Officials say they will make wide-ranging changes, including stricter federal rules for hedge funds, credit rating agencies and mortgage brokers, and greater oversight of the complex financial instruments that contributed to the economic crisis.

President Obama on Friday stepped squarely into the fractious effort in Congress to assemble an $825 billion economic recovery package, seeking to quell criticism from both parties and to retain leadership on an initiative that could define his term.

Senate Democrats were working Tuesday to put together legislation making it possible for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to become secretary of state despite a constitutional clause that some critics argue should bar her from joining the cabinet.

The tensions and their increasingly public airing provide a revealing coda to the ill-fated McCain-Palin ticket, hinting at the mounting turmoil of a campaign that was described even by many Republicans as incoherent, negative and badly run.

Senator Barack Obama’s fund-raising juggernaut appears to have slowed dramatically from its record-shattering pace in September, raising $36 million in the first half of October, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission.

John McCain and Barack Obama have begun recalibrating their strategies for the presidential campaign  in a contest recast by Mr. McCain’s unexpected selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate, the NewYork Times reports.

National party conventions are known as much for their nonstop partying as they are for their politics — a time for lobbyists, politicians and corporate executives to gather at lavish receptions and elegant dinners.

Television networks are assigning reporters to a new beat this election year: people who don’t watch the evening news. With polls showing a surge in primary-season ballots cast by voters under 30, media outlets are out to convert the newly energized voters into viewers.