Barack Obama

CHICAGO (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday named three veteran regulators to round out his economic team and vowed to revamp regulatory rules to prevent a repeat of the financial and economic debacles the country is now suffering through. He wouldn't weigh in on whether he would support a decision by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to tap the second $350 billion installment of the $700 billion financial bailout program. Major auto companies are pleading for emergency aid, which could come from that pot. "I think it's important for the Treasury, the Fed and all of us to do whatever is required to make sure our financial system is stable and secure," Obama said.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - As 13 electors cast ballots Monday for the nation's first black president in the Confederacy's old Capitol, Henry Marsh emotionally recalled the smartest man he ever knew - a waiter, who couldn't get a better job because of his race. "He waited tables for 30 years, six days a week, 12 hours a day, from 12 noon to 12 midnight, and he supported his family," Marsh, 75, a civil rights lawyer and state senator, said of his father as he fought back tears. "He suffered a lot. He went through a lot. " In all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the 538 electors performed a constitutional process to legally elect Democrat Barack Obama the 44th president.

CHICAGO (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama said Thursday he didn't discuss his vacant Senate seat with disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich and said he's confident nobody on his staff did either. Calling bluntly for the Illinois Democrat to resign, Obama told a news conference: "I was as appalled and disappointed as anyone. " Blagojevich was arrested this week in connection with an alleged corruption scheme, dealing in large part with dealmaking schemes regarding the Senate vacancy.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama said the economy seems destined to get worse before it gets better and he pledged a recovery plan "that is equal to the task ahead. " Obama also said in an interview broadcast Sunday that the survival of the domestic car-making capacity is important, yet any bailout must be "conditioned on an auto industry emerging at the end of the process that actually works. " Less than six weeks before he takes office, Obama said that help for homeowners facing foreclosure is an option as part of his plan.

CHICAGO (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama said Saturday he's asked his economic team for a recovery plan that saves or creates more than 2 million jobs, makes public buildings more energy-efficient and invests in the country's roads and schools. "We won't just throw money at the problem," Obama said in his weekly radio address and Internet video. "We'll measure progress by the reforms we make and the results we achieve - by the jobs we create, by the energy we save, by whether America is more competitive in the world.

MIAMI (AP) - When a man sounding remarkably like President-elect Barack Obama called a Florida congresswoman Wednesday, she assumed it was a crank call. So Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen hung up. But, the Miami Herald reports, this was no prank. "I thought it was one of the radio stations in South Florida playing an incredible, elaborate, terrific prank on me," Ros-Lehtinen told the newspaper. "They got Fidel Castro to go along. They've gotten Hugo Chavez and others to fall for their tricks.

CHICAGO (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama picked a national security team headed by former campaign rival Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bush administration holdover Robert Gates on Monday, and said he wants to consult with military commanders before settling on a firm timetable to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq. CBS News Interactive: The Cabinet Obama said a newly completed agreement between Iraq and the Bush administration covering U.S. troop presence signals "a transition period in which our mission is changing" after a long war. The president-elect campaigned on a call to pull out most combat troops within 16 months of taking office, a period he said he still believes "is the right time frame.

CHICAGO (AP) - Barack Obama and his wife say they wanted to show their young daughters the meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday, especially at a time when so many are struggling. They took 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha to a food bank today, where the girls joined their parents in shaking hands and giving holiday wishes to hundreds of people who'd been lined up for hours. The family handed out wrapped chickens to the people waiting in the chilly outdoor courtyard on Chicago's south side.

CHICAGO (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama named Peter Orszag as his budget director on Tuesday and said his job will be to conduct a thorough review of federal spending programs, "eliminating those programs we don't need and insisting that those we do need operate in a cost-effective way. " With the economy in crisis, Obama said, "Budget reform is not an option. It's a necessity. " Echoing Abraham Lincoln, Obama added, "I will ask my economic team to think anew and act anew.

CHICAGO (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama will keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates in that job for at least a year, according to an official familiar the two men's discussions. Obama is expected to announce the selection of Gates and other members of a national security brain trust next week. Gates has served as President George W. Bush's defense chief for two years. Gates, a moderate with long-standing ties to Republican administrations and the Bush family, would fulfill an Obama pledge to include a Republican in his Cabinet.