AP - Urging strict future restraint even as current spending soars, President Barack Obama pledged on Monday to dramatically slash the skyrocketing annual budget deficit as he started to dole out the record $787 billion economic stimulus package he signed last week.

AP - The government on Monday moved toward dramatically expanding its ownership stakes in the nation's banks — with Citigroup, the struggling titan of the industry, apparently at the top of the list. Wall Street responded as it has with the rollout of almost every other plan to fix the financial crisis, taking a big drop and sending the Dow Jones industrials to its lowest level in a dozen years.

AP - President Barack Obama never had a helicopter, which he says might explain why he's perfectly happy with the current White House fleet and doesn't need a more costly one. At the conclusion of a fiscal summit Monday, Obama faced questions from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, including his former presidential rival, Sen. John McCain.