title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: In an article written for "The Independent" in 1998, journalist Yvonne Roberts observed the sudden change in people's opinion of Diana after her death from critical to complimentary, a viewpoint supported by Theodore Dalrymple, who also noticed the "sudden shift from cruel personal abuse to absurdly exaggerated respect". Roberts also questioned whether she had achieved anything different from other members of the royal family and added that Diana was neither "a saint" nor "a revolutionary" figure, but "may have encouraged some people" to tackle issues such as landmines, AIDS and leprosy. While analysing the impact of Diana's death and her extraordinary popularity from a gendered point of view, British historian Ludmilla Jordanova said: "To be an ideal, to be living for and on behalf of others is a terrible burden; it makes impossible, irreconcilable emotional demands – no human being can survive the complex forces that impact upon charismatic women." Jordanova also observed that "Diana herself was not anti-establishment" and that is "Better to remember her by trying to decipher how emotions overshadow analysis and why women are the safeguards of humanitarian feelings." Author Anne Applebaum believed that Diana has not had any impact on public opinions posthumously; an idea supported by Jonathan Freedland of "The Guardian" who also wrote in his article that Diana's memory and influence started to fade away in the years after her death, while Peter Conrad, another "Guardian" contributor, argued that even in "a decade after her death, she is still not silent", and Allan Massie of "The Telegraph" described Diana as "the celebrity of celebrities" whose sentiments "continue to shape our society". Writing for "The Guardian", Monica Ali described Diana as "a one-off, fascinating and flawed. Her legacy might be mixed, but it's not insubstantial. Her life was brief, but she left her mark".


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: Diana was a fashion icon whose style was emulated by women around the world. Iain Hollingshead of "The Telegraph" wrote: "[Diana] had an ability to sell clothes just by looking at them." An early example of the effect occurred during her courtship with Charles in 1980 when sales of Hunter Wellington boots skyrocketed after she was pictured wearing a pair on the Balmoral estate. According to designers and people who worked with Diana, she used fashion and style to endorse her charitable causes, express herself and communicate. Diana remains a prominent figure for her fashion style, impacting recent cultural and style trends.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: The princess's fashion combined classically royal expectations with contemporary fashion trends in Britain. While on diplomatic trips, her clothes and attire were chosen to match the destination countries' costumes, and while off-duty she used to wear loose jackets and jumpers. "She was always very thoughtful about how her clothes would be interpreted, it was something that really mattered to her", according to Anna Harvey, a former British "Vogue" editor and Diana's fashion mentor. Her fashion sense originally incorporated decorous and romantic elements, with pastel shades and lush gowns. Elements of her fashion rapidly became trends. She forwent certain traditions, such as wearing gloves during engagements, and sought to create a wardrobe that helped her to connect with the public. According to Donatella Versace who worked closely with Diana alongside her brother, Diana's interest and sense of curiosity about fashion grew significantly after her marital separation. Her style subsequently grew bolder and more businesslike, featuring structured skirt suits, sculptural gowns, and neutral tones designed to reflect attention toward her charity work.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: Catherine Walker was among Diana's favourite designers with whom she worked to create her "royal uniform". Among her favoured designers were Versace, Armani, Chanel, Dior, Gucci and Clarks. Her iconic outfits include a cocktail dress by Christina Stambolian, commonly known as the "Revenge dress", which she wore after Charles's admission of adultery, as well as an evening gown by Victor Edelstein that she wore to a reception at the White House and later became known as the "Travolta dress. Copies of Diana's British "Vogue"-featured pink chiffon blouse by David and Elizabeth Emanuel, which appeared in the magazine on her engagement announcement day, sold in the millions. She appeared on three British "Vogue" covers during her lifetime and was featured on its October 1997 issue posthumously. She was also featured in the cover story for the July 1997 issue of "Vanity Fair". Diana did her own makeup for events, and was accompanied by a hairstylist for public appearances. In the 1990s, Diana was frequently photographed clutching distinctive handbags manufactured by Gucci and Dior, which became known as the Gucci Diana and Lady Dior.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: Following the opening of an exhibition of Diana's clothes and dresses at Kensington Palace in 2017, Catherine Bennett of "The Guardian" said such exhibitions are among the suitable ways to commemorate public figures whose fashion styles were noted due to their achievements. The exhibition suggests to detractors who, like many other princesses, "looking lovely in different clothes was pretty much her life's work" which also brings interest in her clothing. Versace also pointed out that "[she doesn't] think that anyone, before or after her, has done for fashion what Diana did". One of Diana's favourite milliners, John Boyd, said "Diana was our best ambassador for hats, and the entire millinery industry owes her a debt." Boyd's pink tricorn hat Diana wore for her honeymoon was later copied by milliners across the world and credited with rebooting an industry in decline for decades.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: Fashion collections for ASOS.com, Off-White and Tory Burch, have been inspired by the princess's style. The Princess was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1989. In 2004, "People" cited her as one of the all-time most beautiful women. In 2012, "Time" included Diana on its All-Time 100 Fashion Icons list.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: Immediately after her death, many sites around the world became briefly "ad hoc" memorials to Diana where the public left flowers and other tributes. Her son, Prince William, has stated that the outpouring of public grief after her death "changed the British psyche, for the better", while journalist Alastair Campbell noted that it assisted in diminishing "the stiff upper lip approach". The largest memorial was outside the gates of Kensington Palace, where people continue to leave flowers and tributes. Permanent memorials include:


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: The "Flame of Liberty" was erected in 1989 on the Place de l'Alma in Paris above the entrance to the tunnel in which the fatal crash later occurred. It became an unofficial memorial to Diana. The Place de l'Alma was renamed Place Diana princesse de Galles in 2019.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: There were two memorials inside Harrods department store, commissioned by Dodi Fayed's father, who owned the store from 1985 to 2010. The first memorial was a pyramid-shaped display containing photos of the princess and al-Fayed's son, a wine glass said to be from their last dinner, and a ring purchased by Dodi the day prior to the crash. The second, "Innocent Victims", unveiled in 2005, was a bronze statue of Fayed dancing with Diana on a beach beneath the wings of an albatross. In January 2018, it was announced that the statue would be returned to the Al-Fayed family.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: In 1998, several countries issued postage stamps commemorating Diana, including the UK, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Somalia, and Congo.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: In November 2002, a £4,000 bronze plaque was unveiled by Earl Spencer at Northampton Guildhall as a memorial to his sister. In February 2013, OCAD University in Toronto announced that its new 25,000-square-foot arts centre would be named the Princess of Wales Visual Arts Centre. Princess Diana Drive was named in her memory in Trenton, New Jersey. Diana's granddaughters, Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana (born 2015) and Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor (born 2021), as well as her niece, Lady Charlotte Diana Spencer (born 2012), are named after her.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: On 29 September 2021 a blue plaque, placed in her honour by English Heritage, was unveiled at her former flat 60 Coleherne Court, Old Brompton Road, London.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: Before and after her death, Diana has been depicted in contemporary art. The first biopics about Diana and Charles were "" and "The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana" that were broadcast on American TV channels on 17 and 20 September 1981, respectively. In December 1992, ABC aired "", a TV movie about marital discord between Diana and Charles. In the 1990s, British magazine "Private Eye" called her "Cheryl" and Prince Charles "Brian".


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: In July 1999, Tracey Emin created a number of monoprint drawings featuring textual references about Diana's public and private life for "Temple of Diana", a themed exhibition at The Blue Gallery, London. Works such as "They Wanted You To Be Destroyed" (1999) related to Diana's bulimia, while others included affectionate texts such as "Love Was on Your Side" and Diana's "Dress with puffy sleeves". Another text praised her selflessness—"The things you did to help other people", showing Diana in protective clothing walking through a minefield in Angola—while another referenced the conspiracy theories. Of her drawings, Emin maintained "They're quite sentimental... and there's nothing cynical about it whatsoever."


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: In 2005, Martín Sastre premiered during the Venice Biennale the film "". This fictional work starts with the world discovering Diana alive and enjoying a happy undercover new life in a dangerous cantegril on the outskirts of Montevideo. Shot at an Uruguayan slum using a Diana impersonator from São Paulo, the film was selected by the Italian Art Critics Association as one of the Venice Biennial's best works.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: In 2007, following an earlier series referencing the conspiracy theories, Stella Vine created a series of Diana paintings for her first major solo exhibition at Modern Art Oxford gallery. Vine intended to portray Diana's combined strength and vulnerability as well as her closeness to her two sons. The works, all completed in 2007, included "Diana branches", "Diana family picnic", "Diana veil", "Diana crash" and "Diana pram", which incorporates the quotation "I vow to thee my country". Vine asserted her own abiding attraction to "the beauty and the tragedy of Diana's life".


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: The 2007 docudrama "" details the final two months of her life. She is portrayed by Irish actress Genevieve O'Reilly. On an October 2007 episode of "The Chaser's War on Everything", Andrew Hansen mocked Diana in his "Eulogy Song", which immediately created considerable controversy in the Australian media.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: In 2017, Prince William and Prince Harry commissioned two documentaries to mark the 20th anniversary of her death. The first of the two, "", was broadcast on ITV and HBO on 24 July 2017. This film focuses on Diana's legacy and humanitarian efforts for causes such as AIDS, landmines, homelessness and cancer. The second documentary, "Diana, 7 Days", aired on 27 August on BBC and focused on Diana's death and the subsequent outpouring of grief. She was also been depicted by contemporary painter Sam McKinniss in a 2017 exhibition that included portraits of musicians Prince and Lorde, actress Drew Barrymore, and author Joan Didion.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: Actresses who have portrayed Diana include Serena Scott Thomas (in "", 1993), Julie Cox (in "Princess in Love", 1996), Amy Seccombe (in "", 1998), Michelle Duncan (in "Whatever Love Means", 2005), Genevieve O'Reilly (in "", 2007), Nathalie Brocker (in "The Murder of Princess Diana", 2007), Naomi Watts (in "Diana", 2013), Jeanna de Waal (in "Diana: The Musical", 2019 & 2021), Emma Corrin and Elizabeth Debicki (in "The Crown", 2020 & 2022), and Kristen Stewart (in "Spencer", 2021). In 2021, Corrin won a Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of the younger Diana Spencer. In 2022, Stewart was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Diana. That same year, Debicki received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, Television for her portrayal of Diana on "The Crown".


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: During her marriage to the Prince of Wales, Diana was styled as "Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales". She additionally bore the titles Duchess of Rothesay, Duchess of Cornwall, Countess of Chester, and Baroness of Renfrew. Though popularly referred to as "Princess Diana", that style is incorrect and one she never held officially. She is still sometimes referred to in the media as "Lady Diana Spencer" or simply as "Lady Di". In a speech after her death, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair referred to Diana as "the People's Princess". Discussions were also held with the Spencer family and the British royal family as to whether Diana's HRH style needed to be restored posthumously, but Diana's family decided that it would be against her wishes and, thus, no formal offer was made.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: Diana was born into the British Spencer family, different branches of which hold the titles of Duke of Marlborough, Earl Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, and Baron Churchill. The Spencers claimed descent from a cadet branch of the powerful medieval Despenser family, but its validity is questioned. Her great-grandmother was Margaret Baring, a member of the German-British Baring family of bankers and the daughter of Edward Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke. Diana's distant noble ancestors included the first Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. Diana and Charles were distantly related, as they were both descended from the House of Tudor through Henry VII of England. She was also descended from the House of Stuart through Charles II of England by Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond, and Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton, and his brother James II of England by Henrietta FitzJames. Other noble ancestors include Margaret Kerdeston, granddaughter of Michael de la Pole, 2nd Earl of Suffolk; Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, an English nobleman and a favourite of Elizabeth I of England; and Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, a descendant of Edward III of England through his son Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence. Diana's Scottish roots came from her maternal grandmother, Lady Fermoy. Among her Scottish ancestors were Alexander Gordon, 4th Duke of Gordon, and his wife Jane, and Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll.


title: Diana, Princess of Wales

text: Diana's American lineage came from her great-grandmother Frances Ellen Work, daughter of wealthy American stockbroker Franklin H. Work from Ohio, who was married to her great-grandfather James Roche, 3rd Baron Fermoy, an Irish peer. Diana's fourth great-grandmother in her direct maternal line, Eliza Kewark, was matrilineally of Indian descent. She is variously described in contemporary documents as "a dark-skinned native woman" and "an Armenian woman from Bombay".


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: Euphoria is an American teen drama television series created and principally written by Sam Levinson for HBO and based on the Israeli miniseries of the same name created by Ron Leshem and Daphna Levin. The series' main character is Rue Bennett (Zendaya), a recovering teenage drug addict who struggles to find her place in the world.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: "Euphoria"s executive producers include Levinson, Zendaya, Ron Leshem, and Gary Lennon. The series is filmed at Ulysses S. Grant High School in Los Angeles, California, and Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California. The show has received generally positive reviews, with praise for its cinematography, score, performances of the cast (particularly Zendaya, Schafer, Sweeney and Domingo), and approach to its mature subject matter. It has also been considered controversial like many HBO shows, including "Big Little Lies", "Game of Thrones", "Girls", and "Westworld", for its nudity and sexual content, which some critics found excessive due to the teenage setting. It is the third most-watched show in HBO history, behind "Game of Thrones" and "House of the Dragon".


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: "Euphoria" premiered on June 16, 2019. The series was renewed for a second season in July 2019. Two one-hour specials were broadcast in December 2020 and January 2021. The second season premiered on January 9, 2022, and in February 2022 the series was renewed for a third season. The series has received numerous accolades, including nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series. For her performance, Zendaya won two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Satellite Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series. Zendaya was nominated for the same award for season two, as were Sydney Sweeney, Colman Domingo, and Martha Kelly.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: Teenagers in the fictional town of East Highland seek hope while balancing the strains of love, loss, and addiction. Topics such as child abuse, drug abuse, toxic relationships, toxic positivity, hookup culture, social media, mental illness, codependency, infidelity, relapsing, repressed homosexuality, sobriety, human trafficking, domestic violence, sexual assault, toxic masculinity, drug dealing, dating violence and grief are explored.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: In 2006, Sam Levinson began drafting different versions of what eventually became "Euphoria", based on his experience with drugs as a teenager. He was invited to a meeting with HBO about an adaptation of the 2012 Israeli television series "Euphoria" created by Ron Leshem, Daphna Levin, and Tamira Yardeni. In 2019, Levinson said HBO's head of drama, Francesca Orsi, liked the "raw and honest" portrayal of drug use and other teenage problems in the Israeli series. In a press release, Orsi described the series as ""Kids" meets "Trainspotting"" with no parental supervision.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: The concept for "Euphoria" was based on Levinson's personal experiences as a teenager and his struggles with anxiety, depression, and drug addiction. In a meeting with Orsi, he recalled: "We just had a conversation about just life and her life and my life and various struggles that, you know, we've been through and things and she said, 'Great, you know, well go and write that' and I said 'What?' and she goes 'Everything we just talked about'". Levinson has also cited teenage anxiety as a whole as an influence for the series: "There is this consistent anxiety that I think exists in this generation that I think informed the whole filmmaking process."


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: "Euphoria" is a co-production of The Reasonable Bunch, A24, Little Lamb, DreamCrew, and HBO Entertainment. It has 16 executive producers, including Levinson, Leshem, Levin, Yardeni, Hadas Mozes Lichtenstein, Mirit Toovi, Yoram Mokadi, Gary Lennon, Zendaya, Canadian rapper Drake, Future the Prince, Ravi Nandan, and Kevin Turen. The pilot episode, "Pilot", was directed by Augustine Frizzell.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: Levinson has served as "Euphoria"s showrunner since its premiere, and has written every episode. He has directed every episode except the Pilot and the season one episodes "03 Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Next Episode", which were directed by Jennifer Morrison and Pippa Bianco.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: The production was given a pilot order on March 13, 2018, and on July 30, it was announced that HBO had given the production a series order. The series was renewed for a second season on July 11, 2019.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: Production for season two was scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2020, with the first table read on March 11, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the production. Production resumed in March 2021, with filming from April to November. On February 4, 2022, HBO renewed the series for a third season. Production of season three will start in February 2023.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: Before the series' second season, HBO ordered two specials. The first, "Trouble Don't Last Always", premiered on December 6, 2020, and follows Rue as she deals with the aftermath of leaving Jules at the train station and relapsing. The second, "Fuck Anyone Who's Not a Sea Blob", premiered on January 24, 2021, and follows Jules's side of the story. The second episode was co-written and executive produced by Levinson and Hunter Schafer. HBO announced that the special episodes would air two days early on HBO Max.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: In June 2018, it was announced that the pilot would star Zendaya, Storm Reid, Maude Apatow, Astro, Eric Dane, Angus Cloud, Alexa Demie, Jacob Elordi, Barbie Ferreira, Nika King, Hunter Schafer, and Sydney Sweeney. In October, Algee Smith was cast to replace Astro as McKay, and that Austin Abrams had also been cast. Astro reportedly quit the series after shooting the pilot as he was uncomfortable with the sexual content involving his character.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: In April 2020, Kelvin Harrison Jr. joined the cast, but by May 2021, he had dropped out due to scheduling conflicts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In August, Dominic Fike, Minka Kelly, and Demetrius 'Lil Meech' Flenory Jr. were added to the cast. On August 24, 2022, Ferreira announced via Instagram story that she had decided to leave the series.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: Primary photography takes place in Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California. Ulysses S. Grant High School in Los Angeles stands in for the fictional East Highland High School. According to the California Film Commission, the first season of Euphoria received $8,378,000 in incentive tax credits. The first season was filmed over a combined total of 104 days; the second season's production costs totaled $96,685,000 after a total of 176 filming days. Subsequently, the second season received a $19,406,000 tax credit for employing over 15,000 people in California.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: For season one, the show was shot digitally. Starting with season two, the show was shot on Kodak Ektachrome film stock, which cinematographer Marcell Rév attributed to a desire to invoke "some sort of memory of high school."


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: For season three, Rue's sobriety journey, Zendaya opened up about exploring characters outside high school, with possible filming locations of New York City, Singapore, and Warner Bros. Studios lots in Burbank and Leavesden.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: Many of the episode titles for season one are references to late-1990s and early-2000s song titles that correlate to the episode itself. For instance, "'03 Bonnie and Clyde" is a reference to the 2002 Jay-Z and Beyoncé song of the same name. The loyal relationship between Nate Jacobs and Maddy Perez in the episode mirrors that between Jay-Z and Beyoncé in the song. For season two, many of the episode titles are references to books and quotes.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: The series premiered on June 16, 2019, on HBO. In Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, it premiered on June 17, 2019, through HBO Asia. In Australia, it premiered on June 17, 2019, through Foxtel. In the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, it premiered on August 6, 2019, through Sky Atlantic. The specials were released on December 6, 2020 (as Part 1: Rue) and January 24, 2021 (as Part 2: Jules). The second season premiered on January 9, 2022.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: Season 1 and 2 were released on DVD on November 1, 2022. A Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray are not yet announced.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: "Euphoria"s first season was met with a positive response from critics, with much of its praise going to its acting, story, visuals, and approach to mature subject matter. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the first season has an approval rating of 80%, with an average rating of 7.3/10 based on 97 critical reviews. The site's critical consensus summary states, "a uniquely challenging and illuminating series, held together by a powerfully understated performance from Zendaya" The review aggregator website Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 68 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Ben Travers of "IndieWire" praised the show's authenticity, how HBO "grounds itself in stark reality", and Zendaya's performance and narration. Tim Goodman of "The Hollywood Reporter" noted Zendaya's performance and the handling of the subject matter. Pilot Viruet of "Observer" called the show "visually stunning" and praised the ensemble performance, but criticized the writing as "shaky, filled with clunky lines", and recommended that the show "keep its focus narrow". Jamila Stewart of "Vogue" stated that "Euphoria" still has a palpable impact on where fashion trends fall today.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: The first of the series' two special episodes, "Trouble Don't Last Always", received widespread critical acclaim for its writing, performances, and shift in tone and content from the first season. On Rotten Tomatoes, the episode has a score of 96%, with an average rating of 8.44/10 based on 23 critical reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, ""Euphoria" slows down the tempo without losing the beat in a special episode that pairs a raw Zendaya with a steady Colman Domingo to create small screen magic." On Metacritic, the episode has a weighted average score of 84 out of 100, based on 10 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: The second of the two special episodes, "Fuck Anyone Who's Not a Sea Blob", also received critical acclaim, with particular praise for Schafer's performance and writing, as well as the episode's distinctive directorial approach, emotional resonance, and exploration of trans identity. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a score of 95%, with an average rating of 7.9/10 based on 22 critical reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "By centering on Jules' journey, "Fuck Anyone Who's Not a Sea Blob" adds welcome depth to her character and gives Hunter Schafer plenty of room to shine." On Metacritic, the episode has an average weighted score of 78 out of 100, based on 10 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: The series' second season received mostly positive reviews, with critics praising the performances and visuals but criticizing the season's pace and characterization. On Rotten Tomatoes, the second season received a "Certified Fresh" score of 81%, with an average rating of 7.2/10 based on 119 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "As willfully provocative as ever in its second season, "Euphoria" still isn't for all tastes—but when its addictive ingredients are mixed just right, the results remain intoxicating." Metacritic assigned the season a score of 74 out of 100 based on 19 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". IndieWire's Ben Travers criticized the sexual content but appreciated Zendaya's performance, writing, "After seven of the eight episodes, Season 2 is exactly what a drama seeking to spark conversation fears most: It's skippable." Rebecca Nicholson for "The Guardian" gave the second season two out of five stars, writing, "this long-awaited second season has decided to lean into its crueller instincts." USA Today's Patrick Ryan praised the performances of Zendaya, Schafer, and Fike, but wrote that "the new episodes are much less captivating when they shift their focus away from Rue and Jules."


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: Some commentators and organizations have criticized the show's explicit content, including self-harm, excessive drug use, and sexual material, like many HBO shows, including "Big Little Lies", "Game of Thrones", "Girls", and "Westworld". The conservative media advocacy group Parents Television and Media Council called the series "dark, depraved, degenerate and nihilistic" and asked HBO and AT&T to end it. Common Sense Media, which provides information relating to media's suitability for children, also noted the strong adult themes and advised against teenage viewership. One scene involving more than 30 shots of penises was criticized by both critics and supporters alike, with "Esquire" calling it "pointlessly gratuitous". "The Guardian" wrote that writers and producers should find new and different ways to shock audiences. In 2022, Minka Kelly said she felt discomfort at the quantity of nude scenes in the show. Drug Abuse Resistance Education criticized the show's depiction of drug use, saying that it "chooses to misguidedly glorify and erroneously depict high school student drug use addiction ... and other destructive behaviors as common in today’s world”. Samuel Getachew wrote in a "Culture" piece for "Vogue" that the show's depictions of trauma aestheticizes it in a way that his "generation is particularly vulnerable to". HBO defended the show against the Season 2 shoot allegations. The show has reportedly been censored for sexual or violent content in countries like Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: Levinson acknowledged the controversies over the show's content, saying that some parents will be "totally fucking freaked out". Augustine Frizzell, who directed the show's pilot episode, said that the explicit content should help foster a conversation between parents and teenagers. Levinson also said that he hopes the show "opens up a dialogue" due to the "disconnect between parents and teenagers". Zendaya issued a warning both before the show and season 2 premiere about its "deeply emotional subject matter". HBO voiced objections to some sexually graphic scenes, but said it would not interfere with the show's "creative process". The show includes viewer discretion warnings and a website for mental health and other support group resources.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: The show's premiere averaged 577,000 viewers in its time slot, a number that increased to one million after the same-night linear replay and preliminary viewing on HBO Go/Now. The hashtag #EuphoriaHBO trended number one in the U.S. and number three worldwide on Twitter after the premiere. The first season was the most watched of HBO's series in the 18–49 demographic with episodes averaging 6.6 million viewers. The season 2 premiere drew 2.4 million viewers across all HBO platforms, a series high. It also marked the strongest digital premiere night performance for any episode of an HBO series since HBO Max's launch. At the end of its second season, it became the second-most-watched HBO show of all time (behind "Game of Thrones"), with episodes averaging 16.3 million viewers until it was surpassed by "House of the Dragon". According to "Variety", "Euphoria" became the most tweeted television show of the decade in the U.S., with more than 30 million tweets related to the show during the second season, 51% more than during Season 1.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: "Euphoria"s score was composed by English singer, songwriter, and record producer Labrinth. The song "All for Us", performed by Labrinth and Zendaya, is hinted at throughout season 1 before being performed as a large musical number at the end of the season finale. Labrinth makes an appearance in the show alongside Zendaya to perform their song "I'm Tired".


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: The show also makes extensive use of popular music, including hip hop, trap, R&B, experimental, indie rock, standards and doo-wop, with some episodes featuring over 20 songs. For their work on "Euphoria"s first season, music supervisors Jen Malone (who also supervises the FX series "Atlanta") and Adam Leber won the 2020 Guild of Music Supervisors Award for Best Music Supervision in a Television Drama.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: The score album for the first season was released by Sony Masterworks through Milan Records on October 4, 2019 for digital download. The album was also released on vinyl on January 10, 2020. The score has been described as "the holy lilt of gospel, orchestral and electronic" and was favorably reviewed by "Variety".


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: The score album for the second season was released by Columbia Records on April 22, 2022, in digital and physical formats. Like the previous one, it was composed and produced by Labrinth.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: A soundtrack album featuring a selection of songs from the first season and specials was released by Interscope Records digitally on May 14, 2021, with vinyl copies released on September 3, 2021.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: The soundtrack to season 2 was released digitally by Interscope Records on March 4, 2022, with CDs releasing on May 13, 2022, and vinyl on July 29, 2022. The album's release was preceded by seven singles, "Watercolor Eyes" by Lana Del Rey, "How Long" by Tove Lo, "(Pick Me Up) Euphoria" by James Blake featuring Labrinth, "Sad4Whattt" by EricDoa, "Yeh I Fuckin' Did it" by Labrinth, "I'm Tired" by Labrinth and Zendaya, and "Elliot's Song" by Dominic Fike and Zendaya.


title: Euphoria (American TV series)

text: In an interview with IndieWire, Labrinth stated of the soundtrack's religious undertones: "We spoke about using organs because of a lot of the religious influences in the show, especially with Rue. We wanted a lot of the sounds edging towards a religious sound. And because I love both Pentecostal and Catholic sounds, I kind of was like trying to merge them both together."


title: Barack Obama

text: Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the United States. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004, and previously worked as a civil rights lawyer before entering politics.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama was born in Honolulu, 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. Turning to elective politics, he represented the 13th district in the Illinois Senate from 1997 until 2004, when he ran for the U.S. Senate. Obama received national attention in 2004 with his March Senate primary win, his well-received July Democratic National Convention keynote address, and his landslide November election to the Senate. In 2008, after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, he was nominated by the Democratic Party for president and chose Joe Biden as his running mate. Obama was elected over Republican nominee John McCain in the presidential election and was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, he was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a decision that drew a mixture of praise and criticism.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama's first-term actions addressed the global financial crisis and included a major stimulus package, a partial extension of George W. Bush's tax cuts, legislation to reform health care, a major financial regulation reform bill, and the end of a major US military presence in Iraq. Obama also appointed Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, the former became the first Hispanic American on the Supreme Court. He ordered the counterterrorism raid which killed Osama bin Laden and downplayed Bush's counterinsurgency model, expanding air strikes and making extensive use of special forces while encouraging greater reliance on host-government militaries.


title: Barack Obama

text: After winning re-election by defeating Republican opponent Mitt Romney, Obama was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2013. In his second term, Obama took steps to combat climate change, signing a major international climate agreement and an executive order to limit carbon emissions. Obama also presided over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and other legislation passed in his first term, and he negotiated a nuclear agreement with Iran and normalized relations with Cuba. The number of American soldiers in Afghanistan fell dramatically during Obama's second term, though U.S. soldiers remained in Afghanistan throughout Obama's presidency. Obama left office on January 20, 2017, and continues to reside in Washington, D.C. His presidential library in Chicago began construction in 2021.


title: Barack Obama

text: During Obama's terms as president, the United States' reputation abroad, as well as the American economy, significantly improved. Rankings by scholars and historians place him among the upper tier of American presidents. Since leaving office, Obama has remained active in Democratic politics, including campaigning for candidates in various American elections. Outside of politics, Obama has published three bestselling books: "Dreams from My Father" (1995)", The Audacity of Hope" (2006) and "A Promised Land" (2020).


title: Barack Obama

text: 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 the contiguous 48 states. He was born to an American mother and a Kenyan father. His mother, Ann Dunham (1942–1995), was born in Wichita, Kansas and was mostly of English descent, though in 2007 it was discovered her great-great-grandfather Falmouth Kearney emigrated from the village of Moneygall, Ireland to the US in 1850. In July 2012, Ancestry.com found a strong likelihood that Dunham was descended from John Punch, an enslaved African man who lived in the Colony of Virginia during the seventeenth century. Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr. (1934–1982), was a married 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 Wailuku, Hawaii, on February 2, 1961, six months before Obama was born.


title: Barack Obama

text: In late August 1961, a few weeks after he was born, Barack and his mother moved to the University of Washington in Seattle, where they lived for a year. During that time, Barack's father 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 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—barely registered in my mind." He described his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage.


title: Barack Obama

text: In 1963, Dunham met Lolo Soetoro at the University of Hawaii; he was an Indonesian East–West Center graduate student in geography. The couple married on Molokai on March 15, 1965. After two one-year extensions of his J-1 visa, Lolo returned to Indonesia in 1966. His wife and stepson followed sixteen months later in 1967. The family initially lived in the Menteng Dalam neighborhood in the Tebet district of South Jakarta. From 1970, they lived in a wealthier neighborhood in the Menteng district of Central Jakarta.


title: Barack Obama

text: At the age of six, Obama and his mother had moved to Indonesia to join his stepfather. From age six to ten, he attended local Indonesian-language schools: "Sekolah Dasar Katolik Santo Fransiskus Asisi" (St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Elementary School) for two years and "Sekolah Dasar Negeri Menteng 01" (State Elementary School Menteng 01) for one and a half years, supplemented by English-language Calvert School homeschooling by his mother. As a result of his four years in Jakarta, he was able to speak Indonesian fluently as a child. During his time in Indonesia, Obama's stepfather taught him to be resilient and gave him "a pretty hardheaded assessment of how the world works."


title: Barack Obama

text: In 1971, Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham. He attended Punahou School—a private college preparatory school—with the aid of a scholarship from fifth grade until he graduated from high school in 1979. In his youth, Obama went by the nickname "Barry." Obama lived with his mother and half-sister, Maya Soetoro, in Hawaii for three years from 1972 to 1975 while his mother was a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Hawaii. Obama chose to stay in Hawaii when his mother and half-sister returned to Indonesia in 1975, so his mother could begin anthropology field work. His mother spent most of the next two decades in Indonesia, divorcing Lolo in 1980 and earning a PhD degree in 1992, before dying in 1995 in Hawaii following unsuccessful treatment for ovarian and uterine cancer.


title: Barack Obama

text: Of his years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered — to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect — became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear." Obama has also written and talked about using alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind." Obama was also a member of the "choom gang", a self-named group of friends who spent time together and occasionally smoked marijuana.


title: Barack Obama

text: After graduating from high school in 1979, Obama moved to Los Angeles to attend Occidental College on a full scholarship. In February 1981, Obama made his first public speech, calling for Occidental to participate in the disinvestment from South Africa in response to that nation's policy of apartheid. In mid-1981, Obama traveled to Indonesia to visit his mother and half-sister Maya, and visited the families of college friends in Pakistan for three weeks. Later in 1981, he transferred to Columbia University in New York City as a junior, where he majored in political science with a specialty in international relations and in English literature and lived off-campus on West 109th Street. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1983 and a 3.7 GPA. After graduating, Obama worked for about a year at the Business International Corporation, where he was a financial researcher and writer, then as a project coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group on the City College of New York campus for three months in 1985.


title: Barack Obama

text: Two years after graduating from Columbia, Obama moved from New York to Chicago when he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project, a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale on Chicago's South Side. He worked there as a community organizer from June 1985 to May 1988. He helped set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens. Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute. In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time in Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his paternal relatives for the first time.


title: Barack Obama

text: Despite being offered a full scholarship to Northwestern University School of Law, Obama enrolled at Harvard Law School in the fall of 1988, living in nearby Somerville, Massachusetts. He was selected as an editor of the "Harvard Law Review" at the end of his first year, president of the journal in his second year, and research assistant to the constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe while at Harvard. During his summers, he returned to Chicago, where he worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990. Obama's election as the first black president of the "Harvard Law Review" gained national media attention and led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations, which evolved into a personal memoir. The manuscript was published in mid-1995 as "Dreams from My Father". Obama graduated from Harvard Law in 1991 with a Juris Doctor "magna cum laude".


title: Barack Obama

text: In 1991, Obama accepted a two-year position as Visiting Law and Government Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School to work on his first book. He then taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, first as a lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and then as a senior lecturer from 1996 to 2004.


title: Barack Obama

text: From April to October 1992, Obama directed Illinois's Project Vote, a voter registration campaign with ten staffers and seven hundred volunteer registrars; it achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, leading "Crain's Chicago Business" to name Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.


title: Barack Obama

text: In a 2006 interview, Obama highlighted the diversity of his extended family: "It's like a little mini-United Nations," he said. "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher." Obama has a half-sister with whom he was raised (Maya Soetoro-Ng) and seven other half-siblings from his Kenyan father's family—six of them living. Obama's mother was survived by her Kansas-born mother, Madelyn Dunham, until her death on November 2, 2008, two days before his election to the presidency. Obama also has roots in Ireland; he met with his Irish cousins in Moneygall in May 2011. In "Dreams from My Father", Obama ties his mother's family history to possible Native American ancestors and distant relatives of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. He also shares distant ancestors in common with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, among others.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama lived with anthropologist Sheila Miyoshi Jager while he was a community organizer in Chicago in the 1980s. He proposed to her twice, but both Jager and her parents turned him down. The relationship was not made public until May 2017, several months after his presidency had ended.


title: Barack Obama

text: In June 1989, Obama met Michelle Robinson when he was employed as a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin. Robinson was assigned for three months as Obama's adviser at the firm, and she joined him at several group social functions but declined his initial requests to date. They began dating later that summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married on October 3, 1992. After suffering a miscarriage, Michelle underwent in vitro fertilization to conceive their children. The couple's first daughter, Malia Ann, was born in 1998, followed by a second daughter, Natasha ("Sasha"), in 2001. The Obama daughters attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. When they moved to Washington, D.C., in January 2009, the girls started at the Sidwell Friends School. The Obamas had two Portuguese Water Dogs; the first, a male named Bo, was a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy. In 2013, Bo was joined by Sunny, a female. Bo died of cancer on May 8, 2021.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama is a supporter of the Chicago White Sox, and he threw out the first pitch at the 2005 ALCS when he was still a senator. In 2009, he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the All-Star Game while wearing a White Sox jacket. He is also primarily a Chicago Bears football fan in the NFL, but in his childhood and adolescence was a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and rooted for them ahead of their victory in Super Bowl XLIII 12 days after he took office as president. In 2011, Obama invited the 1985 Chicago Bears to the White House; the team had not visited the White House after their Super Bowl win in 1986 due to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. He plays basketball, a sport he participated in as a member of his high school's varsity team, and he is left-handed.


title: Barack Obama

text: In 2005, the Obama family applied the proceeds of a book deal and moved from a Hyde Park, Chicago condominium to a $1.6million house (equivalent to $million in ) in neighboring Kenwood, Chicago. The purchase of an adjacent lot—and sale of part of it to Obama by the wife of developer, campaign donor and friend Tony Rezko—attracted media attention because of Rezko's subsequent indictment and conviction on political corruption charges that were unrelated to Obama.


title: Barack Obama

text: In December 2007, "Money Magazine" estimated Obama's net worth at $1.3million (equivalent to $million in ). Their 2009 tax return showed a household income of $5.5million—up from about $4.2million in 2007 and $1.6million in 2005—mostly from sales of his books. On his 2010 income of $1.7million, he gave 14 percent to non-profit organizations, including $131,000 to Fisher House Foundation, a charity assisting wounded veterans' families, allowing them to reside near where the veteran is receiving medical treatments. Per his 2012 financial disclosure, Obama may be worth as much as $10million.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama is a Protestant Christian whose religious views developed in his adult life. He wrote in "The Audacity of Hope" that he "was not raised in a religious household." He described his mother, raised by non-religious parents, as being detached from religion, yet "in many ways the most spiritually awakened person... I have ever known", and "a lonely witness for secular humanism." He described his father as a "confirmed atheist" by the time his parents met, and his stepfather as "a man who saw religion as not particularly useful." Obama explained how, through working with black churches as a community organizer while in his twenties, he came to understand "the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change."


title: Barack Obama

text: In January 2008, Obama told "Christianity Today": "I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life." On September 27, 2010, Obama released a statement commenting on his religious views, saying:


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama met Trinity United Church of Christ pastor Jeremiah Wright in October 1987 and became a member of Trinity in 1992. During Obama's first presidential campaign in May 2008, he resigned from Trinity after some of Wright's statements were criticized. Since moving to Washington, D.C., in 2009, the Obama family has attended several Protestant churches, including Shiloh Baptist Church and St. John's Episcopal Church, as well as Evergreen Chapel at Camp David, but the members of the family do not attend church on a regular basis.


title: Barack Obama

text: In 2016, he said that he gets inspiration from a few items that remind him "of all the different people I've met along the way", adding: "I carry these around all the time. I'm not that superstitious, so it's not like I think I necessarily have to have them on me at all times." The items, "a whole bowl full", include rosary beads given to him by Pope Francis, a figurine of the Hindu deity Hanuman, a Coptic cross from Ethiopia, a small Buddha statue given by a monk, and a metal poker chip that used to be the lucky charm of a motorcyclist in Iowa.


title: Barack Obama

text: He joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 13-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004. In 1994, he was listed as one of the lawyers in "Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank", 94 C 4094 (N.D. Ill.). This class action lawsuit was filed in 1994 with Selma Buycks-Roberson as lead plaintiff and alleged that Citibank Federal Savings Bank had engaged in practices forbidden under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Fair Housing Act. The case was settled out of court. Final judgment was issued on May 13, 1998, with Citibank Federal Savings Bank agreeing to pay attorney fees.


title: Barack Obama

text: From 1994 to 2002, Obama served on the boards of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago—which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project—and of the Joyce Foundation. He served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1999. Obama's law license became inactive in 2007.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding Democratic State Senator Alice Palmer from Illinois's 13th District, which, at that time, spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park–Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn. Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation that reformed ethics and health care laws. He sponsored a law that increased tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare. In 2001, as co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan's payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures.


title: Barack Obama

text: He was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, defeating Republican Yesse Yehudah in the general election, and was re-elected again in 2002. In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary race for Illinois's 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one.


title: Barack Obama

text: In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority. He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained, and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations. During his 2004 general election campaign for the U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms. Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the U.S. Senate.


title: Barack Obama

text: In May 2002, Obama commissioned a poll to assess his prospects in a 2004 U.S. Senate race. He created a campaign committee, began raising funds, and lined up political media consultant David Axelrod by August 2002. Obama formally announced his candidacy in January 2003.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama was an early opponent of the George W. Bush administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq. On October 2, 2002, the day President Bush and Congress agreed on the joint resolution authorizing the Iraq War, Obama addressed the first high-profile Chicago anti-Iraq War rally, and spoke out against the war. He addressed another anti-war rally in March 2003 and told the crowd "it's not too late" to stop the war.


title: Barack Obama

text: Decisions by Republican incumbent Peter Fitzgerald and his Democratic predecessor Carol Moseley Braun to not participate in the election resulted in wide-open Democratic and Republican primary contests involving 15 candidates. In the March 2004 primary election, Obama won in an unexpected landslide—which overnight made him a rising star within the national Democratic Party, started speculation about a presidential future, and led to the reissue of his memoir, "Dreams from My Father". In July 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, seen by nine million viewers. His speech was well received and elevated his status within the Democratic Party.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama's expected opponent in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race in June 2004. Six weeks later, Alan Keyes accepted the Republican nomination to replace Ryan. In the November 2004 general election, Obama won with 70 percent of the vote, the largest margin of victory for a Senate candidate in Illinois history. He took 92 of the state's 102 counties, including several where Democrats traditionally do not do well.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 3, 2005, becoming the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus. He introduced two initiatives that bore his name: Lugar–Obama, which expanded the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction concept to conventional weapons; and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which authorized the establishment of USAspending.gov, a web search engine on federal spending. On June 3, 2008, Senator Obama—along with Senators Tom Carper, Tom Coburn, and John McCain—introduced follow-up legislation: Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008. He also cosponsored the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act.


title: Barack Obama

text: In December 2006, President Bush signed into law the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act, marking the first federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor. In January 2007, Obama and Senator Feingold introduced a corporate jet provision to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which was signed into law in September 2007.


title: Barack Obama

text: Later in 2007, Obama sponsored an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act to add safeguards for personality-disorder military discharges. This amendment passed the full Senate in the spring of 2008. He sponsored the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act supporting divestment of state pension funds from Iran's oil and gas industry, which was never enacted but later incorporated in the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010; and co-sponsored legislation to reduce risks of nuclear terrorism. Obama also sponsored a Senate amendment to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, providing one year of job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama held assignments on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works and Veterans' Affairs through December 2006. In January 2007, he left the Environment and Public Works committee and took additional assignments with Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. He also became Chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. He met with Mahmoud Abbas before Abbas became President of the Palestinian National Authority, and gave a speech at the University of Nairobi in which he condemned corruption within the Kenyan government.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama resigned his Senate seat on November 16, 2008, to focus on his transition period for the presidency.


title: Barack Obama

text: On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois. The choice of the announcement site was viewed as symbolic, as it was also where Abraham Lincoln delivered his "House Divided" speech in 1858. Obama emphasized issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence, and reforming the health care system.


title: Barack Obama

text: Numerous candidates entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries. The field narrowed to Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton after early contests, with the race remaining close throughout the primary process, but with Obama gaining a steady lead in pledged delegates due to better long-range planning, superior fundraising, dominant organizing in caucus states, and better exploitation of delegate allocation rules.


title: Barack Obama

text: On June 2, 2008, Obama had received enough votes to clinch his election. After an initial hesitation to concede, on June 7, Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed Obama.


title: Barack Obama

text: On August 23, 2008, Obama announced his selection of Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate. Obama selected Biden from a field speculated to include former Indiana Governor and Senator Evan Bayh and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, Hillary Clinton called for her supporters to endorse Obama, and she and Bill Clinton gave convention speeches in his support. Obama delivered his acceptance speech at Invesco Field at Mile High stadium to a crowd of about eighty-four thousand; the speech was viewed by over three million people worldwide. During both the primary process and the general election, Obama's campaign set numerous fundraising records, particularly in the quantity of small donations. On June 19, 2008, Obama became the first major-party presidential candidate to turn down public financing in the general election since the system was created in 1976.


title: Barack Obama

text: John McCain was nominated as the Republican candidate, and he selected Sarah Palin as his running mate. Obama and McCain engaged in three presidential debates in September and October 2008. On November 4, Obama won the presidency with 365 electoral votes to 173 received by McCain. Obama won 52.9 percent of the popular vote to McCain's 45.7 percent. He became the first African-American to be elected president. Obama delivered his victory speech before hundreds of thousands of supporters in Chicago's Grant Park. He is one of the three United States senators moved directly from the U.S. Senate to the White House, the others are Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy.


title: Barack Obama

text: On April 4, 2011, Obama filed election papers with the Federal Election Commission and then announced his reelection campaign for 2012 in a video titled "It Begins with Us" that he posted on his website. As the incumbent president, he ran virtually unopposed in the Democratic Party presidential primaries, and on April 3, 2012, Obama secured the 2778 convention delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination. At the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, Obama and Joe Biden were formally nominated by former President Bill Clinton as the Democratic Party candidates for president and vice president in the general election. Their main opponents were Republicans Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.


title: Barack Obama

text: On November 6, 2012, Obama won 332 electoral votes, exceeding the 270 required for him to be reelected as president. With 51.1 percent of the popular vote, Obama became the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win the majority of the popular vote twice. Obama addressed supporters and volunteers at Chicago's McCormick Place after his reelection and said: "Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties."


title: Barack Obama

text: The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president took place on January 20, 2009. In his first few days in office, Obama issued executive orders and presidential memoranda directing the U.S. military to develop plans to withdraw troops from Iraq. He ordered the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, but Congress prevented the closure by refusing to appropriate the required funds and preventing moving any Guantanamo detainee. Obama reduced the secrecy given to presidential records. He also revoked President George W. Bush's restoration of President Ronald Reagan's Mexico City policy which prohibited federal aid to international family planning organizations that perform or provide counseling about abortion.


title: Barack Obama

text: The first bill signed into law by Obama was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, relaxing the statute of limitations for equal-pay lawsuits. Five days later, he signed the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program to cover an additional four million uninsured children. In March 2009, Obama reversed a Bush-era policy that had limited funding of embryonic stem cell research and pledged to develop "strict guidelines" on the research.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama appointed two women to serve on the Supreme Court in the first two years of his presidency. He nominated Sonia Sotomayor on May 26, 2009, to replace retiring Associate Justice David Souter; she was confirmed on August 6, 2009, becoming the first Supreme Court Justice of Hispanic descent. Obama nominated Elena Kagan on May 10, 2010, to replace retiring Associate Justice John Paul Stevens. She was confirmed on August 5, 2010, bringing the number of women sitting simultaneously on the Court to three for the first time in American history.


title: Barack Obama

text: On March 11, 2009, Obama created the White House Council on Women and Girls, which formed part of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, having been established by with a broad mandate to advise him on issues relating to the welfare of American women and girls. The council was chaired by Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett. Obama also established the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault through a government memorandum on January 22, 2014, with a broad mandate to advise him on issues relating to sexual assault on college and university campuses throughout the United States. The co-chairs of the Task Force were Vice President Joe Biden and Jarrett. The Task Force was a development out of the White House Council on Women and Girls and Office of the Vice President of the United States, and prior to that the 1994 Violence Against Women Act first drafted by Biden.


title: Barack Obama

text: In a major space policy speech in April 2010, Obama announced a planned change in direction at NASA, the U.S. space agency. He ended plans for a return of human spaceflight to the moon and development of the Ares I rocket, Ares V rocket and Constellation program, in favor of funding Earth science projects, a new rocket type, research and development for an eventual crewed mission to Mars, and ongoing missions to the International Space Station.


title: Barack Obama

text: On January 16, 2013, one month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Obama signed 23 executive orders and outlined a series of sweeping proposals regarding gun control. He urged Congress to reintroduce an expired ban on military-style assault weapons, such as those used in several recent mass shootings, impose limits on ammunition magazines to 10 rounds, introduce background checks on all gun sales, pass a ban on possession and sale of armor-piercing bullets, introduce harsher penalties for gun-traffickers, especially unlicensed dealers who buy arms for criminals and approving the appointment of the head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for the first time since 2006. On January 5, 2016, Obama announced new executive actions extending background check requirements to more gun sellers. In a 2016 editorial in "The New York Times", Obama compared the struggle for what he termed "common-sense gun reform" to women's suffrage and other civil rights movements in American history. On January 5, 2016, Obama announced new executive actions extending background check requirements to more gun sellers.


title: Barack Obama

text: In 2011, Obama signed a four-year renewal of the Patriot Act. Following the 2013 global surveillance disclosures by whistleblower Edward Snowden, Obama condemned the leak as unpatriotic, but called for increased restrictions on the National Security Agency (NSA) to address violations of privacy. Obama continued and expanded surveillance programs set up by George W. Bush, while implementing some reforms. He supported legislation that would have limited the NSA's ability to collect phone records in bulk under a single program and supported bringing more transparency to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).


title: Barack Obama

text: In his speeches as president, Obama did not make more overt references to race relations than his predecessors, but according to one study, he implemented stronger policy action on behalf of African-Americans than any president since the Nixon era.


title: Barack Obama

text: Following Obama's election, many pondered the existence of a "postracial America." However, lingering racial tensions quickly became apparent, and many African-Americans expressed outrage over what they saw as an intense racial animosity directed at Obama. The acquittal of George Zimmerman following the killing of Trayvon Martin sparked national outrage, leading to Obama giving a speech in which he noted that "Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago." The shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri sparked a wave of protests. These and other events led to the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement, which campaigns against violence and systemic racism toward black people. Though Obama entered office reluctant to talk about race, by 2014 he began openly discussing the disadvantages faced by many members of minority groups.


title: Barack Obama

text: Several incidents during Obama's presidency generated disapproval from the African-American community and/or with law enforcement, and Obama sought to build trust between law enforcement officials and civil rights activists, with mixed results. Some in law enforcement criticized Obama's condemnation of racial bias after incidents in which police action led to the death of African-American men, while some racial justice activists criticized Obama's expressions of empathy for the police. In a March 2016 Gallup poll, nearly one third of Americans said they worried "a great deal" about race relations, a higher figure than in any previous Gallup poll since 2001.


title: Barack Obama

text: On October 8, 2009, Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a measure that expanded the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. On October 30, 2009, Obama lifted the ban on travel to the United States by those infected with HIV. The lifting of the ban was celebrated by Immigration Equality. On December 22, 2010, Obama signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, which fulfilled a promise made in the 2008 presidential campaign to end the don't ask, don't tell policy of 1993 that had prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States Armed Forces. In 2016, the Pentagon ended the policy that barred transgender people from serving openly in the military.


title: Barack Obama

text: As a candidate for the Illinois state senate in 1996, Obama stated he favored legalizing same-sex marriage. During his Senate run in 2004, he said he supported civil unions and domestic partnerships for same-sex partners but opposed same-sex marriages. In 2008, he reaffirmed this position by stating "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage." On May 9, 2012, shortly after the official launch of his campaign for re-election as president, Obama said his views had evolved, and he publicly affirmed his personal support for the legalization of same-sex marriage, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to do so. During his second inaugural address on January 21, 2013, Obama became the first U.S. president in office to call for full equality for gay Americans, and the first to mention gay rights or the word "gay" in an inaugural address. In 2013, the Obama administration filed briefs that urged the Supreme Court to rule in favor of same-sex couples in the cases of "Hollingsworth v. Perry" (regarding same-sex marriage) and "United States v. Windsor" (regarding the Defense of Marriage Act).


title: Barack Obama

text: On February 17, 2009, Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787billion (equivalent to $ billion in ) economic stimulus package aimed at helping the economy recover from the deepening worldwide recession. The act includes increased federal spending for health care, infrastructure, education, various tax breaks and incentives, and direct assistance to individuals. In March 2009, Obama's Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, took further steps to manage the financial crisis, including introducing the Public–Private Investment Program for Legacy Assets, which contains provisions for buying up to $2trillion in depreciated real estate assets.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama intervened in the troubled automotive industry in March 2009, renewing loans for General Motors (GM) and Chrysler to continue operations while reorganizing. Over the following months the White House set terms for both firms' bankruptcies, including the sale of Chrysler to Italian automaker Fiat and a reorganization of GM giving the U.S. government a temporary 60 percent equity stake in the company. In June 2009, dissatisfied with the pace of economic stimulus, Obama called on his cabinet to accelerate the investment. He signed into law the Car Allowance Rebate System, known colloquially as "Cash for Clunkers", which temporarily boosted the economy.


title: Barack Obama

text: The Bush and Obama administrations authorized spending and loan guarantees from the Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury. These guarantees totaled about $11.5trillion, but only $3trillion had been spent by the end of November 2009. On August 2, 2011, after a lengthy congressional debate over whether to raise the nation's debt limit, Obama signed the bipartisan Budget Control Act of 2011. The legislation enforced limits on discretionary spending until 2021, established a procedure to increase the debt limit, created a Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to propose further deficit reduction with a stated goal of achieving at least $1.5trillion in budgetary savings over 10 years, and established automatic procedures for reducing spending by as much as $1.2trillion if legislation originating with the new joint select committee did not achieve such savings. By passing the legislation, Congress was able to prevent a U.S. government default on its obligations.


title: Barack Obama

text: The unemployment rate rose in 2009, reaching a peak in October at 10.0 percent and averaging 10.0 percent in the fourth quarter. Following a decrease to 9.7 percent in the first quarter of 2010, the unemployment rate fell to 9.6 percent in the second quarter, where it remained for the rest of the year. Between February and December 2010, employment rose by 0.8 percent, which was less than the average of 1.9 percent experienced during comparable periods in the past four employment recoveries. By November 2012, the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent, decreasing to 6.7 percent in the last month of 2013. During 2014, the unemployment rate continued to decline, falling to 6.3 percent in the first quarter. GDP growth returned in the third quarter of 2009, expanding at a rate of 1.6 percent, followed by a 5.0 percent increase in the fourth quarter. Growth continued in 2010, posting an increase of 3.7 percent in the first quarter, with lesser gains throughout the rest of the year. In July 2010, the Federal Reserve noted that economic activity continued to increase, but its pace had slowed, and chairman Ben Bernanke said the economic outlook was "unusually uncertain." Overall, the economy expanded at a rate of 2.9 percent in 2010.


title: Barack Obama

text: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and a broad range of economists credit Obama's stimulus plan for economic growth. The CBO released a report stating that the stimulus bill increased employment by 1–2.1million, while conceding that "it is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package." Although an April 2010, survey of members of the National Association for Business Economics showed an increase in job creation (over a similar January survey) for the first time in two years, 73 percent of 68 respondents believed the stimulus bill has had no impact on employment. The economy of the United States has grown faster than the other original NATO members by a wider margin under President Obama than it has anytime since the end of World War II. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development credits the much faster growth in the United States to the stimulus plan of the U.S. and the austerity measures in the European Union.


title: Barack Obama

text: Within a month of the 2010 midterm elections, Obama announced a compromise deal with the Congressional Republican leadership that included a temporary, two-year extension of the 2001 and 2003 income tax rates, a one-year payroll tax reduction, continuation of unemployment benefits, and a new rate and exemption amount for estate taxes. The compromise overcame opposition from some in both parties, and the resulting $858billion (equivalent to $ trillion in ) Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 passed with bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress before Obama signed it on December 17, 2010.


title: Barack Obama

text: In December 2013, Obama declared that growing income inequality is a "defining challenge of our time" and called on Congress to bolster the safety net and raise wages. This came on the heels of the nationwide strikes of fast-food workers and Pope Francis' criticism of inequality and trickle-down economics. Obama urged Congress to ratify a 12-nation free trade pact called the Trans-Pacific Partnership.


title: Barack Obama

text: On April 20, 2010, an explosion destroyed an offshore drilling rig at the Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, causing a major sustained oil leak. Obama visited the Gulf, announced a federal investigation, and formed a bipartisan commission to recommend new safety standards, after a review by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and concurrent Congressional hearings. He then announced a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling permits and leases, pending regulatory review. As multiple efforts by BP failed, some in the media and public expressed confusion and criticism over various aspects of the incident, and stated a desire for more involvement by Obama and the federal government. Prior to the oil spill, on March 31, 2010, Obama ended a ban on oil and gas drilling along the majority of the East Coast of the United States and along the coast of northern Alaska in an effort to win support for an energy and climate bill and to reduce foreign imports of oil and gas.


title: Barack Obama

text: In July 2013, Obama expressed reservations and said he "would reject the Keystone XL pipeline if it increased carbon pollution [or] greenhouse emissions." On February 24, 2015, Obama vetoed a bill that would have authorized the pipeline. It was the third veto of Obama's presidency and his first major veto.


title: Barack Obama

text: In December 2016, Obama permanently banned new offshore oil and gas drilling in most United States-owned waters in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans using the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Act.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama emphasized the conservation of federal lands during his term in office. He used his power under the Antiquities Act to create 25 new national monuments during his presidency and expand four others, protecting a total of of federal lands and waters, more than any other U.S. president.


title: Barack Obama

text: Obama called for Congress to pass legislation reforming health care in the United States, a key campaign promise and a top legislative goal. He proposed an expansion of health insurance coverage to cover the uninsured, cap premium increases, and allow people to retain their coverage when they leave or change jobs. His proposal was to spend $900billion over ten years and include a government insurance plan, also known as the public option, to compete with the corporate insurance sector as a main component to lowering costs and improving quality of health care. It would also make it illegal for insurers to drop sick people or deny them coverage for pre-existing conditions, and require every American to carry health coverage. The plan also includes medical spending cuts and taxes on insurance companies that offer expensive plans.


title: Barack Obama

text: On July 14, 2009, House Democratic leaders introduced a 1,017-page plan for overhauling the U.S. health care system, which Obama wanted Congress to approve by the end of 2009. After public debate during the Congressional summer recess of 2009, Obama delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress on September 9 where he addressed concerns over the proposals. In March 2009, Obama lifted a ban on using federal funds for stem cell research.


title: Barack Obama

text: On November 7, 2009, a health care bill featuring the public option was passed in the House. On December 24, 2009, the Senate passed its own bill—without a public option—on a party-line vote of 60–39. On March 21, 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed by the Senate in December was passed in the House by a vote of 219 to 212. Obama signed the bill into law on March 23, 2010.


title: Barack Obama

text: The ACA includes health-related provisions, most of which took effect in 2014, including expanding Medicaid eligibility for people making up to 133 percentof the federal poverty level (FPL) starting in 2014, subsidizing insurance premiums for people making up to 400 percentof the FPL ($88,000 for family of four in 2010) so their maximum "out-of-pocket" payment for annual premiums will be from 2 percent to 9.5 percent of income, providing incentives for businesses to provide health care benefits, prohibiting denial of coverage and denial of claims based on pre-existing conditions, establishing health insurance exchanges, prohibiting annual coverage caps, and support for medical research. According to White House and CBO figures, the maximum share of income that enrollees would have to pay would vary depending on their income relative to the federal poverty level.


title: Barack Obama

text: The costs of these provisions are offset by taxes, fees, and cost-saving measures, such as new Medicare taxes for those in high-income brackets, taxes on indoor tanning, cuts to the Medicare Advantage program in favor of traditional Medicare, and fees on medical devices and pharmaceutical companies; there is also a tax penalty for those who do not obtain health insurance, unless they are exempt due to low income or other reasons. In March 2010, the CBO estimated that the net effect of both laws will be a reduction in the federal deficit by $143billion over the first decade.


title: Barack Obama

text: The law faced several legal challenges, primarily based on the argument that an individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance was unconstitutional. On June 28, 2012, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5–4 vote in "National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius" that the mandate was constitutional under the U.S. Congress's taxing authority. In "Burwell v. Hobby Lobby" the Court ruled that "closely-held" for-profit corporations could be exempt on religious grounds under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act from regulations adopted under the ACA that would have required them to pay for insurance that covered certain contraceptives. In June 2015, the Court ruled 6–3 in "King v. Burwell" that subsidies to help individuals and families purchase health insurance were authorized for those doing so on both the federal exchange and state exchanges, not only those purchasing plans "established by the State", as the statute reads.


title: Barack Obama

text: In February and March 2009, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made separate overseas trips to announce a "new era" in U.S. foreign relations with Russia and Europe, using the terms "break" and "reset" to signal major changes from the policies of the preceding administration. Obama attempted to reach out to Arab leaders by granting his first interview to an Arab satellite TV network, Al Arabiya. On March 19, Obama continued his outreach to the Muslim world, releasing a New Year's video message to the people and government of Iran. On June 4, 2009, Obama delivered a speech at Cairo University in Egypt calling for "A New Beginning" in relations between the Islamic world and the United States and promoting Middle East peace. On June 26, 2009, Obama condemned the Iranian government's actions towards protesters following Iran's 2009 presidential election.


title: Barack Obama

text: In 2011, Obama ordered a drone strike in Yemen which targeted and killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American imam suspected of being a leading Al-Qaeda organizer. al-Awlaki became the first U.S. citizen to be targeted and killed by a U.S. drone strike. The Department of Justice released a memo justifying al-Awlaki's death as a lawful act of war, while civil liberties advocates described it as a violation of al-Awlaki's constitutional right to due process. The killing led to significant controversy. His teenage son and young daughter, also Americans, were later killed in separate US military actions, although they were not targeted specifically.


title: Barack Obama

text: In March 2015, Obama declared that he had authorized U.S. forces to provide logistical and intelligence support to the Saudis in their military intervention in Yemen, establishing a "Joint Planning Cell" with Saudi Arabia. In 2016, the Obama administration proposed a series of arms deals with Saudi Arabia worth $115billion. Obama halted the sale of guided munition technology to Saudi Arabia after Saudi warplanes targeted a funeral in Yemen's capital Sanaa, killing more than 140 people.


title: Barack Obama

text: On February 27, 2009, Obama announced that combat operations in Iraq would end within 18 months. The Obama administration scheduled the withdrawal of combat troops to be completed by August 2010, decreasing troop's levels from 142,000 while leaving a transitional force of about 50,000 in Iraq until the end of 2011. On August 19, 2010, the last U.S. combat brigade exited Iraq. Remaining troops transitioned from combat operations to counter-terrorism and the training, equipping, and advising of Iraqi security forces. On August 31, 2010, Obama announced that the United States combat mission in Iraq was over. On October 21, 2011, President Obama announced that all U.S. troops would leave Iraq in time to be "home for the holidays."


title: Barack Obama

text: In June 2014, following the capture of Mosul by ISIL, Obama sent 275 troops to provide support and security for U.S. personnel and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. ISIS continued to gain ground and to commit widespread massacres and ethnic cleansing. In August 2014, during the Sinjar massacre, Obama ordered a campaign of U.S. airstrikes against ISIL. By the end of 2014, 3,100 American ground troops were committed to the conflict and 16,000 sorties were flown over the battlefield, primarily by U.S. Air Force and Navy pilots. In early 2015, with the addition of the "Panther Brigade" of the 82nd Airborne Division the number of U.S. ground troops in Iraq increased to 4,400, and by July American-led coalition air forces counted 44,000 sorties over the battlefield.


title: Barack Obama

text: In his election campaign, Obama called the war in Iraq a "dangerous distraction" and that emphasis should instead be put on the war in Afghanistan, the region he cites as being most likely where an attack against the United States could be launched again. Early in his presidency, Obama moved to bolster U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan. He announced an increase in U.S. troop levels to 17,000 military personnel in February 2009 to "stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan", an area he said had not received the "strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires." He replaced the military commander in Afghanistan, General David D. McKiernan, with former Special Forces commander Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal in May 2009, indicating that McChrystal's Special Forces experience would facilitate the use of counterinsurgency tactics in the war. On December 1, 2009, Obama announced the deployment of an additional 30,000 military personnel to Afghanistan and proposed to begin troop withdrawals 18 months from that date; this took place in July 2011. David Petraeus replaced McChrystal in June 2010, after McChrystal's staff criticized White House personnel in a magazine article. In February 2013, Obama said the U.S. military would reduce the troop level in Afghanistan from 68,000 to 34,000 U.S. troops by February 2014. In October 2015, the White House announced a plan to keep U.S. Forces in Afghanistan indefinitely in light of the deteriorating security situation.


title: Barack Obama

text: Regarding neighboring Pakistan, Obama called its tribal border region the "greatest threat" to the security of Afghanistan and Americans, saying that he "cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary." In the same speech, Obama claimed that the U.S. "cannot succeed in Afghanistan or secure our homeland unless we change our Pakistan policy."


title: Barack Obama

text: Starting with information received from Central Intelligence Agency operatives in July 2010, the CIA developed intelligence over the next several months that determined what they believed to be the hideout of Osama bin Laden. He was living in seclusion in a large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a suburban area from Islamabad. CIA head Leon Panetta reported this intelligence to President Obama in March 2011. Meeting with his national security advisers over the course of the next six weeks, Obama rejected a plan to bomb the compound, and authorized a "surgical raid" to be conducted by United States Navy SEALs. The operation took place on May 1, 2011, and resulted in the shooting death of bin Laden and the seizure of papers, computer drives and disks from the compound. DNA testing was one of five methods used to positively identify bin Laden's corpse, which was buried at sea several hours later. Within minutes of the President's announcement from Washington, DC, late in the evening on May 1, there were spontaneous celebrations around the country as crowds gathered outside the White House, and at New York City's Ground Zero and Times Square. Reaction to the announcement was positive across party lines, including from former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.


title: Barack Obama

text: Since the spring of 2013, secret meetings were conducted between the United States and Cuba in the neutral locations of Canada and Vatican City. The Vatican first became involved in 2013 when Pope Francis advised the U.S. and Cuba to exchange prisoners as a gesture of goodwill. On December 10, 2013, Cuban President Raúl Castro, in a significant public moment, greeted and shook hands with Obama at the Nelson Mandela memorial service in Johannesburg.


title: Barack Obama

text: In December 2014, after the secret meetings, it was announced that Obama, with Pope Francis as an intermediary, had negotiated a restoration of relations with Cuba, after nearly sixty years of détente. Popularly dubbed the Cuban Thaw, "The New Republic" deemed the Cuban Thaw to be "Obama's finest foreign policy achievement." On July 1, 2015, President Obama announced that formal diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States would resume, and embassies would be opened in Washington and Havana. The countries' respective "interests sections" in one another's capitals were upgraded to embassies on July 20 and August 13, 2015, respectively. Obama visited Havana, Cuba for two days in March 2016, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to arrive since Calvin Coolidge in 1928.


title: Barack Obama

text: During the initial years of the Obama administration, the U.S. increased military cooperation with Israel, including increased military aid, re-establishment of the U.S.-Israeli Joint Political Military Group and the Defense Policy Advisory Group, and an increase in visits among high-level military officials of both countries. The Obama administration asked Congress to allocate money toward funding the Iron Dome program in response to the waves of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel. In March 2010, Obama took a public stance against plans by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to continue building Jewish housing projects in predominantly Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. In 2011, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements, with the United States being the only nation to do so. Obama supports the two-state solution to the Arab–Israeli conflict based on the 1967 borders with land swaps.


title: Barack Obama

text: In 2013, Jeffrey Goldberg reported that, in Obama's view, "with each new settlement announcement, Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation." In 2014, Obama likened the Zionist movement to the civil rights movement in the United States. He said both movements seek to bring justice and equal rights to historically persecuted peoples, explaining: "To me, being pro-Israel and pro-Jewish is part and parcel with the values that I've been fighting for since I was politically conscious and started getting involved in politics." Obama expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In 2015, Obama was harshly criticized by Israel for advocating and signing the Iran Nuclear Deal; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had advocated the U.S. congress to oppose it, said the deal was "dangerous" and "bad."


title: Barack Obama

text: On December 23, 2016, under the Obama Administration, the United States abstained from United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Israeli settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories as a violation of international law, effectively allowing it to pass. Netanyahu strongly criticized the Obama administration's actions, and the Israeli government withdrew its annual dues from the organization, which totaled $6million, on January 6, 2017. On January 5, 2017, the United States House of Representatives voted 342–80 to condemn the UN Resolution.


title: Barack Obama

text: In February 2011, protests in Libya began against long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Arab Spring. They soon turned violent. In March, as forces loyal to Gaddafi advanced on rebels across Libya, calls for a no-fly zone came from around the world, including Europe, the Arab League, and a resolution passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate. In response to the unanimous passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 on March 17, Gaddafi—who had previously vowed to "show no mercy" to the rebels of Benghazi—announced an immediate cessation of military activities.


title: Barack Obama

text: The next day, on Obama's orders, the U.S. military took part in air strikes to destroy the Libyan government's air defense capabilities to protect civilians and enforce a no-fly-zone, including the use of Tomahawk missiles, B-2 Spirits, and fighter jets. Six days later, on March 25, by unanimous vote of all its 28 members, NATO took over leadership of the effort, dubbed Operation Unified Protector. Some Representatives questioned whether Obama had the constitutional authority to order military action in addition to questioning its cost, structure and aftermath. Obama later expressed regret for playing a leading role in the destabilization of Libya, calling the certain situation there "a mess." He has stated that the lack of preparation surrounding the days following the government's overthrow was the "worst mistake" of his presidency.


title: Barack Obama

text: On August 18, 2011, several months after the start of the Syrian civil war, Obama issued a written statement that said: "The time has come for President Assad to step aside." This stance was reaffirmed in November 2015. In 2012, Obama authorized multiple programs run by the CIA and the Pentagon to train anti-Assad rebels. The Pentagon-run program was later found to have failed and was formally abandoned in October 2015.


title: Barack Obama

text: In the wake of a chemical weapons attack in Syria, formally blamed by the Obama administration on the Assad government, Obama chose not to enforce the "red line" he had pledged and, rather than authorize the promised military action against Assad, went along with the Russia-brokered deal that led to Assad giving up chemical weapons; however attacks with chlorine gas continued. In 2014, Obama authorized an air campaign aimed primarily at ISIL.