Former President Barack Obama is headed to Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin in the closing days of the 2022 campaign to give a boost to Democrats running for governor, senator and on down the ballot. He goes first to Atlanta, where Stacey Abrams is taking on Republican Gov. Brian Kemp on Nov. 8. She lost a close race to him in 2018.As in 2020, Georgia also may once again decide which party controls the Senate. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is facing a challenge from Republican Herschel Walker, a football star making his first bid for public office. After campaigning in Atlanta on Oct. 28, Obama plans stops the following day in Detroit and Milwaukee for events to help get out the vote.In Michigan, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is running against Tudor Dixon, a onetime commentator for a conservative online program who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Michigan voters also are deciding whether to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.In Wisconsin, Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes is trying to unseat Republican Sen. Ron Johnson and become the state's first Black senator.Barnes, who is from Milwaukee, the state's largest city and home to the largest group of African American voters, has been trying to energize Black voters in a race that a Marquette University Law School poll this past week showed Johnson with an apparent lead. Obama also hopes to give a boost to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who is being challenged by Tim Michels, a construction company co-owner who is endorsed by Trump. Marquette polls for months have shown that race to be about even.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Archives has asked former U.S. presidents and vice presidents to re-check their personal records for any classified documents following the news that President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence had such documents in their possession, two people familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The Archives sent a letter Thursday to representatives of former presidents and vice presidents extending back to Ronald Reagan to ensure compliance with the Presidential Records Act. The act states that any records created or received by the president are the property of the U.S. government and will be managed by the archives at the end of the administration, according to the two people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about investigations.

The Archives sent the letter to representatives of former Presidents Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, and former Vice Presidents Pence, Biden, Dick Cheney, Al Gore and Dan Quayle.

The letter was first reported by CNN.

Spokespeople for former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and former vice presidents Mike Pence, Dick Cheney, Al Gore and Dan Quayle did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Biden’s lawyers came across classified documents from his time as vice president in a locked cabinet as they were packing up an office he no longer uses in November. Since then, subsequent searches by the FBI and Biden’s lawyers have turned up more documents. Former Vice President Mike Pence, too, this week, discovered documents and turned them in after saying previously he did not believe he had any.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment but the searches by Biden’s attorneys and the FBI appear to fulfill the Archives’ request.

Handling of classified documents has been a problem off and on for decades, from presidents to Cabinet members and staff across multiple administrations stretching as far back as Jimmy Carter. But the issue has taken on greater significance since former President Donald Trump willfully retained classified material at his Florida estate, prompting the unprecedented FBI seizure of thousands of pages of records last year.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Trump’s handling of the documents, and also Biden’s.

Speaking Thursday at an unrelated news conference, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that though he could not discuss any specific ongoing investigation, “We have had for quite a number of years any number of mishandling investigations. That is unfortunately a regular part of our counterintelligence division’s and counterintelligence program’s work.”

He said there was a need for people to be conscious of laws and rules governing the handling of classified information. “Those rules,” he said, “are there for a reason.”

President Joe Biden will deliver his first State of the Union address on Tuesday.

The speech will come at a critical time for his presidency as he deals with nominating a new Supreme Court justice, managing a shaky economy and trying to prevent further Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Tuesday is also the Texas primary, the first election of the 2022 midterm campaign. The speech will inevitably be tied to this fall's elections as Democrats try to maintain control of Congress despite Biden's low approval numbers.

The stakes are high and the State of the Union speech is one of a president's best opportunities to clarify their vision, tout achievements and boost both the nation's morale and their own approval ratings.

Presidents and first ladies typically invite about two dozen guests to sit in the House gallery to promote their priorities and values. State of the Union guests help put a human face on a president's message for both policymakers and viewers at home.

Presidents often mention some guests by name in their State of the Union speech to highlight policy goals or achievements. Acknowledging guests like this is a tradition that goes back to Ronald Reagan's 1982 address, according to the University of California-Santa Barbara's American Presidency Project.

Presidents have traditionally acknowledged some of their State of the Union guests during their speeches ever since. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama would usually call on a handful of guests by name — if they mentioned them at all.

But if a shout-out from Bush or Obama was the exception, with Donald Trump, it was almost always the rule. Trump invited fewer guests than both presidents overall, but he called on nearly every guest by name.

Trump didn't just acknowledge his guests to prove a point, he used them to create made-for-reality-TV moments as well; During his 2020 address, he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to radio personality Rush Limbaugh.

On the same night, Trump surprised Amy Williams and her two young children by reuniting them with their husband and father, Army Sgt. 1st Class Townsend Williams, after his fourth deployment in the Middle East.

Active and veteran members of the military and their families have been a staple of every recent president's State of the Union guest list, according to a CNN review of White House archives.

Most of the 44 active or veteran service members that former President George W. Bush invited were involved with the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. His administration initiated both wars and they were a critical focus of his presidency. In 2005, for instance, Bush both invited and acknowledged Bill and Janet Norwood, the parents of Marine Sgt. Byron Norwood, who was killed during the assault on Fallujah in Iraq the previous year.

Military or veteran guests represented nearly one-third of all the guests former President Donald Trump invited over the course of his three SOTU addresses.

The White House biographies written for each guest suggest Trump was interested in promoting an agenda of American exceptionalism and not necessarily connected to current events. He was the only president of Biden's three predecessors to include World War II veterans, for example, and invited more WWII veterans than he did active or veteran members of the Iraq or Afghanistan wars. One guest at his 2019 speech, Army Staff Sgt. Irving Locker, landed at Utah Beach on D-Day, fought through five major battles and helped liberate a concentration camp.

More than a fifth of Obama's guests were invited to help illustrate economic issues and helped him highlight the measures his administration took to lift the country out of the Great Recession. In 2014, Obama invited Andra Rush, who trained employees for her Detroit business through the Obama administration's American Jobs Center network.

Obama prioritized inviting guests from the world of science and STEM education. He invited 14 guests from scientific backgrounds -- by far the most of Biden's three predecessors. In 2014, he invited Joey Hudy, a 14-year-old self-described "maker" who developed an "extreme marshmallow cannon."

Obama also invited two winners of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. One of those guests was then-16-year-old Jack Andraka in 2013, who won for developing a new method of detecting pancreatic cancer.

Bush featured guests from the world of arts and culture. In 2003, he invited David McCullough, the 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "John Adams." In 2008, one of his guests was Irvin Mayfield, a legendary jazz trumpeter and appointed cultural ambassador of New Orleans.

Former President Barack Obama will address the massive anti-police brutality protests that have been sparked by the death of George Floyd on camera on Wednesday.

Obama's comments will come during the My Brother's Keeper Alliance Town Hall Series. He'll be joined by police reform activists and public figures, including former Attorney General Eric Holder.

The stream will mark Obama's first on-camera comments since Floyd's death while in police custody sent shockwaves through the U.S. and inspired peaceful protests in dozens of major cities — some of which have developed into riots.

Obama previously addressed Floyd's death and protest movement

in an essay published Monday.

In that essay, Obama condemned violent protests, lauded those who were demonstrating peacefully and outlined ways that protesters could appropriately affect change in their communities.

My Brother's Keeper Alliance

is an arm of the Obama Foundation that aims to inspire young men of color in America by building safe and supportive communities and give them a chance for success.

Obama's comments will be streamed

live on his website

beginning at 5 p.m. ET.

Related video above: Obamas break ground on presidential centerMichelle Obama's next promotion for her memoir "Becoming" will center on college students.The former first lady will appear Nov. 9 at 1 p.m. with "black-ish" actor Yara Shahidi for a livestream conversation with students from 22 schools throughout the country, from Cal Poly Pomona to Prince George's Community College in Largo, Maryland, from where Obama and Shahidi will speak. BET plans to televise the event at a later date, to be determined."I can't wait to hear from students across our country as they navigate their studies and lives during this unprecedented time," Obama said in a statement Monday. "As a first-generation college student myself, I remember my own struggles to manage classes and figure out my place on campus — and I can't even imagine how much harder it is to do it during a pandemic, when so much feels like it's constantly up in the air. I just hope they realize that moments of self-doubt and fear are completely natural, but if we embrace those moments — if we own our stories and use our voices — we can share the very best parts of ourselves with the world."Along with the Nov. 9 event, Crown is donating 100 copies to each of 12 schools in the Maryland Community College Consortium."We know the book has been deeply impactful for young people, especially young women, and has become a kind of touchstone," Drake said.Obama's book, published in 2018, has sold nearly 10 million copies in the U.S. alone, and continues to sell more than 2,000 copies a week, according to Crown president David Drake. Most political memoirs, even ones by presidents or first ladies, are forgotten after the initial publicity. But Obama's book has been assigned everywhere from Ohio State University to Fresno City College, in courses ranging from composition to Black women's studies. Julie Gallagher, an associate professor of history at Penn State Brandywine, included the book in her course on civil rights in the modern era. She noted that civil rights narratives often focus on the South, but that Obama grew up in Chicago, and so told a story of a Northern state. And Gallagher found Obama's memoir an invaluable contrast to how Black women often are portrayed in the media."Here's this woman who comes from a very strong, loving family," she said. "This is a story of love, determination, grit, community, of multiple generations working to strive for the American dream."In 2020, the University of California, Irvine, included "Becoming" in its "Great Big Read" for students, faculty and staff. Marguerite Bonous-Hammarth, the school's assistant vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion, told The Associated Press that themes discussed included "self-identity, patriotism, relationships across significant others and families, as well as questioning roles and finding ways to circumvent the incidences and impacts of discrimination in society."Earlier this year, Crown released a young readers edition, for ages 10 and up, that Obama will help promote when she appears at the National Council of Teachers of English convention on Nov. 18. She will deliver the keynote address and speak with the vice president of the NCTE, Valerie Kinloch, the first Black woman dean of the University of Pittsburgh's School of Education.

CHICAGO —

After five years of legal battles, gentrification concerns and a federal review, Barack and Michelle Obama dug shovels into the ground Tuesday during a celebratory groundbreaking on their legacy project in a lakefront Chicago park.

Construction on the Obama Presidential Center along Lake Michigan, near the Obama family home and where the former president started his political career on Chicago's South Side, officially began last month.

Standing near an excavator and other heavy equipment, Obama described how the city's South Side shaped him, first as a community organizer, then as a husband, father and elected official. He said the center was one way of giving back and he hoped it would bring an economic boost to the area and inspire a future generation of leaders.

"We want this center to be more than a static museum or a source of archival research. It won't just be a collection of campaign memorabilia or Michelle's ballgowns, although I know everybody will come see those," he joked. "It won't just be an exercise in nostalgia or looking backwards. We want to look forward."

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and several city aldermen were among the few people allowed at the event, which was streamed online to limit crowds amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The presidential center will sit on 19 acres of the 540-acre of Jackson Park, named for the nation's seventh president, Andrew Jackson.

It will be unique among presidential libraries. Obama's presidential papers will be available in digital form. The sprawling campus will include a museum, public library branch, athletic center, test kitchen and children's play area.

The initial cost was projected at $500 million, but documents released by the Obama Foundation last month showed it is now roughly $830 million. Funds are being raised through private donations.

Organizers estimate about 750,000 visitors will come to the center each year.

Work on the Obama Presidential Center is expected to take about five years. Currently, heavy machinery peppers the site that's fenced off with green tarps.

Progress has been delayed by lawsuits and a federal review required because of the location in Jackson Park, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. At the same time, fears about displacing Black residents in the area developed into a yearslong battle resulting in city-approved neighborhood protections, including for affordable housing.

Some neighborhood activists said Tuesday that they were already seeing rising housing prices and would keep pushing for more protections in surrounding areas. Environmental advocates have also objected to the location and the loss of green space. During the event, a plane pulled an aerial banner reading, " STOP CUTTING DOWN TREES. MOVE OPC."

Obama, who didn't take questions during the event, has said over the years that the center will benefit the surrounding area with new jobs and new trees would be planted on the campus.

He chose Chicago over several cities, including Honolulu, where he was born and spent his early years.

It's a part of Chicago that has special significance for the Obamas. The center is near the University of Chicago where Obama taught law and where the Obamas got married and raised their two daughters. Michelle Obama also grew up on the South Side.

"This city, this neighborhood courses through my veins and defines me at my very core," she said at the event. "This substantial investment in the South Side will help make the neighborhood where we call home a destination for the entire world."

Three American presidents stood somberly side by side Saturday at the National September 11 Memorial in New York, sharing a moment of silence to mark the anniversary of the nation's worst terrorist attack with a display of unity.

Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton gathered at the site where the World Trade Center towers fell two decades ago. Each man wore a blue ribbon and held his hands over his heart as a procession marched a flag through the memorial before hundreds of people, some carrying photos of loved ones lost in the attacks.

Before the event began, a jet flew overhead in an eerie echo of the attacks, drawing a glance from Biden toward the sky. For much of the ceremony he stood with his arms crossed and head bowed, listening while the names of the victims were read. At one point, he wiped a tear from his eye.

Biden was a senator when hijackers commandeered four planes and carried out the attack. He was Obama's vice president in 2011 when the country observed the 10th anniversary of the strikes. Saturday's commemoration was his first as commander in chief, beginning in New York City and culminating late afternoon at the Pentagon, where the world's mightiest military suffered an unthinkable blow to its very home.

In between he visited Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where passengers brought down a hijacked plane that was headed for the U.S. Capitol. Biden and his wife, Jill, walked with relatives of the crash victims into the grassy field where the jet came to rest.

He reflected on the need for unity when he dropped by the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department to deliver Bud Light and thank first responders who responded to the plane crash on Sept. 11.

"Everyone says Biden, 'Why do you keep insisting on trying to bring the country together?'' the president told reporters. "That's the thing that's going to affect our well-being more than anything else."

It is now Biden who shoulders the responsibility borne by his predecessors to prevent another strike. He must do that against fears of a rise in terrorism after the hasty U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, where those who planned the Sept. 11 attacks were sheltered.

But on a day when his nation recalled its shock and sorrow, Biden left the speech-making to others.

Biden's vice president, Kamala Harris, spoke in Shanksville at the Flight 93 National Memorial, praising the courage of those passengers and the resilience of Americans who came together in the days after the attacks.

"In a time of outright terror, we turned toward each other," she said. "If we do the hard work of working together as Americans, if we remain united in purpose, we will be prepared for whatever comes next."

Former President George W. Bush, speaking before Harris, recalled how 9/11 showed that Americans could unite despite their differences. It was a message, he said, that was needed today.

"So much of our politics have become a naked appeal to anger, fear and resentment," Bush said. "On America's day of trial and grief, I saw millions of people instinctively grab for a neighbor's hand, and rally for the cause of one another. That is the America I know."

Biden, speaking at the firehouse later, praised Bush's message of unity, and mentioned that he had taken photos with some boys wearing Trump hats at the firehouse. Biden framed the need for unity as a crucial to the success of democracies, asking "Are we going to, in the next four, five, six, 10 years, demonstrate that democracies can work, or not?"

Former President Donald Trump skipped the official 9/11 memorial ceremonies and instead visited a fire station and police precinct in New York.

While Biden had no prepared remarks of his own Saturday, he did offer praise for Bush's words, telling reporters in Pennsylvania that he thought the former president "made a really good speech today. Genuinely."

But unity was a theme that Biden emphasized in a taped address released by the White House late Friday. He spoke about the "true sense of national unity" that emerged after the attacks, seen in "heroism everywhere — in places expected and unexpected."

"To me that's the central lesson of September 11," he said. "Unity is our greatest strength."

Biden is the fourth president to console the nation on the anniversary of that dark day, one that has shaped many of the most consequential domestic and foreign policy decisions made by the chief executives over the past two decades.

Bush was reading a book to Florida schoolchildren when the planes slammed into the World Trade Center. He spent that day being kept out of Washington for security reasons — a decision then-Sen. Biden urged him to reconsider, the current president has written — and then delivered a brief, halting speech that night from the White House to a terrified nation.

The terrorist attack would define Bush's presidency. The following year, he chose Ellis Island as the location to deliver his first anniversary address, the Statue of Liberty over his shoulder as he pledged, "What our enemies have begun, we will finish."

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were still deadly when Obama visited the Pentagon to mark his first Sept. 11 in office in 2009.

By the time Obama spoke at the 10th anniversary, attack mastermind Osama bin Laden was dead, killed in a May 2011 Navy SEAL raid. Though the nation remained entangled overseas, and vigilant against terrorist threats, the anniversary became more about healing.

"We reaffirm our commitment to keep a sacred trust with their families — including the children who lost parents, and who have demonstrated such extraordinary resilience. But this anniversary is also about reflecting on what we've learned in the 20 years since that awful morning," Obama said in a statement early Saturday morning.

"That list of lessons is long and growing. But one thing that became clear on 9/11 — and has been clear ever since — is that America has always been home to heroes who run towards danger in order to do what is right."

When they think back on Sept. 11, 2001, Obama said, he and former First Lady Michelle Obama aren't left only with lasting images of two planes flying into the twin towers of the World Trade Center or the wreckage at the other attack sites, but also with the courage of the first responders who acted on that day and in the following weeks and months.

"It's the firefighters running up the stairs as others were running down. The passengers deciding to storm a cockpit, knowing it could be their final act. The volunteers showing up at recruiters' offices across the country in the days that followed, willing to put their lives on the line," the former president wrote.

That same selflessness, Obama said, has been on display "again and again" over the past two decades.

WASHINGTON — In a show of solidarity and bipartisanship, former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and their wives joined President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at Arlington National Ceremony Wednesday afternoon.

Biden and Harris laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The wreath was made of green leaves with red and white blooms. Each took a moment of silent prayer standing in front of the tomb before stepping back.

The former presidents announced last week they would attend the ceremony. Former President Donald Trump did not attend, he left Washington, D.C. earlier Wednesday morning and did not attend any inaugural events.

More than 400,000 service members, veterans and their families are buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

PORTLAND, Maine —

A group of Maine high schoolers had the Zoom of a lifetime recently.

Teens who are a part of the Portland-based Young Writers and Leaders (YWL) program got to talk with a best-selling author, President Barack Obama.

Back in December President Obama sent a copy of his new memoir, A Promised Land, to the 26 Maine high schoolers who make up the YWL program, and later followed up with a letter, asking they could spare some time from their busy lives and join him on a Zoom call to talk about their lives as writers and leaders.

“The whole thing was like so unreal. But it actually happened, and we have, like, we have video proof that it happened,” said Noor Sager, a 15-year-old sophomore at Gorham High School.

During Obama’s presidency, the White House actually named the YWL program as one of the top 12 arts and humanities programs for youth in the nation.

“We started by asking him questions,” said Alia Usanase, a 19-year-old junior at Deering High School.

In a video of the interaction, Usanase asked President Obama if he always likes everything he writes.

“No! Sometimes I write, most of the time I write something, I say ‘this is stupid,'” Obama told her.

For an hour, the former president gave them advice on writing, life and how to be leaders.

“You need to like change your community first in order to change the world,” said Youmna Mohamed, a 17-year-old senior at Portland High School, expressing one of her key takeaways from the conversation.

“My whole life, I hadn’t imagined myself talking to a president. President Obama in front of me, like I am literally talking to him,” Usanase said, still in disbelief.

“Honestly at the end of that call I couldn't help but feel like, a really lasting impression that, like, maybe like the really impossible stuff that everyone thinks about isn’t that impossible,” Sager said.

To learn more about Young Writers and Leaders, a program put on by The Telling Room, head to tellingroom.org.