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Volatile stock activity defines the U.S. market as investors absorb the Federal Reserve's commitment to provide enough cash to underpin a wobbly credit system. The Fed is hoping to quell turmoil on Wall Street created by a credit crunch that set off panic in the United States and abroad.

Karl Rove, credited for the rise of President Bush, steps down. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney wins the Iowa Straw Poll. Former Gov. Tommy Thompson is dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination after finishing sixth in the poll.

The Bush administration castigated Congress on Friday for not passing comprehensive immigration legislation and proposed rules that would require employers to fire people whose Social Security numbers don't match that agency's records.

The specter of a credit crunch looms over the world's financial markets, but investors' fears have begun to settle. The European Central Bank pumped more money into the financial system Monday, and investment bank Goldman Sachs put $3 billion into one of its troubled hedge funds.

The saying "Don't let the bedbugs bite" might have seemed like a thing of the past. The little blood-sucking critters were mostly eradicated in the 1940s, but they seem to be staging a creepy return, causing great discomfort among sleepers across the country.

The mine where three rescuers died trying to rescue six trapped miners will be closed, co-owner Bob Murray tells NPR. He also says that a sixth hole may be drilled in an attempt to find the trapped miners.

Pockets of New Orleans have recovered, but other parishes still have shuttered stores, boarded up businesses, closed schools and hospitals. The city has become a symbol of failure for the government at all levels. The biggest responsibility of government is strong, safe levees.

An Iranian-American scholar who had been jailed for months in Iran has been freed on bail. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, was on the way to the Tehran airport in December when she was seized.

This week, U.S. intelligence agencies produced a new assessment of the violence in Iraq and the chances for political reconciliation there. The last National Intelligence Estimate in February said the security situation in Iraq was dire and getting worse. The latest report says it could "continue to improve modestly."

Newsweek columnist Daniel Gross says a lot of people use home equity to buy big-ticket items, such as boats and cars, and those industries are already blaming a downturn in business on the problems in the housing market.