Usha Vance – the lawyer who is now America’s ‘second lady’
Usha Vance is a lawyer, a Yale graduate, the Hindu daughter of Indian immigrants – and has just become the United States’ “second lady”.
She was thrust into the spotlight after her husband, JD Vance, was chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election.
Almost immediately, she quit her job as a lawyer and appeared on stage to introduce him at the Republican Convention.
There, she gave a flavour of her husband; a “working-class guy” who had overcome childhood traumas to attend Yale Law School.
Read more:
Donald Trump declares victory
Republicans gain control of Senate for first time in four years
A “meat and potatoes” man who had adapted to her vegetarian diet and learned to cook Indian food for her mother.
A “tough Marine” who had served in Iraq but loved nothing more than “playing with puppies and watching the movie Babe”.
That duality was also present in the way the pair positioned themselves as committed Republicans, but parents first and foremost.
Mrs Vance talked of her husband’s “over-riding ambition” to have a family, while he called her “an incredible lawyer and a better mom”.
Early life and family background
Mrs Vance, 38, was raised in San Diego by parents who had moved to the US from India in the 1970s.
Her mother is a biologist and provost at the University of California at San Diego; her father is an engineer, according to Mr Vance’s campaign.
In her introductory speech at the Republican Convention, she said her middle-class upbringing was very different to her husband’s experience growing up poor in Ohio.
“That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry is a testament to this great country,” Mrs Vance said. “It is also a testament to JD.”
Pic: AP
Pic: Reuters
In a June interview with Fox News alongside her husband, Mrs Vance talked about being raised in a religious household.
“My parents are Hindu and that is one of the things that made them such good parents, that made them really good people. And so I have seen the power of that.”
Mr Vance told the broadcaster his wife had helped him “re-engage” with his Christian faith.
Mrs Vance received an undergraduate degree at Yale University and a master of philosophy at the University of Cambridge through the Gates Cambridge scholarship.
She then returned to Yale for law school, where she met her now-husband.
How the couple met
In his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, Mr Vance said the two got to know each other through a class assignment, where he soon “fell hard” for his writing partner.
“In a place that always seemed a little foreign, Usha’s presence made me feel at home,” he wrote.
In a 2017 NBC interview, Mrs Vance described liking that Mr Vance – then just a friend – was “very diligent” when they were assigned to work together on a brief in law school.
“He would show up for these 9am appointments that I set for us to work on the brief together,” she said.
The pair graduated in 2013 and got married the following year.
They live in Cincinnati, Ohio, and have three children together: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.
Pic: Reuters
Career as a lawyer
After law school, Mrs Vance spent a year clerking for Justice Brett Kavanaugh – who is now on the Supreme Court – when he served as an appeals court judge in Washington, followed by a year as a law clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts.
During that time, Justice Roberts authored a 5-4 ruling upholding Mr Trump’s travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries.
In another ruling, he was in the 7-2 majority that backed a Christian baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Until recently, Mrs Vance was an associate at the 200-lawyer Munger Tolles & Olson firm, where she focused on civil litigation and appeals.
The firm has counted Berkshire Hathaway, Bank of America, and PG&E among its clients.
Her clients there included a division of the Walt Disney Company and the Regents of the University of California, court records show.
A Munger spokesman said she had been an “excellent lawyer and colleague”.
What JD Vance has said about his wife
Talking about meeting as law students in a 2017 interview, Mr Vance said: “The thing I remember about Usha is how completely forward and confident with herself she was.”
In his memoir, he credited part of his success and happiness to his wife.
“Even at my best, I’m a delayed explosion – I can be defused, but only with skill and precision,” he wrote.
“It’s not just that I’ve learned to control myself but that Usha has learned how to manage me.”
He also told the Megyn Kelly Show podcast in 2020 that he benefits from having a “powerful female voice” on his shoulder.
“Usha definitely brings me back to earth a little bit, and if I maybe get a little bit too cocky or a little too proud, I just remind myself that she is way more accomplished than I am,” he said.
Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.
According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.
The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.
On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.
Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.
Palestinian children struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.
It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.
The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.
It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
IDF reservists call for end to war in Gaza
Read more:
Israeli pilots’ letter reveals deepening rift
Seriously ill children from Gaza allowed into UK
More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate against the Houthis and their Iranian “masters” after the group launched a missile attack on the country’s main international airport.
A missile fired by the group from Yemen landed near Ben Gurion Airport, causing panic among passengers in the terminal building.
“Attacks by the Houthis emanate from Iran,” Mr Netanyahu wrote on X. “Israel will respond to the Houthi attack against our main airport AND, at a time and place of our choosing, to their Iranian terror masters.”
Israeli police officers investigate the missile crater. Pic: Reuters
The missile impact left a plume of smoke and briefly halted flights and commuter traffic at the airport. Some international carriers have cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv for several days.
Four people were lightly wounded, paramedic service Magen David Adom said.
Air raid sirens went off across Israel and footage showed passengers yelling and rushing for cover.
The attack came hours before senior Israeli cabinet ministers were set to vote on whether to intensify the country’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, and as the army began calling up thousands of reserves in anticipation of a wider operation in the enclave.
Houthi military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the group fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at the airport.
Iran’s defence minister later told a state TV broadcaster that if the country was attacked by the US or Israel, it would target their bases, interests and forces where necessary.
Israel’s military said several attempts to intercept the missile were unsuccessful.
Air, road and rail traffic were halted after the attack, police said, though it resumed around an hour later.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Yemen’s Houthis have been firing missiles at Israel since its war with Hamas in Gaza began on 7 October 2023, and while most have been intercepted, some have penetrated the country’s missile defence systems and caused damage.
Israel has previously struck the group in Yemen in retaliation and the US and UK have also launched strikes after the Houthis began attacking international shipping, saying it was in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war with Hamas.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway