Stacey Abrams - USA Politics Headlines Today

In: Americas & Caribbean Biography, Famous People

Stacey Abrams (Stacey Yvonne Abrams) was born on 9 December 1973. Stacey Abrams an American politician, lawyer, and novelist served as minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives from 2011 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, she is her party’s nominee in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election.

Stacey knows our beginnings do not have to dictate who we will become. She has a boundless belief in Georgians’ capacity to prosper; and she has the courage, commitment to service, and experience to make this vision a reality.

Stacey Abrams and her five siblings grew up in Gulfport, Mississippi with three tenets: go to school, go to church, and take care of each other. Despite struggling to make ends meet for their family, her parents made service a way of life for their children – if someone was less fortunate, it was their job to serve that person. This ethic – and her parents’ unwavering commitment to providing educational opportunity for their children – led the family to Georgia.Continue reading

Mary Prince - West Indian Slave

In: Africa Biography, Americas & Caribbean Biography, Famous People

Mary Prince was born into enslavement on Bermuda around 1788, and sold away from her family at the age of ten. She was treated cruelly by a series of masters on several West Indian islands, enduring extreme hardship and sexual abuse. For years she was forced to work up to her waist all day in salt ponds, manufacturing salt. This work caused sun blisters on exposed parts of the body and painful boils and sores on the legs.

In 1828, she was brought from Antigua to England by her then owners, Mr and Mrs John Wood. Slavery was still legal in the West Indies, but no longer in Britain itself, so once in London, Prince left the Woods and went to the Anti-Slavery Society.Continue reading

Andrew Yang - US Politics News

In: Americas & Caribbean Biography, Famous People

Andrew Yang was born on 13 January 1975 in upstate New York. His parents immigrated from Taiwan in the ‘60s and met while in grad school at Berkeley. His father was a researcher at IBM and General Electric, generating 69 patents over his career, and his mother was the systems administrator at a local university. Andrew and his brother grew up believing in the American dream—their parents immigrated for a better life, chased every opportunity America had to offer, and taught their sons to do the same. Andrew studied economics and political science at Brown University, then earned a JD at Columbia Law School.

After five months as a corporate lawyer at Davis Polk, Andrew realized it wasn’t the path for him. He left the firm and founded an internet company that raised money for non-profits—like many of the first dot-com businesses, it didn’t last. When Andrew shut down his first company he was just 26 and still owed $100k in law school debt—but the experience gave him a taste for building things. He joined a wireless software company and then an early stage healthcare startup, where he learned how to build a business from more experienced entrepreneurs while working in a dozen hospitals.Continue reading

Ayanna Pressley - US Politics News

In: Americas & Caribbean Biography, Famous People

Ayanna Pressley was born on 3 February 1974. Ayanna Pressley is an advocate, a policy-maker, an activist, and survivor. Her election to the Boston City Council in 2009 marked the first time a woman of color was elected to the Council in its 100-year history. This laid the foundation for Ayanna’s groundbreaking work, with which she has consistently strived to improve the lives of people that have too often been left behind.

Raised in Chicago as the only child of an activist mother who instilled in her the value of civic participation, Ayanna understands the role that government should play in helping to lift up communities that are in need of the most help.Continue reading

Brett Michael Kavanaugh, Brett Kavanaugh - USA Politics News Headline

In: Americas & Caribbean Biography, Famous People

Brett Michael Kavanaugh was born in Washington, D.C., in 1965. Kavanaugh began his rapid ascent in the legal world following his graduation from Yale Law School in 1990. After assisting special counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigations into Bill Clinton’s professional and personal dealings, he joined the George W. Bush White House as counsel and staff secretary. Since 2006, Kavanaugh has served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where he has established his conservative views by issuing opinions that favor the Second Amendment and religious freedom, among other issues. On July 9, 2018, he was nominated for a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court by President Donald Trump, to replace outgoing Justice Anthony Kennedy.

On July 9, 2018, less than two weeks after Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy announced he was retiring from the U.S. Supreme Court, President Donald Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to take his place. He made his selection after narrowing down a list of two dozen candidates prepared by the Federalist Society, with the other finalists said to be Judges Thomas Hardiman, Raymond Kethledge and Amy Coney Barrett.Continue reading