Opal Lee, grandmother of Juneteenth, to be honored with Presidential Medal of Freedom

Opal Lee, known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, White House officials announced.

Lee, 97, is among 19 recipients of the honor the White House said is presented to people who have made “exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.”

President Joe Biden was scheduled to present the awards at the White House Friday.

“These nineteen Americans built teams, coalitions, movements, organizations, and businesses that shaped America for the better,” officials wrote in a news release. “They are the pinnacle of leadership in their fields. They consistently demonstrated over their careers the power of community, hard work, and service.”

—The Dallas Morning News

RFK Jr. could be a spoiler in November. But will it help Biden or Trump?

LOS ANGELES — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign was once viewed as a quixotic quest by a scion of a storied political family — an environmental warrior who sullied his family's name most recently by aligning himself with a political party founded by a segregationist to get on the November ballot in California.

But a combination of voter apathy about President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the two main parties' presumptive nominees, and the Kennedy campaign's successful targeting of ballot qualification rules across the nation has prompted growing alarm among Democrats and Republicans alike.

"When you have nail-bitingly close elections, nearly any candidate can be a spoiler," said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego.

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