London, Sep 17 : Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is fighting to regain the initiative in the presidential race even as the Wall Street financial crisis threatens to stall the momentum gained by Republican rival John McCain.

The banking meltdown has thrust the economy back to the centre of the campaign on Tuesday, giving Obama a chance to hit back after two weeks of declining poll numbers and escalating Republican attacks, The Financial Times reported.

Obama said the turmoil represented a “final verdict” on the failed economic policies of President George W. Bush and McCain, accusing them of fostering a “winner take-all, anything-goes environment”, and then doing nothing as the system collapsed.

Washington, Sept. 17: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is fine-tuning the most basic element of his campaign to win the White House.

According to FOX News, Obama, whose slogan has long been “Change We Can Believe In,” has since the end of the Democratic National Convention in Denver in late August, altered his rallying cry to read as the “Change We Need.”

He advertises upcoming “Change We Need” rallies on his Web site. And he incorporates the modified phrase into his stump speeches.

Washington - US Senators Barack Obama and John McCain took aim at Wall Street and each other's economic policies on Tuesday, a day after stocks plummeted on news of Lehman Bros bankruptcy and a Merrill Lynch buyout.

Republican McCain called for a commission to investigate Wall Street excesses.

"In short order, we are going to put an end to the reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed that have caused a crisis on Wall Street," McCain said at a campaign event in Florida.

New York, Sept. 16: The Obama Campaign has denied a New York Post report that said he privately tried to persuade Iraqi political leaders to stall an agreement on scaling back American troops in Iraq while publicly campaigning for a speedy withdrawal.

Washington, Sept. 16 : John McCain and Barack Obama have 50 days left to determine who among them will be the United States’ 44th President.

Heading into the frenzied final weeks, national polls remain essentially even.

If the trends are to be believed, the numbers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Virginia will be crucial to who will win and who will lose the election, reports the New York Daily News.

Washington, Sept. 16: Polling in the five key battleground states shows John McCain and Barack Obama neck-and-neck with seven weeks left until Election Day.

According to a Rasmussen Poll, McCain holds a slight advantage over Obama in Colorado, Florida, and Ohio, while the candidates are tied in Pennsylvania and Virginia. In Florida, the gap between McCain and Obama exceeds three percentage points in polls with a four-and-a-half percentage point margin of sampling error.

The overriding message from these results is that the race remains very close.