European Stocks Vault Higher After losing more than 20 percent last week, European stocks vaulted higher Monday as investors warmed to a more coordinated fight from leading governments to tackle the credit crunch, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Gas Price Drops The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States recorded its largest drop ever as consumer demand continued to wane and oil prices slid, a prominent industry analyst said on Sunday. The national average price for self-serve, regular unleaded gas fell 35.03 cents to $3.3079 a gallon on October 10 from $3.6582 two weeks earlier, according to the nationwide Lundberg Survey, Reuters reported.

Homeless Shelters Full Some of Vermont's homeless shelters are filling up and having to turn people away. Rita Markley, executive director of the Committee on Temporary Shelter, says from June to August COTS turned away 42 families and 75 single adults. Demand for shelter space usually rises when the weather turns cold. But Markley said on Friday, COTS already had 30 families on a waiting list, according to AP.

World's Financial Leaders Vow to Unite President Bush and the world's financial leaders staged repeated displays of unity Saturday to combat an unfolding credit crisis, hoping to calm investors whose panic has spread despite bold and accelerating government action. While there were no concrete offers of new moves made on Saturday, Mr. Bush pledged anew that his administration was doing everything possible to halt the biggest market disruptions since the Great Depression and the finance ministers spoke in unusually somber terms about the need for action, The Wall Street Journal reported.

North Korea Off Terror List The Bush administration announced Saturday that it had removed North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism in a bid to salvage a fragile nuclear deal that seemed on the verge of collapse. Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said that the United States made the decision after North Korea agreed to resume disabling a plutonium plant and to allow some inspections to verify that it had halted its nuclear program as promised months earlier, according to The New York Times.

Tax Rebate Possible in Aid Plan After consulting with Barack Obama, Democratic leaders are likely to call Congress back to work after the election in hopes of passing legislation that would include extended jobless benefits, money for food stamps and possibly a tax rebate, officials said Saturday. The bill's total cost could reach $150 billion, The officials stressed that no final decisions have been made. House Democrats have announced plans for an economic forum on Monday "to help Congress develop an economic recovery plan that focuses on creating jobs and strengthening our economy," The Associated Press reported.

World's Financial Leaders Vow to Unite President Bush and the world's financial leaders staged repeated displays of unity Saturday to combat an unfolding credit crisis, hoping to calm investors whose panic has spread despite bold and accelerating government action. While there were no concrete offers of new moves made on Saturday, Mr. Bush pledged anew that his administration was doing everything possible to halt the biggest market disruptions since the Great Depression and the finance ministers spoke in unusually somber terms about the need for action, The Wall Street Journal reported.

North Korea Off Terror List The Bush administration announced Saturday that it had removed North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism in a bid to salvage a fragile nuclear deal that seemed on the verge of collapse. Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said that the United States made the decision after North Korea agreed to resume disabling a plutonium plant and to allow some inspections to verify that it had halted its nuclear program as promised months earlier, according to The New York Times.

Tax Rebate Possible in Aid Plan After consulting with Barack Obama, Democratic leaders are likely to call Congress back to work after the election in hopes of passing legislation that would include extended jobless benefits, money for food stamps and possibly a tax rebate, officials said Saturday. The bill's total cost could reach $150 billion, The officials stressed that no final decisions have been made. House Democrats have announced plans for an economic forum on Monday "to help Congress develop an economic recovery plan that focuses on creating jobs and strengthening our economy," The Associated Press reported.

Rebuild America "We are in the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. People are frightened." Sanders said Friday on Air America Radio's Thom Hartmann Program. He said he is working with others in Congress on a bold initiative to help the economy. He called it Rebuild America. He said it would be an aggressive effort to fix crumbing roads, bridges, highways, schools, water and sewer systems, develop alternative energy sources, extend unemployment benefits, and expand health care services. "What I am trying to do now is work with others members of Congress to come up with a major Rebuild America program," Sanders said.

G-7 The United States and six other nations that are among the world's richest agreed on Friday to a coordinated plan to rescue the financial industry, but fell short of offering concrete steps to backstop bank lending on a day when fear tightened its grip on investors from Wall Street to Hong Kong. The Group of 7 countries broadly endorsed the idea of taking ownership positions in banks a strategy first adopted by Britain and now emerging as a major part of the rescue effort in the United States, The New York Times reported.

Worst Week on Wall Street The Dow Jones Industrial Average capped the worst week in its 112-year history with its most volatile day ever, as hopes for a major international bank-rescue plan were overwhelmed at day's end by another wave of selling. Some investors who normally would be jumping to buy beaten-down stocks after a 22% drop over eight trading days said the relentless declines have left them shell-shocked and unwilling to take new risks, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Rebuild America "We are in the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. People are frightened." Sanders said Friday on Air America Radio's Thom Hartmann Program. He said he is working with others in Congress on a bold initiative to help the economy. He called it Rebuild America. He said it would be an aggressive effort to fix crumbing roads, bridges, highways, schools, water and sewer systems, develop alternative energy sources, extend unemployment benefits, and expand health care services. "What I am trying to do now is work with others members of Congress to come up with a major Rebuild America program," Sanders said.

G-7 The United States and six other nations that are among the world's richest agreed on Friday to a coordinated plan to rescue the financial industry, but fell short of offering concrete steps to backstop bank lending on a day when fear tightened its grip on investors from Wall Street to Hong Kong. The Group of 7 countries broadly endorsed the idea of taking ownership positions in banks a strategy first adopted by Britain and now emerging as a major part of the rescue effort in the United States, The New York Times reported.

Worst Week on Wall Street The Dow Jones Industrial Average capped the worst week in its 112-year history with its most volatile day ever, as hopes for a major international bank-rescue plan were overwhelmed at day's end by another wave of selling. Some investors who normally would be jumping to buy beaten-down stocks after a 22% drop over eight trading days said the relentless declines have left them shell-shocked and unwilling to take new risks, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Stocks swung wildly on Friday at the end of a sustained selloff that hammered markets around the world. In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average nosedive amounted to what The Wall Street Journal called "a slow-motion crash." More than 20 percent of the market's value evaporated in eight straight trading days. At home in Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders told Thom Hartmann's nationally broadcast Air America Radio program that "we are in the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. People are frightened about their retirement savings." Sanders said he is working with others in Congress on a bold initiative to help the economy. He called it Rebuild America.

Banker Bonuses Bankers' bonuses have come under scrutiny as taxpayers money is being used to bail out ailing financial institutions. Shortly after Treasury Secretary Paulson announced a $700-billion loan to buy financial firms' bad debts, Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, organized a petition protesting at "the exorbitant salaries and bonuses" made by executives and traders. In London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Thursday that "the days of big bonuses are over," slamming the "irresponsible behavior" of some working in the financial sector, Agence France Presse reported.

Heating Help Under a $5.1 billion appropriation by Congress, Vermont could get about $35 million, up from $17 million last winter. The boost was based on a bill Sen. Sanders introduced. The provision also gives states the option of expanding the eligibility for the assistance, reported The Associated Press, The Burlington Free Press, WPTZ, WCAX and Fox 44. Sanders said the state ought to use the bolstered funding to raise income thresholds used to determine eligibility, the Vermont Press Bureau reported.

Consumer Rights There have been complaints across the country as cable providers shift channels to the digital-only realm. Cable companies are using confusion about the forthcoming digital TV transitionwhich applies only to TVs with antennasas a chance to boost bills. "We support proposals like that of Sen. Bernard Sanders who wants the cable provider in his state to cut rates when it cuts channels and to offer free installation of set-top boxes for those who now need them to watch channels they used to receive," asserted Consumer Reports magazine.

The nation's financial and economic crisis worsened Friday when battered stocks lost even more ground. The losing streak was extended to the eighth trading day in a row in what The Wall Street Journal called "a slow-motion crash." Major exchanges in Europe and Asia also fell as attention turned to a crisis meeting of the Group of 7 finance ministers in Washington. At home in Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders told a nationally broadcast radio program, "We are in the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. People are frightened about their retirement savings." Sanders said he is working with others in Congress on a bold initiative to help the economy. He called it Rebuild America.

The press is playing Toto, pulling back the curtain in a re-examination of Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman who for more than a decade was the nation's leading proponent of letting market forces run free. "Now, the nation is confronting the consequences," according to the front-page article in Thursday's New York Times that concluded Greenspan wasn't much of a wizard after all. There were a few who doubted Greenspan even in his heyday. At a congressional hearing in 2000 on the merger boom, then-Representative Bernie Sanders asked: "Aren't you concerned with such a growing concentration of wealth that if one of these huge institutions fails that it will have a horrendous impact on the national and global economy?" "No," Greenspan replied. "I'm not."