Nomination

I was emotionally spent Tuesday after hearing President Obama nominate Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court ["First Latina Picked for Supreme Court; GOP Faces Delicate Task in Opposition," front page, May 27]. As a fellow "newyorkrican" from the Bronx, I can testify to the pride, hard work and devotion to education that Puerto Rican parents poured into their children despite the barriers of prejudice that faced us every day. Also, as a retired elementary school principal, I can see only the positive impact of this historic nomination on Latin...

RICHMOND, Va. — Republican convention nominates minister E.W. Jackson for Virginia lieutenant governor. Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

With a split decision in the final two primaries and a flurry of superdelegate endorsements, Sen. Barack Obama sealed the Democratic presidential nomination last night after a grueling and history-making campaign against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton that will make him the first African American to head a major-party ticket. Before a chanting and cheering audience in St. Paul, Minn., the first-term senator from Illinois savored what once seemed an unlikely outcome to the Democratic race with a nod to the marathon that was ending and to what will be...

RICHMOND, Va. — State Sen. Mark Obenshain has won the Republican nomination for attorney general in Virginia 35 years after his father won the party's U.S. Senate nomination. Obenshain was nominated by acclamation on a voice vote after his rival, Del. Rob Bell, conceded defeat after the first ballot at the Virginia Republican Convention on Saturday. Obenshain's father, Richard Obenshain, won the party's U.S. Senate nomination in the same building in 1978, but was killed in...

Former secretary of state Colin Powell on Sunday defended former Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel's qualifications to be the next defense secretary, saying in a lengthy interview that he expects Hagel to be confirmed. "I think he gets confirmed," Powell said on NBC News's "Meet the Press. " "I think he's ultimately superbly qualified, based on his overall record, based on his service to the country, based on how he feels about troops and veterans and families. I think he will do a great job as secretary of defense.

Senate Republicans delivered a sharp rebuke to President Obama on Thursday when they began a filibuster of Chuck Hagel 's nomination as secretary of defense. The confirmation process stalled Thursday when GOP senators deprived Hagel of the 60 votes needed to move it to its final stages. Republicans said they were seeking a delay so they could look more closely at the nominee. Both sides still think the former GOP senator from Nebraska will be confirmed, but the filibuster brought stark condemnations...

President Bush has nominated Lt. Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody to take over the Army's Materiel Command as a four-star general, and if confirmed by the Senate she would be the first woman in U.S. history to receive such a high military rank. In announcing the nomination yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates praised Dunwoody's "extraordinary leadership and devotion to duty" and called the choice "an historic occasion. " There are 57 active-duty female general officers in the U.S. armed forces, five of whom are three-star...

Barack Obama closed out the Democratic nomination battle as he began it: by scoring a big win in an overwhelmingly white state. He won white men in Montana by better than 2 to 1 and matched Hillary Rodham Clinton among white women, according to network exit polls.

In his Feb. 27 op-ed column, " McCarthyism 2013, " Dana Milbank denounced Republicans who opposed former senator Chuck Hagel's nomination to be defense secretary, implying that they had unfairly castigated the senator. But when Mr. Hagel purportedly spoke of the State Department as an "adjunct" of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and when he talked of an intimidating "Jewish lobby," he invoked words of classic anti-Semitism. The notion that Jews "control" international finance or Wall Street, the media or the corridors of power in...

President Obama's nomination of B. Todd Jones to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Wednesday is an effort to energize a depleted agency that has been denied leadership and resources by legislators aligned with the gun lobby, according to administration officials and former law enforcement officials. The introduction of Jones during the unveiling of Obama's sweeping gun proposals at the White House signals a willingness to fight for a position that has languished in...

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia's activist conservative attorney general has won the Republican Party's gubernatorial nomination by acclamation. At the GOP's statewide convention, thousands of conservatives and tea party followers who dominated the Richmond Coliseum on Saturday roared their unanimous support for Ken Cuccinelli. He was unopposed for the nomination and is generally beloved by the tea party for his aggressive challenges to federal mandates Cuccinelli is an abortion foe who was...

President Obama's nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency was quickly approved by a Senate committee Thursday when Republicans abandoned their boycott of a vote on the career environmental administrator, after what Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) described as "significant steps forward" on transparency issues important to the GOP. The Committee on Environment and Public Works voted 10 to 8 along party lines in favor of Gina McCarthy , the EPA's assistant administrator in...

WASHINGTON — A Senate panel has endorsed the nomination of Justice Department official Thomas Perez to head the Labor Department despite opposition from Republicans. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted 12 -10 to confirm Perez, currently the nation's top civil rights enforcer. All Republicans on the committee voted no. The party-line vote signaled a bruising fight to come when the full Senate takes up his confirmation. He is likely to need at least...

NEW YORK — Jonathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks, Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins and Pavel Datsyuk of the Detroit Red Wings are finalists for the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the NHL's best defensive forward. Toews, a Selke finalist for the second time, finished third in the NHL in plus-minus with a career-high plus-28 rating and placed second in the NHL in face-off winning percentage with 59.9 percent. Bergeron, who won last year, was the NHL's top face-off man this...

NEW YORK — He started from the bottom, but now he's on top at the BET Awards: Drake has 12 nominations. BET announced the nominees Tuesday. Rappers Kendrick Lamar and 2 Chainz are up for eight awards each. Drake is nominated three times for the top prize, video of the year. His hit, "Started From the Bottom," will compete with his collaborations with 2 Chainz ("No Lie") and A$AP Rocky ("Problems"). The top award has 10 nominees, including Justin Timberlake's "Suit & Tie,"...

Last fall, Katie Biber, the Romney campaign's general counsel, gave her visiting parents a tour of the candidate's Boston headquarters. To her mother, she explained a board in her office listing delegate counts, saying she hoped it would pay off "in the long run. " Near her father, she barked orders to staffers about the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot in Virginia: "If we have to have 100, I want 200!" "And that's how she does things," said her mother, Mary Biber.

A D.C. Council panel Thursday voted down the controversial appointment of a prominent consumer advocate to the District's Public Service Commission . The 3 to 2 vote spells a likely end to a months-long nomination battle that turned into a debate over the direction of utility regulation in the city. Elizabeth A. Noel served 18 years as the people's counsel , a government lawyer representing city residents in rate cases and other utility matters, before Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D)