Barack Obama

The Obama administration is expected today to unveil a council of religious and secular advisors that will guide decisions on faith-based programs for a broad range of domestic and foreign policy issues.

Upending Washington's entrenched ways of doing business is proving tougher than President Obama may have assumed. The nearly $800-billion stimulus bill served as a test case. During the campaign, Obama released a position paper stating his commitment to open government. As president, he said, he would not only insist on transparency in his own administration, he would press Congress to revamp its practices as well.

The leading candidate to head the Justice Department office that oversees legal policy and judicial nominations recently has been a lobbyist for several business clients, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and would require a waiver from the Obama administration's recently imposed ethics rules.

President Obama on Tuesday laid out a series of challenges for the nation to meet in job training and college attainment, part of an effort to give every child a "complete and competitive education." The president, in his first address to a joint session of Congress, said his administration would provide the support needed to give the U.S. the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.

Confronting the nation's deep schism over abortion, President Obama on Sunday called for greater understanding on all sides and "open hearts, open minds, fair-minded words" on the issue as he spoke to graduates at one of America's premier Catholic universities. Obama emphasized the importance of common ground as opponents of abortion rights protested his appearance and the honorary degree he received from the University of Notre Dame.

President Obama signed legislation Wednesday to expand publicly funded health insurance for children, marking a historic shift in Washington's political landscape and providing the White House its biggest victory since Obama took office. Less than two years ago, former President George W. Bush blocked similar bills by congressional Democrats, labeling the proposed expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program as a step toward government-run healthcare.

President Obama on Tuesday announced an overhaul of the White House's brain trust for dealing with 21st century threats, merging the domestic security staff with the larger team in charge of all national security issues. The move will integrate the work of the White House's Homeland Security Council, created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, within the existing National Security Council.

In the span of a single week -- from the day Arlen Specter turned Democratic to the moment Congress passed the White House's budget blueprint and on through the opening of a spot on the Supreme Court -- President Obama crossed a fateful line: From now on, it's his country. Every president inherits a tangle of problems from his predecessor. War and recession, natural disaster and foreign crises.

Barack Obama portrays his stimulus plan as a quick jolt for the ailing economy and a "down payment" on his priorities as president. But those goals appear to be colliding in at least one key area: energy independence.

With unemployment continuing to climb, President Obama on Tuesday unveiled a plan to pump $12 billion into the nation's community colleges over the next 10 years to help struggling workers prepare for new careers, saying a better-educated workforce was crucial to long-term prosperity. "Time and again, when we have placed our bet for the future on education, we have prospered as a result -- by tapping the incredible innovative and generative potential of a skilled American workforce," Obama said.