Today President Obama sign into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, legislation that will extend new federal protections to people who are victims of violent crime because of their sex or sexual orientation. It is an update to the federal hate crimes act that Congress first passed in 1968. For the first time, the law that before it protected people from attacks motivated by race, religion or ethnicity will also protects gay, lesbian, transgender and disabled people.

The President will host a reception commemorating the performance of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act in the East Room of the White House this evening.

PRESIDENT OBAMA is planned to sign Wednesday what is being described as the nation's first significant pro-gay rights legislation. Attached to the defense authorization act, the measure could add sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability to the list of protected classes under the 1969 federal hate-crimes law…

The law does not outlaw bigotry or "thought crimes." It applies only to "violent acts motivated by" the characteristics of the victim - act, not thoughts or speech. But crimes that target someone because of race or sexual orientation are extra offenses against that individual. They can terrorize complete communities.

The Obama daughters have gotten their swine flu shots.

The White House has been weighing how to address public interest in whether the first family has been vaccinated against swine flu.

President Obama and his wife, Michelle, will “wait until the needs of the priority groups” - including young people under 24, pregnant women and people with causal illnesses - have been met. But daughters Malia, 11, and Sasha, 8, fall within the priority groups, and they received their injections last week from the White House doctor, who apply for the vaccine through the District of Columbia Department of Health “using the same process as every other vaccination site in the District.”

The vaccinations could raise questions about whether the Obama girls were given special treatment, as the administration grapples with concern that the vaccine is not more readily available. (Officials say the holdup is with manufacturers, whose production procedure has been slower than anticipated.) While there are lines at vaccination clinics in the capital, a spokesperson for the Health Department said no one who fell into a priority group had been turned away.

Responding to a dramatic surge in the number of U.S. swine flu cases, President Barack Obama has sign a proclamation declaring H1N1 influenza a national emergency.

The order by Mr. Obama, announced on the weekend, will speed the ability of hospitals and health establishment to take measures to fight the pandemic through such steps as setting up tents in hospital parking lots to establish extra emergency room care and creating health clinics in school gymnasiums or community centres.

"The rates of illness continue to increase rapidly within many communities across the nation, and the potential exists for the pandemic to overburden health care resources in some locations," Mr. Obama said in the declaration.

The White House said in a statement that the declaration will allow medical centers to deal with a surge in H1N1 patients by allowing, as needed, the waiver of certain federal health requirements.

Barack Obama and the Flying Circus is a perfect term to explain current President of the United States and his prominent cabinet.

For the past year and a partly every single day was and still is about Barack Obama and his extravaganza. Days just doesn’t go by without hearing about Obama.

What did Obama say? What did Obama do? In addition, we have witnessed media madness for Obama's dog, Obama's citizenship, Obama's family, Obama's religion, Obama's cabinet, Obama's associates, among others.

However, this ongoing entertainment and late night shows by Obama and his sidekicks are not charming anymore.

And, in return for his surprising global entertainment, Barack Obama got a present from his circus-men: his first Nobel Peace Prize.

Instead of an Oscar or Emmy, he gets, yes, the Nobel Prize.

The award came as a surprised even to the President Obama himself, he said: "To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures".

It is not so important that Barack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize, since the Nobel Prize lost its original meaning long moment ago. But, most frightening is that people who support this prize and speak about peace forget the meaning of the word "Peace".

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set Wednesday to outline key steps Washington will take to fulfill President Barack Obama's vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.

In a speech in Washington, Clinton will show how the world will be safer through a new US-Russia nuclear arms reduction treaty as well as broader ratification of a treaty banning nuclear weapons tests, officials said.

"It's going to be an important opportunity for the secretary to lay out our priorities to implement the president's vision at Prague," Clinton's spokesman Ian Kelly said Tuesday.

In a speech in the Czech capital on April 5, Obama pledged to lead a quest for a world purged of atomic weapons when he unveiled a plan to cut stockpiles, curtail testing, choke fissile production and secure loose nuclear material.

A new review conference for the NPT is planned for next year.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said these also include approval of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the start of work on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty.

Why then is so much controversy, even scorn, being pour on the heads of the members of Nobel Committee, who selected United States President Barack Obama as this year's winner of the Peace Prize? How come so many Americans find themselves disagreeing with the option and even ridiculing their president, instead of hailing the chief for joining such a select band of individuals? Answers abound.

For first thing, the award came out of the proverbial blue. Few people at house or abroad expected that Obama, in office for less than a year, would have been selected. But surprise isn't a best reason for spewing vitriol.

For another, the president's bitter opponents, particularly the powerful extreme right wing, can't find a single thing to accept with grace when it comes to Obama.

Thirdly, it was an implicit shot by the Nobel Committee to the standard-bearer of the Republican right, previous President George W Bush. Obama's selection was asking to rubbing salt into an open wound.

Clearly, the president was an excellent option. His trips to Europe, Central America, Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and other regions of the world have brightened the prospects of global peace.

President Obama visit New Orleans on Thursday for the first time since taking office, to address rebuilding efforts in the city ravaged by Hurricane Katrina four years ago.

During his trip, Obama will visit a charter school and host a town hall meeting to hear residents' concern, the White House said.

The president's visit will focus on efforts to assist rebuild the Gulf Coast, including cutting red tape and easing funding so residents can become self-sufficient.

"The president made a promise to come to New Orleans and wanted to complete that promise as soon as his schedule allowed," said Nicholas Shapiro, White House spokesman.

In order for President Obama to increase a full understanding of the challenges we are facing in our recovery, he needs to extend his planned visit to New Orleans, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Metairie, said at a news conference Monday.

Shapiro said the administration is committed to serving Gulf Coast residents, and has ensured financial assistance to the area.

More than $1 billion in Recovery Act money has been targeted for New Orleans, funding approximately 1,000 projects - work on roads, bridges, Army Corps construction, schools, and health centers and more, he said.

Congress took a historic step toward overhauling the founder U. S. health-care system yesterday; when Democrats on a key Senate committee - backed by a lone Republican moderate - approved compromise legislation aimed at extend medical coverage to most Americans.

But after months of backroom bartering, the big issue in the politically charged debate remains unresolved - the fate of a government-run insurance option endorsed by President Barack Obama.

Mr. Obama has good reason to remain cautious about the final outcomes of the health-care debate.

The Senate finance committee was the last of five congressional panels to finish the work on the legislation, marking the first time in decades Congress has come this close to producing such far-reaching health-care legislation.

In the more liberal House of Representatives, the Democratic leadership is almost certain to include a public-insurance option in a last version of three competing bills approved at a lower level.

People who refuse to buy insurance could face maximum fines of US$750 an adult and US$1,900 a family, though the harshest penalties are delayed until 2017.

President Barack Obama spoke Saturday at the yearly fundraiser for the gay-activist Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

The president told the crowd he supports the gay activist event.

"When you look back on these years," he said, "you will see a time in which we as a nation lastly recognized relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman."

Obama promised that he would end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the Clinton-era policy that permits gay men and women to serve in the armed forces as long as they don't reveal their sexual orientation.

Robert Knight, senior writer for Coral Ridge Ministries, said the president is just trying to please a powerful and vocal constituency.

The president also promised to pass hate-crimes legislation and cancel the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

He said those who support marriage between one man and one woman "hold fast to outworn arguments and old attitudes."

"That would be the Bible," said Knight. "All people who think it's normal and usual for marriage to be between a man and a woman, the president of the United States is saying that's old and outworn."

U.S. President Barack Obama's top economic adviser said on Monday the United States is on the path toward economic recovery, conditions in financial markets are steadier and there has been initial signs of stabilization in the housing market.

"Thanks largely to the Recovery Act, alongside an aggressive financial stabilization plan and a program to keep responsible homeowners in their houses, we have walked a substantial distance back from the economic abyss and are on the path toward economic recovery," Larry Summers said in a letter to be sent to Republican House Leader John Boehner that amounted to a defense of the Democratic Obama administration's policies on the economy.

The U.S. economy lost jobs at a monthly regular rate of 256,000 in the third quarter of 2009, which summers termed "unacceptably high." But he noted it was nearly a third of the pace of job losses of two quarters ago.

One dilemma for Obama is that Republicans, seizing on increasing in the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent, argue that the $787 billion stimulus package passed earlier this year was ineffective. Republicans are pushing for additional tax cuts as the result to the country's economic woes.

President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his amazing efforts to make stronger global diplomacy and support between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempt to curb nuclear proliferation.

The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and surprised Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nominate deadline. Obama's name had been mention in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.

The Nobel committee praise Obama's creation of "a new climate in international politics" and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions like the U.N. to the center of the world stage. The plaudit appearing a slap at President George W. Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for resorting to largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year's prize though it was not immediately apparent who nominated Barrack Obama.

President Barack Obama is ready to accept a role for the Taliban in Afghanistan's political future in a major shift of policy towards the Islamic radicals who are attacking US and British troops, it has been reported.

As he assess a request from his top commander in Afghanistan to dispatch one more 40,000 troops to fight the Taliban, he is also "inclined" to send only as a lot of as needed to keep al-Qaeda at bay.

The assessment was given to the Associated Press by a senior official involved in Mr Obama's discussions with his top national safety and military advisors about Afghanistan strategy.

There is believed to be a rising favor in his war council for differentiating between native Afghan Taliban factions and the foreign extremists of al-Qaeda. Several of the president's advisors are arguing that the Taliban are predominantly fighting against what is perceived as Nato "occupation" while it is al Qaeda that poses a threat to US defence.

Aides have made clear that Mr Obama is improbable to reach a final decision on strategy and troop numbers before the end of October.

But it seems more and more unlikely that he will grant the request from Gen Stanley McChrystal, the commander he appointed only this summer, for an extra 40,000 US troops to join the 68,000 who will already be in Afghanistan by the end of the year.

Obama Plan will do for you:
• Reducing High Out-of-Pocket expenses
• Forbid the "Rationing" of profit by Insurance Companies
• Benefit Small Businesses, Not Burden to any of Them
• Make a Level Playing Filed for Small Businesses to Cover Their Employees
• avoid Gender Discrimination
• Not Allow Coverage to by drop for Seriously Ill
• Avoid Pre-Existing Condition Discrimination
• Offer No-Cost Sharing for Preventive Care
• Reduce Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage
• Give Extended Coverage for Young Adults
• Offer Guaranteed Insurance Renewal
• Make an Independent Commission to Identify waste, fraud and abuse
• Offers Low Cost Insurance Through a "High-Risk" Pool for public with Pre-Existing Conditions
• Provide an Affordable Public Option to The Uninsured
• Protect Families From Debt or Bankruptcy Due to Health Care Costs
Obama Plan Will Not Do:
• Lead to a "government takeover" of Health Care
• In Any Way Encourage or Require Euthanasia
• Not Cut Medicare profit
• Not Add to the Deficit, but Will Actually eliminate Long-Term Costs

As the world celebrate International Day of non-violence, US President Barack Obama on Thursday said America has its "roots in the India of Mahatma Gandhi."

"His teachings and ideals, shared with Martin Luther King Jr. on his 1959 pilgrimage to India, transformed American society through our civil rights movement," Obama said on the time of the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Americans owe huge gratitude to Gandhi, he said.

"The America of today has its roots in the India of Mahatma Gandhi and the nonviolence social action movement for Indian independence which he led," Obama said on a statement.

On behalf of the American people, Obama said he need to express appreciation for the life and lessons of Mahatma Gandhi on the anniversary of his birth. "This is an important moment to reflect on his message of non-violence, which continues to inspire people and political movements across the globe," obama said.

"We join the people of India in celebrates this great soul who lived a life dedicated to the cause of advancing justice, showing tolerance to all, and creating change through non-violent resistance," Obama said.

As the world remember the Mahatma on his birthday, Obama said: "We must renew our commitment to live his ideals and to celebrate the dignity of all human beings".

Americans listen to their doctors and nurses when it comes to health reform - and for good reason. If we could help them amplify their voices, it'll be a huge boost to our campaign for change.

So we're working on a new television ad featuring their voices explaining why doctors and nurses so powerfully support President Obama's plan - and asking Congress to pass it. We'll run the ad in key states and districts all around the country to prove folks where health professionals stand, cut through the spin, and build even greater support for reform.

The American Medical Association, Doctors for America, and a dozen other physicians groups representing 500,000 doctors are endorsing the reform. So are the American Nurses Association and other organization representing millions of Nurses.

But the final congressional committee could vote on their reform bill as early as Wednesday - and debate on final legislation can start by the end of the week. So if we're going to assist make these doctors and nurses' voices heard, we'll need to do it right now.