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U.S. President-elect Barack Obama picked New Mexico governor, Bill Richardson, to be his commerce secretary. Richardson's acceptance of the nomination makes him the newest former Democratic presidential rival to join Obama's cabinet.

Obama called Richardson a leading "economic diplomat for America." The governor is one of the most prominent Hispanic politicians in the United States. Speaking to his constituents in both English and Spanish, he pledged to work on renewing the nation's failing economy.

The president-elect has named more than half of his cabinet in the month since he was elected president.

With this announcement, Obama will have half of his 15-member Cabinet assembled less than a month after the election, including the most prominent positions of State, Justice, Treasury and Defense.

Biography: Barack Hussein Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was born of Luo ethnicity in Nyanza Province, Kenya. He grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British. Although reared among Muslims, Obama, Sr., became an atheist at some point.

Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in Wichita, Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he signed up for service in World War II and marched across Europe in Patton’s army. Dunham’s mother went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the G. I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved to Hawaii.

Meantime, Barack’s father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya pursue his dreams in Hawaii. At the time of his birth, Obama’s parents were students at the East–West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Obama’s parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. Obama’s father went to Harvard to pursue Ph. D....