RAY SUAREZ: Congress went back to bargaining on a financial rescue plan today, and the presidential debate went back on the schedule, when Republican John McCain announced he'd take part after all.
Talks on the rescue plan all but collapsed late Thursday after a White House meeting. House Republicans balked again at the administration's plan to spend $700 billion buying up bad debts from banks.
They called instead for insuring private firms to buy the debts and for cutting taxes. Democrats rejected that idea.
Today, the talks resumed, and this time, the No. 2 House Republican, Roy Blunt, joined in.
REP. ROY BLUNT (R), minority whip: We are going to negotiate seriously. I've already reached out to the negotiators, the other negotiators to talk about our desire to get this done and to get this done with some additional free enterprise principles.
We're going into these negotiations with every intention of having a real negotiation, of having a bill that House Republicans can vote for, and solving this problem and solving this as quickly as we can.
RAY SUAREZ: Democrats insisted any agreement must have support from Republicans. And this afternoon, House Speaker Pelosi said Democrats alone do not have the votes to pass a bailout.
REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-Calif., speaker of the House: Our members have some reluctance to support this legislation. We said that we have to make the bill bipartisan, because we think that is important. It certainly is important to get the president's signature.
So the closer we move it to a bill that gets more Democratic votes, the farther we move it from a signature for the president. So I think that -- we said at the beginning, a fair disposition of this is for us to have both parties equally participate in the vote on it.
RAY SUAREZ: Pelosi said there's been progress today, but it was unclear if negotiators will be able to finalize a bill this weekend. We'll have more on this story right after the news story.
John McCain's decision on tonight's presidential debate came less than 10 hours before it was due to begin. McCain had urged a delay to address the financial crisis.
But today, he said the attempt to set aside politics failed. He issued a statement that said, "Washington played the blame game rather than work together to find a solution."
For his part, Democrat Barack Obama told reporters aboard his campaign plane that he's looking forward to the debate.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA, D-Ill.: The best thing that I can do, rather than to inject presidential politics into some delicate negotiations, is to go down to Mississippi and explain to the American people what is going on and my vision for leading the country over the next four years.
So I'm looking forward to the debate and look forward after the debate to coming back to Washington and hopefully getting a package done.
RAY SUAREZ: The two men face off tonight at the University of Mississippi, with the NewsHour's Jim Lehrer moderating. The debate will be seen on most PBS stations starting at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. And we'll have more on the story later in the program.
Federal regulators seized one of the nation's leading banks overnight. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took over Washington Mutual in the largest bank failure in U.S. history. Its banking assets were then sold to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion.
WaMu, based in Seattle, collapsed under bad mortgage debts that left many of its 43,000 employees wondering about their jobs today.
JOHN GRAYBILL, Washington Mutual employee: Of course, we're going to have some uncertainties and some questioning about what's going on. Have I been nervous? Sure, I mean, it's just kind of the nature of the whole beast. When a large company gets bought out, you wonder about your job. Are heads going to roll? You just don't know. But we have faith in our bosses.
RAY SUAREZ: The deal will give JPMorgan Chase 5,400 bank branches in 23 states. The company said roughly 500 of those could be closed. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight.
Wall Street rallied today on hopes a financial rescue plan will get done in short order. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 121 points to close at 11,143. The Nasdaq fell 3 points to close at 2,183. For the week, the Dow lost 2 percent; the Nasdaq fell 4 percent.
The House moved to pass a new economic stimulus bill today. The Democratic legislation would fund unemployment benefits, public works, Medicaid, and other programs at a cost of $61 billion. Republicans blocked a similar bill in the Senate today, and President Bush threatened a veto if it ever reaches his desk.
Pakistan warned U.S. troops again today not to intrude on its territory. That followed a shootout between U.S. and Pakistani troops yesterday along the border with Afghanistan.
In Washington, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, said Pakistani military leaders assured him last week they don't want trouble.
ADM. MIKE MULLEN, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: I just am hard-pressed to see a set of circumstances where there would be any kind of sustained fight between two allies.
I just don't -- that doesn't mean there wouldn't be accidents. That doesn't mean that, in fact, what has certainly been reported to have occurred yesterday -- and, again, I don't know all the details there -- didn't occur. But it didn't last very long.
RAY SUAREZ: Also today, Afghan President Hamid Karzai met with President Bush at the White House. The two men discussed the ongoing fight in Afghanistan.
