While healthy young adults may appear to be the least at risk for health problems, make no mistake — many young adults are uninsured. The current system of health insurance in the United States has placed college students in an incredible bind. Over 13.7 million young adults in the U.S. today do not have health insurance specifically, those between the ages of 19 and 29, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a healthcare think tank. With young adults comprise one of the largest segments of America’s uninsured, we can be certain this is a serious domestic issue.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional leaders and the Bush administration have reached a tentative deal on a bailout of imperiled financial markets that could cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

The House could vote on it Sunday and the Senate on Monday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the accord just after midnight Saturday and said it still has to be put on paper. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson talked of finalizing the deal but added: "I think we're there."

The plan would spend up to $700 billion, most of it on buying deeply devalued mortgages from the housing market's collapse and other bad loans held by tottering banks and other investors.

The aim is to prevent credit from drying up and causing a meltdown of the U.S. economy.

NEW YORK (AP) — As the debate over a $700 billion bank bailout rages on in Washington, one of the nation's largest banks — Washington Mutual Inc. — has collapsed under the weight of its enormous bad bets on the mortgage market.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized WaMu on Thursday, and then sold the thrift's banking assets to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion.

Seattle-based WaMu, which was founded in 1889, is the largest bank to fail by far in the country's history. Its $307 billion in assets eclipse those of Continental Illinois National Bank, which failed in 1984 with $40 billion in assets; adjusted for 2008 dollars, its assets totaled $67.7 billion. IndyMac, seized in July, had $32 billion in assets.

Correction Appended

Last week, Wall Street experienced its most severe credit crisis since the Great Depression. Several long-standing monetary institutions, including investment banks Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, and American International Group, crashed, and the Dow Jones Industrial average fell over 800 points by mid-week before rebounding significantly on Thursday and Friday.

NEW YORK (AP) — Elation in the financial markets over the $700 billion bank bailout plan evaporated Monday and was replaced by all-too-familiar anxiety, pummeling stocks and sending oil prices to their biggest one-day gain.

Worries that the rescue package would cost too much, drive up inflation, swell the already-bloated deficit and hurt the ailing economy also led global investors to flee the U.S. dollar.

The Dow Jones industrials lost 372 points, wiping out the gains the index made Friday after administration officials and congressional leaders promised swift action to get bad debt off the books of banks and end the financial crisis.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Thursday he would fire Securities and Exchange Chairman Christopher Cox if he were president, accusing the former GOP congressman of betraying the public's trust.

McCain criticized President Bush's choice to lead the federal agency that regulates U.S. stocks and securities as he and Democratic rival Barack Obama tried to win over voters anxious to hear how the next president would prevent the sort of financial tremors that have shaken the financial industry this week.

Economic issues traditionally favor Democrats and were expected to be especially potent for Obama in an election cycle that follows eight years of a Republican White House and a Congress usually dominated by the GOP.

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street rallied in a stunning late-session turnaround Thursday, shooting higher and hurtling the Dow Jones industrials up 400 points following a report that the federal government may create an entity that will take over banks' bad debt.

A report that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is considering the formation of an entity like the Resolution Trust Corp. that was set up during the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s left investors ebullient. Investors hoped a huge federal intervention could help financial institutions jettison bad mortgage debt and stop the drain on capital that has already taken down companies including Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

NEW YORK (AP) — The stock market took another nosedive Wednesday as the American banking system appeared even shakier and investors worried that the financial crisis is spinning so far out of control that even government rescues can't stop it.

The Dow Jones industrial average, which only two days earlier had suffered its steepest drop since the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, lost another 450 points. About $700 billion in investments vanished.

One day after the Federal Reserve stepped in with an emergency loan to keep American International Group Inc., one of the world's largest insurers, from going under, Wall Street wondered which companies might be the next to falter.

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street began the fourth quarter with a huge rally Monday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to a record close. Stocks were buoyed by a growing belief that the worst of the credit crisis has passed.

The Dow rose 191.92, or 1.38 percent, to 14,087.55, surpassing its closing record of 14,000.41 set in mid-July. The blue chip index rose as high as 14,115.51 to eclipse its previous intraday high of 14,021.95 set July 17.