by John McCormick

As President Barack Obama flies Monday to Chicago for a midday speech on health-care reform, the round trip on Air Force One will run about $236,000, according to government estimates of the operating costs for one of the top symbols, and perks, of the presidency.

But that does not include such expenses as Secret Service protection, motorcades and helicopter transports.

After landing at O'Hare International Airport, Obama is scheduled to spend about 2 1/2 hours here. To avoid snarling traffic on the Kennedy Expressway, he likely will be taken from the airport by helicopter to a location near the Hyatt Regency Chicago.

A Government Accounting Office report in 2000 showed Air Force One cost $54,100 to operate each flight hour, or almost $67,000 in today's dollars. It is a tough number to estimate, however, because of so many variables and fixed costs that could be included in or excluded from the calculation.

Read the rest of the story and view a three-quarter-page graphic in Monday's Chicago Tribune.

by John McCormick

As President Barack Obama delivered a highly anticipated speech to the Muslim world recently, he stood before the audience at Cairo University in Egypt and pointed to a place more than 6,100 miles away.

"As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith," he said.

While Obama has not come home to Chicago much as president -- on Monday he plans to make just his second trip here since the inauguration -- the city apparently is never far from his mind. The same is true for First Lady Michelle Obama.

The president and first lady often mention Chicago and Illinois when speaking, generating the kind of global advertising that is impossible to buy.

The rest of the story is in Sunday's Chicago Tribune.

By John McCormick and Stacy St. Clair

Malia and Sasha Obama are starting their summer vacation with a trip to Europe.

The White House confirmed Thursday that the girls will join their parents at ceremonies Saturday marking the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, then stay on in Paris for several days with their mother.

The girls, ages 10 and 7, have made numerous trips to their father's native state of Hawaii, but have never before been to Europe. They traveled to Kenya with their parents in 2006 and are expected to make numerous additional overseas journeys now that they live in the White House.

The eventful weekend for the First Daughters follows completion today of their first semester at the Sidwell Friends School in the Washington, D.C., area.

President Barack Obama is traveling through the Middle East and Germany, before joining his family in France on Friday.

by John McCormick

President Barack Obama's great uncle, a Chicagoan who helped liberate a German concentration camp in 1945, plans to travel to France late this week to take part in a weekend event to commemorate the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the Tribune has learned.

Charles Payne, 84, is expected to travel to Normandy with a delegation led by the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs, retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki. The group will also include former Sen. Bob Dole and Susan Eisenhower, President Dwight Eisenhower's granddaughter and a Republican who backed Obama early on in the campaign.

Payne landed at Le Havre in the Normandy region of France in January 1945 - well after D-Day - to start an often confusing and cold journey across Europe that eventually took him to a concentration camp where more than 50,000 people had been killed.

Obama will visit that concentration camp on Friday as part of an itinerary that also includes stops in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The president's tour of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Dresden, Germany, will come roughly in the middle of his trip.

Read the rest of the story in Wednesday's Chicago Tribune.

By John McCormick and Jeff Coen

Virtually every Wednesday evening, Diane Wood leaves one courthouse and travels a few blocks to another for a two-hour rehearsal with the Chicago Bar Association Symphony, an ensemble where she has played the oboe and English horn for roughly two decades.

Like virtually every aspect of her life, from the multiple languages she speaks to the tomatoes she grows, the federal appeals court judge approaches her music from the perspective of a perfectionist.

"There are people who play notes and people who play music. She plays music," said Chicago lawyer and clarinetist John Vishneski, who has sat next to her throughout her symphony tenure. "She understands what she is playing."

Wood, a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, is believed to be a finalist to succeed retiring Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court. Just days ago, she had a face-to-face interview in Washington with President Barack Obama, a former colleague at the University of Chicago Law School.

Those who know Wood well describe her as exceedingly driven and pragmatic, qualities often also used to describe Obama. But unlike the president, she is fluent in more than one language, speaking very good French, strong German and some Russian.

Read the rest of the profile of Judge Diane Wood in Sunday's Chicago Tribune.

by John McCormick, updated

Although not exactly a 'stop the presses' moment, two top aides to President Barack Obama broke a small piece of White House news while appearing this afternoon at a Chicago luncheon to boost the campaign coffers of U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.).

Chicagoans Valerie Jarrett and Tina Tchen said an office they both lead, the White House Office of Public Liaison, is being renamed to the Office of Public Engagement to give it more of a community organizing tone that is central to Obama's biography.

Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president, and Tchen, director of the engagement office, told stories about their first months into the White House during a joint half-hour appearance before a heavily female audience of about 2,000.

Schakowsky, meanwhile, said she will announce on June 8 -- an arbitrary deadline -- whether she will run for U.S. Senate. "If I do run, we will put together a campaign that leaves no stone unturned," she said.

With the Democrats in control of the White House and Congress, she said she has no plans to leaving public life, even as she prepares to turn 65 later this month.

"I find retirement unthinkable," she said. "This is harvest time."

Should she decide to run, questions about her husband, Robert Creamer, will almost certainly be raised.

by John McCormick

For much of his 84 years, Charles Payne has lived in Chicago in relative obscurity and watched his sister's grandson rise to the presidency.

But now it appears possible that a painful part of Payne's own story will be brought to the forefront, based on German news reports that President Barack Obama is considering a visit to the concentration camp that his great uncle helped liberate in April 1945.

Payne, who spent much of his career working in library science at the University of Chicago, was a private first class in the 89th Infantry Division during World War II when he participated in the liberation of Ohrdruf, a forced-labor camp that was a satellite of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

"I remember seeing a lot of really emaciated people in rags at the point of starvation. People were clutching tin cups for food," he said Thursday in a Tribune interview. "I saw sheds where dead bodies had been stacked up."

But Payne said he had thought little in recent years about the horrors he saw, until German reporters started calling to ask about a possible presidential visit.

A German government spokesman told reporters in Berlin that Obama may visit Buchenwald while in Europe this summer. The president is expected to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France on June 6, and a Group of Eight summit will be in Italy in July.

Read the rest of the story in Friday's Chicago Tribune.

by Peter Nicholas and Christi Parsons

As President Obama prepares to mark his 100th day in the White House, he is acknowledging that the nation might not reach one of his major environmental goals for a while longer: 15,000 days, or 41 years.

That's how long it could take for the nation to cut its carbon emissions by 80%, Obama said during an appearance at the National Academy of Sciences yesterday.

His caution plays into the administration's efforts to deflate expectations about what he reasonably could have solved by Wednesday.

The White House initially downplayed the 100-day benchmark -- one of his senior advisors, David Axelrod, called it the "journalistic equivalent of a Hallmark holiday."

But now, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says, the administration is "playing along."

On Wednesday, Obama will take part in a town-hall-style event in St. Louis and a prime-time news conference from the East Room of the White House. Every major broadcast network but Fox will air the news conference live.

The president is certain to get a question on what he's accomplished in his first 100 days -- and he's certain to have a ready answer. But Obama also wants to discourage the idea that progress will be quick.

"It's an arbitrary demarcation of time created by some conglomeration of reporters and historians," Dan Pfeiffer, Obama's deputy communications director, said Monday. "Any suggestion we could do more than make a down payment on the change the president promised in 100 days is unrealistic."

by Christi Parsons

He may suffer in other reviews of his first 100 days in office, but one analysis finds that President Obama has at least got game.

That assessment came from the star point guard of the University of Connecticut women's basketball team who shot hoops with the president this afternoon. (Photo by Gerald Herbert / Associated Press.)

The president met with the Huskies women's team at the South Portico of the White House, where he congratulated them on their NCAA championship and thanked them for being role models for young women -- especially tall ones, like his daughters.

"As a father," he told them, "I want to thank all of you."

Then Obama invited the team to walk down the drive to his basketball court -- he in his blue suit and tie and most of them in sundresses and sandals.

Out of sight of reporters covering the event, the president reportedly took a few shots and possibly even played a game of some kind. After ten or fifteen minutes of occasional cheering, the president went back to work and the players headed back to the portico.

Who won? Point guard Renee Montgomery offered the only report.

"He did!" she said. "The president can shoot!"

No word on whether the president will fill out brackets for the women's tournament next year, but he did promise to wear the team jersey they gave him -- it has the numeral one on the back -- when he plays.

"Number One," he said. "That's what I'm talking about."

by John McCormick

On the mid-December morning when Arne Duncan was introduced as the nominee for Secretary of Education, he was greeted by Reggie Love, a Duke University basketball and football star who served as a traveling aide to Barack Obama during the campaign and now works for him at the White House.

As the two extra-sized men exchanged a hug, Love passed along his congratulations and a nod to Duncan's basketball prowess. "Now we know we've got some ball in D.C.," Love said in a hallway at a West Side school.

But during the busy first three months of the new administration, there apparently hasn't been much presidential ball, at least involving Cabinet members.

"It's been very sporadic. We've played a couple times and we're not in any good rhythm yet," Duncan said during a visit to the Tribune earlier this week. "We keep saying we want to do more, but we are struggling to sort of figure it out."

Duncan, a co-captain at Harvard who played four years of pro basketball in Australia, said he did manage to take a few shots Monday during a basketball clinic he helped with on the White House grounds that was part of a massive Easter egg party there.

(Secretary of Education Arne Duncan met with the U.S. Conference of Mayors' on March. 31. Photo by Win McNamee / Getty Images)

by John McCormick

As President Barack Obama on Thursday talked up the economic benefits from the wave of home refinancing sweeping the nation, a mortgage broker said he and First Lady Michelle Obama would likely do well to stand pat with the 30-year mortgage they have on their stately mansion in Chicago.

During a White House event, the president surrounded himself with several families who have lowered their bills through refinancing as he touted Federal Reserve and Treasury Department efforts to lower mortgage rates to historic lows in an attempt to stir the sagging economy.

The Obamas, however, do not need to worry about lowering their monthly expenses as much as most Americans, and their Washington housing is free. Back in Chicago, they have a mortgage locked in at 5.625 percent, compared with the current national average of about 4.87 for a standard home loan.

The Obama loan, however, is what bankers call a "super jumbo," which is larger and often harder to finance in today's market conditions. At the time they received the loan, the average for similar-size mortgages was estimated in the range of 5.93 percent to 6 percent, according to news reports.

The rest of the story is in Friday's Chicago Tribune.

by Christi Parsons and Laura King

ISTANBUL --Following up on his call a day earlier for Turkey to respect the rights of religious minorities, President Barack Obama this morning met with religious leaders including the country's chief rabbi, its Armenian and Greek Orthodox patriarchs and the Syrian Orthodox archbishop.

In keeping with the respectful, non-confrontational tone of his stop here, Obama eschewed what would have been the more assertive gesture of visiting the Christian patriarchates. Instead, the talks were held at his hotel.

A day earlier, he made an explicit appeal in his speech to Parliament for the reopening of a hotly contested Greek Orthodox seminary on an island off of Istanbul.

The Turkish government's nearly 40-year closure of the Halki seminary, and tireless efforts by Christian leaders to secure its reopening, have been viewed by the European Union and others as a test case for religious freedom in Turkey.

"Freedom of religion and expression lead to a strong and vibrant civil society that only strengthens the state, which is why steps like reopening the Halki Seminary will send such an important signal inside Turkey and beyond," Obama told the parliament in an address in Ankara on Monday.

The Greek Orthodox Halki seminary is located on Heybeliada Island, off Istanbul in the Sea of Marmara. It was closed in 1971 in a dispute between the Turkish government and leaders of the dwindling Greek Orthodox Community, with Turkish authorities requiring state supervision of the seminary before it is allowed to operate.

Obama's meeting with Greek Patriarch Bartholomew fulfilled a promise he made earlier to the head of the American church.

by John McCormick

Along Honolulu's bustling South Beretania Street, the cinder-block Punahou Circle Apartments look dated and generally unimpressive.

Still, Hawaiian lawmakers are pushing for the 1960s-era building to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places because it is the structure most recognized as Barack Obama's boyhood home.

Obama was born in Honolulu and lived in apartment No. 1008 from 1971 to 1979, when he graduated from high school. His grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, lived in the building for 41 years and died there just before Obama was elected president.

The 12-story high-rise already attracts the occasional tour bus, although neighbors interviewed there in December said the number of tourists stopping has been minimal so far.

What will happen to the vacant apartment on the 10th floor remains unknown. Residents in the building said it would be impractical to convert it to some kind of boyhood museum because of the hassles such a move would create for them.

by Christi Parsons

PRAGUE -- President Barack Obama, condemning North Korea's missile launch, today called for a strong international response to deter future advancement of its nuclear program.

"They, I think, have taken a provocative action,'' Obama said before heading into a scheduled meeting with the president of the European Union in Prague. "It creates instability in their region, around the world.''

The president also addressed the launch in a public forum, a planned speech on nuclear power before an audience of 20,000 in Prague, the one major public address of his weeklong tour across Europe.

"North Korea broke the rules, once again, by testing a rocket that could be used for long range missiles," Obama said in his speech. ""Words must mean something . . . The world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons."

States harboring nuclear ambitions need to know that the path to world respect will not come through proliferation, but rather through talks based on "mutual interest and mutual respect,'' Obama told his audience.

This response to this weekend's missile launch came during an already scheduled address on nuclear arms. Calling for "a world without weapons," Obama committed to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in American national security strategy as well as the size of his nation's nuclear arsenal.

by John McCormick and Philip Hersh

President Barack Obama has taped a video greeting that will be shown Saturday during an opening session with the International Olympic Committee evaluation team visiting Chicago this weekend.

A White House official said the greeting is scheduled to be played about 9 a.m. Saturday and will then be posted to the Web site run by the Chicago 2016 committee.

Obama has also taped a video that will run at a closing night dinner Monday at the Art Institute, an event that will feature an appearance by Oprah Winfrey.

Soon after his election, Obama taped a different video that was shown Nov. 21 during the Chicago presentation at the annual meeting of the European Olympic Committees in Istanbul.

That video delivered a message dear to the ears of the IOC: The United States and Chicago would be honored to host the Games as a way to serve the Olympic movement and as an opportunity for the country, in Obama's words, "to reach out, welcome the world to our shores and strengthen our friendships across the globe."

In that appearance, Obama said nations must work together to meet their shared challenges. "By uniting the world in a peaceful celebration of human achievement, the Olympic Games reminds us that this is possible," he said.

By Peter Wallsten and Jim Tankersley

President Obama has merged his efforts to save GM and Chrysler with his plan to craft a strict new national standard for fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas, a feat of industrial engineering that marks a major step across the line that traditionally separates government from private industry.

In effect, the president is re-writing the rules of the automobile market -- and conditioning future support for automakers on how well they position themselves to follow them.

The dual focus is evident in the two questions that guided the meetings of Obama's auto task force, according to an administration official who participated in the talks: "One, how do we keep Detroit and the rest of the auto industry afloat and make them ultimately profitable, and two, how do we ensure we're bringing cleaner, more affordable cars to American families?"

The new rules, which are speeding toward adoption, are expected to set a blanket standard for fuel efficiency that will encompass current federal mileage standards, Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases and efforts by California and other states to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. Bottom line: They favor small fuel-sippers over less-efficient SUVs and pick-up trucks.

Obama believes gasoline prices will inevitably rise once the global recession ends, that the threat of climate change demands action now and that oil dependence jeopardizes national security. Under those assumptions, administration officials and their supporters said Obama was leveraging his office to force Detroit toward its only strategy for success

"You have both standards and incentives being offered to lead the auto industry in the direction it needs to go," said David Doniger, climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "This is the only way forward, is to transform its product line."

The strategy has already drawn fire -- and some cries of socialism -- from conservatives. Read more in our analysis piece in today's Los Angeles Times.

By Jim Tankersley

Chalk up another casualty in the Obama administration's attempts to staff federal agencies.

Jon Cannon, nominated to be the deputy director of the Environmental Protection Agency, pulled his name from consideration today, citing questions over a non-profit where he once sat on the board -- and which EPA auditors accused in 2007 of mismanaging $25 million in taxpayer funds.

Cannon sat on the board of America's Clean Water Foundation, which won some $25 million in federal contracts to identify environmental risks at beef, poultry and pork plants, and to help states and tribes comply with the Clean Water Act. EPA auditors questioned the accounting on almost all that money, charging that the group could not support some costs, included duplicate transactions on others, and did not complete several required audits. The IG report, which does not mention Cannon, also alludes to allegations of embezzlement in the foundation, which dissolved in 2006.

Senate Republicans apparently raised the report -- which appears on the first screen of a Google search on the foundation's name -- in questioning Cannon, but they said Wednesday the questions would not have affected his nomination.

The bigger issue, for a young administration that has faced many questions on its vetting process, is whether Team Obama knew about the report, and if so, how much it cared about it.

by John McCormick

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- President Barack Obama's planned visit to the University of Notre Dame this spring has triggered a national debate over whether such a prominent supporter of abortion rights should be welcomed at one of America's premier Catholic universities.

Obama's decision to speak at the school's May 17 commencement is generating strong feelings on all sides, with supporters saying he should be welcomed as the nation's leader and opponents saying he should be shunned because of his views.

As the leaders of campus groups upset about his selection prepared to meet Tuesday evening to map out opposition plans, abortion opponents from across the country said they were making plans to travel here for the commencement.

The prospect of graphic abortion photos lining areas leading into the ceremony, meanwhile, has some students fearing that their day of accomplishment will be tarnished.

The rest of the story is in Wednesday's Chicago Tribune.

by John McCormick

As much as President Barack Obama would like to be at Chicago's U.S. Cellular Field on April 6, it seems unlikely that the First Fan will be there for the home season opener against the Kansas City Royals.

On that day, Obama is now expected to be in Istanbul, Turkey, making the visit to an overwhelmingly Muslim country that he has promised during the early days of his administration.

The stop in Turkey will follow a trip the president and First Lady Michelle Obama are making to Europe from March 31 to April 5 that will include a NATO summit and meetings with European Union leaders.

The Sox had invited their highest-profile fan to use his left-handed toss to throw out the ceremonial first pitch on the South Side, something Obama did during the 2005 playoffs.

Brooks Boyer, the Sox's chief marketing officer, said the ballclub has not heard anything official from the White House about the team's offer.

"We'd love to have him there, but we've known all along that if duty calls, duty calls," Boyer said. "Hopefully, at some point, he'll make it out to a game."

by Christi Parsons

President Barack Obama will begin to outline his education reform plan today, announcing plans to expand pay incentives for good teachers and offering grants to schools that raise their standards for students.

The president will announce his intent to hike federal support for expansion of performance pay models in at least 150 school districts around the country, according to senior administration officials.

Grants included in his 2010 budget plan are designed to encourage states to raise statewide standards and to collect data about performance in early childhood education programs, the officials said.

Funding available through Obama's recently passed economic stimulus plan will go to helping states upgrade the data systems they use to track student progress and teacher effectiveness.

And the president also will announce his intent to support dropout prevention programs in the next budget and to redirect money that now goes to support bank loans to college students into direct student aid.

Today's speech to a group of Hispanic business leaders comes two weeks after Obama's address to a joint session of Congress, in which he promised to work for a competitive education for every children from "the day they are born to the day they begin a career."

The president's proposals describe voluntary, not mandatory, programs, officials said, and he will not discuss possible changes in President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program.

He will call for rewarding good teachers and issue a national call for the next generation to "step forward and enter the profession of teaching," one official said.

by Mike Dorning and Christi Parsons

President Barack Obama is planning a trip to Turkey as part of his administration's ongoing outreach to the Muslim world, a senior administration official said this morning.

The trip is meant to continue dialogue with leaders in Muslim countries, the official said. But it will not include the speech from a Muslim capital that Obama spoke of during his presidential campaign.

"Planning for the Turkey visit is just the beginning," the official said. "It will be an important opportunity to visit a NATO ally and discuss shared challenges."

Obama said in an address in the summer of 2007 that he would deliver an address in a "major Islamic forum" during the first hundred days of his administration. He said he would make it clear that "we are not at war with Islam" and that "we'll stand with those who are willing to stand up for their future."

But in an interview with the Tribune in December, Obama said he wasn't sure about the timing of that speech.

Earlier this week, the White House announced that the president is planning a trip to Europe the end of this month, and that he will be at the NATO meeting in Germany in early April.

By Andrew Zajac

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama's choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, cuts a figure of no-nonsense, Midwestern rectitude.

Middle of the road, plain-spoken, competent. Yeah, her husband likes rock, Gary Sebelius.doc but he's a federal magistrate, so how wild is he going to get?

If there is a provocateur gene in the family, it may have gone to son John, who caused a stir last year when he began marketing "Don't Drop the Soap", a prison board game he created, out of the governor's mansion.

By Andrew Zajac

Chicago's Northern Trust Corp. now under fire for excessive merrymaking after collecting federal TARP money, earlier was under scrutiny for the favorable mortgage terms it granted to now-President Barack Obama when he bought his Hyde Park personal residence in 2005.

When they bought the $1.65 million property, the Obamas took out a $1.32 million mortgage for 5.67 percent.

At the time, jumbo mortgages in the Chicago area averaged 5.93 to 6 percent, according a Washington Post story detailing the transaction.

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission alleging that the mortgage rate amounted to an illegal corporate campaign contribution by Northern Trust.

By John McCormick and Stacy St. Clair, updated

The morning after a romantic Valentine's Day dinner out, President Barack Obama hit the basketball court Sunday to burn off a few calories and visit with some Chicago friends.

The presidential game, which lasted about two hours and was followed by a haircut at an apartment building near Obama's South Side home, was at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, according to a media pool report. No word yet on who he played with.

The game came after a Saturday evening meal enjoyed by Obama and his wife, Michelle, at a Gold Coast restaurant owned by Oprah Winfrey's one-time personal chef, Art Smith.

After a three-day weekend at home, the First Family is scheduled leave for Washington from O'Hare International Airport aboard Air Force One about 10 a.m. Monday.

Obama's basketball game was dissected on nation television on Sunday, when CNN's "State of the Union with John King" asked several NBA stars to review his moves.

"He's smart at the game," former Los Angeles Lakers star Earvin "Magic" Johnson said. "First thing up he's passing, nice post pass, nice set up, always looking for the other man."

by Christi Parsons

As Congress prepares to pass his economic rescue plan, President Barack Obama today was promising to turn immediately to the housing crisis, saying he will soon offer more details on how to address "the root of our economic challenges."

He also called on business leaders to help his administration as their forbears helped President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the early days of his presidency.

Speaking to the Business Council - founded in 1933 by FDR's secretary of commerce - Obama asked dozens of CEOs gathered in the White House East Room to help him bring their "best practices" to the enterprise of government.

"Even as our president was leading unprecedented public interventions into the private sector," Obama said of Roosevelt, "he did so always in concert with the private sector's leaders."

Obama said he expects a House vote today on his $790 billion rescue plan will get the U.S. economy on the road to recovery.

But passing the plan is only the first step, he told members of the council, now a self-appointed panel that meets once a year.

"To truly address this economic crisis, we need to address the crisis in our financial sector to get credit flowing again to families and businesses," Obama said. "We need to confront the crisis in the housing sector, that has been at the root of our economic challenges, and I'll be discussing that soon.

"We need comprehensive financial reform in the way government relates to the financial markets in order to deal with the complex challenges of the 21st Century - both as a way to restore trust and ensure that a crisis like this can never happen again."

by John McCormick and Sara Olkon

When Air Force One touches down Friday evening in Chicago, there will once again be a chance to see heavily armed motorcades and be surprised by unexpected appearances by the most famous and powerful Chicagoan.

It will also mark the start of an entirely new experience for the city: hosting an extended visit by a sitting president.

In the past, presidential visits have typically lasted a couple hours, just long enough for the nation's top executives to land at O'Hare International Airport, ride a chopper downtown and appear before some television cameras.

This trip, however, is expected to last three days and will offer the first glimpse of what are likely to become fairly routine hometown visits by President Barack Obama and his family. The return to Chicago will come a day after scheduled stops Thursday in East Peoria, Ill., and Springfield.

In many ways, the Obama family's weekend stay in Chicago will look like the seven-week transition between the November election and January move to Washington.

by Jim Tankersley

The Environmental Protection Agency announced this morning that it has reopened consideration of a request by California and more than a dozen other states to set strict standards for greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles - hinting strongly that it's just a matter of time before they're approved.

Following a directive issued by President Obama late last month, the EPA said it will begin accepting public comments for 60 days on the request, which proponents call a major step toward curbing global warming. Critics say allowing the states to set tougher rules than the federal government would batter the domestic auto industry, by forcing carmakers to produce two sets of vehicles or to restrict production of big-selling - but heavy emitting - trucks and SUVs.

"EPA has now set in motion an impartial review of the California waiver decision," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a press release. "It is imperative that we get this decision right, and base it on the best available science and a thorough understanding of the law."

But the next two paragraphs of the release strongly suggest the agency will approve California's request.

"The Clean Air Act gives EPA the authority to allow California to adopt its own emission standards for motor vehicles due to the seriousness of the state's air pollution challenges," it reads. "There is a long-standing history of EPA granting waivers to the state of California.

"EPA believes that there are significant issues regarding the agency's denial of the waiver. The denial was a substantial departure from EPA's longstanding interpretation of the Clean Air Act's waiver provisions."

by Jim Tankersley

President Obama will officially ask the Energy Department today to speed up its efforts to set congressionally mandated efficiency standards - some of them long-overdue - for household appliances.

It's a move sure to be welcomed by environmentalists and by Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who preaches efficiency as a key weapon in the administration's fight to curb global warming.

Obama's presidential memorandum will ask the department to issue several standards by August, as mandated by law, covering products that include ovens, lamps, microwaves, dishwashers and air conditioners. He'll also ask the department to give high priority to speeding up standards that promise especially large energy savings for consumers.

A variety of court orders and congressional laws have left the energy department with a backlog of efficiency standards it needs to set, and a schedule of others it must complete in coming years. Obama's memo includes directions to complete that schedule on time, and early if possible.

The administration's bigger efficiency push goes beyond appliances.

by Christi Parsons

President Barack Obama is expected to call for a crack down on cash payouts to corporate executives this morning, unveiling new rules he thinks should govern firms that take government bailout money.

The president plans to propose a $500,000 cap on the pay of executives whose firms get the public money, according to an administration official familiar with the plan.

This restriction will be unbending for firms that get exceptional assistance from the federal government, although healthier banks applying for the money may be able to waive the rule if they disclose the information.

The president's plan would also give more power to shareholders in reining in executive compensation, a runaway problem that Obama has been railing against in recent days.

In the wake of news that corporate executives paid out almost $20 billion in bonuses last year, even as they were seeking or taking public money intended to spur the economy, the White House and some Democrats on Capitol Hill began to talk of imposing new restrictions.

The rules the president is suggesting would come as a condition of receiving money that remains from the $700 billion bailout fund Congress set up last year.

The proposals are expected in a morning announcement from the president and his Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner.

by Christi Parsons

Sen. Judd Gregg has assured Republican leadership that he won't take the job as Commerce secretary unless he's certain his replacement in the Senate will line up with the GOP caucus.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said this morning that he's not worried a change in the partisan makeup of the chamber will come about with the likely departure of Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican.

"Whoever is appointed to replace him will caucus with Senate Republicans," McConnell said in a morning interview on CBS' Face the Nation. "Sen. Gregg has told me that if he were to take this appointment, it would not alter the makeup of the Senate in terms of the majority and the minority."

President Barack Obama is expected to appoint Gregg to the commerce position, possibly as early as Monday.

The ultimate decision belongs to New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, who hasn't yet said anything publicly about which candidates he is considering as Gregg's replacement.

But the state arguably stands to benefit if its veteran senator joins the Obama administration, and state Democrats like their chances for upending a Republican appointee better than those of beating an incumbent Gregg next year.

Another news nugget from this morning's talk shows: former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle is set to meet privately with key senators to discuss the tax problem now plaguing his confirmation as Health and Human Services secretary.

Former Senate colleagues, even Republicans, avoided pummeling Daschle this morning, though Sen. Susan Collins did offer cautionary words.

"This is a legitimate issue," she said. "We need some answers. We need more of an explanation than we have now. It's an awful lot of money."

by Christi Parsons

President Barack Obama says his team is preparing a new strategy for reviving the American financial system, and promised to make sure that corporate executives don't drain public money intended to spur the economy.

"We'll ensure that CEOs are not draining funds that should be advancing our recovery," Obama said in his weekly radio address this morning. "And we will insist on unprecedented transparency, rigorous oversight and clear accountability, so taxpayers know how their money is being spent and whether it is achieving results."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will soon lay out a new plan focused on getting credit flowing and lowering the cost of mortgages, Obama said.

Geithner is also expected to address the question of corporate bonuses, a sore subject with the Obama administration lately. After hearing word that Wall Street executives had doled out nearly $20 billion in bonuses in 2008, Obama expressed outrage at what he called "the height of irresponsibility" and suggested there might be repercussions.

While the issue of executive compension may be part of Obama's plan to rescue the financial markets in some fashion, the Washington Post reports this morning that the administration isn't likely to impose tougher restrictions in executive pay, out of fear that harsh limits could discourage some firms from seeking aid.

Even so, Obama appears intent on continuing his campaign of shaming the executives who approve payouts.

"While I'm committed to doing what it takes to maintain the flow of credit, the American people will not excuse or tolerate such arrogance and greed," he said in this morning. "The road to recovery demands that we all act responsibly, from Main Street to Washington to Wall Street."

by Jim Tankersley

When the bars closed in Washington and the trains revved up and night slipped into early morning, two groups of people stood giddy and shivering together, in a line to claim spots on the National Mall and the inaugural parade route.

There were African-Americans, marking a climax in a centuries-long struggle. And there were young people, less noticed by the cameras and the pundits, come to celebrate an awakening that roused their parents and grandparents long ago but had eluded them until now.

Theirs is a video-game generation, younger cousins to a video-music generation. They were glimmers of thoughts, at best, when assassins felled JFK and RFK. Their formative political memories include hanging chads, collapsing trade towers and "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

They have never sweated out a military draft. They did not, in any grand numbers, volunteer to fight after terrorists struck their land on Sept. 11, 2001. Their political leaders did not, in loud voices, call on them to sacrifice and serve.

But in this campaign, Barack Obama called, and they answered in numbers not seen since in nearly 40 years. Americans 30 and younger voted - a feat in itself - and overwhelmingly so, for the first presidential candidate to engage them technologically and motivate them to think and act beyond their own Facebook worlds.

By Jim Tankersley and James Oliphant

The newly installed President Obama doesn't plan any sweeping moves today, other than signing some cabinet-related paperwork and maybe a foxtrot or two at one of his many celebratory balls. But advisors say he could issue a raft of executive orders as soon as tomorrow.

Here are a few strokes of the pen we'd like to see:

• Create a college football playoff system. Start this Saturday with Utah vs. USC and Florida vs. Texas.
• Pardon Jose Canseco.
• Mobilize National Guard to reunite The Fugees.
• Strike from the Library of Congress, the Internet and all Blockbuster video stores any traces of the second "Star Wars" trilogy.
• End controversial bailout of the Detroit Lions.
• Reinstate Eisenhower-era ban on the designated hitter.

by Jim Tankersley

The Senate quickly confirmed seven of President Obama's cabinet nominees this afternoon, mere hours after the Inauguration - but it left many more, including Hillary Clinton, to wait at least another day.

Among those winning approval by unanimous consent: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar; Energy Secretary Steven Chu; Education Secretary Arne Duncan; Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano; Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget; Eric Shinseki, the secretary of Veterans' Affairs; and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Secretary-of-State-nominee Clinton was originally expected to make that list, but Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) held her up by a day over conflict-of-interest objections to her husband, former Bill Clinton, and his charitable foundation's foreign donors.

Others who face a more protracted process include Labor nominee Hilda Solis, Treasury nominee Timothy Geithner, Attorney General nominee Eric Holder and Transportation nominee Ray LaHood. Obama also still needs tp nominate a commerce secretary pick to replace Bill Richardson, who withdrew from consideration amidst a scandal in his home state New Mexico.

Most observers expect all of Obama's nominees to eventually win confirmation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) urged as much in a statement this afternoon.

"President Obama has nominated a cabinet of exceptionally bright and capable people," Reid said. "They represent a cross-section of our country, geographically and politically. It is up to us, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, to confirm these worthy nominees quickly so that they, along with our new President, can hit the ground running."

By Andrew Zajac

Snapshots from the run-up to the inauguration.

There's only a trickle of passenger traffic at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport on the eve of the Martin Luther King Day holiday.
But a knot of people fills the waiting area near Gate B10. As Southwest Airlines Flight 449 to Baltimore begins boarding, a pair of Transportation Security Administration workers begin picking ticket-holders out of the queu for apparently random searches of persons and bags, something not seen in four years of fairly frequently flying on this route.

by John McCormick

BEDFORD HEIGHTS, Ohio - Campaigning for the top priority of his upcoming presidency, Barack Obama on Friday pitched his plan for more than $800 billion in new spending and tax cuts as he stood under the roof of a clean energy manufacturer.

Obama's stop at Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co. came on the day before he starts a weekend of activities in advance of his inauguration as the 44th president on Tuesday.

"The way I see it, the first job of my administration is to put people back to work and get our economy moving again," the president-elect said. "That's why I've moved quickly to work with my economic team and leaders of both parties on an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that will immediately jump-start job creation and long-term growth."

Joined by Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, Obama seemed relaxed, perhaps even enjoying the opportunity to be on the road again. After his speech, he jokingly used a large bolt he had been given as a gift as a weight-lifting dumbbell.

Still, he sought to show just how seriously he is taking the economy's problems as he worked to build support for his proposal among Democrats and Republicans.

By Jim Tankersley

Barack Obama has pitched his stimulus package 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.

The stimulus plan increasingly appears unlikely to include major investments in so-called "green infrastructure" - the wires and rails that could deliver renewable energy to Americans' homes and help them kick their gasoline addictions - according to alternative-energy advocates who are discussing the plans with the Obama transition team.

It's a timing issue. The blueprints and, in many cases, the authority simply don't exist to lay miles of high-speed rail lines, or to build a sprawling web of new power lines to create a truly national electric grid.

"Before you spend billions of dollars on new lines, you have to spend millions of dollars on design work," said Michael Moynihan, the green project director of the liberal think tank NDN, who has worked extensively on green infrastructure and the stimulus. "Nobody had been thinking about this much money (becoming available). So the planning just has not been done."

by John McCormick

The official Barack Obama portrait, an image shot yesterday by the incoming chief White House photographer, was revealed this morning on the "Today" show.

The Pete Souza photo will be on display in American embassies worldwide and in numerous other government offices. Souza is a former Chicago Tribune photographer who also worked as a White House photographer for Ronald Reagan.

The video is linked here.

By John McCormick

When David Axelrod moves into his West Wing office next week, he will have a new painting to hang on the wall as he starts a new chapter in his life as a senior advisor to Barack Obama.

The painting, done by his disabled daughter with some help from an art instructor, appears like any other of the White House. But upon closer inspection, it has a distinct feature: Chicago's skyline is framed in a reflecting pond outside the mansion.

Axelrod's daughter, Lauren, presented the painting Monday after a speech her father gave at a $250,000 fundraising event for Misericordia, a North Side facility for children and adults with developmental disabilities.

Reflecting his newfound celebrity and clout, the event drew nearly 400 people, including virtually every statewide elected official -- with the exception of Gov. Rod Blagojevich -- as well as numerous Chicago aldermen and Cook County leaders.

As he began his speech, the former newspaper reporter asked for a correction in what several previous speakers had suggested about his leaving town for Washington.

"I'm thrilled to serve this new president," Axelrod said. "But I always explain: I'm merely a Chicagoan on assignment. Chicago is my home and it always will be."

It was an assurance he also gave his daughter in what was a poignant scene for a man more associated with the hard-ball of Illinois and national politics.

"Lauren is my hero. Because of her epilepsy, she has had many challenges in life, physical and emotional challenges, that most of us have never imagined," he said. "Mom and I are so lucky to have you. And I just want to say I love you and we'll see each other often, so don't worry about this moving thing. I'm coming home for every home visit."

As public as Axelrod's recent life has been, he does not often talk about his 27-year-old daughter, who suffered irreversible brain damage following epileptic seizures. She has lived at Misericordia since 2002.

For an audience that included many politicians, Axelrod reflected on some of the pivotal moments in a nearly two-year campaign where he worked as Obama's top strategist.

He also tried to explain why Obama is trying so hard to keep his BlackBerry, even after entering the Oval Office.

by Mark Silva

Stop the servers.

Never mind the economy, or Gaza, or Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The real news out of the interview that George Stephanopoulos aired with President-elect Barack Obama this morning is the answer to the question that Obama's daughters, Sasha and Malia, planted with the interviewer:

What kind of dog, and when?

It'll probably either be a "Labradoodle" or a "Portuguese Water Hound,'' Obama replied on ABC News' This Week-- revealing that he still has a little homework of his own to do: That's a Portuguese Water Dog, a pedigree pup -- "known for centuries along Portugal's coast,'' the American Kennel Club notes, "this seafaring breed was prized by fishermen for a spirited, yet obedient nature, and a robust, medium build that allowed for a full day's work in and out of the water. ''

But those Labradoodles sure are popular. A designer hybrid generally accepted as an informal breed of its own now, yet not recognized by the AKC, the mix of Labrador retriever and Poodle is a spirited and bouncy pooch. We've seen the two of them at play in the local dog parks, and both the Doodles and Portuguese have boundless energy.

"They seem to have narrowed it down to a Labradoodle or a Portuguese water hound,'' Obama told Stephanopoulos. "We're closing in on it.''

Off to the shelters of greater Washington, the Obamas go now -- in a "rescue" search for one of the two preferred pets for the next first family.

"This has been tougher than finding a commerce secretary,'' Obama noted.

By Richard Simon and Jill Zuckman

For the inauguration of a president who promised to be a friend of the environment, what would you expect but carbon-neutral inaugural balls, hybrid Lexuses, organic menus and valet bicycle parking?

Political correctness will rule the day.

Two Green Inaugural Balls are planned, including one featuring a green carpet made from--what else?--a recycled rug. Official invitations to the Jan. 20 inauguration are being printed on recycled paper. The homeless will be handed furs.

With millions of visitors headed to Washington for President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in, "Our goal is to create an unforgettable evening while treading lightly on the Earth," said Jenna Mack, an organizer of one Green Inaugural Ball--not to be confused with another Green Inaugural Ball featuring Al Gore.

Beyond the Earth-minded, nearly every imaginable group is planning an event to promote a cause.

PETA plans to give away fur coats to the homeless while offering hot soy milk cocoa in cups that read: "Thank You for Not Wearing Fur!"

"We expect that the only fur on the streets on Jan. 20 will be on homeless people," said Bruce Friedrich, PETA vice president.

The furs, collected from people who don't want them anymore, will be marked with black paint before they are given away so that they cannot be sold.

For the rest of the story on Obama's green inauguration see the story in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:

by Mark Silva

President-elect Barack Obama concedes that, in light of the economic situation which the nation faces, "not everything that we talked about during the campaign are we going to be able do on the pace we had hoped.''

And there will be some "sacrifice'' ahead, he says - "everybody's going to have some skin in the game.''.

Obama's remarks come in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos airing Sunday morning. Ever the promoter, Georgeo released excerpts of his talk tonight.

"Our challenge is going to be identifying what works and putting more money into that, eliminating things that don't work, and making things that we have more efficient,'' Obama says in the interview, according to ABC News.. "But I'm not suggesting, George, I want to be realistic here, not everything that we talked about during the campaign are we going to be able to do on the pace we had hoped.''

The host of This Week says he asked the president-elect: "At the end of the day, are you really talking about over the course of your presidency some kind of grand bargain? That you have tax reform, healthcare reform, entitlement reform including Social Security and Medicare, where everybody in the country is going to have to sacrifice something, accept change for the greater good?"

"Yes," Obama tells the interviewer.

"And when will that get done?"

"Well, right now, I'm focused on a pretty heavy lift, which is making sure we get that reinvestment and recovery package in place. But what you described is exactly what we're going to have to do. What we have to do is to take a look at our structural deficit, how are we paying for government? What are we getting for it? And how do we make the system more efficient?"

"And eventually sacrifice from everyone?" the host asks.

"Everybody's going to have (to) give,'' Obama replies. "Everybody's going to have to have some skin (in) the game.''

by Mark Silva

Stop the servers.

The Democratic National Committee has circulated an email, in the name of President-elect Barack Obama, that doesn't ask for a penny for the party. Obama, who built his record-setting nearly billion-dollar presidential campaign on an Internet plea for five dollars here, ten dollars there, and who has reported raising another $27 million for his inauguration, simply sent out a note today praising the DNC's new chairman, Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia.

"We're in a strong position to build the Democratic Party, renew our commitment to the principles we share, and continue the outstanding work of Chairman Howard Dean,'' Obama says in the e-missive. "Among his many achievements, Gov. Dean launched a strategy to reach out to Americans in all 50 states -- north, south, east and west. This 50-state strategy helped Democrats compete in states where we hadn't in years, including states like Virginia.

"Gov. Kaine has seen the power of the 50-state strategy firsthand, and under his leadership, Democrats will continue to organize and compete in every corner of our country,'' he suggests, inviting fellow Democrats to send up questions for Kaine, who will "answer as many as possible in a video on Democrats.org.

"Tim is the ideal leader to grow and strengthen this party -- not by appealing to our divisions, but by appealing to our common hopes; not by pursuing policies that advance a specific dogma, but by pursuing policies that work for ordinary people,'' Obama says.

And, one of these days, Kaine is sure to get around to fundraising again.

by Christi Parsons

WASHINGTON--Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine claimed his job as chairman of the Democratic National Committee this afternoon, but he and President-elect Barack Obama spent almost as much time downplaying the importance of party as in announcing its new mission.

In short, they said, the new DNC should be about engaging all Americans in the civic process - regardless of whether they voted for Obama or not.

The party should strive for "breaking free of old orthodoxies, reaching across party lines," Obama said in a joint press conference, with the goal of achieving "progress for all Americans."

Kaine is fit for the job, Obama said, because of his "belief that politics is about something more than what all too often it has become in Washington," the president-elect said.

by Jim Puzzanghera

President-elect Barack Obama today asked Congress to delay next month's planned switch to all-digital broadcast television, warning that the TVs of millions of Americans could go dark because of major problems in the government's preparations.

In a letter to Congressional leaders, John Podesta, co-chairman of Obama's presidential transition team, urged that the Feb. 17 conversion date be extended. A major reason was the announcement this week by the Commerce Department that it had run out of money for a government program to provide $40 coupons for low-cost converter boxes to allow older TVs to receive the new digital signal. But Podesta also cited problems with the government's effort to educate the public about the switch and help prepare people, particularly the elderly, poor and those living in rural areas.

"With coupons unavailable, support and education insufficient, and the most vulnerable Americans exposed, I urge you to consider a change to the legislatively-mandated analog cutoff date," Podesta wrote to the chairmen and top Republicans on the Senate Commerce committee and the House Energy and Commerce committee.

Congress decided in 2005 to require all TV stations to broadcast only in digital to free up valuable airwaves. People with cable, satellite or phone company TV services will continue to get broadcast stations. But those who rely on antennas to watch TV must have either a newer set with a digital receiver or get a digital-to-analog converter box.

by Frank James

Congressional Republican leaders responded to President-elect Barack Obama's economic speech today by accepting the next president's premise that the moribund economy requires a fiscal stimulus package but expressing a lot of caution about its size, its potential impact on swelling deficits and the content of the package.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, and Rep. John Boehner, the House Minority Leader, indicated that they sensed Obama is hearing them and their concerns about significantly adding to the federal deficit.

McConnell said: "It's clear to me from listening to the president, the new president, that he wants to include Republican ideas and among them, that I've laid out in the last few days, are reducing the middle-class tax rate. He -- he, the new president, today again underscored that there will be a significant tax component. It's still a little unclear as what it will look like. I think the quickest way to get money in the hands of people who can spend it would be to reduce the middle-class tax rate, which is currently at 25 percent, for example, down to 10 percent."

He also said that the help to states which Obama has proposed should come in the form of loans, not grants, since that would likely get the states to spend the money more wisely.

Both men also indicated that, feeling once burned by the $700 billion financial bailout known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program which passed through Congress last year with very few hearings, by-passing the way legislation is typically done in Congress, they were now twice cautious.

by Frank James

Don't get rid of those old analog televisions yet. The national transition to digital television was supposed to occur next month on Feb. 17. But some key members of Congress and the Obama presidential transition may engineer a delay of a few months because of problems in the transition.

There's been growing concern that the Federal Communications Commission has mishandled the roll-out in a way that could potentially leave millions of viewers with analog TVs unconnected to cable without the ability to get a signal.

The problem is a backlog in the federal program that provides coupons to the TV owners to offset the cost of converter boxes that will be needed by analog TVs to receive a signal once TV broadcasters completely change over to transmitting digital signals alone.

According to Broadcasting and Cable magazine's website:

Consumers Union (CU) late Wednesday asked the heads of the congressional committees with telecommunications oversight, as well as the current and future administrations, to consider delaying the Feb. 17, 2009 transition date.

In a letter to Rep. Markey, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committe, and others, the CU requested that Congress consider a delay "until a plan is in place to minimize the number of consumers who will lose TV signals, particularly by fixing the flaws in the federal coupon program created to offset the cost of this transition."

by Mark Silva

President-elect Barack Obama, pledging to "set a new course'' for an ailing American economy, will deliver a pointed public appeal for his nearly $1-trillion recovery plan today, the start of a campaign asking Americans to accept massive new spending as a "reinvestment'' in the nation.

With it, Obama will say, the nation should be able to generate 3 million new jobs over the next few years. Without it, he will say, the nation's unemployment rate could climb into double-digits.

Appearing at George Mason University in suburban Virginia for his premier economic address in the run-up to inauguration on Jan. 20, Obama will deliver his first appeal for an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan which, he will say, is not simply a "public works program.''

It's an attempt to invest in areas of the economy that promise new growth, he will say, and a turnaround from a recession that "could linger for years'' if the nation does not act swiftly.

"I don't believe it's too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible,'' Obama plans to say, according to excerpts of his speech that the transition team released this morning. " If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years.''

by Frank James

President-elect Barack Obama is due to make a major speech on the economy today at George Mason University in Northern Virginia just outside Washington, D.C.

It is essentially a call for support of what is expected to be a huge economic stimulus package he hopes to get enacted in the first few months of his presidency. He warns that if an economic stimulus isn't passed quickly enough, it may come too late to stave off a dramatic decline not of just the economy but the nation too.

His presidential transition office has released excerpts:

I don't believe it's too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible. If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits. Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four. We could lose a generation of potential and promise, as more young Americans are forced to forgo dreams of college or the chance to train for the jobs of the future. And our nation could lose the competitive edge that has served as a foundation for our strength and standing in the world.

There is no doubt that the cost of this plan will be considerable. It will certainly add to the budget deficit in the short-term. But equally certain are the consequences of doing too little or nothing at all, for that will lead to an even greater deficit of jobs, incomes, and confidence in our economy. It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth, but at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy - where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending; where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit.

by Peter Nicholas

President-elect Barack Obama announced today that he is creating a new high-level position to wring waste and inefficiencies from government, as part of a broader push to bring more discipline to federal spending.

At a news conference, Obama introduced a Chief Performance Officer -- Nancy Killefer, a partner at the management consulting firm McKinsey and Company, and a former Treasury Department official in former President Bill Clinton's administration from 1997-2000.

Part of her job will be eliminating unnecessary spending - an essential goal at a time when the federal deficit is expected to reach $1.2 trillion, Obama said. He cast Killefer's appointment as one of the most important he will make as president. And he said he would order his new Cabinet and staff to meet with Killefer following his inauguration on Jan. 20 "to discuss how they can run their agencies with greater efficiency, transparency and accountability.''

Obama conceded that his economic timulus package would add to the deficit, but he defended it as a step needed to revive the ailing economy.

His transition team estimates that the two-year stimulus would range from $675-$775 billion. Taking questions from reporters, Obama said he is consulting with members of Congress about the "final size of the package,'' but added that "we expect it will be on the high end of our estimates.''

by Frank James

President-elect Barack Obama said he expected his economic stimulus package wouldn't be near the top end of economists estimates because of growing concerns about federal deficits.

At a Washington press conference where he announced his administration's chief performance officer, Obama also waded into the Roland Burris controversy, saying he would work with him if the Senate chose to seat him.

Asked by a reporter about the size of an economic stimulus meant to jumpstart the economy, Obama indicated it would be at the top end of the range his transition officials have discussed, $775 billion, not as large as the more than $1 trillion many economists say would be necessary to provide an adequate stimulus.

We expect that it will be on the high end of our estimates, but will not -- will not be as high as some economists have recommended, because of the constraints and concerns we have about the existing deficit.

Obama's mention of deficit concerns came on the same day the Congressional Budget Office reported that this fiscal year's deficit would be a record $1.2 trillion.

by Frank James

Mark Brown, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist, argues President-elect Barack Obama should either tell Roland Burris directly, or have some tough-talking emissary (Rahm Emanuel perhaps), tell the senator-in-limbo to end his bid to be seated in the Senate.

Obama doesn't want to do that. He's got bigger fish to fry and would prefer to stand pat with what he's already done, which was to issue a statement from a safe distance saying Burris is a great guy but agreeing the Senate shouldn't accept an appointment made by a governor accused by federal prosecutors of selling the very same seat. While that was helpful, it's not enough. We need Obama's direct intervention.

But we're in a bind here, one created in part by Obama's run for president. He bears some responsibility.

by Noam N. Levey and Matea Gold

President-elect Barack Obama has asked Dr. Sanjay Gupta to be the next U.S. surgeon general, looking to a popular television personality to help provide a public face for his healthcare agenda.

Best known as a health and medicine correspondent for CNN and CBS, Gupta, 39, (pictured left in a photo by Scott Gries/Getty Images) is also a practicing neurosurgeon in Atlanta and a member of the faculty of the Emory University School of Medicine, one of the nation's premier medical schools.

The surgeon general oversees some 6,000 officers in the commissioned corps of the Public Health Service. Officers work as physicians, nurses, dentists and other health professionals in various federal agencies including the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Bureau of Prisons.

Past surgeons general have wielded most influence, however, by using the bully pulpit to focus public attention on major public health issues.

Gupta would bring to the post an unparalleled background as a communicator, having won widespread public recognition and a number of journalistic award in recent years. He has also been an outspoken advocate for public health.

In 2003, while reporting on the invasion in Iraq, he was embedded with a Navy medical unit and performed brain surgery on U.S soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

More recently, Gupta launched a nationwide campaign on CNN titled "Fit Nation" to highlight the dangers of obesity in children.

Obama's transition office declined to comment publicly on the offer. But Gupta confirmed on his Twitter feed for CNN Tuesday that he had been "approached."

by Frank James

President-elect Barack Obama's planned pre-inauguration train trip to Washington via Philadelphia, Wilmington, Del. and Baltimore has stoked concerns among some that he could be at risk from a terrorist attack on caustic industrial chemicals near the rail lines his official train will use.

According to Government Security News magazine:

Two leading environmental groups, the Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, have written a letter to the Secret Service warning about the potential danger of a catastrophic terrorist attack on a hazardous chemical facility along the East Coast rail corridor while Barack Obama and Joe Biden make a highly-publicized pre-inaugural whistle-stop train trip to Washington, DC, on Jan. 17.

"This means that during a period of some days of heightened vulnerability to terrorism, Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden on this day will be highly visible and relatively approachable together on the difficult-to-protect Eastern Urban rail corridor," wrote Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder and Greenpeace legislative director, Rick Hind, to Mark Sullivan, the Director of the Secret Service, in a letter dated Dec. 23.

by Mark Silva

The private fundraising for President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration -- $27 million and counting - is nearing the $40 million raised for each of President Bush's two big shows.

And some of the biggest donors are no strangers:

Nearly 400 donors have contributed the maximum $50,000 allowed to support the Jan. 20 swearing-in. They include billionaire George Soros, actors Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx and Samuel L. Jackson, Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, directors Ron Howard, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg (pictured at left) and impresario Barbra Streisand.

The inaugural committee is refusing money from labor unions, corporations, political action committees, foreigners and Washington lobbyists.

But that hasn't stopped Thomas Strickland, UnitedHealth Group executive vice president and chief legal officer, two Indian tribes with casinos, the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in California, or Louis Susman, who retired this month as vice chairman of Citigroup, a banking giant that has received a multibillion-dollar bailout from the U.S. government.

The inauguration has raised a total of $150,500 from six Microsoft employees, including the maximum $50,000 from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

And Google this: Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and five others at the company contributed $25,000 each for Obama's celebration.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

With Steven Spielberg backing it, the inauguration could be as good a show as the film starring Roy Scheider -- Jaws -- that Spielberg directed in 1975. (They're going to have to get a bigger inauguration.)

by Mark Silva

We don't often see the president-elect of the United States doing restaurant reviews.

And we only now are seeing this one, taped in 2001.

The producers of Chicago station WTTW's Check, Please! had been scouting for amateur reviewers. "The premise was simple: Check, Please! would feature three new amateur reviewers each week; each critic would pick a favorite restaurant and review it, then review the picks of the other two reviewers,'' the Tribune's Christopher Borelli has written.

The producer called Barack Obama, a state senator at the time. Obama chose Dixie Kitchen & Bait Shop in Hyde Park. They shot in August 2001-- but the episode was shelved. It will be revived, however, for the program's 100th episode on Jan. 16, days before Obama's inauguration as the 44th president.

Why the nearly eight-year delay? Both Producer David Manilow and then-host Amanda Puck remember Obama's debut as a restaurant critic: He was "too good--too thoughtful, too articulate, not enough of an amateur. He ended up dominating the conversation,'' Borelli notes.

"It was unbalanced," Manilow said, "to put it charitably."

by Frank James

Reports that President-elect Barack Obama intends to make Leon Panetta director of the Central Intelligence Agency not only surprised some key Capitol Hill Democrats but left them questioning the former congressman and Clinton Administration official's bona fides for the post.

For instance, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who will be the new chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, didn't sound pleased. As CNN reported:

(CNN) -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Senate's incoming Intelligence committee chair, slammed President-elect Barack Obama's choice of Leon Panetta as director of the CIA Monday.

"The President-elect will now have a chance to make his arguments," the spokesman said. "Her next move is to listen."

by Frank James

As one of those who felt badly for President-elect Barack Obama that he was going to be made to give up his Blackberry, I have to say yesterday's report that his Twitter account was compromised seemed to prove the point made by those who worry that his use of the latest communications technology could be problematic for security and legal reasons.

As was reported on Twitter's blog Monday morning:

This morning we discovered 33 Twitter accounts had been "hacked" including prominent Twitter-ers like Rick Sanchez and Barack Obama (who has not been Twittering since becoming the president elect due to transition issues). We immediately locked down the accounts and investigated the issue. Rick, Barack, and others are now back in control of their accounts.

I assume the Sanchez mentioned is CNN's on-air personality. It's a little odd that the posting's author mentioned Sanchez before, say, the next president of the U.S. But set that aside.

by James Oliphant and Christi Parsons

Barack Obama insists America has only one president at a time. But for the next two weeks, this city shows all signs of hosting two - working a mile apart along Pennsylvania Avenue.

On Day One of President-elect Obama's tenure in Washington, the Democrat has introduced a new leader's sense of urgency - meeting with legislative leaders of both parties and promising "a genuine partnership.''

There is, of course, still a sitting president, George W. Bush, consumed with the crisis unfolding in Gaza. But events at the White House Monday served as a backdrop, the final days of a show near its end.

For Obama, the day brought a full dress rehearsal for the role he assumes formally in two weeks, his first full working day since moving to Washington from Chicago over the weekend.

The First Family to-be has taken up residence at the historic Hay-Adams hotel, just one block north and a leafy park apart from the White House. And Monday, they started settling into their new life: Michelle Obama dropped daughters Malia and Sasha off at their new school, Sidwell Friends, a private Northwest Washington enclave that has educated the children of other presidents such as Chelsea Clinton.

The president-elect, meanwhile, working from a transition office a mile from the White House, paid a call on Congress to lobby for his massive economic stimulus plan and later met with his team of economic advisors. And, while Obama has appeared at times reluctant to embrace the trappings of his new office since winning election in November, there was no mistaking the look of the motorcade that rolled toward Capitol Hill Monday morning amid applause, waves and popping flashbulbs.

by Frank James

Andrew Cordesman, one of the Washington's top national-security experts, asks and attempts to answer some questions on a lot of people's minds right now: how does the fighting in Gaza stop and what can the U.S. do to help end it?

He calls the crisis a "strategic liability" for the U.S. since it places the U.S., viewed as Israel's strongest ally, at odds with so much of world opinion, especially but not only in the Arab world. And whatever differences in Mideast policy the global population had hoped from a President Obama, are quickly being dashed by the consistency of U.S. policy across administrations.

A snippet from his analysis:

Hard-line Islamist extremist movements, the Hezbollah and Iran, and other opponents of the US have all begun to capitalize on the fighting. Moreover, moderate Arab governments have become targets as well as the US. This pushes such Arab regimes - which have no more love for Hamas than Israel and the US to distance themselves from the US as well as support of Fatah and the peace proposals of the Arab League. It also puts new pressure on Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations.

By John McCormick

Barack Obama is taking another Chicagoan with him to the White House and this one happens to be his wife's former boss.

A transition aide said this afternoon that Susan Sher will be named associate counsel to the president. Sher is now a vice president for legal and government affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she is also general counsel.

The aide said Sher's duties will include providing legal advice to future First Lady Michelle Obama and working on legal issues associated with health care policy.

Michelle Obama had been on unpaid leave of absence at the medical center for all of 2008 as she helped her husband campaign for the presidency. She had worked there as a vice president for community and external affairs.

Sher, who previously worked for Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, also is close to Valerie Jarrett, an Obama family friend who will serve as a senior adviser to the future president.

From 1993 through 1997, Sher was corporation counsel for the City of Chicago, where she reported to the mayor and was responsible for representing the city on all legal matters. From 1989 through 1993, she was the city's assistant corporation counsel.

Sher had also worked at the Chicago law firm of Mayer Brown & Platt, where she specializing in labor and litigation. She is a graduate of the Loyola University of Chicago School of Law and serves on a variety of community boards and task forces.

Her community service has included serving as a past chair of the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where both of Obama's daughters had attended until their move to Washington this week.

(Photo provided by the Obama Transition Office shows President-elect Barack Obama and wife Michelle Obama getting their daughters Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10, ready for their first day of school in Washington, Monday, Jan. 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Obama Transition Office, Callie Shell)

by Frank James

If ever there were two little girls who seem perfect for their role as First Kids, it's got to be Malia and Shasha Obama. We're talking central casting. We're talking child stars.

They seem completely at ease with the concept that on their first day at a new school in a new city, there should be a photographer on hand to capture the send-off they received from their father, the president-elect of the United States.

It was off to Sidwell Friends today for them where they will immediately be at the top of the kiddie pecking order owing to how their father will be the only parent with control of the nation's nuclear arsenal and their residence in the most famous home in the U.S. Even a senator's kid can't measure up to that kind of status in a status-conscious town.

Politico.com has a story that examines what it's been like for past presidential scions who have gone to local schools. Sidwell Friends features prominently in the piece since it is a school accustomed to educating presidential progeny, having schooled Chelsea Clinton and the Nixon girls, among others.

by Mark Silva

President-elect Barack Obama, meeting with congressional leaders today, voiced a sense of urgency in his first of many sessions -- with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"The reason we are here today is because the people can't wait,'' Obama said this morning. "We have an extraordinary economic challenge ahead of us.

"We are expecting a sobering job report at the end of the week,'' he said. "The speaker and her staff have been extraordinarily helpful in working with our team so we can shape an economic investment and recovery plan that will start to put people back to work. And I can't think of a better partner in building what is necessary to get this economy back on track than Speaker Nancy Pelosi who has just been an extraordinary advocate for working people all her life.''

Pelosi (D-Calif.) said: "It is a great honor and personal privilege to welcome you to the Speaker's office. Tomorrow we will start a new Congress.

"We will hit the ground running on initiatives, some of which you have described and address some of the pain being felt by the American people,'' she said. "And then two weeks from tomorrow we will inaugurate a new president of the United States.

"As the president-elect indicated, the construction is underway right now,'' Pelosi said. "At that time we hope to have signed into law legislation that will improve the lives of the American people. It's a very very exciting time. We pledge to work together in a bipartisan way.''

Pelosi promised: "great civility, great fiscal discipline.''

Obama also meets today with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and later this afternoon joins bipartisan leaders of both houses in a session on Capitol Hill.

(AP Photo/Jim Cole)

by John McCormick

Former Chicago Tribune photographer Pete Souza will be the top official photographer in Barack Obama's White House, a transition aide confirmed this morning.

Souza, 54, was also a White House photographer during President Ronald Reagan's time in office. He has been teaching photojournalism at Ohio University after leaving the Tribune's Washington Bureau in 2007.

"Pete is great person and a wonderful photographer," said Robert Gibbs, the incoming White House press secretary and someone who has interacted with Souza since 2005. "The White House is lucky to have him back again."

Souza first met Obama in January 2005 when the now president-elect was being sworn into office as the junior senator from Illinois. He documented Obama's first year in office as part of a multi-part series for the Tribune that included trips to Africa and Russia.

Souza later compiled the photos in a best selling book called "The Rise of Barack Obama."

During Obama's presidential bid, Souza traveled with the campaign on several occasions to capture some final images for the book and his portfolio.

by Frank James

As his inauguration to be the nation's 44th president draws closer, President-elect Barack Obama is gaining the trappings of the Oval Office occupant.

There was the hard-to-miss presidential seal on the door of the aircraft that carried him to Andrews Air Force Base just outside Washington last night.

Indeed, the fact that he was flown into Andrews was another sign of how he is being gradually surrounded by the accoutrements that come witn the presidency. As was the saluting Air Force officers who greeted him as he descended the jet stairs. Or the armored limousine, no longer the SUV used in Chicago, that whisked him from Andrews to the hotel near the White House where his family is setting up housekeeping until they can move into the White House on Jan. 20.

Perhaps we actually can have more than one president at a time. Maybe it's more like one and a half.

by Frank James

President-elect Barack Obama apparently plans on including more than $300 billion in tax cuts in his expected mega stimulus bill of at least $775 billion over two years, according to news reports.

The move is meant to give the incoming Obama Administration the ability to fend off Republican charges that they are typical tax-and-spend Democrats. The tax cuts will allow Obama to better defend his right flank, as it were, from congressional Republicans who have proposed that any stimulus plan be heavily weighted towards tax cuts. See the plan proposed by House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner last fall.

What's more, the tax reductions would redeem the president-elect's campaign promise of a middle-class tax cut.

As the Tribune's Peter Nicholas reported wrote a week ago:

President-elect Barack Obama's top advisors ... wouldn't back away from a promise to cut taxes on the middle class and raise them for the wealthiest Americans, as they made the case for a massive new stimulus package geared toward reviving the slumping economy.

According to the New York Times:

President-elect Barack Obama plans to include about $300 billion in tax cuts for workers and businesses in his economic recovery program, advisers said Sunday, as his team seeks to win over Congressional skeptics worried that he was too focused on government spending.

by Frank James

My first thought on hearing that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had asked President-elect Obama to drop his nomination as Commerce Secretary because of a federal probe into possible pay to play activity in Richardson's office was "Uh-oh, don't tell me Obama has some pay-to-play curse that will be following his presidency like a hungry stray dog."

The scandal involving Gov. Rod Blagojevich in Illinois is, of course, about the governor's alleged pay-to-play activities including the charge in a federal criminal complaint that he sought to auction off Obama's vacant Senate seat. First Illinois, now New Mexico. You're almost afraid to ask what state comes next?

My follow-up thought was that Richardson's move obviously calls into question the quality of the, ahem, "vetting process" that the Obama team conducted. How did Richardson, an old baseball player, ever to first base with a huge problem like this hanging out there?

As it turns out, the Obama people are reportedly saying they asked Richardson's people about the probe but were evidently stone-walled.

That seems like reason enough for Obama to have told Richardson "don't call us, we'll call you." Who would have blamed the president-elect? Even Latino groups would have been hard pressed to defend Richardson, one of their own, under such circumstances.

by Mark Silva

In a little more than two weeks, the presidential military aide will travel to the Capitol with President George W. Bush carrying codes for America's nuclear defenses, and later that day the military aide will leave the Capitol with President Barack Obama.

The handoff of power around high noon on Jan. 20 is one of the great ceremonies of the American political order.

And this inauguration, installing the first African-American in the presidency, with as many as 3 million people expected to overrun the National Mall from the Capitol end to the Lincoln Memorial end, could prove to be one of the grandest. Obama, who will check into the Hay-Adams Hotel one block from the White House on Sunday, plans to take the oath of office on Jan. 20 with the inaugural Bible of Abraham Lincoln.

The voice of Aretha Franklin should help make it all soar

Our friends at Top of the Ticket remind us of the ceremony at hand with the official schedule for the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, the full name by which the son of an American woman and Kenyan man will take the oath of office. It all starts at 10 am EST in Washington on the west front of the Capitol:

-- Musical Selections: The United States Marine Band, followed by The San Francisco Boys Chorus and the San Francisco Girls Chorus.

-- Call to Order and Welcoming Remarks: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)

-- Invocation: Dr. Rick Warren of California.

-- Musical Selection: Aretha Franklin.

-- Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will be sworn into office by Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, the Honorable John Paul Stevens.

-- Musical Selection: John Williams, composer/arranger with Itzhak Perlman, (violin), Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Gabriela Montero (piano) and Anthony McGill (clarinet).

-- President-elect Obama will take the Oath of Office, using President Lincoln's Inaugural Bible, administered by the Chief Justice of the United States, the Honorable John G. Roberts, Jr.

-- Inaugural Address.

-- Poem: Elizabeth Alexander.

-- Benediction: The Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery.

-- The National Anthem: The United States Navy Band "Sea Chanters"

After President Obama gives his Inaugural Address, he will escort outgoing President George W. Bush to a departure ceremony before attending a luncheon in the Capitol's Statuary Hall. The 56th Inaugural Parade will then make its way down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House with groups traveling from all over the country to participate.

Later that day, the Presidential Inaugural Committee will host 10 official Inaugural Balls.

by Mark Silva

As he heads to Washington this weekend, President-elect Barack Obama already has built an image as a strong and decisive leader - winning the highest marks on this score since Ronald Reagan.

Seventy-six percent of Americans surveyed by CNN/Opinion Research Corp. call Obama a strong and decisive leader.

"That's the best number an incoming president has gotten on that dimension since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland says.. "The public's rating of his leadership skills is already as high as George W. Bush's was after 9/11 and easily beats the numbers that both Bush and Bill Clinton got at the start of their first terms in office."

Eight in ten Americans say Obama " inspires confidence, can get things done and is tough enough to be president, three characteristics Americans look for in a leader and the three qualities on which Obama got his highest scores,'' CNN reports.

"It is Obama's ability to inspire confidence and the perception that he is tough enough for the job that may be most important for him as the country faces fresh challenges abroad and a historically harsh economic downturn," Holland says.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey of 1,013 adults was conducted December 19-21, and carries a possible margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released December 26 showed that 75 percent of those surveyed were happy to see President Bush leave office.

Obama, finishing a family vacation in Hawaii, plans to move to Washington this wekeend, settling into the Hay-Adams Hotel a block from the White House, so that his two young daughters -- second and fifth-graders -- can start school at Sidwell Friends. The Obamas will move to Blair House on Jan. 15, and into the White House on Jan. 20.

(President-elect Barack Obama after his morning workout at the Semper Fit Center on Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kailua, Hawaii, today. AP Photo by Gerald Herbert)

by Peter Nicholas and updated

Fresh from his Hawaiian vacation, President-elect Barack Obama will leave behind his home and transition office in Chicago and make his move to Washington, D.C., this weekend.

But he won't be staying put for long.

Soon after he is sworn in Jan. 20, the new president is expected to travel outside of Washington to make the case for the massive stimulus package that he hopes will revive the weak economy.

Obama is coming to Washington a couple of weeks early to accommodate his two young daughters, who are to start school at the private Sidwell Friends in Washington next week.

The 44th president likely will be staying in a Washington hotel at least until Jan. 15 , when he moves into Blair House, the official residence for visiting dignitaries located across the street from the White House.

Obama had wanted to move up his stay at Blair House, but was told by the Bush White House that pre-scheduled receptions prevented him from moving in early.

"Tells you what a tony place it is - you can't get in!'' said David Axelrod, the president-elect's chief strategist.

The scheduling difficulties "are not a source of consternation'' for Obama, he added. "I'm confident he'll have a roof overhead.''

by Mark Silva

"Obama's Army'' remains on active reserve duty, according to the findings of a Pew Research Center survey.

And many of the troops are waiting for their text-message assignments.

Many of those who were active in the campaign of the president-elect "expect to remain engaged with the incoming Obama Administration and mobilize others in support of his agenda,'' Pew reports:

 62 percent of Obama voters expect that they will encourage others to support the new administration's policies during the upcoming year.

 48 percent expect to do so in person, 25 percent expect to do so over the phone, and 16 percent expect to promote the new president's agenda to others on the Internet.

 Among Obama voters who were involved online during the campaign, 25 percent say they plan to mobilize support for the administration's policies by using the Internet.

 Nearly half (46 percent) of all Obama voters expect to hear directly from the new president or other officials as the incoming administration takes office.

 34 percent of Obama-supporting email users expect direct email communication from the new administration.

 11 percent of cell-phone texters expect to receive text messages from the new administration.

"The election may be over, but these voters want to hear directly from their leaders and they hope to remain part of the action," says Aaron Smith, research specialist with the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. "They plan to be in direct contact with the administration and then carry those conversations back to their fellow citizens. This is a new kind of personal democracy."

The findings are based on a survey of 2,254 adults conducted between Nov. 20 and Dec. 4 and carries an overall margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points. Some 1,591 are Internet users, which makes their margin of error three points.

by Mark Silva

Has Barack Obama got game on the golf course?

It's hard to tell, standing back as far as the "protective pool'' does. But the reporters assigned to the president-elect's Hawaiian vacation have reported seeing the Illinoisan on the links. The report on at least one of Obama's putts was not so promising.