Maya Soetoro-Ng news stories on Newser

Obama Reflects on Dogged, Flawed Mom

Kevin Spak — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:05:42 CDT

Barry Obama was just 6 years old when Ann Dunham decided to take him to war-torn Indonesia, and Sunday’s New York Times Magazine examines the reverberations of that decision. On the surface the answer is simple: She was following her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian native who’d been called...

Obama's Sis: Time to Put Birther Rumors 'to Bed'

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:08:12 CDT

Not surprisingly, President Obama's half-sister Maya Soetero-Ng is firmly in her brother's corner when it comes to the birther rumors. "I think that it is time for people to put that to bed, put it to rest completely," she tells Piers Morgan in her first primetime interview, airing on CNN...

Inside Obama's Extended Family

Evann Gastaldo — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:14:19 CST

New York takes a look at President Obama’s far-flung—and now famous—family, complete with a handy PDF diagram and nicknames to help you remember who is who. George, the youngest half-brother, is arguably the (second) most famous, thanks to a minor drug arrest followed by a memoir deal, but...

Obama's Sister Moving to DC

Jason Farago — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:10:01 CDT

Barack Obama's half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng is moving with her family from Hawaii to Washington for the next several months, reports the New York Times . Soetoro-Ng, the daughter of Obama's mother Stanley Ann Dunham and an Indonesian father, has quit her job as a high school teacher to write a book....

Obama's Grandmother Loses Battle With Cancer

M. Morris — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:52:48 CST

On the eve of Election Day, Barack Obama's maternal grandmother died today in Honolulu after a long struggle with cancer. Madelyn Dunham, who helped raise Obama, had been in hospice care, the Chicago Tribune reports. The senator and his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng released a statement calling their 86-year-old grandmother "the...

Obama Doesn't Shy From Hard Truths: Sister

Jason Farago — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 09:58:32 CDT

Barack Obama's diverse family has remained silent since the flare-up over his former pastor's sermons. But in her first public comments since Obama's speech on race in America, half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng told the Telegraph their "typical white" grandmother, whose opinions on blacks sometimes made the candidate "cringe," was "entirely supportive"...

Hawaii Expects Record Turnout

Jason Farago — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:51:53 CST

It's caucus day in the Aloha state, and Hawaiian election officials are expecting a record turnout, writes the Honolulu Advertiser —due in part to interest in native son Barack Obama, as well as the competitiveness of the race for the nomination. Neither candidate left wintry Wisconsin, which also votes today,...

Obama Draws on the Audacity of Mom

Jonas Oransky — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:15:00 CST

Barack Obama’s mother is sometimes described just as “a white woman from Kansas,” but Ann Dunham possessed an indomitable spirit and fierce open-mindedness that profoundly shaped her son. Dunham was a single mom and social activist who worked in Indonesia and Pakistan, and consulted for the World Bank and USAID....