Barack Obama

Not since Lyndon B. Johnson and Franklin D. Roosevelt has a president moved to expand the role of government so much on so many fronts -- and with such a demanding sense of urgency. The scope of President Obama's ambition was laid bare in the budget blueprint issued Thursday. The budget would account for 24.

In a pool of water just a football field away from Lake Michigan, about 1,000 tons of highly radioactive fuel from the scuttled Zion Nuclear Power Station are waiting for someplace else to spend a few thousand years. The wait just got longer. A lot longer. President Obama's proposed budget all but kills the Yucca Mountain project, the controversial Nevada site where the U.S. nuclear industry's spent fuel rods were to spend eternity.

Eugene Allen, who worked for more than three decades as a White House butler -- some of those years during an era of brutal segregation when he often had to use back doors despite his employer's rarefied address -- sat in the shadow of the Capitol dome Tuesday and watched Barack Obama become the first African American president of the United States. "I never would have believed it," said Allen, 89, sitting in an invitation-only area.

reporting from washington President Obama moved on two fronts Monday to force automakers to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles, including a major step in permitting California and other states to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Lawmakers and environmentalists said the president's actions paved the way to development of a national carbon standard for automobiles. Such a standard already is in force in Europe and Japan.

The Obama administration is gearing up for an aggressive new push to regulate large financial corporations -- including insurance companies, hedge funds and private-equity firms -- that would wreak havoc on the nation's economy should they fail. The move, led by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, aims to reverse decades of deregulation that has allowed financial companies especially to operate without any significant federal oversight.

The broad outlines of the $3.5-trillion spending blueprint that Congress approved this week hews closely to President Obama's spending targets and pays homage to his ambitious agenda. But the fine print contains a sobering warning about his marquee initiatives on healthcare, energy, education and economic recovery. Congress' message: We can't do it all at once.

The United States and allied powers threatened Monday to impose new penalties on North Korea after the defiant regime announced its second nuclear bomb test, but their leverage in derailing the weapons program appeared limited. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, meeting in emergency session in New York, denounced the test as a "clear violation" of a 2006 resolution.

As the multitudes arrive for the historic inauguration of Barack Obama, the most high-tech security bubble ever created is in place to protect the incoming president from any foreseeable act of God, nature or man. But authorities say they still dread the "X factor" -- intangibles that they cannot control and that could upend their most carefully laid plans by panicking the immense crowd.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday declared that industrial greenhouse gases are a danger to human health and well-being, opening the way to broad new regulations to reduce carbon dioxide and other planet-heating gases. The finding could lead to far-reaching rules that are likely to heavily affect cars and trucks, which account for nearly a quarter of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, and utilities, which are responsible for more than a third.

Even as President-elect Barack Obama plans an ambitious push to expand health coverage nationwide, states are slashing health services to their poorest residents amid the economic downturn. The unprecedented cuts in public assistance come as millions of Americans are losing their jobs and health insurance.