US News

The Treasury Department, in its boldest move yet, is expected to announce a plan Tuesday to invest up to $250 billion in large and small banks, according to officials. The United States is also expected to guarantee new debt issued by banks for a period of three years, officials said.

Democrat Barack Obama, bidding to extend his lead in the polls, proposed Monday to put home foreclosures on hold and give tax breaks to businesses that create jobs, while Republican opponent John McCain issued veiled but stinging criticism of the Bush administration.

As Washington unfurls its financial-market rescue, more families are weighing private bailouts of their own — of young-adult children burdened by debt.

Paul Krugman, the Princeton University scholar, New York Times columnist and unabashed liberal, won the Nobel prize in economics Monday for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect international trade patterns.

An aide to House Republican Leader John Boehner says the House GOP is demanding that majority Democrats call Congress back into session before the elections to pass a measure to stimulate the economy.

Wall Street snapped back from last week's devastating losses after major governments announced further steps to support the global banking system, including plans by the U.S. Treasury to buy stocks of some banks. All the major indexes rose well over 6 percent, and the Dow Jones industrials gained 500 points.

After a weekend in which European leaders promised to make billions of euros available in a bid to revive bank-to-bank lending, investors are sure to shift their attention back to the U.S. Bush Administration ...

The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States recorded its largest drop ever as consumer demand continued to wane and oil prices slid, a prominent industry analyst said on Sunday.

The turmoil on Wall Street is aggravating tough economic times on Main Street as small businesses, accounting for half of U.S. private-sector goods and services, begin to feel squeezed by the credit crunch.

Prairie Elementary School had not missed a testing target since the federal No Child Left Behind law took effect in 2002.

An Alaska ethics inquiry found on Friday that Gov. Sarah Palin, the U.S. Republican vice presidential candidate, abused her authority by pressuring subordinates to fire a state trooper involved in a feud with ...

In the first presidential campaign involving an African American nominee of a major party, both candidates have agreed on this much: They would rather not dwell on the subject of race. But their allies have other ideas.

As the McCain campaign ratchets up the intensity of its attacks on Barack Obama, some black elected officials are calling the tactics desperate, unseemly and racist.

According to the Alaska legislative report on what has become known as Troopergate, Sarah Palin's husband used the Governor's office to promote a personal agenda.

In what could set an important precedent, federal officials assured a big Japanese bank late Sunday that its planned investment in the embattled Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley would be protected, according to people involved in the talks.

Bush administration thwarted efforts to curb greed
More than five years ago, in April 2003, the attorneys general of two small states traveled to Washington with a stern warning for the nation's top bank regulator. Sitting in the spacious Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, with its panoramic view of the capital, the AGs from North Carolina and Iowa said lenders were pushing increasingly risky mortgages. Their host, John D. Hawke Jr., expressed skepticism.

Billionaire investor George Soros predicted on Sunday that the financial crisis would mean the end of a U.S.-led market system that has dominated the global economy with debt and deregulation since the 1980s.

"Globalization, America as the center of the globalized financial markets, was sucking up the savings of the world," Soros said in a CNN interview.

"This is now over. The game is out. It does mean a very serious adjustment for America," added Soros, a staunch backer of the Democratic Party.

Firefighters backed by water-dumping helicopters and planes gained ground Sunday on a wildfire that destroyed two homes and forced the evacuation of about 1,200 people in a rugged area 20 miles north of downtown.

So how will it end?

President George W. Bush is down to his final 100 days in office as of Sunday. Don't expect a quiet fade into the Texas night.

The bleakest economic downturn in decades has changed the dynamic drastically, keeping Bush and his financial team in activist mode to the end.

A corrosive liquid overflowed from a tank at a chemical plant in western Pennsylvania on Saturday, evaporating into a toxic cloud that snaked along the ground and forced about 2,500 to flee.