The latest economic news is a forecast for another rough week for Americans. American companies in the goods and services sector continue to cut jobs while analysts are looking to new home sales remaining flat and a continued devaluing of the housing market.

In the final, intense sprint to the finish of the election, is there a Sarah Palin insurgency? Politico blogger Ben Smith sees increasing signs of tension in the McCain-Palin camp as lousy poll numbers and damaging revelations — like Palin's $150,000 makeover — are leading to finger-pointing and skirmishes within the campaign.

By this week, the U.S. military in Iraq should have largely transferred responsibility for paying members of "the Sons of Iraq," Sunni Arab groups fighting al-Qaida to the Iraqi government. And, senior Iraqi politicians are warning that, after eight months of talks, a major deal between Baghdad and Washington that directs the presence of American troops in Iraq is doomed.

The Philadelphia Phillies are now up three games to one over the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2008 World Series, but writer Jeff Beresford-Howe was hoping to see something he hasn't during the series: baseball.

» Read posts from bloggers around the world on the U.S. elections at The Takeaway's The International Electoral College.

With records being set every day by scores of early voters rushing to cast their vote, it's hard to believe there's such a thing as an undecided voter.

Eight days before the election, New York Times editor Marcus Mabry talks with The Takeaway about how far we've come since the primaries, and what to expect in the last week of campaigning.

The Takeaway is looking at the choices going before voters on Election Day. Today, The Takeaway speaks with a reporter from South Dakota where a comprehensive abortion ban is on the ballot for the second time in two years, and a reporter in Colorado where some voters are trying to define human life as starting at fertilization.

During the primaries, Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton criticized another Democratic presidential hopeful, Senator Barack Obama, for offering "just words." But now it seems the simplicity of his words, and the calm with which he delivers them, could explain why he's ahead in the polls. Has the economic crisis rendered slogans and sound bites obsolete? Writer Steve Almond discusses the power of language on the campaign trail.

Syrian officials are protesting an American helicopter raid inside the Syrian border that they say killed at least eight civilians.

Hasidic Rabbi Aaron Rubashkin expanded his family's Brooklyn butcher shop into the largest kosher meat plant in the nation. The underside of his success was revealed this spring after an immigration raid at his Iowa plant, including violations of child labor laws.