Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, pitching himself as a “doer” in a field of talkers, has declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination as he set about trying to distinguish himself from better known rivals.
It is a long-shot effort for an accomplished but overshadowed governor, and his prospects will depend in large measure on his continued courtship of evangelical voters. However, several other contenders are also determined to win over that group.
“We have a bunch of great talkers running for president,” Jindal said at his opening rally on Wednesday. “It’s time for a doer. I’m not running for president to be somebody. I’m running for president to do something.”
Jindal, the nation’s first elected Indian-American governor, has a political career filled with many achievements in a short time: A position as state health secretary when he was only 24, election to the US Congress at 32 and election as governor four years later.
Jindal announced his campaign online earlier on Wednesday. Video clips on his Web site showed Jindal and his wife, Supriya, talking to their three children about the campaign to come.
Jindal intends to present himself as “the youngest candidate with the longest resume,” citing an extensive background in public policy and government, strategist Curt Anderson said.
Unpopular at home, Jindal waited until the state legislative session had ended and lawmakers found a way to close a US$1.6 billion budget gap before he scheduled his presidential announcement.
However, he has been building his campaign for months with trips to key presidential voting states, particularly Iowa, where he has focused on Christian conservatives.
Raised Hindu, but a convert to Catholicism as a teenager, Jindal has talked of his religious faith in small churches across Louisiana. As he readied his presidential campaign, the governor put out an executive order to grant special “religious freedom” protections to people in Louisiana who oppose same-sex marriage.
He is competing with several contenders, including US Senator Ted Cruz and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who also are trying to appeal to the same pool of evangelical voters.
He has drawn distinctions from other Republican contenders by noting he has published “detailed plans” on healthcare, defense, education and energy policy.
However, Jindal does not get glowing reviews of his governance at home, as both Republicans and Democrats blame the governor’s financial policies for causing repeated budget crises.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the