48 Hours (TV program)
48 Hours is an American documentary/news magazine television program broadcast on CBS. The program has been broadcast on the network since January 19, 1988; the program airs Saturdays at 10:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time, as part of the network's placeholder Crimetime Saturday block. S. broadcast television networks. The program sometimes airs two-hour editions or two consecutive one-hour editions, depending on the subject involved or to serve as counterprogramming against other networks. Judy Tygard was named senior executive producer in January 2019, replacing Susan Zirinsky, who served as executive producer since 1996 until her early 2019 appointment as president of CBS News. Reruns of 48 Hours are broadcast on Investigation Discovery, the Oprah Winfrey Network and TLC as part of their daytime and/or weekend schedules, with varying titles based on the edition's subject matter; the program was created by former CBS News president Howard Stringer. It drew its title and original format from the CBS News documentary 48 Hours on Crack Street, which aired in September 1986, centering on the drug crisis plaguing a number of U.
S. neighborhoods. Like the original documentary, the program focused on showing events occurring within a 48-hour time span. One of the contributors to that program, CBS News correspondent Harold Dow, had been a member of the 48 Hours on-air staff since its premiere. Dan Rather, at the time serving as anchor of the CBS Evening News, was the primary host of 48 Hours for its first 14 years on the air. In 1997, CBS aired a special episode of 48 Hours titled Property of 48 Hours, which focused on some of the stories over the program's first nine years. In the mid-2000s, the program transitioned into its current format known as 48 Hours Mystery although it has since reverted to its original title, which presents "true crime" documentaries. On nights except Sundays where live primetime breaking news coverage from CBS News occurs, the timeslot of that coverage is branded as a special edition of 48 Hours, but is not part of the Saturday program's yearly ratings average. In 2009, the program featured interviews with Jodi Arias concerning the murder of her former boyfriend, Travis Alexander.
These recordings were used in 2011 as evidence in court to convict Arias, the first time the program's interviews had been used in a death penalty trial. On September 17, 2011, 48 Hours began broadcasting in high definition, making it the last prime time newsmagazine on U. S. broadcast television to convert to the format. The program was revamped in 2002, when Lesley Stahl took over hosting duties from Dan Rather, its title was changed to 48 Hours Investigates; the title was changed again to 48 Hours Mystery in 2004, with its single-topic format, it does not use a single host but is narrated by the reporter assigned to the story. The current format of the documentary deals with real-life mysteries and crime stories, again with just one mystery per episode, owing to its heritage structure of featuring a single topic per episode; the program is not confined to reporting mysteries. However, the relationship between these special programs and the rest of the program's editions are limited to the program's title.
48 Hours: Live To Tell uses a different format from the earlier versions of the program. This format does not utilize a narrator. 48 Hours: NCIS utilizes a similar format to the standard, although it instead features real life cases from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Rocky Carroll, who plays NCIS director Leon Vance on NCIS, narrates these episodes, which aired on April 25, May 12, May 23-June 13, 2017, all of which except for May 12 being on Tuesdays; as of 2018, it is in its second season. The program has received over 20 Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards, an Ohio State Award. Official website 48 Hours on IMDb 48 Hours at TV.com
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer. He gained worldwide fame as the bass guitarist and singer for the rock band the Beatles considered the most popular and influential group in the history of popular music, his songwriting partnership with John Lennon remains the most successful in history. After the group disbanded in 1970, he pursued a solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife and Denny Laine. McCartney is one of performers of all time. More than 2,200 artists have covered his Beatles song "Yesterday", making it one of the most covered songs in popular music history. Wings' 1977 release "Mull of Kintyre" is one of the all-time best-selling singles in the UK. A two-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an 18-time Grammy Award winner, McCartney has written, or co-written, 32 songs that have reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, as of 2009 he had 25.5 million RIAA-certified units in the United States. McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr all received appointment as Members of the Order of the British Empire in 1965 and, in 1997, McCartney was knighted for services to music.
McCartney is one of the wealthiest musicians in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$1.2 billion. McCartney has released an extensive catalogue of songs as a solo artist and has composed classical and electronic music, he has taken part in projects to promote international charities related to such subjects as animal rights, seal hunting, land mines, vegetarianism and music education. He is the father of five children. James Paul McCartney was born on 18 June 1942 in Walton Hospital, England, where his mother, Mary Patricia, had qualified to practise as a nurse, his father, James McCartney, was absent from his son's birth due to his work as a volunteer firefighter during World War II. McCartney has one younger brother named a stepsister, Ruth; the children were baptised in their mother's Catholic faith though their father was a former Protestant, who had turned agnostic. Religion was not emphasised in the household. McCartney attended Stockton Wood Road Primary School in Speke from 1947 until 1949, when he transferred to Joseph Williams Junior School in Belle Vale because of overcrowding at Stockton.
In 1953, with only three others out of ninety examinees, he passed the 11-Plus exam, meaning he could attend the Liverpool Institute, a grammar school rather than a secondary modern school. In 1954, he met schoolmate George Harrison on the bus from his suburban home in Speke; the two became friends. McCartney's mother, was a midwife and the family's primary wage earner, she rode a bicycle to her patients. On 31 October 1956, when McCartney was 14, his mother died of an embolism. McCartney's loss became a point of connection with John Lennon, whose mother, had died when he was 17. McCartney's father was a trumpet pianist, who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s, he kept an upright piano in the front room, encouraged his sons to be musical and advised McCartney to take piano lessons. However, McCartney preferred to learn by ear; when McCartney was 11, his father encouraged him to audition for the Liverpool Cathedral choir, but he was not accepted. McCartney joined the choir at St Barnabas' Church, Mossley Hill.
McCartney received a nickel-plated trumpet from his father for his fourteenth birthday, but when rock and roll became popular on Radio Luxembourg, McCartney traded it for a £15 Framus Zenith acoustic guitar, since he wanted to be able to sing while playing. He found it difficult to play guitar right-handed, but after noticing a poster advertising a Slim Whitman concert and realising that Whitman played left-handed, he reversed the order of the strings. McCartney wrote his first song, "I Lost My Little Girl", on the Zenith, composed another early tune that would become "When I'm Sixty-Four" on the piano. American rhythm and blues influenced him, Little Richard was his schoolboy idol. At the age of fifteen on 6 July 1957, McCartney met John Lennon and his band, the Quarrymen, at the St Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton; the Quarrymen played a mix of rock and roll and skiffle, a type of popular music with jazz and folk influences. Soon afterwards, the members of the band invited McCartney to join as a rhythm guitarist, he formed a close working relationship with Lennon.
Harrison joined in 1958 as lead guitarist, followed by Lennon's art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe on bass, in 1960. By May 1960 the band had tried several names, including Johnny and the Moondogs and the Silver Beetles, they adopted the name the Beatles in August 1960 and recruited drummer Pete Best shortly before a five-engagement residency in Hamburg. The Beatles were informally represented by Allan Williams. In 1961, Sutcliffe left McCartney reluctantly became their bass player. While in Hamburg, they recorded professionally for the first time and were credited as the Beat Brothers, who were the backing band for English singer Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie"; this resulted in attention from Brian Epstein, w
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John is an English singer, songwriter and composer. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriting partner since 1967. John has sold more than 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world, he has more than fifty Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive number-one albums in the United States, 58 Billboard Top 40 singles, 27 Top 10 singles, four which reached number two and nine which reached number one. His tribute single "Candle in the Wind 1997", rewritten in dedication to Diana, Princess of Wales, sold over 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling single in the history of the UK and US singles charts, he has composed music, produced records, has acted in films. John owned Watford F. C. from 1976 to 1987, 1997 to 2002. He is an honorary Life President of the club, in 2014 had a stand named after him at the club's home stadium. Raised in the Pinner area of London, John learned to play piano at an early age, by 1962 had formed Bluesology.
John met his songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin, in 1967, after they had both answered an advert for songwriters. For two years, they wrote songs for other artists, including Lulu, John worked as a session musician for artists, such as the Hollies and the Scaffold. In 1969, his debut album, Empty Sky, was released. In 1970, John's first hit single "Your Song", from his second album, Elton John, reached the top ten in the UK and the US. After decades of chart success, John has achieved success in musical films and theatre, composing the music for The Lion King and its stage adaptation and Billy Elliot the Musical, he has received five Grammy Awards, five Brit Awards – winning two awards for Outstanding Contribution to Music and the first Brits Icon in 2013 for his "lasting impact on British culture", an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, a Disney Legends award, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2004. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him Number 49 on its list of 100 influential musicians of the rock and roll era.
In 2013, Billboard ranked him the most successful male solo artist on the Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists, making him third overall behind the Beatles and Madonna. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, is an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters and Authors, he was knighted by Elizabeth II for "services to music and charitable services" in 1998. John has performed at a number of royal events, such as the funeral of Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey in 1997, the Party at the Palace in 2002 and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert outside Buckingham Palace in 2012, he has been involved in the fight against AIDS since the late 1980s. In 1992, he established the Elton John AIDS Foundation and a year began hosting the annual Academy Awards Party, which has since become one of the highest-profile Oscar parties in the Hollywood film industry. Since its inception, the foundation has raised over US$200 million. John, who announced he was bisexual in 1976 and has been gay since 1988, entered into a civil partnership with David Furnish on 21 December 2005, after same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales in 2014, he married Furnish on 21 December 2014.
On 24 January 2018, it was announced that John would be retiring from touring and would soon embark on a three-year farewell tour, which began in September 2018. Elton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947, in Pinner, the eldest child of Stanley Dwight and only child of Sheila Eileen, was raised in a council house by his maternal grandparents, in Pinner, his parents married in 1945. He was educated at Pinner Wood Junior School, Reddiford School and Pinner County Grammar School, until the age of 17, when he left just prior to his A-Level examinations to pursue a career in the music industry; when he began to consider a career in music Elton John's father, who served as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force, tried to steer him toward a more conventional career, such as banking. John has stated that his wild stage costumes and performances were his way of letting go after such a restrictive childhood. Both of John's parents were musically inclined, his father having been a trumpet player with the Bob Millar Band, a semi-professional big band that played at military dances.
The Dwights were keen record buyers, exposing John to the popular singers and musicians of the day, John remembers being hooked on rock and roll when his mother brought home records by Elvis Presley and Bill Haley & His Comets in 1956. Elton John started playing his grandmother's piano as a young boy and within a year, his mother heard him picking out Winifred Atwell's "The Skater's Waltz" by ear. After performing at parties and family gatherings, at the age of 7 he took up formal piano lessons, he showed musical aptitude at school, including the ability to compose melodies, gained some notoriety by playing like Jerry Lee Lewis at school functions. At the age of 11, he won a junior scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. According to one of his instructors, John promptly played back, like a "gramophone record", a four-page piece by George Frideric Handel that he heard for the first time. For the next five years, he attended Saturday classes at the Academy in central London, has stated that he enjoyed playing Frédéric Chopin and Johann Sebastian Bach and singing in the choir during Saturday classes, but that he was not otherwise a diligent classical student.
"I kind of resented going to the Academy,” he s
TBS (U.S. TV channel)
TBS is an American subscription television network, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System unit of AT&T-controlled WarnerMedia. It carries a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy, along with some sports events, including Major League Baseball and the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament; as of September 2018, TBS was received by 90.391 million households that subscribe to a pay television service throughout the United States. TBS was established on December 17, 1976 as the national feed of Turner's Atlanta, independent television station, WTCG; the decision to begin offering WTCG via satellite transmission to cable and satellite subscribers throughout the United States expanded the small station into the first nationally distributed "superstation". With the assignment of WTBS as the broadcast station's call letters in 1979, the national feed became known as SuperStation WTBS, SuperStation TBS, TBS Superstation, or TBS; the channel broadcast a variety of programming during this era, including films, syndicated series, sports.
WTBS maintained a nearly identical program schedule as the national feed, aside from FCC-mandated public affairs and educational programming that only aired on the local signal. By the early 2000s, TBS had begun to focus more intensively on comedic programming, including sitcoms and other series. On October 1, 2007, TBS was converted by Turner into a conventional basic cable network, at which time it began to be carried within the Atlanta market on area cable providers alongside its existing local carriage on satellite providers DirecTV and Dish Network; the former parent station in Atlanta was concurrently relaunched as WPCH and reformatted as a traditional independent station with a separate schedule catering to the Atlanta market. TBS originated as a terrestrial television station in Atlanta, Georgia that began operating on UHF channel 17 on September 1, 1967, under the WJRJ-TV call letters; that station – which its original parent filed to transmit UHF channel 46, before modifying it to assign channel 17 as its frequency in February 1966 – was founded by Rice Broadcasting Inc..
Under Rice, WJRJ – the first independent station to begin operation in the Atlanta market since WQXI-TV ceased operations on May 31, 1955 – operated on a shoestring budget, general entertainment format with a schedule consisting of a few off-network reruns and older feature films as well as a 15-minute news program. In July 1969, Rice Broadcasting reached an agreement to merge with the Turner Communications Corporation – an Atlanta-based group owned by entrepreneur Robert E. "Ted" Turner III, who ran his late father's billboard advertising business and had expanded his interests to include radio stations in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Under the sale terms, Rice would acquire Turner in an exchange of stock and adopt the Turner Communications name; the Federal Communications Commission granted approval of the acquisition on December 10, 1969, giving Turner its first television property. Soon after Turner received approval of its purchase of WJRJ-TV in January 1970, Turner changed the station's call letters to WTCG.
The sale was formally completed four months on April 6, at which time Turner was assigned as licensee of WJRJ-TV. The channel 17 transmitter was located at 1018 West Peachtree Street Northwest, with the antenna located on a large self-supporting tower; the building at this site was once home to the studios of CBS affiliate WAGA-TV and channel 17, during its first three years as WJRJ-TV. Soon after being purchased by Turner, the station moved to new studio facilities a few blocks west at the former site of the Progressive Club, after having had offices on Williams Street, across Interstate 75/85. Beginning in the early 1970s, WTCG was relayed by microwave link to many areas of the Southeastern United States through cable television providers which picked up the UHF signal off-air and microwaved the signal back to their headends. Early programming included movies from the 1930s and 1940s, Japanese animated series; the station carried sports, such as Atlanta Braves baseball, Atlanta Hawks basketball, Atlanta Flames hockey, Georgia
SportsCenter
SportsCenter is a daily sports news television program that serves as the flagship program of American cable and satellite television network ESPN. Broadcast only once per day, SportsCenter now has up to twelve airings each day. Since it premiered upon the network's launch on September 7, 1979, the show has aired more than 50,000 unique episodes, more than any other program on American television. In addition to airing simulcasts or network-exclusive editions on sister networks ESPN2 and ESPNews, the program produces short in-game updates during sports events aired with Zion Williamson on ABC and, until 2017, an interstitial play countdown segment for fellow network Disney XD. ESPN is sponsoring SportsCenter and many other productions. SportsCenter airs live each weekday at 7:00 a.m. noon, 6:00 p.m. and from 11:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. Eastern Time; the 2:00 a.m. edition is repeated until the next live edition begins the following morning. On Sundays, a two-hour episode airs at 7:00 a.m. Eastern, with another edition of varying length airing at 10:00 a.m.
Eastern Time. In the event of live sports coverage on the network, the program is delayed or moved to either ESPN2 or ESPNews until the event concludes; the program is known to start early and run long, if the preceding game ends ahead of schedule or if breaking news warrants. Since 2009, the 1:00 a.m. Eastern edition of SportsCenter has been produced live from Los Angeles. ESPN produces short 90-second capsules known as SportsCenter Right Now, which air at select points within game telecasts on the network and sister broadcast network ABC to provide updates of other ongoing and concluded sporting events. In addition to providing game highlights and news from the day in sports outside of the scheduled slate of games, the program features live reports from sites of sports events scheduled to be held or concluded, extensive analysis of completed and upcoming sports events from sport-specific analysts and special contributors, feature segments providing interviews with players and franchise management in the headlines.
Some sports leagues and organizations, including the National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, college athletic conferences that are members of the National Collegiate Athletics Association and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, allow for brief highlights to be shown while a game is in progress. From 2006 to 2013, Major League Baseball only allowed ongoing game highlights to air during SportsCenter within the Baseball Tonight Extra segments in the broadcast; the National Football League does not permit the use of highlights for games that are ongoing at all, outside of those featured within its own live game broadcasts on the league's broadcast partners. ESPN is traditionally unable to air highlights of Olympic events until after they have aired on tape-delay on NBC or its co-owned sister cable networks. ESPN began showing more Olympics highlights on-air and online beginning with the 2006 Winter Olympics, with the network obtaining these extended rights from NBC as part of the 2006 deal that saw ABC release Al Michaels from his contract, in order to join John Madden and key production personnel for the new NBC Sunday Night Football.
In addition, there are many anecdotal reports of various television networks that will not release highlights of certain sporting events to ESPN, unless the originating U. S. broadcaster's name is displayed on-screen for the entire length of the highlight. Starting in 2007 and until its final season of broadcasting in 2014, ESPN stopped displaying the actual name of the NASCAR Nationwide Series or Sprint Cup Series race during highlights of such events, unless the title sponsor of the race is paid for to the network. SportsCenter was created by ESPN executives Chet Simmons and Scotty Connal; the program was anchored by Chris Berman, George Grande, Greg Gumbel, Lee Leonard, Bob Ley, Sal Marchiano and Tom Mees, of whom only Berman and Ley remain employed with the network. Grande introduced the country to ESPN when he co-anchored the premiere episode of SportsCenter on September 7, 1979, with Leonard, a longtime New York City sports broadcaster. According to Entertainment Weekly, Leonard said in the opening of the show: "If you're a fan, what you will see in the next minutes and days to follow may convince you that you've gone to sports heaven."
Grande spent ten more years with ESPN and SportsCenter until he left the network in 1989. Chris Berman joined ESPN one month after its launch and became a fixture on the
Laura Bush
Laura Lane Welch Bush is an American educator, First Lady of the United States during the presidency of her husband, George W. Bush, from 2001 to 2009. Bush served as First Lady of Texas from 1995 to 2000. Born in Midland, Bush graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in education, took a job as a second grade teacher. After attaining her master's degree in library science at the University of Texas at Austin, she was employed as a librarian. Bush met her future husband, George W. Bush, in 1977, they were married that year; the couple had twin daughters in 1981. Bush's political involvement began during her marriage, she campaigned with her husband during his unsuccessful 1978 run for the United States Congress, for his successful Texas gubernatorial campaign. As First Lady of Texas, Bush implemented many initiatives focused on health and literacy. In 1999–2000, she aided her husband in campaigning for the presidency in a number of ways, such as delivering a keynote address at the 2000 Republican National Convention, which gained her national attention.
She became First Lady after her husband was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2001. Polled by The Gallup Organization as one of the most popular First Ladies, Bush was involved in national and global concerns during her tenure, she continued to advance her trademark interests of education and literacy by establishing the annual National Book Festival in 2001, encouraged education on a worldwide scale. She advanced women's causes through The Heart Truth and Susan G. Komen for the Cure organizations, she represented the United States during her foreign trips, which tended to focus on HIV/AIDS and malaria awareness. Laura Lane Welch was born on November 4, 1946, in Midland, the only child of Harold Welch and Jenna Louise Hawkins Welch. Bush is of English and Swiss ancestry, her father was a house builder and successful real estate developer, while her mother worked as the bookkeeper for her father's business. Early on, her parents encouraged leading to what would become her love of reading.
She said, "I learned at home from my mother. When I was a little girl, my mother would read stories to me. I have loved books and going to the library since. In the summer, I liked to spend afternoons reading in the library. I enjoyed the Little House on the Prairie and Little Women books, many others... Reading gives you enjoyment throughout your life." Bush has credited her second grade teacher, Charlene Gnagy, for inspiring her interest in education. On the night of November 6, 1963, two days after her 17th birthday, Laura Welch ran a stop sign and struck another car, killing its driver; the victim was classmate Michael Dutton Douglas. By some accounts, Douglas had been Welch's boyfriend at one time, but she stated that he was not her boyfriend at that time but rather a close friend. Bush and her passenger, both 17, were treated for minor injuries. According to the accident report released by the city of Midland in 2000, in response to an open-records request, she was not charged in the incident.
Bush's spokesman said, "It was a tragic accident that affected the families and was painful for all involved, including the community at large." In her book Spoken from the Heart she says that the crash caused her to lose her faith "for many, many years". She attended James Bowie Elementary School, San Jacinto Junior High School, Robert E. Lee High School in Midland, she graduated from Lee in 1964 and went on to attend Southern Methodist University in Dallas where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta. She graduated in 1968 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Education. After graduating from SMU, she began her career as a school teacher at Longfellow Elementary School in the Dallas Independent School District, she taught for three years at John F. Kennedy Elementary School, a Houston Independent School District school in Houston, until 1972. In 1973, Bush attained a Master of Science degree in Library Science from the University of Texas at Austin, she was soon employed as a librarian at the Kashmere Gardens Branch at the Houston Public Library.
The following year, she moved back to Austin and took another job as a librarian in the Austin Independent School District school Dawson Elementary until 1977. She reflected on her employment experiences to a group of children in 2003, saying, "I worked as a teacher and librarian and I learned how important reading is in school and in life." She met George W. Bush in July 1977 when mutual friends Joe and Jan O'Neill invited her and Bush to a backyard barbecue at their home, he proposed to her at the end of September and they were married on November 5 of that year at the First United Methodist Church in Midland, the same church in which she had been baptized. Laura bought a two-toned dress off the rack for the wedding; the couple honeymooned in Mexico. George W. Bush detailed his choice to marry Laura as the "best decision of life". Laura, an only child, said she gained "brothers and sisters and wonderful in-laws" who all accepted her after she wed George W. Bush; the year after their marriage, the couple began campaigning for George W. Bush's 1978 Congressional candidacy.
According to George Bush, when he asked her to marry him, she had said, "Yes. But only if you promise me that I'll never have to make a campaign speech." She soon relented, gave her first stump speech for him in 1978 on the courthouse steps in Muleshoe, Texas. After narrowly winning the primary, he lost the general election. Bush attended the inauguration of father-in-law George H. W. Bush as Vice President in January 1981, after he and his running mate Ronald Reagan w
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American, he served as a U. S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008. Obama was born in Hawaii. After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, he enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, he became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004, he represented the 13th district for three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 until 2004 when he ran for the U. S. Senate, he received national attention in 2004 with his March primary win, his well-received July Democratic National Convention keynote address, his landslide November election to the Senate. In 2008, he was nominated for president a year after his campaign began and after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton.
He was elected over Republican John McCain and was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. Nine months he was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Regarded as a centrist New Democrat, Obama signed many landmark bills into law during his first two years in office; the main reforms that were passed include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, Job Creation Act of 2010 served as economic stimulus amidst the Great Recession. After a lengthy debate over the national debt limit, he signed the Budget Control and the American Taxpayer Relief Acts. In foreign policy, he increased U. S. troop levels in Afghanistan, reduced nuclear weapons with the United States–Russia New START treaty, ended military involvement in the Iraq War. He ordered military involvement in Libya in opposition to Muammar Gaddafi.
He ordered the military operations that resulted in the deaths of Osama bin Laden and suspected Yemeni Al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki. After winning re-election by defeating Republican opponent Mitt Romney, Obama was sworn in for a second term in 2013. During this term, he promoted inclusiveness for LGBT Americans, his administration filed briefs that urged the Supreme Court to strike down same-sex marriage bans as unconstitutional. He advocated for gun control in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, indicating support for a ban on assault weapons, issued wide-ranging executive actions concerning climate change and immigration. In foreign policy, he ordered military intervention in Iraq in response to gains made by ISIL after the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, continued the process of ending U. S. combat operations in Afghanistan in 2016, promoted discussions that led to the 2015 Paris Agreement on global climate change, initiated sanctions against Russia following the invasion in Ukraine and again after Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, brokered a nuclear deal with Iran, normalized U.
S. relations with Cuba. During his term in office, America's reputation in global polling improved. Evaluations of his presidency among historians, political scientists, the general public place him among the upper tier of American presidents. Obama left office and retired in January 2017 and resides in Washington, D. C. A December 2018 Gallup poll found Obama to be the most admired man in America for an unprecedented 11th consecutive year, although Dwight D. Eisenhower was selected most admired in twelve non-consecutive years. Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu, Hawaii, he is the only president, born outside of the contiguous 48 states. He was born to a black father, his mother, Ann Dunham, was born in Kansas. His father, Barack Obama Sr. was a Luo Kenyan from Nyang'oma Kogelo. Obama's parents met in 1960 in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student on a scholarship; the couple married in Hawaii, on February 2, 1961, six months before Obama was born.
In late August 1961, Barack and his mother moved to the University of Washington in Seattle, where they lived for a year. During that time, the elder Obama completed his undergraduate degree in economics in Hawaii, graduating in June 1962, he left to attend graduate school on a scholarship at Harvard University, where he earned an M. A. in economics. Obama's parents divorced in March 1964. Obama Sr. returned to Kenya in 1964, where he married for a third time and worked for the Kenyan government as the Senior Economic Analyst in the Ministry of Finance. He visited his son in Hawaii only once, at Christmas time in 1971, before he was killed in an automobile accident in 1982, when Obama was 21 years old. Recalling his early childhood, Obama said, "That my father looked nothing like the people around me – that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk – registered in my mind." He described his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multira
