OBAMA’S CHURCH FIGHTS BACK OVER CRITICISM OF FORMER PASTOR

Senator Obama’s Chicago church is pushing back against criticism of its former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr., for widely broadcast and racially charged statements in which he attacks America and Senator Clinton. In a statement yesterday, the Trinity United Church of Christ said Mr. Wright’s “character is being assassinated in the public sphere.” A clip of Mr. Wright’s sermon in which he praises Mr. Obama’s candidacy while also saying “God Damn America” has dominated the airwaves in recent days, leading the Illinois senator to repeatedly repudiate his former pastor’s remarks. “It is an indictment on Dr. Wright’s ministerial legacy to present his global ministry within a 15- or 30-second sound bite,” the church’s current pastor, Reverend Otis Moss III, said. Mr. Obama has been a member of the church for more than 20 years, and Rev. Wright, who retired late last year, officiated at his wedding and baptized his children. Mr. Obama’s campaign advisers said yesterday it was “painful” for him to have to distance himself from Mr. Wright in recent days because of their long personal relationship.

OBAMA PICKS UP NINE DELEGATES AT IOWA COUNTY CONVENTIONS

Senator Obama picked up an additional nine delegates from the Iowa county conventions on Saturday, more than two months after he won the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses. Though the statewide caucuses were held in January, Iowa’s delegate allocation was not sorted out until the weekend conventions, when more than 13,000 Democratic Party activists turned out. Both the Clinton and Obama campaigns organized aggressively for the conventions as they hunt for every delegate in a tight race, but the Illinois senator succeeded in picking up more than half of the 14 delegates projected to go for John Edwards on the January caucus night, the Associated Press reported. While he emerged in January with just a one-delegate edge, Mr. Obama wound up with 25 Iowa delegates compared to 14 for Mrs. Clinton and six who stuck with Mr. Edwards, though he dropped out.

WAL-MART GIVES $500G TO CLINTON FOUNDATION PROJECTS

A huge American retailer often excoriated by unions and Democratic politicians, Wal-Mart, is donating $500,000 to student and university environmental projects selected by a division of President Clinton’s charitable foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative University. “The Wal-Mart Foundation is proud to partner with CGIU to reach hundreds of students and university officials who, like Wal-Mart, are committed to making a change to improve the environment for generations to come,” the president of the company foundation, Margaret McKenna, said. The announcement came as Mr. Clinton was in New Orleans for the inaugural meeting of the college-oriented program, which focuses on activism to alleviate problems climate change, global health, human rights and peace, and poverty. A Wal-Mart press release said Mr. Clinton announced the award, but there was no obvious mention of it on the his foundation’s Web site and Wal-Mart was not listed on a page of “partners” for the weekend session. At a debate in January, Senator Obama taunted Senator Clinton over her years on Wal-Mart’s board of directors. Last year, in another debate, she called the company “a mixed blessing.” In 2005, during her bid for re-election to the Senate, she returned a $5,000 donation from Wal-Mart’s political action committee.

‘SNL’ RIFFS ON MCCAIN’S AGE

After spending the past few weeks poking fun at the hard-fought Democratic primary battle between Senators Clinton and Obama, “Saturday Night Live” turned its satirical lens to the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator McCain, with a riff on his age. The comedy show aired a skit in which NBC News purported to have obtained a copy of Mr. McCain’s birth certificate that showed him to be “not just old, but very old — the kind of old that makes you not really trust him with scissors.” Fake surveillance footage showed Mr. McCain going to an “early bird” dinner at 4:30 p.m. and giving his grandson a $5 birthday check for “penny candy.” If elected president, Mr. McCain, 71, would be the oldest man to take the office for the first time.