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Barack Obama

Mississippi Senate Medicaid Committee Chairman Sen. Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, right, discusses the cost of Medicaid expansion at a public legislative conference committee meeting held at the State Capitol, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Mississippi legislative leaders swap proposals on possible Medicaid expansion

Mississippi Senate leaders are saying for the first time that they are willing to expand Medicaid to the full level allowed under a federal law signed 14 years ago by then-President Barack Obama.

FILE - A CSX train engine sits idle on tracks in Philadelphia, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022. Major freight railroads will have to maintain two-person crews on most routes under a new federal rule that was finalized Tuesday, April 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

Freight railroads must keep 2-person crews, according to new federal rule first proposed under Obama

President Joe Biden, right, and former presidents Barack Obama, left, and Bill Clinton participate in a fundraising event with Stephen Colbert at Radio City Music Hall, Thursday, March 28, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Biden says his glitzy fundraiser with Obama and Clinton projects party unity heading into November

President Joe Biden, right, and former presidents Barack Obama, left, and Bill Clinton participate in a fundraising event with Stephen Colbert at Radio City Music Hall, Thursday, March 28, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Obama, Clinton and big-name entertainers help Biden raise a record $26 million for his reelection

FILE - President Barack Obama, flanked by Vice President Joe Biden, left, and former President Bill Clinton, right, pose for a photo with the U.S. World Cup soccer team under the North Portico of the White House in Washington, May 27, 2010. President Joe Biden will share a stage with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton on Thursday in New York as he raises money for his reelection campaign. It's a one-of-a-kind political extravaganza that will showcase decades of Democratic leadership. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Biden leans on his Democratic predecessors as Trump remains isolated from other Republican leaders

Political campaigns focus on North Carolina as a critical battleground

Jason Roberts, professor of political science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discusses the importance for political campaigns to win North Carolina in the upcoming election. (AP video: Erik Verduzco)

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Many Gulf oil spill cleanup workers left with little compensation for health issues

Students react to USC making rare cancellation of speech by valedictorian who supported Palestinians

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer writes a book detailing her rapid rise in Democratic politics

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FILE - This image provided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2019, shows proposed cigarette warning labels. A federal rule requiring that cigarette packs and advertising include graphic images demonstrating the effects of smoking, including pictures of smoke-damaged lungs and feet blackened by diminished blood flow, does not violate the First Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday, March 21, 2024. (FDA via AP, File)

Requiring ugly images of smoking’s harm on cigarettes won’t breach First Amendment, court says

A federal appeals court says a requirement that cigarette packs and advertising include graphic images demonstrating the effects of smoking does not violate the First Amendment.

This cover image released by Hogarth shows "Great Expectations" by Vinson Cunningham. (Hogarth via AP)

Book Review: A coming-of-age story of a young Black man who works for an Obama-adjacent candidate

Vinson Cunningham’s day job is writing theater reviews for the New Yorker magazine. Now he has published his first novel, “Great Expectations.”

FILE - Paul Simon performs at Global Citizen Live in Central Park in New York on Sept. 25, 2021. Simon's latest honor places him among public figures well outside the music industry. He is this year's winner of PEN America's PEN/Audible Literary Service Award, Thursday, March 7, 2024, which previously has been given to former President Barack Obama, the late Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and Stephen King among others.(Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

Paul Simon to receive PEN America’s Literary Service Award

Paul Simon’s latest honor places him among public figures well outside the music industry. He is this year’s winner of PEN America’s PEN/Audible Literary Service Award, which previously has been given to former President Barack Obama, the late Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and Stephen King among othe

FILE - The healthcare.gov website is seen on Dec. 14, 2021, in Fort Washington, Md. A federal appeals court was scheduled to hear arguments Monday, March 4, 2024 on whether former President Barack Obama's signature health care law requires full insurance coverage of certain types of preventive care, including HIV prevention and some types of cancer screenings. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Latest attempt to chip away at ‘Obamacare’ questions preventive health care

A federal appeals court is considering whether the government properly put in place requirements that health insurance plans affecting an estimated 150 million Americans must cover certain types of preventive care.

President Joe Biden speaks at the Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Biden plans to hold a March fundraiser with former Presidents Obama and Clinton in New York

President Joe Biden is teaming up with predecessors Barack Obama and Bill Clinton next month for a New York fundraiser aimed at powering up donations for his reelection campaign.

Arian Simone, second left, one of the co-founders and CEOs of The Fearless Fund, walks out of the James Lawrence King Federal Building following a hearing, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, in Miami. A federal appeals court in Miami heard oral arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit against The Fearless Fund, a small venture capital firm that provides early stage funding to businesses owned by women of color, and which conservative activists are targeting as part of a growing legal backlash against corporate diversity programs. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Grant program for Black women comes under tough questioning in key anti-DEI lawsuit

A small venture capital firm faced tough questions from conservative judges Wednesday as it defended a grant program for Black women-owned businesses in a lawsuit that has become emblematic of a growing legal backlash against corporate diversity programs.

FILE - Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Hialeah, Fla., Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

Biden’s focus on bashing Trump takes a page from the winning Obama and Bush reelection playbooks

For President Joe Biden, a centerpiece of his reelection campaign is trying to negatively define Donald Trump in the public’s eye.

Jacob Lew, former treasury secretary under President Barack Obama, testifies during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to examine his nomination as Ambassador to the State of Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Jacob Lew, former treasury secretary to Obama, confirmed as US ambassador to Israel

The Senate has confirmed Jacob Lew as ambassador to Israel, filling the key diplomatic post as the country is fighting a war with Hamas.

FILE - Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Deputy Administrator Michael Whitaker testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 17, 2015. President Joe Biden says he will nominate the former Obama administration official to lead the Federal Aviation Administration, nearly six months after his first choice for the job withdrew in the face of Republican opposition. The White House said Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023 that Biden will nominate Whitaker, currently the chief operating officer of a Hyundai affiliate working to develop an air taxi aircraft. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, file)

Biden nominates a former Obama official to run the Federal Aviation Administration

President Joe Biden has nominated a former Obama administration official to lead the Federal Aviation Administration, which has been without a permanent leader for a year and a half.

FILE - Visitors to the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum look upwards at a 360 degree video screen showing a video welcoming them to the center in Dallas, on May 1, 2013. Concern for U.S. democracy amid deep national polarization has prompted the entities supporting 13 presidential libraries dating back to Herbert Hoover to call for a recommitment to the country's bedrock principles, including the rule of law and respecting a diversity of beliefs. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)

Presidential centers from Hoover to Bush and Obama unite to warn of fragile state of US democracy

Concern for U.S. democracy has prompted the entities supporting 13 presidential libraries dating back to Herbert Hoover to call for a recommitment to the country’s bedrock principles.

President Joe Biden speaks during a Labor Day event in Philadelphia, Monday, Sept. 4, 2023. A new book about Biden portrays the president as someone whose middle-class upbringing helped foster a resentment of intellectual elitism that shaped his political career and sometimes caused strain with his onetime boss, Harvard-educated Barack Obama. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

New book details Biden-Obama frictions and says Harris sought roles ‘away from the spotlight’

A new book about Joe Biden portrays the president as someone whose middle-class upbringing helped foster a resentment of intellectual elitism that shaped his political career and sometimes caused strain with his onetime boss, Harvard-educated Barack Obama.

Crown hires ‘Big Little Lies’ publisher Amy Einhorn to boost its fiction program

The editor of such best-selling novels as Liane Moriarty’s “Big Little Lies” and Kathryn Stockett’s “The Help” is joining Penguin Random House.

FILE -Julie Su, Acting Labor Secretary, speaks during an impromptu appearance at the "Democracy for the People" tour, a race and democracy summit sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, Wednesday, July 28, 2023, in Houston. Biden administration proposed a new rule Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023 that would make 3.6 million more U.S. workers eligible for overtime pay, reviving an Obama-era policy effort that was ultimately scuttled in court. “I’ve heard from workers again and again about working long hours, for no extra pay, all while earning low salaries that don’t come anywhere close to compensating them for their sacrifices,” Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su said in a statement. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke, File)

Millions more workers would be entitled to overtime pay under a proposed Biden administration rule

The Biden administration is proposing a new rule that would make 3.6 million more U.S. workers eligible for overtime pay, reviving an Obama-era policy effort that was ultimately scuttled in court.

FILE - Joe Wurzelbacher, also known as "Joe the Plumber," signs autographs after appearing at a rally with Republican vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, at Bowling Green University in Bowling Green, Ohio, Oct. 29, 2008. Wurzelbacher, who was thrust into the political spotlight as “Joe the Plumber” after questioning Barack Obama about his economic policies during the 2008 presidential campaign, has died, his son said Monday, Aug. 28, 2023. He was 49. His oldest son, Joey Wurzelbacher, said his father died Sunday, Aug. 27, in Wisconsin after a long illness. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta, File)

Joe the Plumber, who questioned Obama’s tax proposals during the 2008 campaign, has died at 49

The man who became known as “Joe the Plumber” during the 2008 U.S. presidential election has died. The family of Samuel Wurzelbacher says he died Sunday in Wisconsin.

FILE - White House Chef Tafari Campbell smiles, Nov. 6, 2008, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. The drowning death of former President Barack Obama’s personal chef near the family’s home on Martha’s Vineyard on July 24, 2023, was ruled an accident by the Massachusetts medical examiner on Wednesday, Aug. 23. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, File)

Drowning death of former President Obama’s personal chef on Martha’s Vineyard ruled an accident

The drowning death of former President Barack Obama’s personal chef near the family’s home on Martha’s Vineyard has been ruled an accident by the Massachusetts medical examiner.

Surgeons perform a bilateral mastectomy on a transgender patient at a hospital in Boston on Friday, July 15, 2016. The number of gender-affirming surgeries in the U.S. nearly tripled from 2016 to 2019 before declining slightly in 2020 when about 12,800 procedures were done, according to a study published Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, in JAMA Network Open. (Christine Hochkeppel/Worcester Telegram & Gazette via AP)

Gender-affirming surgeries in the US nearly tripled before pandemic dip, study finds

A new study finds the number of gender-affirming surgeries in the United States nearly tripled from 2016 to 2019.

FILE - President Joe Biden speaks during a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol Friday, Aug. 18, 2023, at Camp David, the presidential retreat, near Thurmont, Md. Biden announced on Tuesday, Aug. 22, that the new White House counsel will be Ed Siskel, a former Obama administration attorney who helped craft the response to the congressional investigations into the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Biden names a new White House counsel as he seeks reelection and faces congressional probes

President Joe Biden says former Obama administration attorney Ed Siskel is the new White House counsel.

This image provided by Loren Long shows artwork from the book "The Yellow Bus." The illustrator of best-selling children’s books by former President Barack Obama, Madonna and poet Amanda Gorman has a 6-figure deal with a Macmillan imprint for two of his own projects. Loren Long’s first book under his new contract is “The Yellow Bus,” scheduled for June 2024. (Loren Long via AP)

Author-illustrator Loren Long, who has worked with Barack Obama among others, has 6-figure book deal

The illustrator of bestselling children’s books by former President Barack Obama, Madonna and poet Amanda Gorman has a six-figure deal with a Macmillan imprint for two of his own projects.

President Joe Biden shakes hands with supporters after speaking about the economy at Arcosa Wind Towers factory Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023, in Belen, N.M. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Biden reelection campaign offering joint meeting with Obama as ex-president enters 2024 fray early

President Joe Biden is raising money for his reelection campaign by offering donors the chance to meet himself and Barack Obama, meaning the former president will be entering the 2024 political fray earlier than he did during last year’s midterms or the last presidential election.

President Joe Biden speaks at the Arcosa Wind Towers, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023, in Belen, N.M. Biden is making the case that his policies of financial and tax incentives have revived U.S. manufacturing. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Biden claims his economic policies are reviving manufacturing, making his case at a wind farm plant

President Joe Biden says his policies of financial and tax incentives have revived U.S. manufacturing.

FILE - Insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump breach the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. The indictment of Donald Trump for attempting to overturn his election defeat is a new front in what Joe Biden has described as the battle for American democracy. It's the issue that Biden has described as the most consequential struggle of his presidency. The criminal charges are a reminder of the stakes of next year's campaign, when Trump is hoping for a rematch with Biden. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

Analysis: Trump’s indictment is a stress test of Biden’s focus on safeguarding democracy

The indictment of Donald Trump for trying to overturn his 2020 loss is a new front in what President Joe Biden has described as the battle for American democracy.

FILE - Manager Nick Reynoza holds a 100-watt incandescent light bulb at Royal Lighting in Los Angeles, Jan. 21, 2011. New federal rules governing the energy efficiency of lighting systems went into full effect Tuesday, effectively ending the sale and manufacture of bulbs that trace their origin to an 1880 Thomas Edison patent. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Prepare to flick off your incandescent bulbs for good under new US rules that kicked in this week

Thomas Edison’s pioneering incandescent light bulb, which cast illumination by heating a filament until it glowed, is fading into history.

FILE - Rioters wave flags on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

The judge assigned to Trump’s Jan. 6 case is a tough punisher of Capitol rioters

Judge Tanya Chutkan often has handed down prison sentences in Jan. 6, 2021, riot cases that are harsher than what Justice Department prosecutors recommended.

FILE - Rioters wave flags on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

Trump lawyer calls indictment an ‘attack on free speech and political advocacy.’ Follow live updates

Donald Trump’s attorney John Lauro is calling the latest indictment of the former president “an attack on free speech and political advocacy.”

Mississippi's Secretary of State Michael Watson addresses the crowd at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Miss., Thursday, July 27, 2023. Watson, a Republican, seeks reelection in November. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Down-ticket Mississippi candidates stump for votes at Neshoba County Fair

Mississippi’s Republican secretary of state, Michael Watson, says he’s working to restore confidence in the state’s voting process.

Words decorate the concrete steps up to a bronze plate with the likeness of former President Barack Obama at the Plaza where then student Obama made his first political speech "A Protest against Apartheid" on Feb. 18, 1981, at Occidental College in Los Angeles, seen on Thursday, July 27, 2023. Occidental College is the latest school to end legacy admissions in the wake of a Supreme Court decision removing race from admissions decisions. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Obama’s first college is latest to end legacy admissions

A California college where President Barack Obama started his undergraduate studies will no longer give special treatment to the children of alumni.

FILE - White House Chef Tafari Campbell smiles, Nov. 6, 2008, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. Social media users are casting doubt about the drowning death of Campbell, former President Barack Obama’s personal chef, on Martha’s Vineyard on Sunday, July 23, 2023. His body was recovered Monday, July 24. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, File)

FACT FOCUS: No head trauma or suspicious circumstances in drowning of Obamas’ chef, police say

Social media users are sharing false claims about the drowning death of former President Barack Obama’s personal chef on Martha’s Vineyard this week.

FILE - Migrants wait to be processed after crossing the border, Jan. 6, 2023, near Yuma, Ariz. A federal judge on Tuesday, July 25, blocked a rule that allows immigration authorities to deny asylum to migrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border without first applying online or seeking protection in a country they passed through. But the judge delayed his ruling from taking effect immediately to give the administration time to appeal. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

A judge blocks limits on asylum at US-Mexico border but gives Biden administration time to appeal

A federal judge has blocked a rule that allows immigration authorities to deny asylum to migrants who arrive at the U.S.

FILE - White House Chef Tafari Campbell smiles Nov. 6, 2008, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. Campbell, an employee of former President Barack Obama, has drowned near the couple’s home on Martha’s Vineyard. Massachusetts State Police confirmed that the paddleboarder whose body was recovered from Edgartown Great Pond on Monday, July 24, 2023 was Tafari Campbell, of Dumfries, Virginia. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, file)

Obamas’ personal chef drowns near family’s home on Martha’s Vineyard

Former President Barack Obama’s personal chef has drowned near the Obama family’s home on Martha’s Vineyard.

Biden is building his 2024 reelection bid around an organization Obama shunned

President Joe Biden is staking his reelection bid on the political and financial muscle of the Democratic National Committee.