CHICAGO (AP) — Barack Obama's fellow Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel, the hard-charging No. 3 Democrat in the House, has accepted the job of White House chief of staff, Democratic officials said Thursday.

One of Obama's first decisions as president-elect was to ask the Illinois congressman to run his White House staff. The selection of the fiery Democrat marked a shift in tone for Obama, who chose more low-key leadership for his presidential campaign.

Emanuel, who served as a political and policy aide in the Clinton White House before running for Congress, weighed the family and political considerations before accepting. He will have to resign his seat, relinquish his position in the House Democratic leadership and put aside hopes of becoming House speaker.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush and Barack Obama will hold their first substantive talks Monday as the transition to a new Democratic administration accelerates.

Bush, who will return to Texas soon after completion of his two terms in office, publicly directed employees Thursday to ensure a peaceful and cooperative transfer of power. The transition is a delicate dance, in which the White House keeps the president-elect in the loop, and even solicits his input, but the decisions remain solely the president's.

On Monday's discussion list: the financial crisis, the war in Iraq and the future of the country.

Mere hours after Barack Obama’s victory, Cornell professors analyzed the policies and plans of the president-elect, converging in yesterday’s conference “Now that they’ve won, what will they do?” in Goldwin Smith.

Sponsored by the Cornell in Washington program and moderated by Cornell in Washington director Prof. Robert Hutchens, industrial and labor relations, the conference was the brainchild of Prof. Theodore Lowi, the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions and a longtime collaborator of the Cornell in Washington program. Forward thinking: Prof. Richard Booth, city and regional planning, and Prof. Theodore Lowi, government, speak about Obama’s presidency yesterday in Goldwin Smith.

“For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country,” Michelle Obama said a few months back as she discussed her husband’s candidacy. The remark inspired a wave of outrage in the popular press. But after Tuesday night, I know just what she meant.

We’ve elected a black man as president of the United States. Go ahead, pinch yourself. From now on, the rules of the game have changed.

Who would have thought this moment could come so soon? Who would have thought that amidst the post-9/11 jingoism and chest-thumping we could elect someone with a name like Barack Hussein Obama? Who would have thought that after eight years of waterboarding, wiretaps and war the United States could do something to make the world proud?

This past Tuesday, November 4, 2008 at 11 p.m. EST, the land slid tectonically; a centuries-old structure of exclusion crumbled; and the global political landscape changed forever: Barack Obama was decisively elected President of the United States.

People around the world celebrated in caves, shanties, apartment buildings and castles alike. They hugged in cobblestone streets, they cheered in pubs, they cried together in crowds of people whom they didn’t know personally but with whom they shared the most personal of feelings: the once-elusive feeling of hope.

They looked on in admiration as Americans elected the first world leader.

We live in a world where bad mortgage lending practices in the United States can cause an 11 percent one-day drop on Japan’s stock exchange.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) swept to victory as the nation's first black president last night in an Electoral College landslide that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself. “Change has come,” he told a jubilant hometown Chicago crowd estimated at nearly a quarter-million people.

The son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, the Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his historic triumph by defeating Sen. John McCain (R-Ill.) in a string of wins in hard-fought battleground states — Ohio, Florida, Iowa and more. He captured Virginia, too, the first candidate of his party in 44 years to do so.

DIXVILLE NOTCH, N.H. (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama came up a big winner in the presidential race in Dixville Notch, N.H., where the nation's first Election Day votes were cast and counted early Tuesday.

Obama defeated John McCain 15-6. Independent Ralph Nader was also on the ballot, but received no votes.

The first voter, following tradition established in 1948, was picked ahead of the midnight voting and the rest of the town's 19 registered voters followed suit in Tuesday's first minutes.

Town Clerk Rick Erwin says the northern New Hampshire town is proud of its tradition, but says the most important thing is that the turnout represents 100 percent vote.

President Bush won the vote in Dixville Notch in 2004 on the way to his re-election.

Earlier this week, Cornell’s Survey Research Institute, along with CBS, UWIRE and the Chronicle of Higher Education, released a study examining Cornell students’ political views towards the upcoming election versus students residing in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and Colorado. Six days before the election, the survey highlights the unique opinions of students, a demographic often ignored in political polls that rely on landline phone calls.

Students have historically had the lowest voter registration rates in the country. The survey shows that a higher percentage of Cornell students have registered to vote than students living in swing states, but a smaller percentage of Cornell students actually plan to vote.