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.

THE man who served as national manager of former President Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign endorsed Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday.

The US Senate blocked legislation on Friday that would have ordered most American troops home from Iraq within nine months, bringing to a close a losing week for Democrats who failed to push through any anti-war proposal.

Senate Republicans today scuttled a Democratic proposal ordering US troop withdrawals from Iraq in a showdown that capped an all-night debate on the war.

Emboldened by a successful first vote against US President George Bush’s Iraq war policy, Senate Democrats said today they were wary of the administration’s anticipated €910.8m request for reconstruction there.

The Army general who would carry out US President George Bush’s US troop buildup in Iraq urged patience today and predicted “tough days” ahead.

The man lined up as the next US Defence Secretary today conceded that the US is not winning the war in Iraq and warned that if that country is not stabilised in the next year or two it could lead to a “regional conflagration”.

Two of the most senior US generals told Congress today that the surge in sectarian violence in Baghdad in recent weeks raises the possibility of Iraq descending into civil war.

US Senate leaders yesterday announced a bipartisan compromise on an overhaul of US immigration laws, giving some illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and creating a temporary worker program.

Bertie Ahern today urged the US Senate to pass immigration legislation that would benefit the estimated 50,000 to 70,000 illegal Irish immigrants in the United States.

CONGRESSIONAL critics of US President George W Bush's stay-the-course commitment to the war in Iraq argued yesterday that the administration lacks sufficient troops on the ground to mount a successful counterinsurgency.