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Wall Street investor Bernard Madoff is not the first person to be charged with carrying out a massive Ponzi scheme. Sometimes people call it "robbing Peter to pay Paul," or a shell game. Pyramid schemes are close relatives. By any name, the Ponzi scheme has a long and colorful history.

The Iraqi parliament passes a security pact that allows American troops to stay in the region for an additional three years. The accord was endorsed after the ruling coalition reached an understanding on a separate measure with opposition lawmakers. NPR's Ivan Watson gives Steve Inskeep an update from Baghdad.

NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center at the Brookings Institution, about the Federal Reserve's next course of action and the prospect of a "soft landing."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner went to Capitol Hill on Thursday with expansive plans to reduce "systemic risk" in the financial system. He called for new rules and better referees. And he was met with skepticism, particularly from Republicans.

The new head of the FAA told a Senate panel Wednesday that small regional airlines are held to the same safety standards as the major carriers. Randy Babbitt says his agency is taking steps to see that that is the practice as well as the law. But a government investigator says that is not currently the case.

One day after New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer admitted involvement with prostitution, NPR's Mike Pesca reports on how the news is playing in Albany.

Politicians in Kenya have reached an agreement aimed at ending the country's political crisis. Kenya was thrown into turmoil after a disputed election late last year sparked widespread violence that left more than 1,000 people dead.

President Bush travels to the countries of U.S. Persian Gulf allies — Bahrain and Kuwait — where he visits military personnel and gets an update on the war in Iraq from Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker. He is due to visit the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are back on Capitol Hill Wednesday, in an effort to convince lawmakers to freeze U.S. troop levels in Iraq after a small drawdown in the summer. Petraeus and Crocker appear before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees today.

When the House Foreign Relations Committee approved a measure that would officially declare the deaths of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in the early 19th century genocide, it revived a political debate.