The U.S. needs major changes to its financial system so consumers are better protected, banks fortified and the economy safeguarded from sliding into another Depression, President Barack Obama said Saturday.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama told Congress to act quickly and pass "commonsense rules that will our allow markets to function fairly and freely while reining in the worst practices of the financial industry."

President Barack Obama said Saturday that Congress needs to enact comprehensive financial reforms to protect consumers, keep banks strong and ensure the U.S. economy doesn't sink into another Great Depression.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said "we need commonsense rules that will our allow markets to function fairly and freely while reining in the worst practices of the financial industry."

Of the 250m websites, there are over 80m active dot com sites

The internet celebrates a landmark event on the 15 March - the 25th birthday of the day the first dotcom name was registered.

In March 1985, Symbolics computers of Cambridge, Massachusetts entered the history books with an internet address ending in dotcom.

That same year another five companies jumped on a very slow bandwagon.

It took until 1997, well into the internet boom, before the one millionth dotcom was registered.

WASHINGTON - Newly arrived Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts accused President Barack Obama and Democrats on Saturday of a "bitter, destructive and endless" drive to pass health overhaul legislation that Brown warned would be disastrous.

"An entire year has gone to waste," Brown said in the weekly GOP radio and Internet address. "Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and many more jobs are in danger. Even now, the president still hasn't gotten the message.

Washington -- Newly arrived Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts accused President Barack Obama and Democrats on Saturday of a "bitter, destructive and endless" drive to pass health overhaul legislation that Brown warned would be disastrous.

"An entire year has gone to waste," Brown said in the weekly GOP radio and Internet address. "Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and many more jobs are in danger. Even now, the president still hasn't gotten the message.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., left, and Sen, Scott Brown, R-Mass., ride the Senate Subway on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 10, 2010, after voting on the Tax Extenders Act. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Newly arrived Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts accused President Barack Obama and Democrats on Saturday of a "bitter, destructive and endless" drive to pass health overhaul legislation that Brown warned would be disastrous.

President Barack Obama will release a blueprint Monday for his long-awaited overhaul of the No Child Left Behind law, replacing annual benchmarks for schools with a goal of having all graduating students prepared “for college and a career.”

“Through this plan we are setting an ambitious goal: all students should graduate from high school prepared for college and a career – no matter who you are or where you come from,” Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address.

WASHINGTON - Facing a tough political environment, President Barack Obama on Saturday turned up the heat for the health care overhaul that has been his top priority for a year yet has not been passed by Congress.

The president used his weekly radio and Internet address to attempt to sway a public that has soured on the topic - and especially Democratic lawmakers who are wavering.

Republicans, recognizing the public's mood, are repeating their call to start from scratch on a proposal that would potentially reshape how all Americans receive health care.

President Obama renewed his call on Congress to "schedule a final vote" on health care reform Saturday, and continued to target insurance companies.

In his weekly radio and internet address, Obama mentioned meeting Thursday with insurance company executives, where he read a letter to them from an Ohio woman whose rates were sharply raised.

The executives, he said "couldn't give me a straight answer as to why they keep arbitrarily and massively raising premiums – by as much as 60 percent in states like Illinois."

President Obama is still holding out for bipartisanship on healthcare reform. At least that's the rhetoric coming from the White House two days after a historic seven-hour meeting with lawmakers across the street at Blair House.

"I am eager and willing to move forward with members of both parties on healthcare if the other side is serious about coming together to resolve our differences and get this done," Obama said in his weekly radio/Internet address Saturday morning.

U.S. President Barack Obama says he is willing to compromise with Republicans on a final health-care reform bill.

But in his weekly radio and internet address Saturday, Mr. Obama suggested the Democrats will try to go ahead on their own if Republicans will not join them.

Mr. Obama said he was "eager and willing" to move forward with both parties, if, in his words, "the other side is serious" about getting reform passed. But he said reform "cannot wait".

President Barack Obama pressed his case Saturday for health care reform, pledging to consider Republican ideas for overhauling the system but suggesting he would still press forward even if no GOP members support the legislation.

“I said at the end of Thursday’s summit that I am eager and willing to move forward with members of both parties on health care if the other side is serious about coming together to resolve our differences and get this done,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. “But I also believe that we cannot lose the opportunity to meet this challenge.”

said lawmakers must scrap current proposals and start over, lest the meeting turn into a charade. "after debating this issue exhaustively for a year, let's move forward together," obama said in his weekly radio and internet address. "next week is our chance

washington (reuters) - president barack obama on saturday touted the importance of long-term deficit reduction, saying the united states must go through its budget line by line and figure out ways to save money. "sometimes, particularly in tough

WASHINGTON - Trimming budget deficits is as important as creating jobs to sustain the economic recovery, President Obama said yesterday.

The government reported Friday the economy grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the final three months of 2009. It was the second consecutive quarter of growth and the fastest rate in more than six years.

'A sign of progress,'' Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. 'But as we work to create jobs, it is critical that we rein in the budget deficits we've been accumulating for far too long.''

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said Saturday that trimming budget deficits is as important as creating jobs, his top domestic priority this year, to continue the economic recovery that appears under way.

The government reported Friday the economy grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the final three months of 2009. It was the second consecutive quarter of growth and the fastest rate in more than six years.

WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama renewed his pledge on Saturday to make job creation his top priority in 2010 but said it was also critical to rein in a record budget deficit that threatened economic recovery.

Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to remind Americans of the various proposals he put forward in the last week to spur job growth and tame a $1.4 trillion deficit.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says he can't imagine "anything more devastating to the public interest" than the Supreme Court's decision to ease limits on campaign spending by corporations and labor unions.

He also suggested in his radio and Internet address Saturday that the ruling could jeopardize his domestic agenda.

In the 5-4 decision Thursday, the high court threw out parts of a 63-year-old law that said companies and unions can be prohibited from using their own money to produce and run campaign ads that urge the election or defeat of particular candidates by name.

NEW YORK | Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the first countries to win preliminary approval for Internet addresses written entirely in their native scripts.

Since their creation in the 1980s, Internet domain names have been limited to the 26 characters in the Latin alphabet used in English, as well as 10 numerals and the hyphen. Technical tricks have been used to allow portions of the Internet address to use other scripts, but until now, the suffix had to use those 37 characters.

US president Barack Obama has accused al-Qaida of being behind the botched plot to blow up a transatlantic passenger jet on Christmas Day.

He said it appeared that the alleged would-be suicide bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been trained by an al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen.

"We're learning more about the suspect," Obama said in his weekly radio and internet address today.

"We know that he travelled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. It appears that he joined an affiliate of al-Qaida.