President Barack Obama has launched his own Twitter feed, @POTUS (President Of The United States), the White House has confirmed.
Within few hours Barack Obama had attracted over a million followers.
“Hello, Twitter! It’s Barack. Really! Six years in, they’re finally giving me my own account” is the president’s first tweet.
The president’s official feed, run by Organizing for Action staff, has 59.3 million followers.
The official account @BarackObama was launched in 2007, and the president initials tweets he writes himself with the letters BO.
“The @POTUS Twitter account will serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with tweets coming exclusively from him,” reads an entry on the White House website blog.
“President Obama is committed to making his Administration the most open and participatory in history, and @POTUS will give Americans a new venue to engage on the issues that matter most to them.”
Barack Obama is currently following 65 people, including Bill Clinton, George Bush and @FLOTUS, the First Lady’s account – but not Hillary Clinton or UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
Gulf leaders have announced they will not attend the summit of US and allied Arab states at Camp David later this week.
Their substitution with more junior leaders is being seen as a rebuff to President Barack Obama’s negotiations with Iran over its nuclear ambitions.
King Salman of Saudi Arabia announced on May 10 that he would not attend.
The White House, which has not publicly commented, previewed King Salman’s visit as recently as May 8.
The talks, which will now be largely attended by leaders at the ministerial level, were designed to reassure the Arab allies of US support on a number of issues including talks with Iran and instability in several Arab states.
The official reason for the Saudi leader’s absence is that the summit coincides with a humanitarian cease-fire in Yemen, where a Saudi-led alliance is battling Shiite Houthi rebels.
Photo AP
President Barack Obama had planned to meet with King Salman on May 13 – the day before the summit was supposed to take place at Camp David, near Washington.
Leading the Saudi delegation now will be Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who also serves as the country’s interior minister.
King Salman’s son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, will also be in the delegation.
Separately, the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain, whose leadership has close ties to the Saudis, said that it would be sending its crown prince, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, to the meeting.
Bahrain plays host to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, which is Washington’s main maritime counterbalance to Iran, and is in charge of US operations around the Arabian Peninsula and northern Indian Ocean.
The Sultan of Oman and the President of the United Arab Emirates are both known to be very ill, and do not travel for non-medical purposes – and were not expected to attend.
The Kuwaiti emir, Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, will attend the summit and has already arrived in the Washington area.
Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, is expected to attend as well.
The Saudi king will likely call President Barack Obama on May 11 to talk about his decision not to attend the summit, the New York Times reported citing an anonymous White House official.
King Salman, who came to power in January, has not travelled outside of Saudi Arabia since assuming the throne.
Speaking to graduates at Tuskegee University in Alabama, Michelle Obama has talked about having to fight misperceptions when Barack Obama started running for president in 2008.
First Lady Michelle Obama says she had to deal with more scrutiny, because of the color of her skin.
On her commencement speech at the university, Michelle Obama described the kind of focus she found herself under.
“Back when my husband started campaigning for president, folks had all sorts of questions of me,” the first lady said.
“What kind of First Lady would I be, what kind of issues would I take on?” she said.
“The truth is those kind of questions would be posed to any candidate’s spouse, that’s just the way the process works.
“But as potentially the first African-American First Lady, I was also the focus of another set of questions and speculations, conversations sometimes rooted in the fears and misperceptions of others.
“Was I too loud, or too angry? Or too emasculating? Or was I too soft?
“But eventually I realized, if I wanted to keep my sanity, and not let others define me, there was only one thing I could do, and that was to have faith in God’s plan for me.”
Michelle Obama added: “I love our daughters more than anything in the world, and that may not be the first thing some folks want to hear from an Ivy League educated lawyer, it is truly who I am.
“By staying true to the me I’ve always known, I’ve found that this journey has been incredibly freeing, because no matter what happened I had the peace of mind of knowing that all of the chatter, the name calling the doubting, all of it was just noise.
“It did not define me, it didn’t change who I was, and most importantly it couldn’t hold me back.”
Just hours after the birth of the new royal princess on Saturday, May 2nd, messages of congratulations for Kate Middleton and Prince William keep pouring on.
The newest royal member came to the world at 8.34 BST at St, Mary’s Hospital in London, weighing 8lb 3 oz.
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle have extended their best wishes to second-time parents Prince William and Kate Middleton.
In a statement from the White House, Barack and Michelle Obama wished the duke and duchess “much joy and happiness on the occasion of the arrival of the newest member of their family”.
President Barack Obama said those who looted and started fires in Baltimore “should be treated like criminals”.
He also said police violence against African-Americans is a “slow-rolling crisis” after a night of violence in Baltimore.
The Baltimore rioting came after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a black man fatally injured in police custody in the city.
A week-long curfew has been announced and thousands of troops have been deployed to Baltimore.
The National Guard has been sent to Baltimore to stop unrest for the first time since 1968, when some of the city’s neighborhoods went up in flames after the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
About 200 people were arrested on April 27, when more than 100 cars were set alight and 15 buildings destroyed.
Photo AP
Barack Obama harshly criticized “a handful of people” for “senseless violence and destruction”.
“That is not a protest, that is not a statement, they are stealing.”
However, Barack Obama said the rioting had distracted from the frustration over Freddie Gray’s death.
“This has been a slow-rolling crisis. This has been going on for a long time. This is not new. And we shouldn’t pretend that it’s new,” Barack Obama said.
The president added such problems would not be solved just by changes to policing.
“It would require everybody saying this is important, this is significant, and that we don’t just pay attention to these communities when a CVS burns and we don’t just pay attention when a young man gets shot or has his spine snapped.”
At an afternoon briefing, Baltimore Captain Eric Kowalczyk was asked why the police had not responded with more resources to prevent fires and rioting.
Capt. Eric Kowalczyk said police had originally deployed for a “high school event”, expecting young students.
“I don’t think there’s anyone in the country that would expect us to deploy automatic weapons and armored vehicles to an event with 13, 14 and 15 year olds,” but saw it turned into an incident that drew in older troublemakers and escalated in violence.
Out of 235 arrests, 201 were adults, Capt. Eric Kowalczyk said.
He also noted there was a large group at a major intersection in Baltimore on April 28 who were protesting peacefully.
“That’s what we’re used to seeing in Baltimore.”
Volunteers and city workers began cleaning up affected areas on Tuesday morning. Smoke still rose from buildings set alight the night before.
Freddie Gray, 25, died on April 19 after suffering unexplained injuries to his spinal cord and spending a week in a coma.
Officials have suspended six police officers who were involved in the case.
Barack Obama’s unclassified emails were accessed by Russian hackers who gained access to the White House computer system last year were, the New York Times has reported.
The breach was far more intrusive than previously admitted, the newspaper wrote.
Officials have conceded that sensitive information was in the unclassified system the hackers accessed.
The discovery of the hacking in October 2014 led to a partial shutdown of the White House email system.
The New York Times wrote: “The hackers, who also got deeply into the State Department’s unclassified system, do not appear to have penetrated closely guarded servers that control the message traffic from Mr. Obama’s BlackBerry, which he or an aide carries constantly.”
“But they obtained access to the email archives of people inside the White House, and perhaps some outside, with whom Mr. Obama regularly communicated. From those accounts, they reached emails that the president had sent and received.”
The publication quoted White House officials as saying that no classified networks were compromised, and that the hackers accessed no classified information.
Many senior officials have two computers in their offices, one which works on a highly secure classified network and another for unclassified communications, the paper said.
However, officials have conceded that the unclassified system often contains information that is considered highly sensitive, including schedules, email exchanges with ambassadors and diplomats, debate about policy and forthcoming personnel deployments and legislation.
The White House has admitted that two hostages held by al-Qaeda were accidentally killed by a US counterterrorism operation in January.
American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto were killed in the raid in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
President Barack Obama described it as a painful loss he profoundly regretted.
Two other Americans thought to be al-Qaeda members were also killed, one of them in the same raid.
Al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Farouq was killed in that operation and Adam Gadahn, once regarded as a spokesman for the militant group, was killed in a separate raid, the White House said.
Unnamed officials told Associated Press the attack that killed the hostages was a CIA drone strike.
Barack Obama, speaking at the White House about the operation that killed the hostages, said the US had launched the raid in the belief the target was an al-Qaeda compound with no civilians present.
As commander-in-chief, the president said, he took “full responsibility” for the operation.
The White House said compensation would be paid to the families of the hostages.
Warren Weinstein’s wife Elaine said in a statement the family was “devastated”.
“Those who took Warren captive over three years ago bear ultimate responsibility,” she added.
Elaine Weinstein thanked several members of the US congress and unnamed officials from the FBI, but said the assistance received from “other elements of the US government was inconsistent and disappointing”.
She also criticized the Pakistani government and military who, she said, treated her husband’s captivity “as more of an annoyance than a priority”.
Barack Obama said the operation was in compliance with the White House’s counterterrorism protocols.
Warren Weinstein, 73, was abducted in Lahore in 2011, where he was working as an aid worker. Giovanni Lo Porto disappeared from Multan, Pakistan in January 2012. Both men were aid workers.
Cuba has welcomed US decision to remove it from the state department’s terror list, saying it should never have been on the list in the first place.
The move comes amid a normalization of ties between the US and Cuba.
Cuba’s presence on the list alongside Syria, Iran and Sudan was a sticking point for Cuba during talks to reopen embassies.
A US trade embargo against Cuba remains and can only be ended by Congress.
Barack Obama met Cuban President Raul Castro at the Summit of the Americas in Panama last week, four months after he announced a historic thaw in ties with the communist island nation.
He said on April 14 that the government of Cuba had “not provided any support for international terrorism” over the past six months.
Barack Obama added that it had “provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future”.
A statement from Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s top diplomat responsible for dealing with the US, said: “The Cuban government recognized the fair decision made by the president of the United States to eliminate Cuba from a list that it never should have been included on, especially considering our country has been the victim of hundreds of acts of terrorism that have cost 3,478 lives and maimed 2,099 citizens.”
In Havana, ordinary Cubans welcomed the move.
Cuba was first placed on the state department list in 1982, for what the US called efforts “to promote armed revolution by organizations that used terrorism”.
The US believes Cuba had long provided a safe haven for members of the Basque separatist group ETA and Colombia’s FARC guerrilla group, according to its 2013 Report on Terrorism.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the US still had differences with Cuban policies and actions, but they were not “relevant” to the terror list.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a candidate for the US presidency, condemned the White House decision, saying Cuba remained a state sponsor of terrorism.
President Barack Obama has told Latin American leaders that the days when the United States could freely interfere in regional affairs are past.
Barack Obama was speaking just before the VII Summit of the Americas in Panama City.
The US president and Cuban leader Raul Castro shook hands as the opening ceremony began, their first encounter since a December detente.
Barack Obama and Raul Castro’s historic formal talks due on April 11 could be overshadowed by tensions between Venezuela and the US.
The US president told a forum of civil society leaders in Panama City that “the days in which our agenda in this hemisphere presumed that the United States could meddle with impunity, those days are past”.
At past Summits of the Americas, which bring together the leaders of North, Central and South America, the US has come in for criticism for its embargo against Cuba and its objection to having Cuba participate in the gatherings.
This seventh summit is the first which Cuba will attend and much of the attention will be focused on the body language between the former foes.
Barack Obama’s speech before the summit came a day after the State Department recommended that Cuba be removed from the US lists of countries which sponsor terrorism.
President Barack Obama is set for a key meeting with his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro in Panama.
Delegations of 35 nations from North, Central and South America are gathering in Panama for what is being billed as a “historic” Summit of the Americas.
Barack Obama and Raul Castro will meet for the first time since a recent thaw in US-Cuba relations.
The two shook hands once before, at Nelson Mandela’s funeral in 2013.
On April 10, Barack Obama and Raul Castro spoke on the phone after arriving in Panama City, according to a Facebook post by Jorge Leganoa, the deputy director of Cuba’s state-run National Information Agency.
He provided no additional details but White House officials confirmed to news agencies the call had taken place.
The White House has been playing coy, saying that while there are no plans for any formal one-to-one meetings between the two presidents, there may well be an opportunity to “meet on the margins”.
Meanwhile, the State Department has recommended Cuba be removed from the US list of countries which sponsor terrorism.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and Secretary of State John Kerry held closed-door discussions in Panama, in the highest level meeting between the two countries in more than half a century.
Meanwhile, the US state department has reportedly recommended that Cuba be removed from its list of states said to sponsor terrorism.
Such a move could pave the way for the two countries re-opening embassies.
President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro are also due to hold their first formal meeting at the Summit of the Americas in Panama over the coming days.
Few details have emerged from the meeting between John Kerry and Bruno Rodriguez. The last comparable high-level meeting was in 1959, when Fidel Castro met then Vice-President Richard Nixon.
Diplomatic ties froze two years later, but last year Barack Obama announced that a “new chapter” in relations would commence.
Meanwhile Senator Ben Cardin, a leading member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said the US State Department had recommended removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The move was “the result of a months-long technical review” and would be “an important step forward in our efforts to forge a more fruitful relationship with Cuba”, he said.
Cuba is one of four countries still on the US list of countries accused of repeatedly supporting global terrorism; Iran, Sudan and Syria are others.
The communist country was first put on the list in 1982 for offering sanctuary to militant ETA Basque separatists and Colombian Farc rebels.
Removing Cuba from the list could lead to the easing of financial restrictions on Cuba’s access to loans and aid.
If Barack Obama opts to accept the state department’s recommendations, Congress would have 45 days to decide whether to override him.
The president faces fierce critics of his Cuban policy at home, such as from Cuban-American Ted Cruz, who is a Republican presidential candidate.
Correspondents say removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism will throw a stark light on the US’s relations with Venezuela.
The Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro hopes to bring a petition signed by 10 million of his citizens urging Barack Obama to remove an order imposing sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials accused of human rights abuses in an opposition crackdown.
Venezuela has many friends at the summit and other Latin American nations have criticized the order, which calls Caracas a US national security threat.
Barack Obama has tried to reduce tensions with Venezuela ahead of the summit, saying the US did not perceive the country as a threat.
President Barack Obama has visited the Bob Marley museum in Jamaica.
Barack Obama became the first US president to visit Jamaica since 1982.
To the strains of the late reggae star’s One Love, Barack Obama was shown around the sprawling house in Kingston that was Bob Marley’s final home.
Barack Obama said he was a fan of Bob Marley, telling his museum guide: “I still have all the albums.”
The president is in Jamaica to meet the 15-member Caribbean Community bloc.
Barack Obama’s first stop after landing in Kingston was the old Victorian-style house that Bob Marley called home between 1975 and his death in 1981.
The president spent 20 minutes in the museum, which now houses artifacts from Bob Marley’s life including gold records and his Grammy Lifetime Achievement award.
Barack Obama’s arrival aboard Air Force One on April 8 made him the first sitting US president to set foot in Jamaica since Ronald Reagan visited 33 years ago.
He was greeted by Jamaican PM Portia Simpson-Miller and the US Ambassador to Jamaica, Luis Moreno.
Barack Obama will meet representatives of the 15 countries in the Caribbean Community group on the three-day trip to Jamaica and Panama, and is expected to discuss energy and security issues.
Kids listening to President Barack Obama’s story during the White House Easter egg roll started screaming in horror as a bee interrupted their activity.
Barack Obama, who was reading from Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, laughed as he tried to calm the youngsters down.
Photo Reuters
“Wait wait wait wait,” the president said, laughing.
“Hold on! Hold on! You guys are wild things! You aren’t supposed to be scared of bees when you’re a wild thing!”
“Bees are good. They won’t land on you. They won’t sting you. They’ll be okay,” Barack Obama said.
President Barack Obama and World No 5 Caroline Wozniacki played tennis at the White House as part of the annual Easter Egg Roll event on April 6.
Caroline Wozniacki took part at this year’s themed #gimmefive campaign aimed at promoting more active and healthy lifestyles among American people.
Photo Reuters
This year’s White House Easter Egg Roll was broadcast on Live! with Kelly and Michael.
Rolling Easter eggs on the White House South Lawn is one of the most eagerly anticipated spring events in Washington DC.
The White House hosts the Easter Egg Roll every year, inviting children and their parents to come and hunt for eggs, take part in sports activities and enjoy celebrity appearances.
President Barack Obama and his family will host the 137th annual White House Easter Egg Roll on Monday, April 6, 2015.
According to the White House’s website, this year’s theme is #GimmeFive, and more than 35,000 people will gather on the South Lawn to join in the celebrations.
The event will feature sports and fitness zones, cooking demonstrations, and Easter classics such as the egg roll and egg hunt, live music and storytelling.
The day’s activities will encourage children to lead healthy, active lives in support of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative.
Tickets for the White House Easter Egg Roll were provided free of charge and were distributed via an online lottery hosted on www.recreation.gov.
Five Girl Scouts from Tulsa, Oklahoma, wowed President Barack Obama with a page-turning robot built out of Legos for the disabled at the White House Science Fair on March 23.
Wearing Superman red capes over their Girl Scout uniforms, the 6-year-olds showed off a page-turning robot, made from Lego blocks and designed for use by disabled people.
Photo AP
As the president toured the three dozen exhibits, he splashed water in a wave tank to demonstrate how a lakeside power-generating system works, and got the lowdown on the science behind the show.
A couple of the projects featured robots, including one that catches and throws balls.
This was the fifth White House Science Fair, which Barack Obama said was the “most fun event of the year”.
The president took the opportunity to tout science, technology, engineering and math education, also known as STEM, and touted his administration’s STEM initiatives as well.
President Barack Obama cheered at the Princeton against Wisconsin-Green Bay women’s college basketball game in the first round of the NCAA tournament in College Park, Maryland, March 21.
Barack Obama’s niece Leslie Robinson plays for Princeton.
Charlie Sheen took to Twitter on March 19 to vent his frustration with President Barack Obama’s appearance on ESPN’s SportsCenter.
Barack Obama was engaging in his annual tradition of filling out the NCAA tourney bracket on live television.
The Two and a Half Men star tweeted: “Barry Satera Kenya u won’t attend a soldier’s funeral uhkros da street that u kild yet u hav time 4 brackets? s a d c.”
Barack Obama has an annual tradition of participating in March Madness, an issue that has irked conservatives who also routinely criticize the president for playing golf.
Prince Charles and his wife Camilla met President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden at the White House’s Oval Office.
Barack Obama has told the Prince of Wales of the “fondness” of American people for the Royal Family.
The president joked during the White House meeting that some “liked them much better than their own politicians”.
Barack Obama and Prince Charles last met four years ago when the king-in-waiting flew to the US a few days after the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
Photo Fox News
Prince Charles also visited an adult education school and took part in 10-pin bowling during this part of his four-day US “goodwill” tour.
On March 19, Prince Charles visited the Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School in Washington DC, which provides education and training for the capital’s adult immigrant population.
He played 10-pin bowling during his tour of the city’s US Armed Forces Retirement Home.
The six-lane bowling alley is designed to provide exercise for the veterans who live at the home.
Earlier in their tour, Prince Charles and Camilla visited monuments to Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. and were joined by figures from the American civil rights movement, Jesse Jackson and Congressman John Lewis.
President Barack Obama talked about a mandatory voting in the US during his speech at the City Club of Cleveland on March 18.
The president attended talks on middle-class economics and manufacturing at Cleveland Convention Center.
Just ask Australia, where citizens have no choice but to vote, the president said.
“If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country,” Barack Obama said, calling it potentially transformative.
Not only that, Barack Obama said, but universal voting would “counteract money more than anything”.
Disproportionately, Americans who skip the polls on Election Day are younger, lower-income and more likely to be immigrants or minorities, the president said.
“There’s a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls,” Barack Obama said in a veiled reference to efforts in a number of Republican-led states to make it harder for people to vote.
Less than 37% of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2014 midterms, according to the United States Election Project. And a Pew Research Center study found that those avoiding the polls in 2014 tended to be younger, poorer, less educated and more racially diverse.
At least two dozen countries have some form of compulsory voting, including Belgium, Brazil and Argentina.
In many systems, absconders must provide a valid excuse or face a fine, although a few countries have laws on the books that allow for potential imprisonment.
President Barack Obama made fun of his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her recent problems with email in a satirical speech at this year’s Gridiron diner on March 14.
Barack Obama joined Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a potential Republican contender for the 2016 presidential election, and Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe of Virginia for the annual Gridiron dinner, an evening of song and skits making light of major players in US politics.
The president joked that his reputation for being a tech-savvy president had now been eclipsed by his one-time foe Hillary Clinton, who has come under fire for using a private email account for her work as secretary of state.
“If you think about how things have changed since 2008, back then I was the young tech-savvy candidate of the future. Now I’m yesterday’s news and Hillary’s got a server in her house!”
“I am so far behind,” Barack Obama said.
Photo AFP/Getty Images
Scott Walker also had some fun with Hillary Clinton’s email controversy, tying her to wealthy Wall Street donors.
“I even have Hillary’s private email,” he said.
“It goes right to her campaign headquarters. You know, it’s [email protected],” Scott Walker added.
He quipped that the joke was written by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is known for crusading against Wall Street, and who some Democrats hope will challenge Hillary Clinton.
Barack Obama, feeling loose with less than two years left in office, noted criticism that he had taken a “selfie” photo in a viral video promoting his health insurance program, but he turned the tables on Republican senators who sent a letter to Iran warning them against a nuclear deal the president hopes to secure.
“You don’t diminish your office by taking a selfie. You do it by sending a poorly written letter to Iran,” Barack Obama said.
Barack Obama also ribbed Vice President Joe Biden for his touchy-feely habits. Joe Biden drew criticism for massaging the shoulders of the wife of incoming Defense Secretary Ash Carter at his swearing-in ceremony.
“Joe rubs my shoulders, too,” Barack Obama said.
Barack Obama jabbed Scott Walker for dodging a question during a recent trip to London on whether he believed in evolution.
“I absolutely believe in the theory of evolution – when it comes to gay marriage,” the president said.
Barack Obama came out in favor of gay marriage in 2012 after many years of what he described as a personal evolution in his thinking about the subject.
The Gridiron Club and Foundation, founded in 1885, is the oldest organizations of journalists in Washington. Membership is by invitation only.
President Barack Obama has condemned the criminal acts in Ferguson, Missouri, one night after two police officers at a protest were shot.
Barack Obama said the protesters had “legitimate grievances” but described the shooters as “criminals” who should be arrested.
The shootings on March 11 happened during a demonstration after it was announced Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson would resign.
Further protests on March 12 passed peacefully. The two officers have been released from hospital.
The protests are the latest of many in the city since a policeman shot dead Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in August 2014.
Police Chief Thomas Jackson quit one week after a Justice Department report alleged widespread racial bias in his department and the city’s court system.
Protesters gathered outside the police station after Thomas Jackson’s resignation was announced.
Photo AP
Late on Wednesday, one officer was shot in the face and the other was hit in the shoulder as protestors were heading home for the night.
“I think that what had been happening in Ferguson was oppressive and objectionable and was worthy of protest. But there was no excuse for criminal acts,” President Barack Obama said on the Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC.
“Whoever fired those shots shouldn’t detract from the issue; they’re criminals,” he added.
Tensions have been high in Ferguson since August and escalated in November after a grand jury declined to prosecute Officer Darren Wilson for Michael Brown’s killing.
On March 12, protesters held a candlelight vigil for all victims of violence. They later marched to the police department while beating drums and chanting.
There were no rows of police officers in riot gear unlike previous demonstrations.
Ferguson police temporarily ceded security responsibilities for the protests to state troopers and county police.
The protests ended without a single arrest about 23:00 local time.
President Barack Obama emailed with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton but was unaware of how her personal email address was set up, the White House said on March 9.
Josh Earnest told reporters that Barack Obama emailed to Hillary Clinton’s private address and did not know how the secretary of State planned to comply with the Federal Records Act with regards to private emails about official State Department business.
“The president did email with Secretary Clinton,” Earnest said, who said the number of emails was not large.
“The president did, as I think many people expected, did over the course of his first several years in office exchange emails with his secretary of state,” the White House press secretary said.
Barack Obama emailed to Hillary Clinton’s private address (Photo AP)
All exchanges between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were maintained by the White House under the Presidential Records Act, Josh Earnest said.
The comments come amid a budding controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email address hosted on a home server while serving as the nation’s top diplomat. The email controversy has cast a shadow over her all-but-certain presidential bid and provoked questions about tensions between her and the Obama administration.
The State Department did not initially retain records of Hillary Clinton’s personal emails.
Hillary Clinton’s team recently selected and turned over 55,000 pages of emails in response to a State Department request.
Barack Obama told CBS News on March 8 that he learned of Hillary Clinton’s use of her personal email address for official business “the same time everybody else learned about it through news reports”.
President Barack Obama has paid tributes to the “heroes” who took part in the Selma civil rights march in Alabama 50 years ago.
Barack Obama delivered a speech commemorating “Bloody Sunday” on March 7, 1965, when security forces attacked black demonstrators in the city.
The president said the marchers, who were campaigning for equal voting rights, had “given courage to millions”.
First Lady Michelle Obama and about 100 members of Congress also attended the event.
“Because of what they did, the doors of opportunity swung open not just for African-Americans, but for every American,” Barack Obama said, standing in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge where the violence took place.
A crowd of some 40,000 people watched as Barack Obama and his family led a symbolic walk across part of the bridge, accompanied by those who had made the march in 1965.
Police beat and used tear gas on demonstrators as they made their way over the crossing, on a day that became known as “Bloody Sunday”.
That event, and a follow-up march from Selma to Montgomery two weeks later, helped build momentum for approval of the Voting Rights Act by Congress later that year.
The legislation, pushed by President Lyndon Johnson, removed all barriers preventing African-Americans from registering as voters.
Barack Obama reminded the American public that despite progress the fight against racism was not over.
He addressed the recent police killings of unarmed black men and teenagers, which had triggered protests in several US cities.
“This nation’s long racial history still casts its long shadow upon us. We know the march is not yet over, the race is not yet won,” he said.
Barack Obama’s comments followed demonstrations in the northern state of Wisconsin on March 6, triggered by reports that a black man had been shot by a police officer.
The 19-year-old, identified as Tony Robinson, was unarmed according to police. It is alleged he assaulted the officer before shots were fired.
Barack Obama also condemned new attempts by state governments to restrict voting rights.
“Right now, in 2015, 50 years after Selma, there are laws across this country designed to make it harder for people to vote. As we speak, more of such laws are being proposed,” he said.
“Meanwhile, the Voting Rights Act, the culmination of so much blood and sweat and tears… stands weakened, its future subject to partisan rancor.”
Georgia congressman John Lewis, a Democrat who was among those injured in the violence 50 years ago, also addressed the crowd of more than 40,000.
He said: “I want to thank each and every one of you who marched across the bridge on Bloody Sunday. You didn’t have to do but you did.
“Six hundred people marched into history. We were so peaceful, so quiet. No-one saying a word.
“We were beaten, tear gassed, some of us were left bloody here on this bridge. But we never became bitter or hostile.”
President George W. Bush – who was in office between 2001 and 2009 – also took part in the commemorations.
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