GWEN IFILL: The Bush administration unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the financial regulatory system today. It's the most far-reaching since the Great Depression.
The plan would give the Federal Reserve greater oversight over the entire financial system, and it would merge supervision of banks, creating one agency from five. Congress would have to approve most of the changes.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged today it will take some time.
HENRY PAULSON, U.S. Treasury secretary: This blueprint addresses complex, long-term issues that should not be decided in the midst of stressful situations and should not be implemented to add greater burden to a market already under strain. These long-term ideas require thoughtful discussion and will not be resolved this month or even this year.
GWEN IFILL: Paulson said additional regulation is not necessarily the solution for a system under stress, but leading Democrats rejected that.
SEN. BYRON DORGAN (D), North Dakota: The secretary of the Treasury has made the point that the problem here has not been the lack of regulation. Well, that has exactly been the problem: the lack of regulation.
You must have some kind of regulatory authority to look over the shoulder and watch and see what's happening, but the fact is there's been no regulation.
GWEN IFILL: Lobbyists for financial companies also objected to the plan. They said it would weaken the banking industry. We'll have more on this story right after the news summary.
In the presidential campaign today, Democrat Barack Obama picked up the backing of another Senate colleague, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. She is the 13th senator to support Obama; 13 others have endorsed Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival.
Meanwhile, Republican John McCain kicked off a cross-country tour focusing on his life and background. We'll have more on the campaign later in the program.
The secretary of housing and urban development, Alphonso Jackson, resigned today. He's facing an FBI investigation for alleged cronyism and favoritism involving government contract workers. Jackson did not mention the investigation today. Instead, he gave this reason for leaving.
ALPHONSO JACKSON, Former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: There comes a time when one must attend diligently to personal and family matters. Now is such a time for me. I have devoted more than 30 years of my life to improve housing opportunities for all Americans regardless of income, skin color, or spoken accent.
GWEN IFILL: Jackson's last day in office will be April 18. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight.
Calm returned to parts of Iraq today amid calls for a cease-fire. In the south, fighting died down in Basra. A week of battles there and elsewhere had killed more than 400 Iraqis.
But in Baghdad, there were fresh rocket and mortar attacks on the Green Zone. That heavily protected area is home to the U.S. embassy.
On Sunday, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called off his fighters. Today, an adviser said that does not include turning in their guns.
SATAR AL-BAHADLI, Senior Aide to Muqtada al-Sadr (through translator): As the initiative by Muqtada al-Sadr did not indicate surrendering weapons, the fighters of the Mahdi Army will only hand over their weapons when the occupying troops leave the country. And they are abiding by the order, and there are no more armed incidents, as you see today.
GWEN IFILL: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had vowed a fight to the finish for control of Basra. He also insisted Sadr's followers give up their weapons. Today, aides indicated the military operation would end within days.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates today commended Maliki for launching the offensive in Basra. Traveling in Europe, Gates also said the violence has not affected plans to withdraw more U.S. forces this spring.
There was also word today another U.S. soldier died in a roadside bombing in Baghdad. For all of March, 37 American troops were killed; that was up from 29 deaths last month.
In Afghanistan today, two British soldiers and one Danish soldier were killed in the last 24 hours. The British troops died in an explosion on Sunday as they patrolled Helmand province. The Danish soldier was killed today.
A Guantanamo detainee was charged today in the U.S. embassy bombing in Tanzania in 1998. The U.S. military announced Ahmed Ghailani is accused of murder and war crimes. He will face a military tribunal. At least 11 people died and hundreds more were wounded in the embassy attack.
Zimbabwe's parliamentary election results trickled in today. The opposition claimed it won a clear victory. President Robert Mugabe's government reported an even split.
We have a report from Jonathan Miller of Independent Television News, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
JONATHAN MILLER, ITV News correspondent: The unofficial results posted outside polling stations indicate that Mugabe's party has been routed in parliamentary polls, which should reflect the outcome of the presidential contest, too.
We've learned that his vice president, his justice minister, defense, information, and public affairs ministers are all gone and that the ruling party is being crushed even in Robert Mugabe's own home constituency.
Through the prism of the Zimbabwean democratic process, though, what's posted at the polling stations doesn't necessarily reflect the official result. As the Zimbabwean public waits with baited breath, the opposition is smelling a rat and predicting skullduggery.
ZIMBABWEAN CITIZEN: The rumors are beginning to float. The atmosphere is rife with conspiracies and counter-conspiracies.
JONATHAN MILLER: The opposition says the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has won twice as many votes as Mugabe, 60 percent of the presidential vote they're claiming. Riot police and soldiers have been deployed in urban centers, but unconfirmed reports tonight that some of these units have now been withdrawn.
There's been much speculation over whether the security forces would remain loyal to Mugabe should he lose.
The question is whether Robert Mugabe will accept the outcome, which in his case looks sure to be bitter. This, the last time he was seen in public as he voted on Saturday.
And so at command central, where the electoral commission is still drip-feeding those official results, the elections of 2008 still threatening to bring more discord than harmony.
GWEN IFILL: In Washington, the State Department warned against further delay. A spokesman said it would create greater, quote, "opportunities for mischief."
The Supreme Court today refused to rule on the legality of an FBI raid of a congressman's office. The case involved Democrat William Jefferson of Louisiana. In May 2006, agents searched his Capitol Hill office as part of a bribery investigation. He has since pleaded innocent in the case. A lower court ruled the search violated the Constitution; that ruling will stand.
On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 46 points to close above 12,262. The Nasdaq rose nearly 18 points to close at 2,279.
Cambodian-born journalist Dith Pran, who inspired the movie "The Killing Fields," died Sunday. He had pancreatic cancer. Dith was trapped in Cambodia when the communist Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975. He escaped in 1979 and told of the murder of 2 million Cambodians. Dith Pran was 65 years old. We'll have more on his life at the end of the program tonight.
