No administrative post is planned for McCain. President-elect Barack Obama and his former rival, Republican Sen. John McCain, met Monday in a 40-minute session at Obama’s transition headquarters in Chicago and discussed where they could work together to better America, according to press reports. Read the rest here.

President Bush welcomes the Obamas to the White House. President Bush on Wednesday hailed the election of Barack Obama as the next U.S. president as “a triumph of the American story” and acknowledged the significance of Obama’s rise to become the nation’s first Black president.  He said watching Obama walk through the doors of the White House “will be a stirring sight” but welcomed the first couple to visit prior to Obama’s January inauguration.  Obama’s election is “a testament to hard work, optimism and a faith in the enduring promise of our nation,” Bush said in a White House Rose Garden briefing on Wednesday. “No matter how they cast their ballots, all Americans can be proud of the history that was made yesterday.” Bush’s second term in the Oval Office will end when Obama is sworn in on Jan. 20. 

America elects Obama president. Throngs gathered everywhere Tuesday night - including in New York’s Rockefeller Plaza, the streets in front of the White House, at the Rev. Martin Luther King’s former church in Atlanta and in Chicago’s Grant Park to receive the word that America had elected its first Black president. Voters toppled records left and right as they waited in lines five hours or more to cast votes for their favorite presidential candidate. And after their votes were tallied, Sen. Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, had crushed Arizona Republican senator John McCain, putting an end to yet another racially divisive election. Obama also became the first Democrat to win in Virginia in 40 years, and laid claim to the prized electoral votes of Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania - key states the Republicans said they had to win to return to the White House.  Obama was declared the winner at about 11 p.m. - he won 339 electoral votes to McCain’s 159, making it an electoral landslide. At Chicago’s Grant Park celebration, where Obama later addressed the crowd of thousands of supporters, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was seen crying with joy; Sean Diddy Combs, expressed “shock”; and a teary-eyed Oprah Winfrey looked on proudly. Spike Lee, the Black Eyed Peas and Brad Pitt also were among the celebrities on hand to witness the historic moment. U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights stalwart who won his own election Tuesday, talked about the significance of Obama’s historic win. “This is an unbelievable night,” said Lewis, who was brutally beaten by police in Selma, Alabama, during a voting rights march. A gracious and humble McCain, in his concession, also spoke of the historic significance of Obama’s win. “Sen. Obama has achieved a great thing,” McCain said from a ballroom in his home state of Arizona. “His success alone commands my respect.” As he mentioned Obama’s name, his supporters booed, demonstrating that, despite Obama’s talent for invoking a spirit of hope, the Illinois Democrat has a lot of work ahead before he truly unites the nation. McCain pledged, however, to do all he can to help Obama as he faces the challenges ahead and to “find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and to leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country then we inherited. …Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. No association has ever meant more to me than that.” Obama got 51 percent of the vote compared to 47 percent for McCain with 70 percent of the vote counted. Share your reaction here.

Zambia elects and swears in new president. Zambia swore in a new president Sunday. The country’s newly elected leader, Rupiah Banda, 72, already had been serving as interim president after the nation’s popular leader, Levy Mwanawasa, died in August. Banda was sworn in right after the close poll results were announced. “I promise to be an agent of continuity, good governance and will campaign against corruption. I also promise to fight poverty because poverty is demeaning,” Banda said during his inauguration, reports CNN. The vote was not without controversy, however. Opposition leader Michael Sata (who won 38 percent of the vote to Banda’s 40 percent) accused the ruling party of attempting to rig the ballot before the results were released and said he’d challenge the results. But international observers say the poll was legit.  Leaders from Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa and Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe (of whom Mwanawasa was very critical) attended the inauguration ceremony. Banda, who will serve out the last three years of Mwanawasa’s five-year term, will keep Zambia’s economy a priority; the nation saw foreign investments skyrocket from $71.7 million in 2001 to $4 billion in 2008 under Mwanawasa’s rule.
South African leader blasts ex-party members. Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC), didn’t mince words when talking about ex-party mates. In the past few days, Zuma called former ANC members who plan to launch a breakaway party in December poisonous snakes and even compared them to bigamists, reports CNN. “Even before the divorce has been concluded, they have now announced that they will be getting married to the Democratic Alliance and other opposition parties to form a coalition,” he told rally goers in Soweto. And because they are planning to unite with other opposition groups, he called them “bigamists.” His comments came as members of the breakaway party held a meeting this weekend. The new party, which currently has no name, has lofty goals- including winning next year’s presidential elections, according to Mbahazima Shilowa, who was the premier of Gauteng. But the odds of that happening are slim because ANC has been a dominant force in the country ever since 1994, the year apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela became president. But members of the breakaway faction accuse ANC of going against the ideals of Mandela, and if the new party unites with other opposition parties, the coalition could be a force in various local elections.

More than 33 million tuned in to watch Obama’s infomercial. Barack Obama’s campaign “infomercial” was the most-watched telecast in U.S. prime time on Wednesday, drawing an “American Idol”-size audience that even eclipsed the dramatic climax to the World Series. More than 33.5 million viewers tuned in to watch the Democratic presidential nominee’s paid, professionally produced 30-minute broadcast, which aired on three major networks and four smaller channels, Nielsen Media Research reported on Thursday. The three big networks alone, CBS, NBC and Fox, accounted for 25.5 million viewers combined - 1.2 million more than they drew in the same half hour a week ago, Nielsen said. The infomercial did not air on ABC because the network initially did not want to disrupt it’s regularly scheduled broadcast. As for the baseball audience, 19.8 million viewers watched the conclusion to the World Series championship as the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Tampa Bay Rays. The game ranked as the night’s No. 2 broadcast and was carried by Fox following Obama’s multi-network commercial. After the broadcast, which concluded with an appeal to a live audience, Obama campaigned for the first time with former President Bill Clinton, who called Obama the best person for the job, given the choice between Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain. Clinton said Obama makes the better decisions. Get more at Pamela on Politics.

Zambians cast their ballots for president. Voters in Zambia headed out to the polls Thursday to elect a new president, a successor to late President Levy Mwanawasa, who died of a stroke in August, reports Reuters. Although the campaign season has been generally peaceful, Patriotic Front opposition leader Michael Sata has accused the ruling Movement for Multi-Party Democracy of rigging the vote. “I have never seen this type of panicking and this is because they have rigged the election,” said Sata as he was casting his ballot in the nation’s capital Lusaka. “They have rigged the election in favor of Rupiah Banda. It is the first time that the army commander, who is supposed to protect people, is predicting violence.”  Rupiah Banda, who is currently serving as acting president, has a lot of experience. The nation’s election monitoring group, the Foundation for Democratic Process (FODEP), has said that there were a few issues with voter identification and verification. But they also said that while an army chief threatened people who misbehaved after voting, it did not amount to a threat to all citizens. “For sure, it was unnecessary for the army commander to issue threats, it does intimidate, it does create fear in some ordinary citizens,” an FODEP official said.

Charity leaves Niger after lack of government response. The charity Doctors Without Borders (Medecins sans Frontieres) is set to pack up its bags and leave Niger, a region where they say they are desperately needed, reports the BBC. The charity was suspended from working in the country months ago but just recently decided to throw in the towel on charity work in the nation. “As we have not received a response from Niger authorities and in view of government statements, the French section of Medecins sans Frontieres cannot help but leave the country,” the group said in a statement. But Niger’s government says MSF is making the problem of malnourished children in the nation seem bigger than it really is; they also say the charity refuses to work with the government. And the country’s health minister said that the child hunger is something they are equipped to take care of;  a statement that charity officials couldn’t disagree with more. “Maradi is one of the regions in Niger most affected by malnutrition. Since MSF’s activities in southern Maradi were halted, and despite an increase in admissions into other health centers and MSF projects in the surrounding areas, thousands of children are not receiving treatment,” said the president of MSF’s international board, Christophe Fournier. “It is shocking that a government, after having allowed innovative programs to be established, would ignore the needs of thousands of children.”

Energy drinks can cause caffeine overdose. The super-decaffeinated energy drinks can trigger caffeine intoxication, according to the findings of a new study published in the most recent issue of the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. “The caffeine content of energy drinks varies over a 10-fold range, with some containing the equivalent of 14 cans of Coca-Cola, yet the caffeine amounts are unlabeled and few include warnings about potential health risks of caffeine intoxication,” said one of the authors of the study, Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.  A regular 12-ounce cola drink has about 35 milligrams of caffeine. A 6-ounce cup of brewed coffee has 80 to 150 milligrams of caffeine. The Food and Drug Administration imposes limits on how much caffeine food products can contain (71 milligrams for each 12-ounce can). But energy drinks are designated as dietary supplements, not food products, and their makers can load their products with caffeine - and do. Moreover, says Chad Reissig, another of the stud’s authors: “It’s notable that over-the-counter caffeine-containing products require warning labels, yet energy drinks do not.”Caffeine intoxication, a recognized clinical syndrome, is described as nervousness, anxiety, restlessness, insomnia, gastrointestinal upset, tremors, rapid heartbeat, restlessness and pacing. In rare cases, caffeine intoxication can cause death. See this Mayo Clinic report on caffeine side effects and this L.A. Times story on energy drinks that was written by a doctor. One death apparently linked the drinking of a popular energy drink, Red Bull, made the headlines in 2000, when Irish athlete Ross Cooney, 18, died of sudden adult death syndrome hours after drinking four cans of the drink. Following the incident, France prohibited the energy drink, but it removed the ban only days after. However, in countries such as Norway, Uruguay and Denmark, it remains banned. Decaffeinated energy drinks are a growing concern because they guarantee super alertness. Still, they carry with 10 times or even more the caffeine content of soft drinks. Advertising for energy drinks is aimed at teens and young adults and promotes the drinks as performance enhancers. Recently, however, some manufacturers have applied a harder edge to their marketing. One product is named Cocaine, and another product, a powdered energy drink sold in a vial, is named Blow. The makers of both products have received warning letters from the FDA about misleading advertising. The team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University who carried out the study said that manufacturers should note on decaffeinated energy drinks’ labels the caffeine doses the products carry, and to caution on presumptive risks they pose to consumers.  

There are new findings on alcoholism. More than a third of adults with alcohol dependencies that began more than one year ago are now in full recovery, according to an article in the current issue of Addiction. The fully recovered individuals show symptoms of neither alcoholism nor alcohol abuse and either abstain or drink at levels below those known to increase relapse risk, reports BlackDoctor.com. They include roughly equal proportions of abstainers (18.2 percent) and low-risk drinkers (17.7 percent). The analysis is based on data released Monday from the 2001-2002 National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a project of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). One-quarter (25.0 percent) of 43,000 adults studied who were alcoholism that began more than one year ago now are dependent, 27.3 percent are in partial remission (that is, exhibit some symptoms of alcoholism or alcohol abuse), and 11.8 percent are asymptomatic risk drinkers with no symptoms but whose drinking increases their chances of relapse (for men, more than 14 drinks per week or more than four drinks on any day; for women, more than 7 drinks per week or more than three drinks on any day), according to the analysis. “Results from the latest NESARC analysis strengthen previous reports that many persons can and do recover from alcoholism,” said NIAAA Director Ting-Kai Li, M.D. “Today’s report is valuable as a snapshot of current conditions and for information about some of the characteristics associated with different recovery types.” The researchers said that more study would be needed to find out what caused the changes over time. The likelihood of abstinent recovery increased over time and with age and was higher among women, individuals who were married or cohabiting, individuals with an onset of dependence at ages 18-24, and persons who had experienced a greater number of dependence symptoms, the researchers found. They also discovered that the more the alcohol dependent people drink the less likely their chances were that they’d recover.  

Curious about the presidential candidate’s views on health? Two new Web tool helps you find out exactly where the presidential candidates stand on health issues. The Kaiser Family Foundation has added two new resources on its health08.org Web site detailing presidential candidates Sen. John McCain’s and Sen. Barack Obama’s stance on key health care issues, building upon health08.org’s existing comparison of the candidates’ health reform proposals. A new, interactive tool allows users to compare the candidates proposals and positions on a range of health care issues — biomedical research, care coordination and prevention, health information technology, HIV/AIDS, long-term care, racial disparities, Medicaid and SCHIP, mental health parity, prescription drugs, and other health issues not necessarily addressed in the candidates’ health care reform proposals. These comparisons are based on information compiled and video from the candidates’ Web sites and speeches and campaign debates. A separate side-by-side comparison of the candidates’ health reform proposals is also available on health08.org. You can also find the foundation’s first brief, Covering the Uninsured: Options for Reform at Health08.org. 

South African president calls it quits. South African President Thabo Mbeki officially announced his resignation Sunday during a televised speech.  He did not reveal the actual date he would leave office, saying that the nation’s powerful political party, the African National Congress, will decide when, reports CNN. “I would like certainly to thank the nation and the ANC for this opportunity to serve first as deputy president and then president,” Mbeki said in his address. “I depart this office knowing that many men and women in South Africa have worked to achieve better lives for all.” Mbeki, who succeeded Nelson Mandela, led the nation for almost 10 years. While he was in office, South Africa saw its longest period of economic growth ever, Mbeki said. The ANC asked Mbeki to resign after corruption charges against his political rival and current ANC president, Jacob Zuma, were recently thrown out. The judge accused the government of interfering in the case and some said Mbeki was the one pushing it forward. Mbeki agreed to resign after he was asked. According to Gwede Mantashe, the ANC’s secretary-general, the party wanted Mbeki to resign “for the citizens of South Africa, so there could be stability within the country” and so the movement would stay “stable and unified.” Mbeki’s term in office would have been up in the spring, and he would have been unable to run for another term, under the country’s constitution. Zuma, who is quite popular in the country, is considered a favorite by many to win the office next year. Jamaican opposition leader wins another term. Former Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller won another term as president of the People’s National Party (PNP), reports the BBC. Simpson-Miller, who was the nation’s first woman prime minister (she lost re-election last year to current Prime Minister Bruce Golding), called her most recent win a form of breaking through Jamaica’s political “glass ceiling.” She beat out party vice president Dr. Peter Phillips, who also served as national security minister before Golding took office. Bringing the party together after this tough fight for leadership could prove to be a major challenge for Simpson-Miller. Phillips, though, congratulated her on the win Saturday.

Smoking causes more cancers than once thought  It is known that tobacco-smoking leads to serious health complications. Smoking is a major risk factor for cancer. But a new report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) links smoking to more cancers than most people realize. Get the details at BET.com/Body & Soul.

Infamous Klansman will rally troops in civil rights capital

Renowned ex-Klansman David Duke is uniting his troops in Memphis, the home of the National Civil Rights Museum. Duke, the Louisiana White supremacist politician who came a stone’s throw from landing in the U.S. Senate, has announced his Euro-International Conference to be held in the historic city on Nov. 8. But it is unclear exactly where the event will be held, according to Kevin Kane, an official with the convention and visitors bureau. At the convention, Duke will address the presidential election. “We will assemble to say clearly that neither Black radical, Barrack Obama, nor Mr. Amnesty, John McCain, truly represent the will of the American people,” says Duke, who left the Democratic Party several years ago to join the Republican ranks. Before his run for the Senate in 1990, Duke left the KKK - officially - and he formed the National Association for the Advancement of White People, NAAWP. He says he didn’t pick Memphis because it is the infamous site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or the home of the National Civil Rights Museum, but because it is the most centrally located cities in the United States.

Police seek noose planter at Texas University. Police want to know who put a noose on the chair of the student body president at Abilene Christian University last week. When Daniel Paul Watkins, and African-American senior political science major, returned to his office on Wednesday, somebody had put the racially insensitive symbol there. University President Royce Money said the action is nothing short of a hate crime and campus cops are working to solve the case. Only about 13 percent of the student body at Abilene Christian, a campus of 4,700 students, is Black.

World Lens: Barack Obama’s Kenyan grandma shows her support, flood waters leave Haitians stranded and Usain Bolt is still dominating. Get these pictures and more here.

.
Nigeria is hooking up HIV positive couples. One Nigerian state has decided to match up HIV positive couples in an effort to slow the spread of the disease. “Suitors who have tested positive and are willing to wed each other, can reduce the spread of the virus and also cushion the psychological trauma of isolation,” the executive secretary of the Bauchi Action Committee on AIDS, Dr. Lirwan Mohammed, told the BBC. In recent weeks, about 70 couples have been matched by the country’s Bauchi state government. The couples are (confidentially) hooked up during counseling sessions and have the freedom to accept or reject prospective mates.  Under the Islamic laws the state operates under, condom use is not encouraged. But members from UNAids not only think this is a bad idea, but also a dangerous one. “There may be a very big danger in terms of the spread of the disease,” a spokesman said. Since two people could have differing strains of HIV that could interact, they should still use condoms, he added. He also believes it would be bad for kids. “The chances are that child would become a double orphan, they would lose both parents.” At least one HIV groom is happy, though. “If we should fear God, we should stop spreading the HIV virus through indiscriminate marriage, thereby infecting innocent people,” he told the news service anonymously. An estimated 2.4 million Nigerians are living with HIV.

Thousands of Zambians mourn late president. Thousands came out in Zambia Wednesday to pay their final respects to late President Levy Mwanwasa. After suffering a stroke in June, Mwanwasa passed away at age 59 last month in a French hospital. The ceremony brought the country to a standstill - businesses closed and millions of Zambians watched a live telecast of his funeral on state television, reports Reuters. As he was buried, Mwanawasa was honored with a 21-gun salute by five air force jets. “The flag has been lowered and a gallant fighter is gone, but Zambia must pick up the bits and pieces and forge ahead so that his legacy can live on,” Zambian pastor, Peter Ndhlovu said. Mwanawasa, respected for his strong financial reforms in his country, was a strong critic of longtime Zimbabwe leader, Robert Mugabe, whose country is in financial crisis. Mugabe, along with other African leaders (including presidents of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique and Malawi) attended Mwanawasa funeral. “Mwanawasa was a very courageous leader. He was very frank and wanted to change not only his country but the entire southern African region. We will greatly miss him,” Mugabe told a Zambian radio station. Mwanwasa left behind his widow Maureen and six children. At the service, she spoke of her late husband’s willingness to take care of orphans at his church. “He was the father of all. It is the orphans he took care of that bring pain to my throat, they are orphaned again,” she said. Rupiah Banda, the country’s vice president, is currently serving as acting president.