Tag: kamala harris news

  • PM Modi meets US Vice President Kamala Harris; discusses bilateral ties, Indo-Pacific

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday described India and America as “natural partners” as he held the primary in-person assembly with Vice President Kamala Harris on the White House throughout which they determined to additional cement the Indo-US strategic partnership and mentioned international problems with widespread curiosity, together with threats to democracy, Afghanistan and the Indo-Pacific.
    “India and America are natural partners. We have similar values, similar geopolitical interests,” Modi mentioned in a joint media look with Harris, the first-ever individual of Indian origin to be elected because the vice-president of the United States.
    Noting that India and the US are the most important and oldest democracies, Modi mentioned the 2 international locations share values and their coordination and cooperation can also be steadily rising.
    This is the primary assembly between the 2 leaders. Harris had earlier spoken with Modi over the telephone in June in the course of the COVID-19 disaster in India.

    “You are the source of inspiration for so many people across the world. I am completely confident that our bilateral relationship will touch new heights under President Biden and your leadership,” Modi advised Harris.
    The two leaders had been carrying masks as they each spoke in entrance of a battery of pool reporters from each India and the US.
    Modi invited the 56-year-old Democratic chief and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff to go to India.
    “Both President Biden and you assumed office at a time when our planet faced very tough challenges. In a short time you have had many achievements to your credit be it COVID-19, climate change or the Quad,” Modi mentioned.
    In an announcement, the Ministry of External Affairs mentioned the 2 leaders exchanged views on latest international developments, together with in Afghanistan and reaffirmed their dedication in the direction of a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific area.
    The two leaders mentioned the COVID-19 scenario of their international locations, together with ongoing efforts to comprise the pandemic by way of expedited vaccination efforts, and guaranteeing provide of essential medicines, therapeutics and healthcare tools, it mentioned.
    “As pertains to the Indo-Pacific, the US stresses on sustaining a free and open Indo-Pacific, Harris mentioned, amidst China’s aggressive strikes within the strategically important area.
    India, the US and a number of other different world powers have been speaking about the necessity to guarantee a free, open and thriving Indo-Pacific within the backdrop of China’s rising navy manoeuvring within the area.
    China claims practically the entire disputed South China Sea, although Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam all declare elements of it. Beijing has constructed synthetic islands and navy installations within the South China Sea.
    Harris mentioned the world is extra interconnected and extra interdependent than ever earlier than. “And the challenges that we face today have highlighted that fact. COVID-19, climate crisis and the importance of our shared belief in the Indo-Pacific region,” she mentioned.
    “Both sides acknowledged the importance of collaborative action on climate change. Prime Minister spoke about India’s push for increasing renewable energy and the recently launched National Hydrogen Mission. He also emphasized the importance of lifestyle changes to promote environmental sustainability,” the assertion mentioned.
    Modi famous that he had the chance to talk to Harris after she assumed the Vice Presidency. “One of our interactions happened when India was battling a very tough wave of COVID-19 infections. I recall your kind words of solidarity that time,” Modi mentioned.
    India was confronted with the second wave of the COVID 19 pandemic. A really troublesome time for India, he mentioned. “Like a family, the sense of kinship and so warmly, you extended a helping hand, the words that you chose when you spoke to me, I will always remember that, and I’d like to thank you from the bottom of my heart,” the prime minister mentioned.

    “Like a true friend, you had given a message of cooperation, and were very full of sensitivity and immediately after that we found that the US government, the US corporate sector and the Indian community, all came together to help India,” he mentioned.
    Modi mentioned that the US Government, corporations based mostly within the USA and the Indian diaspora had been very useful when India was combating a troublesome wave of COVID-19 infections.
    Both leaders acknowledged the colourful people-to-people linkages because the bedrock of the mutually helpful training linkages and the circulate of information, innovation and expertise between our two international locations.
    Modi mentioned that 4 million folks of Indian origin are performing as a bridge of friendship between the 2 international locations.
    Harris described India as a “very important partner” to the US and welcomed New Delhi’s announcement that it’s going to quickly resume vaccine export.
    India stopped the export of COVID-19 vaccines after the second wave of the pandemic hit the nation in April this 12 months.
    On Monday, India mentioned that it’s going to resume export of surplus COVID-19 vaccines within the fourth quarter of 2021 underneath the ”Vaccine Maitri” programme and to fulfill its dedication to the COVAX international pool.
    On the problem of the local weather disaster, she advised Modi that the US working along with India can haven’t solely a profound affect on folks of countries however all over the world itself.
    Harris mentioned that it’s incumbent on the 2 nations to guard democracies in the most effective pursuits of individuals of the 2 international locations.

    “As democracies around the world are under threat, it is imperative that we defend democratic principles and institutions within our respective countries and around the world. And that we maintain what we must do to strengthen democracies at home and it is incumbent on our nations to of course protect democracies in the best interests of people of our countries,” she mentioned.
    Their assembly comes a day forward of the maiden bilateral assembly between Modi and President Joe Biden and the Quad Leaders’ Summit on the White House on Friday.
    They additionally mentioned areas of future collaboration, together with house cooperation, Information Technology, particularly rising and demanding applied sciences, in addition to the cooperation in healthcare sector.

  • Kamala Harris rebukes China in main speech on Indo-Pacific

    US Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a pointy rebuke to China for its incursions within the South China Sea, warning its actions there quantity to “coercion” and “intimidation” and affirming that the US will help its allies within the area in opposition to Beijing’s advances.
    “We know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea,” she mentioned in a serious international coverage speech Tuesday in Singapore during which she laid out the Biden administration’s imaginative and prescient for the Indo-Pacific. “Beijing’s actions continue to undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations.”

    Harris, who’s on a weeklong swing by Southeast Asia, declared that the US “stands with our allies and our partners” within the face of threats from China.
    The speech sought to cement the US dedication to supporting its allies in an space of rising significance to the Biden administration, which has made countering China’s affect globally a centerpiece of its international coverage. And it got here throughout a vital second for the United States, because the Biden administration seeks to additional solidify its pivot towards Asia whereas America’s decades-long concentrate on the Middle East involves a messy finish with the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
    US Vice President Kamala Harris, third left, takes half in a roundtable at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore earlier than departing for Vietnam on the second leg of her Southeast Asia journey, Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2021. (AP)
    Harris underscored this shift, calling the Indo-Pacific “critically important to our nation’s security and prosperity.” She mentioned that whereas the US is targeted on closing out its Afghanistan engagement by evacuating as many individuals as doable, “it is also imperative that as we address developments in one region, we continue to advance our interests in other regions, including this region.”

    Her rebuke to Beijing amounted to her sharpest feedback but on the US foe. And China hit again, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin invoking Afghanistan in his response to a query about Harris’ feedback, saying the messy withdrawal from Kabul confirmed the US had misplaced credibility. He charged that the US “can smear, suppress, coerce, and bully other countries at will in order to maintain America first, without paying any price.”
    “This is the order that the US wants. The US always tries to make use of the rules and order to justify its own selfish, bullying and hegemonic behavior, but who still believe it now?” Wang mentioned.
    US Vice President Kamala Harris visits the USS Tulsa in Singapore, Monday, Aug. 23, 2021. (AP)
    In her remarks, Harris was cautious to emphasise that the US is looking for better engagement within the Indo-Pacific area not simply to counter China, however to advance an “optimistic vision that we have for our participation and partnership in the region.” In deference to Singapore’s staunch neutrality within the US-China dispute, Harris additionally affirmed that the US isn’t seeking to “make anyone choose between countries.”
    Speaking in a rustic that serves because the anchor of the US naval presence in Southeast Asia, Harris emphasised the importance the area holds for US protection. She additionally emphasised the numerous US financial ties there, noting that Southeast Asia represents America’s fourth largest export market.
    On Monday, Harris instructed sailors aboard a US fight ship on the Changi naval base in Singapore that “a big part of the history of the 21st century will be written about this very region” and that their work defending the area was pivotal.
    US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to troops as she visits the USS Tulsa in Singapore, Monday, Aug. 23, 2021. (AP)
    “It is in our vital interest to stand united with our allies and our partners in Southeast Asia in defense of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” she mentioned.
    Harris additionally met Monday with Singapore President Halimah Yacob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. The vice chairman’s workplace introduced quite a lot of agreements out of that assembly geared toward combating cyberthreats, tackling local weather change, addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and assuaging provide chain points.
    After her speech Tuesday, Harris held a roundtable dialogue with enterprise leaders on provide chain points. Later, she deliberate to journey to Vietnam, the place she’ll meet with prime officers Wednesday.
    President Joe Biden himself has repeatedly emphasised his concentrate on China as one among America’s principal adversaries. In current months, his administration has ramped up outreach to the Indo-Pacific area, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman each visiting the realm within the spring and summer season. Secretary of State Antony Blinken additionally held quite a lot of digital conferences with Southeast Asian officers earlier this month.
    The chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, nevertheless, sophisticated that message of help to the area, elevating questions in regards to the US dedication to its allies. While Biden mentioned final week that an indefinite engagement would have benefited “true strategic competitors” China and Russia, China has seized on the photographs of violence from the evacuation to slam the US for its engagement there.
    But Harris, throughout a joint information convention with Prime Minister Lee on Monday, mentioned that her presence within the nation, mixed with the agreements round better cooperation that the Biden administration has pursued with Indo-Pacific nations, converse “volumes in terms of the integrity of the relationships that the United States has around the world on many issues.”

  • Kamala Harris is shifting into newly renovated official residence

    Written by Katie Rogers
    Number One Observatory Circle is lastly prepared for its latest resident. After months spent dwelling in non permanent quarters at Blair House, Vice President Kamala Harris will transfer into her 33-room official residence on Tuesday night after the completion of renovations, an administration official mentioned.
    “Tonight when she returns, she will take Marine Two to the vice president’s residence,” the official, who requested to not be recognized due to safety considerations, mentioned concerning the transfer.
    Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, spent final weekend in California. On Tuesday, Harris stopped in Chicago to tour a coronavirus vaccination web site earlier than flying on to Washington, D.C., whereas Emhoff visited Washington state.

    Scheduled house enhancements delayed Harris’ transfer to the Victorian residence, which has housed vice presidents and their households for the reason that Mondales within the Seventies. Over the previous two months, the house underwent intensive renovations, together with the set up of a brand new heating and air system, refurbished picket flooring and up to date chimney liners, the Harris’ workplace mentioned.
    The house, which options a big veranda, a pool and a sunroom, sits on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory, in Northwest Washington.

    The Navy gives funding for many structural refurbishments, corresponding to heating and air-con or refurbishment of flooring, in keeping with Philip Dufour, who served as the house’s supervisor and social secretary to Vice President Al Gore.
    Payment for preservation or aesthetic-related house enhancements comes from the coffers of the Vice President’s Residence Foundation, which was began in 1991 after Vice President Dan Quayle started soliciting donations for numerous house enhancements, together with a $130,000 pool, a health club and a placing inexperienced. (“He’s my favorite vice president,” President Joe Biden, a former resident and fan of the pool, mentioned of Quayle in 2010. “And my granddaughters love it.”)

    The basis additionally pays to hold paintings and set up new drapes, and handles some bigger initiatives. It “partnered with the Navy” for a significant renovation through the Gore period that included the set up of a kitchenette on the second flooring, in order that the household wouldn’t should go to the service kitchen within the basement, Dufour mentioned.
    The Queen Anne-style house gives privateness and a respite from the bustle of Washington that’s not obtainable on the White House, which is “lovely and beautiful, but you kind of live above the store,” Dufour mentioned.

  • Biden, Harris condemn US racism, sexism in blunt language

    President Joe Biden took purpose on Sunday on the “ugly poisons” of “systemic racism and white supremacy” that he stated had lengthy plagued the United States, and vowed to alter the legal guidelines that enabled continued discrimination.
    In blunt language, the Democratic president stated the nation confronted issues with racism, xenophobia and nativism.
    Biden’s assertion adopted related sentiments from Vice President Kamala Harris, who detailed in Atlanta on Friday the US historical past of discrimination towards Asian Americans.

    “Racism is real in America and it has always been,” stated Harris, the nation’s first Asian-American, first Black and first feminine vp. “Xenophobia is real in America and always has been. Sexism too.” she stated.

    Biden’ assertion, issued on Sunday evening, marks the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, created within the Nineteen Seventies to mark a 1960 bloodbath in South Africa.
    “Hate can have no safe harbor in America. It should have no safe harbor anywhere in the world. We must join together to make it stop,” Biden stated within the assertion.
    He stated his administration would converse out towards racial discrimination all over the world, together with the “horrific” mistreatment of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar and the Uighurs in China.

    “One of the core values and beliefs that should bring us together as Americans is standing against hate and racism, even as we acknowledge that systemic racism and white supremacy are ugly poisons that have long plagued the United States,” he stated. “We must change the laws that enable discrimination in our country, and we must change our hearts.”
    Biden’s assertion got here amid mounting strain on regulation enforcement authorities to deal with final week’s lethal taking pictures in Atlanta of eight individuals – together with six girls of Asian descent – as a hate crime.

  • Kamala Harris strikes to Blair House as her official residence undergoes repairs

    US Vice President Kamala Harris is quickly staying on the historic Blair House as her official residence is present process repairs, a spokesperson stated.
    Across the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, Blair House is the official visitor home of the US President.
    The official residence of the vp is situated throughout the Naval Observatory Complex and is about 4 miles northwest of the White House.

    The vp’s chief spokesperson, Symone Sanders, instructed reporters right here on Saturday that Harris moved in on Thursday.
    “They are living there while repairs are done at the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory,” Sanders stated.
    The Washington Post reported Sunday that crews are engaged on new liners for the chimneys and different duties within the 33-room house, which was in-built 1893.
    Blair House, constructed as a non-public home in 1824, is the visitor home of the US President since 1942, the place visiting overseas dignitaries usually keep.

    In current years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several other different Indian leaders have stayed on this historic constructing that has 120 antique-filled rooms.
    “It’s such a cozy and beautiful place. There is so much history here, and it tells the great story of our country. So many presidents have passed through that black and white marble threshold. Yes, it has a lot of square footage, but it feels like a home,” Capricia Marshall, a former chief of protocol and present board member of the Blair House Restoration Fund, was quoted as saying by The Washington Times.

    President Joe Biden and the First Lady spent the evening earlier than their inauguration right here.

  • Vice President Kamala Devi Harris: A brand new chapter opens in America’s politics

    Image Source : AP Vice President Kamala Harris waves after being sworn in through the 59th Presidential Inauguration on the US Capitol in Washington
    Vice President Kamala Harris broke the barrier that has stored males on the high ranks of American energy for greater than two centuries when she took the oath Wednesday to carry the nation’s second-highest workplace.

    Harris was sworn in as the primary feminine U.S. vice chairman — and the primary Black lady and individual of South Asian descent to carry the place — in entrance of the U.S. Capitol by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Later, she presided as Senate president for the primary time to swear in three new Democratic senators, together with her alternative.

    The second was steeped in historical past and significance in additional methods than one. She was escorted to the rostrum by Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, the officer who single-handedly took on a mob of Trump supporters as they tried to breach the Senate ground through the Capitol rebellion that sought to overturn the election outcomes. Harris was carrying garments from two younger, rising Black designers — a deep purple costume and coat.

    After taking the oath of workplace, a beaming Harris hugged her husband, Douglas Emhoff, and gave President Joe Biden a fist bump.

    Her rise is historic in any context, one other second when a cussed boundary falls away, increasing the concept of what’s attainable in American politics. But it’s significantly significant as a result of Harris is taking workplace at a second when Americans are grappling over institutional racism and confronting a pandemic that has disproportionately devastated Black and brown communities.

    READ MORE: ‘We will stand up. This is American aspiration,’ says Vice President Kamala Harris

    Those near Harris say she’ll convey an necessary — and infrequently lacking — perspective to the debates on find out how to overcome the various hurdles going through the brand new administration.

    “In many folks’ lifetimes, we experienced a segregated United States,” stated Lateefah Simon, a civil rights advocate and longtime Harris pal and mentee. “You will now have a Black woman who will walk into the White House not as a guest but as a second in command of the free world.”

    Harris – daughter of two immigrant mother and father

    Harris — the kid of immigrants, a stepmother of two and the spouse of a Jewish man — “carries an intersectional story of so many Americans who are never seen and heard.”

    Her household joined her on stage as she took the oath and later throughout her procession to her new workplace constructing close to the White House. She was led by her alma mater Howard University’s marching band and walked whereas holding the hand of her grandniece and alongside her husband, stepchildren, sister, brother-in-law and nieces.

    She will tackle the nation Wednesday night from the Lincoln Memorial.

    Harris, 56, strikes into the vice presidency simply 4 years after she first got here to Washington as a senator from California, the place she’d served as legal professional basic and as San Francisco’s district legal professional. She had anticipated to work with a White House run by Hillary Clinton, however President Donald Trump’s victory shortly scrambled the nation’s capital and set the stage for the rise of a brand new class of Democratic stars.

    After Harris’ personal presidential bid fizzled, her rise continued when Biden selected her as his operating mate final August. Harris had been an in depth pal of Beau Biden, his elder son and a former Delaware legal professional basic who died in 2015 of most cancers.

    The inauguration actions included nods to her history-making rise and her private story.

    Harris Sworn In 

    Harris used two Bibles to take the oath, one which belonged to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the late civil rights icon whom Harris usually cites as inspiration, and Regina Shelton, who helped increase Harris throughout her childhood within the San Francisco Bay Area.

    After the ceremony, she and Emhoff escorted former Vice President Mike Pence and his spouse, Karen Pence, out of the Capitol, a gesture that will usually be carried out by the incoming and outgoing presidents, however Trump didn’t attended the inauguration. Harris, Pence and their spouses spoke for a number of minutes earlier than the Pences departed.

    Image Source : APKamala Harris is sworn in as vice chairman by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor as her husband Doug Emhoff holds the Bible through the 59th Presidential Inauguration on the U.S. Capitol in Washington

    To rejoice the event, the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the nation’s oldest sorority for Black ladies, which Harris joined at Howard University, declared Wednesday as Soror Kamala D. Harris Day. Members of the sorority watching the celebrations throughout the nation had been clad in pearls, as was Harris, and the sorority’s pink and inexperienced colours.

    “There is a pride I can’t put into words,” stated Elizabeth Shelby, a member of the sorority’s Alpha Psi chapter, who watched from her dwelling in Nashville, Tennessee. “It is such a joy to see her rise to this place in our country. It is such a joy to know that she is one of us, that she represents us.”

    Women suffrage 

    Biden, in his inaugural tackle, mirrored on the 1913 march for girls’s suffrage the day earlier than President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, throughout which some marchers had been heckled and attacked.

    “Today, we mark the swearing in of the first woman in American history elected to national office, Vice President Kamala Harris. Don’t tell me things can’t change,” Biden stated.

    As vice chairman, Harris will develop the definition of who will get to carry energy in American politics, stated Martha S. Jones, a professor of historical past at Johns Hopkins University and the creator of “Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All.”

    People who need to perceive Harris and join together with her should study what it means to graduate from a traditionally Black faculty and college slightly than an Ivy League faculty. They should perceive Harris’ traditions, just like the Hindu celebration of Diwali, Jones stated.

    “Folks are going to have to adapt to her rather than her adapting to them,” Jones stated.

    Her election to the vice presidency needs to be only the start of placing Black ladies in management positions, Jones stated, significantly after the function Black ladies performed in organizing and turning out voters within the November election.

    “We will all learn what happens to the kind of capacities and insights of Black women in politics when those capacities and insights are permitted to lead,” Jones stated.

    READ MORE: Rejoin Paris pact, elevate Muslim journey ban and extra: Joe Biden reverses Trump insurance policies on day 1

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  • Kamala Harris: The inspiring story of many firsts

    First-time Senator Kamala Harris, popularly known as the “female Obama”, created historical past by turning into the primary girl, first Black and first Indian-American vice chairman of the United States.
    In a historic speech after her victory in November, Harris remembered her late mom Shyamala Gopalan, a most cancers researcher and civil rights activist from India, saying she had ready her for this massive day in her political profession.

    She additionally mentioned that whereas she could be the first girl to occupy the vice chairman’s workplace, she wouldn’t be the final.
    Harris, 56, is understood for a lot of firsts. She has been a county district lawyer; the district lawyer for San Francisco – the primary girl, first African-American and first Indian-origin to be elected to the place.
    Kamala Harris was born to 2 immigrant mother and father: a Black father and an Indian mom.
    She has a number of firsts in her position as vice chairman additionally: the primary girl, the primary African-American girl, the primary Indian-American and the primary Asian-American.
    When Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden picked Harris in August final yr as his working mate recognising the essential position Black voters may play in his decided bid to defeat Donald Trump, the then California Senator was the third girl to be chosen because the vice chairman on a serious social gathering ticket. Then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in 2008 and New York Representative Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 had been the opposite two.
    Before turning into Biden’s working mate, Harris had her personal presidential desires, which she deserted on account of lack of the monetary assets to proceed her marketing campaign.
    She’s one of many solely three Asian Americans within the Senate and she or he’s the primary Indian-American ever to serve within the chamber.
    During the Obama period, she was popularly known as the “female Obama”. A decade in the past, journalist Gwen Ifill known as Harris “the female Barack Obama” on the “Late Show With David Letterman”.
    Later, a small businessman from Willoughby Tony Pinto known as her “a young, female version of the president”.
    She is taken into account to be near Barack Obama, the primary black American President, who endorsed her in her numerous elections together with that of the US Senate in 2016.

    Harris was born to 2 immigrant mother and father: a Black father and an Indian mom. Her father, Donald Harris, was from Jamaica, and her mom, Shyamala Gopalan, who immigrated to the US from Chennai in 1958. She, nevertheless, defines herself merely as ‘American’.
    After her mother and father divorced, Harris was raised primarily by her Hindu single mom. She says that her mom adopted black tradition and immersed her two daughters – Kamala and her youthful sister Maya – in it. Harris grew up embracing her Indian tradition, however dwelling a proudly African American life. She typically joined her mom on visits to India.
    Her maternal uncle Gopalan Balachandran, who is predicated in Delhi, described Harris as a “fighter” and expressed the hope her top-level place would give Indians within the US “greater access” in interacting with the US administration.
    “My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters,” she wrote in her autobiography The Truths We Hold. “She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women.”
    Harris was born in Oakland and grew up in Berkeley. She spent her highschool years dwelling in French-speaking Canada – her mom was instructing at McGill University in Montreal.
    Her mom informed her rising up, “Don’t sit around and complain about things, do something,” which is what drives Kamala each single day, in response to the Biden-Harris joint marketing campaign web site.
    “The first Black and Indian-American woman to represent California in the United States Senate, Kamala Harris grew up believing in the promise of America and fighting to make sure that promise is fulfilled for all Americans,” it says.
    She attended faculty within the US, spending 4 years at Howard University, which she has described as among the many most formative experiences of her life.
    After Howard, she went on to earn her regulation diploma on the University of California, Hastings, and commenced her profession within the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.
    She grew to become the highest prosecutor for San Francisco in 2003, earlier than being elected the primary girl and the primary black particular person to function California’s lawyer normal in 2010, the highest lawyer in America’s most populous state.
    In her practically two phrases in workplace as lawyer normal, Harris gained a repute as one of many rising stars of the Democratic Party. She was elected as California’s junior US senator in 2017.
    “Kamala has spent her life fighting injustice. It’s a passion that was first inspired by her mother, Shyamala, an Indian-American immigrant, activist, and breast cancer researcher,” says her web site.
    Harris has been married to Douglas Emhoff, a lawyer, for the previous six years. She is the stepmother of two youngsters, Ella and Cole who’re her “endless source of love and pure joy.”
    Biden had mentioned that he can be honoured to be serving with Harris, who will “make history as the first woman, first Black woman, first woman of South Asian descent, and first daughter of immigrants ever elected to national office in this country.”
    Harris’ position as vice chairman can be extra than simply symbolic. Unlike her predecessors, she is prone to wield appreciable energy throughout Biden’s presidency.
    And if Biden, who can be 82 on the finish of his first time period in 2024, decides to not search a second time period, Harris can be an apparent alternative for the Democratic Party’s nomination.

  • Kamala Harris will make historical past, so will her ‘big, blended’ household

    Written by Jessica Bennett
    When Kamala Harris is sworn in as vice chairman, she is going to signify many firsts: First lady vice chairman. First Black lady. First lady of Indian descent. But there may be one other milestone that will probably be on show: that of her household.
    As Harris ascends to this barrier-breaking function, along with her family members trying on, thousands and thousands of Americans will see a extra expansive model of the American household staring again at them — one that might broaden inflexible concepts of politically palatable household dynamics or gender roles.
    Harris’ household is prepared for the second. Her niece, Meena Harris, has been sporting a “Vice President Aunty” T-shirt within the lead-up. Her stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, an artwork pupil in New York, deliberate to knit a go well with for the event (she opted for a costume). Kerstin Emhoff, the mom of Harris’ stepchildren — sure, Harris and her husband’s ex are pals — might tuck a sprig of sage in her purse; she is kind of positive the Capitol might use a smudging.
    And, after all, Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, will probably be there — proud husband, supportive vice presidential partner, is more likely to be snapping images of his spouse as he begins his new function because the nation’s first second gentleman (and now with the Twitter deal with to show it).
    Family has lengthy been a cornerstone of American values; one of many few issues most individuals can agree on, mentioned historian Nancy F. Cott. It is vital in politics, too. First girls have been discovered, by sheer likability alone, to have the capability to spice up the recognition of politicians, in line with analysis by political scientist Laurel Elder. Political spouses are sometimes described as “humanizing” a candidate. And the prolonged household is highly effective, too — with the potential to normalize and even overturn tropes.
    “You’ve got to remember, people look up to these institutions,” mentioned Chasten Buttigieg, husband of Pete Buttigieg, who grew to become shut with Harris’ husband early within the Democratic major race. “They model so much more than policy.” Buttigieg famous that, as a companion, he can discuss what makes his partner “funny or charming or loving or special” in a method that others can not.
    For ladies, a public household life has typically been vital in a extra fraught method: It is a option to offset the notion of “toughness” that feminine politicians have a tendency to hold with them. As Susan Douglas, a communications professor on the University of Michigan, defined it, emphasizing motherhood can “soften the image” of a politician who wants to speak about, say, battle or prosecuting folks to be able to do her job.
    These expectations can imply there may be not a lot room to stray from a slim definition of household — which makes the Harris-Emhoff household all of the extra important.
    “It’s striking,” mentioned Ralph Richard Banks, a regulation professor at Stanford who has written about race, gender and household patterns. “In some ways they are at the frontier of different aspects of American families and how they’re changing.”
    Some would possibly say they’re reflective of the place Americans already are. Today, the variety of {couples} who’re in an interracial marriage is round 1 in 6, a determine that, together with the variety of interfaith marriages, has been growing since 1967, in line with Pew.
    Kamala Harris, entrance middle, with, from left, her grandfather, P.V., sister, Maya, mom, Shyamala Gopalan, and grandmother, Rajam Gopalan, in 1972. (Joe Biden marketing campaign through The New York Times)
    Harris, the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, was raised with each Christian and Hindu practices, whereas her husband, who’s white, grew up attending Jewish summer season camp. (At their marriage ceremony, Harris took half within the Jewish ritual of smashing a glass.)
    She was in her 40s once they married; older than the median age of first marriage for girls on this nation, although that quantity continues to rise.
    Emhoff was divorced, with two youngsters from his earlier marriage, making his youngsters among the many 1 in 4 who don’t reside with each organic mother and father, in line with the Census Bureau. Harris didn’t have youngsters. Many Americans don’t, as fertility charges have reached a report low in recent times. She has typically mentioned that being “Momala” to her stepchildren is the function “that means the most” to her.
    “People have more choices,” Banks mentioned. “That’s a society-wide change, but it’s often not as visible in positions of power.”
    A Big, Blended Family
    In her acceptance speech on the Democratic National Convention in August, Harris spoke about her mom, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, an immigrant who got here to California as an adolescent with goals of changing into a most cancers researcher, and raised Kamala and her sister, Maya, after she and their father divorced. For most of Harris’ life, it was the three of them. When Maya grew to become pregnant at 17 along with her daughter, Meena, it grew to become 4.
    “My grandmother and my aunt were second mothers to me,” mentioned Meena Harris, 36, who shares a birthday along with her aunt. (Maya Harris, together with Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff, declined to be interviewed for this text.)
    In that speech, Harris famous that household will not be solely blood, however “the family you choose.” Hers consists of her greatest pal, Chrisette Hudlin, at whose marriage ceremony she introduced her bid for legal professional basic, and to whose youngsters she is godmother. It was Hudlin who launched her to the “funny, self-deprecating” leisure lawyer who would turn out to be her husband.
    Emhoff was born in New York and raised in New Jersey and suburban Los Angeles, the son of Barb and Mike, a stay-at-home mother and a shoe designer who, extra not too long ago, have been the founders of a “Grandparents for Biden” Facebook group.
    For 16 years, he was married to Kerstin Emhoff, with whom he shares Cole, 26, and Ella, 21, named for John Coltrane and Ella Fitzgerald.
    As Kerstin Emhoff tells it, the Emhoffs had a fairly conventional marriage: Doug dealt with the funds, she did the home stuff. Both labored full time. “That was part of our connection — we were both passionate career people,” mentioned Kerstin Emhoff.
    The youngsters have been in elementary and center college when their mother and father cut up, and Doug Emhoff moved into an residence close by. They alternated weeks at their dad’s home — calling themselves the “Palazzo Crew” after the title of his residence advanced, studying to handle for themselves the issues that their mom had lengthy taken care of.
    Most nights they might head to the deli counter at Whole Foods for sandwiches — till Doug Emhoff determined that the household wanted to eat higher. They tried cooking, at first, however rapidly got here up with a greater answer, Cole Emhoff defined: home-cooked meals that someone else would convey to your door.
    This was earlier than supply apps have been extensively out there. Blue Apron didn’t exist but. So it was mainly “a Craigslist-type situation,” Cole Emhoff mentioned. “We would just have these Tupperwares of, like, random spaghetti that were, like, stained red, that someone would bring to the house — and he’d be like, ‘Homemade dinner, guys!’”
    The household likes to speak about how Harris — identified for her cooking talent — modified that. Over the years, Cole Emhoff mentioned, he has seen his dad remodel “into, like, actually a good cook.”
    Host to the Nation
    Doug Emhoff is poised to turn out to be the primary male member of the very small group of White House spouses — a job that has no job description, no wage and no formal duties.
    Traditionally, first and second girls have performed the function of hostess: adorning for the vacations, presiding over luncheons, submitting household recipes to {a magazine}’s annual “First Lady Cookie Contest.”
    There have been loads of first and second girls who’ve centered on extra sturdy work, and particular coverage, too: In current years, they’ve turned their consideration to childhood literacy (Laura Bush), wholesome consuming (Michelle Obama), and navy households (Jill Biden). Melania Trump began a “Be Best” marketing campaign aimed toward tackling bullying.
    But unstated guidelines have remained. Namely: Stay in your lane. Eleanor Roosevelt, instrumental to brokering New Deal coverage, was famously informed she ought to “stick to her knitting,” and that sentiment has endured.
    Elder, a professor of political science at Hartwick College and co-author of the e-book “American Presidential Candidate Spouses,” known as it the “new traditionalism”: the concept that Americans want spouses who’re energetic and visual in help of their companions (the brand new half), however who don’t veer exterior of their supporting roles (the standard half). “Even though women are now doing everything, people’s expectations for presidential and vice-presidential spouses are very traditional,” she mentioned. “Americans are very split on whether they should even have a career — and they really don’t want them being a policy adviser.”
    Both Jill Biden and Karen Pence continued to show whereas their husbands served as vice chairman — and as first girl, Jill Biden will turn out to be the primary one to keep up a full-time job. Her vice presidential counterpart, Doug Emhoff, has given up his skilled work — taking a everlasting depart from his job as an leisure lawyer. It’s barely extra sophisticated than a purely feminist act — there have been questions on whether or not his job would possibly current a battle of curiosity — however it could actually concurrently be learn as both completely conformist or completely radical, Elder mentioned.
    “To see a man take on the role is surprising, thrilling, and a little bit disorienting since it challenges long-held assumptions,” she mentioned.
    For his half, Doug Emhoff — who, throughout a lot of the Democratic major, had a sticker on his telephone case that learn “A Woman’s Place is in the White House” — appears to don’t have any drawback taking part in the function of supportive husband. When requested by a 9-year-old final fall what he would do if his spouse grew to become vice chairman, he replied, “I’m just gonna do what I always do … I’m going to support her.”
    And whereas he has not but introduced what his focus in Washington will probably be — although he’s planning to show a category at Georgetown Law — he not too long ago met with a historian on the Library of Congress to raised perceive the function of second companions over time.
    His daughter, naturally, hopes he would possibly think about taking on knitting.
    ‘Vice President Auntie’
    When the “big, blended” Harris-Emhoff household, as Ella Emhoff has described them, gathers this week, will probably be the primary time they’ve all seen one another in additional than two months.
    The final time was the week of the election, gathered at a home in Delaware, the place the information was on each display screen, and Harris saved saying — not less than to start with: “This is great, right? Don’t you love being here? Don’t you love all being together?”
    They handed the time with video games, karaoke, meals — and waited, anxiously, for the official outcomes of an election that will catapult this household unit to a better stage of visibility. “There was one night that just turned into a dance party,” Cole Emhoff mentioned.
    In different phrases, only a household hanging out — hoping for historical past to be made.
    Before then, siblings Cole and Ella Emhoff had just about managed to go about their regular lives — with out mentioning to most individuals who their household was, or who they have been about to turn out to be.
    “It’s not one of those things you can bring up casually,” Ella Emhoff mentioned. “Like how do I normally say, ‘Yeah, my dad’s a lawyer. My mom’s a producer. My stepmom’s … the vice president.’”
    Now that the bubble has burst, there are specific issues they’re nonetheless making an attempt to get used to.
    Like turning on CNN and seeing their dad’s face. “I’m like, ‘Wait, you don’t belong there! But I guess you do?’” Cole Emhoff mentioned. Or, for Ella, to immediately have tens of 1000’s of Instagram followers who care about issues like her new tattoo, or, on TikTook, a video of her making an attempt a McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish for the primary time.
    It’s amusing to them that there’s a #DougHive — a play on Beyoncé’s #BeyHive fan membership — dedicated to their father; additionally, that anyone cares how he stays match on the highway.
    “My favorite thing,” Cole Emhoff mentioned, “is if you scroll back through Doug’s Instagram, you can see the progression from like quintessential ‘Dad’ with, like, 10 followers — like a selfie shot right under his face — to having hundreds of thousands of followers and like legitimately being good at it.”

  • Priyanka Chopra praises Kamala Harris’ highly effective Vogue cowl: ‘A girl of color! An Indian girl!’

    Image Source : INSTAGRAM/ PRIYANKACHOPRA, KAMALAHARRIS Priyanka Chopra praises Kamala Harris’ highly effective Vogue cowl: ‘A girl of color! An Indian girl!’
    Actress Priyanka Chopra, who is thought for advocating girls’s rights and celebrates girls’s empowerment, lauded US vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, on Sunday as she made it to the quilt of Vogue journal. For the unversed, Priyanka was the primary Indian girl on the quilt of American Vogue journal in 2018. 

    Sharing the quilt web page of Vogue’s newest problem on Harris, Priyanka Chopra wrote within the caption, “After watching the horror of how things unfolded this week on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, it’s promising that in just 10 days America will be inherited by such a positive example of leadership. A WOMAN! A WOMAN OF COLOR! AN INDIAN WOMAN! A BLACK WOMAN! A WOMAN WHOSE PARENTS WERE BORN OUTSIDE THE US! And could there be anything more special, as the VP Elect put it, than the fact that little girls will only know a world where a woman is the Vice President of the US. Coming from India, a country (like many others around the world) that has had several female leaders, it’s hard to believe that this is the US’ first! But it surely won’t be the last!”

    Priyanka additionally shared her personal cowl for the Style journal. She additionally posted a number of photos from the shoot. 

    On the work entrance, Priyanka is presently gearing up for the discharge of director Ramin Bahrani’s The White Tiger tailored from creator Aravind Adiga’s 2008 novel of the identical title. The movie will premiere on Netflix on January 22. She not too long ago wrapped up her upcoming mission Text for you with actor Sam Heughan in London.