DAILY SNAPSHOT
Friday, May 2, 2015

Weekly Address: Ensuring Every Child Gets a Great Education

In this week's address, the President reiterated his commitment to expanding access to education, and to spreading the joy of reading to more children and young adults.

Earlier this week, the President announced two new efforts that, building on the progress already made by his ConnectED initiative, will do just that: a challenge to mayors, libraries, and school leaders to help every student get a library card; and commitments from libraries and major publishers to provide more than $250 million in free e-Books for low-income students.

In his address, the President also previewed his upcoming commencement speech at Lake Area Tech, in Watertown, South Dakota, where he will discuss his plan to make two years of community college as free and universal for every American as high school is today.

The President is working to ensure every child has the access to the education and resources they need to be successful.

Watch the President's Weekly Address here.

President Obama on Baltimore: "This Is Not New"

While speaking in the Rose Garden on Tuesday, President Obama shared his thoughts on the death of Freddie Gray -- a 25-year-old Baltimore native who died while in police custody.

The President noted that the events in Baltimore called attention to the urgent need throughout the country to build trust between communities and their police.

"This has been going on for a long time," he said. "This is not new, and we shouldn't pretend that it's new... If our society really wanted to solve the problem, we could -- it's just that it would require everybody saying, 'This is important, this is significant.'"

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The Prime Minister of Japan's State Visit

This week, President Obama and the First Lady welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Japanese First Lady Akie Abe to the White House.

After the State Arrival Ceremony on Tuesday, President Obama and Prime Minister Abe met to talk about trade, investment, and international security. During a joint press conference in the Rose Garden, the two leaders also announced that they would continue to work together to fight climate change.

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Open Books and Open Doors

Two years ago, President Obama launched ConnectED -- a bold initiative to connect all of America's schools and libraries to the digital age, to jumpstart learning technology, and to ensure that America's young people can benefit fully from new advances in digital content and connectivity.

As part of that effort, the President traveled to the Anacostia Neighborhood Library in Washington, D.C. on Thursday to announce new partnerships to expand access to free books for America's students, and to ensure every student has easy access to their local libraries and the wealth of knowledge and resources they can provide.

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To see more from the past week, watch the latest edition of West Wing Week here.