Key lawmakers who struck a post-midnight deal on a 700bn (€479bn) for the financial industry tonight predicted it would pass Congress, putting in place the largest US government intervention in markets since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

THIS is the week John McCain takes a measure of what the Republican presidential nomination is worth.

Tired of waiting for an opportunity to try to stop the war in Iraq, some US Democrats say they want to use legislation approving billions of dollars in war spending to insist that President George Bush not send more troops.