill 26 people. A generation of U.S. gun laws — and the inherent compromises intended to balance constitutional gun rights and public safety — reflects the intricacies of applying government policy to stem acts of mass violence. Since July, there have been at least four mass shootings that killed 47 people and wounded dozens more in Connecticut, Col...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner pushed ahead on negotiating a broad deal to avert the "fiscal cliff," even as the GOP leader readied a backup plan Tuesday to pressure the White House with little time left to avoid a double hit on the economy. With exactly two weeks to automatic tax hikes and spending cuts, Boehner offered a measure, dubbed "plan B," that would cancel tax increases due to take effect Jan. 1 on everyone earning $1 million or less, while allowing tax increases on those e...
BANGKOK — On the eve of his landmark trip to Myanmar, President Barack Obama tried to assure critics that his visit was not a premature reward for a long-isolated nation still easing its way toward democracy. "This is not an endorsement of the government," Obama said Sunday in Thailand as he opened a three-country dash through Asia. "This is an acknowledgement that there is a process under way inside that country that even a year and a half, two years ago, nobody foresaw." AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster U.S. President Barack O...
COLUMBUS, Ohio — President Barack Obama's re-election campaign doesn't want to talk about what the Democrat is doing to prepare for the fall debates with Republican Mitt Romney. But aides are readily setting expectations — and not surprisingly, they want to keep them low for Obama while raising the stakes for Romney. "While Mitt Romney has done 20 debates in the last year, he has not done one in four years, so there certainly is a challenge in that regard," Jennifer Psaki, Obama's campaign spokeswoman, said of the pre...
WASHINGTON — Escalating an increasingly acrimonious campaign, Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney dug in Wednesday on his charge that President Barack Obama's campaign was being driven by "division and attack and hatred" and called on the president to lift the tone of political discourse. Romney went on national television to say he thinks Obama is "running just to hang onto power, and I think he would do anything in his power" to remain in office. AP Photo/The Intelligencer, Scott Mccloskey Republican p...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Susan Rice, the embattled U.N. ambassador, abruptly withdrew from consideration to be the next secretary of state on Thursday after an ugly standoff with Republican senators who declared they would vigorously oppose her nomination. The move elevates Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry as the likely choice to be the nation's next top diplomat when Hillary Rodham Clinton departs soon. AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, File UN Ambassador Susan Rice is seen leaving a meeting on Capitol Hill on Nov. 28. Rice has withdrawn from c...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner met Sunday at the White House to discuss the ongoing negotiations over the impending "fiscal cliff," the first meeting between just the two leaders since Election Day. Spokesmen for both Obama and Boehner said they agreed to not release details of the conversation, but emphasized that the lines of communication remain open. The meeting comes as the White House and Congress try to break an impasse over finding a way to stop a combination of automatic t...
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says he now supports same-sex marriage, ending months of equivocation on a subject with powerful election-year consequences. Obama says he has concluded that it is important for him to affirm that he thinks same-sex couples should be able to get married. He says he came to the conclusion over the course of several years of talking to family and friends. Obama has previously said his personal views of gay marriage were evolving, a stance that frustrated gay rights supporters. Obama r...
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — President Barack Obama swept into his convention city Wednesday, eager to accept his party's nomination and make the case for re-election despite a sputtering economy. He hoped to claim a little luster from Bill Clinton's prime-time address to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday. In a last-minute shift, the president ditched plans to deliver his acceptance speech before a throng of 74,000 at an outdoor stadium on Thursday, the convention's final night, citing iffy weather. With a chance of t...
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — President Barack Obama swept into his convention city Wednesday, eager to accept his party's nomination and make the case for re-election despite a sputtering economy. He hoped to claim a little luster from Bill Clinton's prime-time address to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday. In a last-minute shift, the president ditched plans to deliver his acceptance speech before a throng of 74,000 at an outdoor stadium on Thursday, the convention's final night, citing iffy weather. With a chance of t...
CONCORD, N.H. — Just two days from the finish, President Barack Obama's campaign is mobilizing a massive get-out-the-vote effort aimed at carrying the Democrat to victory, as Republican Mitt Romney makes a late play for votes in Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania. Obama was closing out the campaign with an apparent edge in some key battleground states, including Ohio. But both campaigns were predicting wins in Tuesday's election. AP Photo/Charles Dharapak Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt R...
HENDERSON, Nev. — President Barack Obama has one mission heading into his first debate with Republican Mitt Romney: Don't screw things up. Less than five weeks from Election Day, Obama has political momentum and an edge in polls of the battleground states that will determine the election. But he's sure to face a blistering challenge from Romney, who needs to use Wednesday's debate in Denver to change the trajectory of the race. AP Photo/Isaac Brekken, File President Barack Obama waves to supporters as he arrives at M...
