OUR FIRST AFRICAN PRESIDENT:

Bush seeks $30B for AIDS program (David Jackson, 5/31/07, USA TODAY)

President Bush asked Congress Wednesday to boost funding to fight AIDS and treat up to 2.5 million people with the disease around the world.

His proposal for $30 billion over five years would extend an existing AIDS prevention program, which Congress first approved in 2003 and expires next year. The president often has touted the program, which also fights tuberculosis and malaria, as a key piece of his foreign policy.

"Villages in Africa now talk of the 'Lazarus Effect,' dying communities being brought back to life thanks to the compassion of the American people," Bush said in the Rose Garden.