The Herald Tribune looks at the life and background of Joe Biden, and the influence his father has had on his career and priciples.

“In his autobiography, interviews and speeches, Joe Biden paints an idyllic boyhood in postwar Scranton, Pennsylvania, a mythic place called Middle America where the children — three boys and a girl — went to school scrubbed for the nuns, dropped in for a matinee double feature at the Roosevelt Theater on Saturday and faithfully attended Mass on Sunday.

“But life in Scranton was not always so easy for Joe Jr., who was born there on Nov. 20, 1942, the first child to Joe Sr. and Catherine Eugenia Finnegan, known to all as Jean.”

Read the full story here.