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These four areas contained four canned stories. Two political and two entertainment. They can be used to seed the classifier (for two classifications).

Democratic Sen. Joe Biden and Republican Gov. Sarah Palin each have a mission this week: Attack the opposing party's candidate for president and boost their own party's man.
Sen. Joe Biden is preparing for the vice presidential debate Thursday in St. Louis, Missouri.

Sen. Joe Biden is preparing for the vice presidential debate Thursday in St. Louis, Missouri.
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But both vice presidential candidates have challenges in meeting their goals ahead of Thursday night's debate.

Both have been praised for their skills.

"When we debate -- and, boy, she's going to be a tough debater, she's going to be a skillful debater -- I'm going to try to talk about the differences of our world view here and what we're going to do for the country," Biden said on September 4.

"If it's going to get down to who can deliver the toughest lines, then she's going to win the debate," Biden added. "But I'm not going there."

Biden's use of self-deprecating humor has helped him diffuse criticism he's too wordy. Video Watch more on the Biden-Palin debate �

"Joe Biden's a good debater; he has a quick tongue," said Stephen Moore of The Wall Street Journal. iReport.com: What do you want to hear from the candidates?

In one Democratic primary debate this year, Biden was asked: "Can you reassure voters that you would have the discipline needed on the world stage?" Biden replied simply: "Yes," evoking laughter in the audience.

Biden comes to the stage with foreign policy experience and a reputation for attack-dog instincts. Appropriately, his opponent is a self-described pit bull.
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"You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick." Palin said at the Republican National Convention in September.

"This is the time for America to see Governor Palin like we saw her at the convention," said former GOP Rep. Susan Molinari of New York.

Molinari said Biden will have to use caution in his exchanges with Palin. View memorable moments from other debates �

"I can tell you from experience it's very difficult to sometimes run against and debate against a female candidate," she said.

In 1984, then-vice president George H.W. Bush learned that during the debate against Rep. Geraldine Ferraro. Critics at the time called Bush condescending.

Biden's camp said his tone will be civil.

"I don't think he's going to go after Governor Palin. I think he's going to make the case for Senator [Barack] Obama," said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Biden.

In the remaining days before the debate, Palin is preparing for her own set of challenges.

The intensity of the debate preparations picked up after Palin's panned interview with Katie Couric of CBS News last week. In particular, her answer when asked to describe her foreign policy experience was widely ridiculed.

"It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America. Where -- where do they go? It's Alaska," Palin said.

The answer became instant fodder for "Saturday Night Live," as comedian Tina Fey lampooned the remark in her impersonation of Palin. Video Watch more on the SNL spoof �

The CBS interview, described as confused and rambling by critics, also led a well-known conservative columnist to call on Palin to remove herself from Sen. John McCain's ticket. Video Watch Palin strike back at the media �

"Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons ... Do it for your country," conservative columnist and former Palin fan Kathleen Parker of Nationalreview.com pleaded on Friday.

But re-establishing Palin's credibility is not all she has to accomplish.

"At the same time, she has to attack Barack Obama and try to put Joe Biden on the defense," said Democratic strategist and CNN contributor Paul Begala. "It's going to be hard to balance those two missions."

Ron Faucheux, author of "The Debate Book" and professor at The George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management, said not only do the two candidate have to "defend themselves and present themselves well, they have to present and defend their presidential candidates."

Faucheux said Biden and Palin have different kinds of appeal that can be very charming.

He offered a warning to Biden: "The thing he has to watch, he has to put a stop button on what he says so he doesn't keep talking until he gets it wrong."
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Faucheux, after reviewing Palin debates when she was running for governor, said her tactic was "getting off of policy [and] talking about how it [an issue] affects her personally. And she seems to be much more comfortable doing that."

He said the thing she has to watch is not to appear superficial if she has a lack of knowledge on an issue.

The strong bipartisan Senate vote for a $700 billion economic bailout package will put more pressure on Republican members to back the measure if it comes up for a vote in the U.S. House, Republican leadership aides said.
  The U.S. House is expected to vote on the bailout package on Friday.

The U.S. House is expected to vote on the bailout package on Friday.

The Senate approved the modified financial rescue plan in a 74-25 vote Wednesday night.

Democratic leadership aides said the House vote could occur at midday Friday. A vote on the bailout package on Monday failed in the House after a majority of Republican members voted against the bill.

"The strong vote is helpful. We believe the House has a better chance to pass this bill than the one it considered on Monday," a Republican leadership aide said after Wednesday night's vote. "Having said that, we're going to need more Democrat and Republican votes to pass this bill in the House." Follow the plan with the Bailout Tracker �

Another Republican leadership aide said the Senate vote "puts more pressure on the House to get the bill done."

Congressional leaders on Wednesday added "sweeteners" to the financial bailout plan to entice enough House members, particularly Republicans, to pass the plan, which failed in the House on Monday.
  Senate bailout bill
  The Senate bill passed Wednesday night included measures that:

* Allow Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to buy up to $700 billion in bad mortgage-related securities and other bad assets.
      * Allow the Treasury Department to modify mortgage terms to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.
      * Permit the government to receive equity in companies it helps so taxpayers get a share of any future profits.
      * Restrict executive pay for companies aided by the program.
      * Create an independent oversight board to oversee the Treasury Department program.

Source: Senate Banking Committee

The measures -- a mix of tax extensions, an increase in federal deposit insurance and other measures -- include many items that are appealing to Republicans.

President Bush on Thursday urged the House to pass an "improved" bill.

Bush said the plan "has got the best chance" to help small-business owners function.

Rep. Barney Frank, chief Democratic negotiator of the bill in the House, said the House has a better chance of passing the bill the second time around.

"The reality has hit some members," Frank said late Wednesday, adding, "The main change is reality. It's not possible now to scoff at the predictions of doom if we don't do anything." Video Watch reaction to the Senate's passage of the bill �

Speaker Nancy Pelosi indicated the House "will act in a bipartisan way to restore market confidence as well as Main Street's confidence in our economic future."

The modified bailout package included the core measures the House rejected -- a plan that would allow Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to buy up to $700 billion in bad mortgage-related securities and other bad assets that are undermining credit markets worldwide -- as well as a mix of other measures that previously passed in the Senate.

The bailout plan has new provisions, including an increase in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. cap from $100,000 to $250,000. It makes $250 billion immediately available to purchase bank assets, leaving $100 billion at the president's discretion and $350 billion subject to congressional review.

The bill also includes a "mental-health parity" provision, which would require health insurance companies to cover mental illness at parity with physical illness.

Because tax bills must originate in the House, the Senate attached the rescue plan to a bill that deals with renewable energy tax incentives. This allowed the Senate to vote before the House to approve a bailout bill.

"I would not have moved forward on this if I didn't think the chance in the House was good," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada.
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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, said Wednesday afternoon that he would bring the Senate bill to the House floor "if there is bipartisan majority support" for the package.

"I'm going to be talking to the Republican leadership -- Mr. [John] Boehner, Mr. [Roy] Blunt -- to see where they are on votes before we bring it to the floor," Hoyer said Wednesday on CNN's "Situation Room."

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the top Republican in the House, believes the additional measures will make it easier to pass the controversial bill, a spokesman said.

So does Rep. Charles Rangel, D-New York, who chairs the Ways and Means Committee.

"The extenders and energy package, and the mental health and the AMT (alternative minimum tax) kind of guarantees it's going to go through," Rangel said.

But the additional tax extensions meant to persuade some House Republicans to switch their votes in favor of the bill could cause some fiscally conservative, or "Blue Dog," Democrats to drop their support because the tax cuts would drive up the federal deficit.

"When markets are poisoned, you demand the best antidote, not yield to President Bush's take-it-or-leave-it demand," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas.

Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, said he wasn't pleased the tax exemptions were added to the bill and admitted they may result in fewer House Democrats supporting the proposal.

"There's no doubt the tax package is very controversial. The Senate, in my opinion, is adding that on because they think that's the only way they can get it passed," Hoyer told NBC on Wednesday.

The Senate vote came two days after the House voted against the measure, 228-205. A majority of House Democrats voted for the bailout package, 140-95, but a majority of Republican members voted against the bill, 133-65. Video Watch Rep. Paul oppose the bailout package �
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Before Monday's vote, House members were bombarded with constituent calls in opposition to the bill. The calls to one Republican opponent of the measure, Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, were running 85 percent to 90 percent against the bailout, said Bill Smith, Pence's chief of staff.

The servers hosting the Web sites of the House and its members were also overwhelmed with millions of e-mails, forcing administrators Tuesday to implement the "digital version of a traffic cop" to handle the overload -- for the first time ever.

Peter Sarsgaard wants to meet in a coffee bar in Brooklyn, but balks when he gets there.
  Peter Sarsgaard is known for playing hard, uncomfortable roles with a weird sort of laconic intensity.

Peter Sarsgaard is known for playing hard, uncomfortable roles with a weird sort of laconic intensity.

It's crowded with 30-somethings in carefully rumpled hair, funky glasses, sleek laptops, expensive jeans and oh-so-cool graphic T-shirts. The flavor of the day seems to be smug.

He ducks in for a cup to go, a blueberry muffin and a pound of coffee beans.

"It's too trendy in there for me," Sarsgaard says, emerging unrecognized with a laugh.

Sarsgaard has a better place in mind for an interview, leaving behind the sort of over-caffeinated hipsters most likely to have reverentially cleared a path for the indie prince.

He walks a few blocks to the brownstone building he shares with his wife, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, and 2-year-old daughter, Ramona, and plops down on the stoop.

Sarsgaard then proceeds to be perfectly normal. He points with pride to healthy looking potted plants he's cultivated. He confesses that he aches to see his daughter, having only seen her twice over the past month. At one point, a neighbor with a baby stroller passes by and waves hello.

It's a picture of domesticity far from the on-screen Sarsgaard.

The 37-year-old actor is known for playing hard, uncomfortable roles with a weird sort of laconic intensity since making his debut in 1995 as a Sean Penn murder victim in "Dead Man Walking."

He graduated to being a killer in "Boys Don't Cry," a rich guy with a fetish for a prostitute in "The Center of the World," a stoned gravedigger in "Garden State," Liam Neeson's lover in "Kinsey" and a disturbed sharpshooter in "Jarhead."

"I think sometimes I've been told that I play a villain sympathetically. I don't think that's actually what I'm doing," he says. "I'm just trying to get at the undercurrent of something."

Sarsgaard these days is plumbing those undercurrents on stage, making his Broadway debut in an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" alongside Kristin Scott Thomas, Mackenzie Crook and Carey Mulligan. He's a newcomer to the production, which began last year at London's Royal Court Theatre.

He's got a typical Sarsgaard role -- Trigorin, a tortured writer who drives a rival to suicide and a young lover to ruin. He's grown a lush beard for the part and radiates both charisma and sleaze.

On the stoop, Sarsgaard is still buzzing about his debut deployment of an English accent the night before. He had previously been using his natural American voice, which made him the odd man out in the show.

Why did he abandon the Yankee accent? The answer illustrates a little bit about Sarsgaard's approach to his art: He simply wanted to be less liked by an American audience.

"It kind of creates an immediate connection between the character most likely to be hated and the audience," he says of his natural voice. "I feel like I immediately have a little leg up before I go down and beg for their sympathy."

The accent switch, which came as a shock to those he didn't warn before attempting, was applauded by Ian Rickson, the show's director.

"It can be such an understandable and commonly held default position of any actor to please an audience -- to be liked. So how refreshing when an actor thinks, 'What is the best thing in service of the play as a whole?"' he says.

"He just brings this kind of virility and openness to the process, which is very involving to others. He knows that a spirit of play and a spirit of risk is a really important part of the business."

Trained at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, Sarsgaard is no stranger to stage work, having appeared in "Kingdom of Earth," "Burn This" and Horton Foote's "Laura Dennis" all off-Broadway.

Even so, he didn't initially jump at the chance to play the Chekhov rogue on Broadway. He was shooting a movie with Mulligan -- "An Education" from a Nick Hornby script -- when she mentioned that the original Trigorin wasn't joining the show in New York. She asked who might be good as a replacement.

"I literally went down the names of all of my out-of-work actor friends that I thought would be good in New York. I had no thought of doing it myself," he says.

The main reason was that it wasn't his turn to act. He and Gyllenhaal like to alternate the times they work, and she was off filming "Crazy Heart" with Jeff Bridges in New Mexico. Plus, there was the issue of cash -- not really a factor for stage actors.

"It's a decadent thing to me for some reason. I guess because it doesn't nourish my family directly as much as me going off and doing a movie," he says. "If a father's job is to go out and bring things home for his family -- and grab as many things as he can grab -- then that's not particularly the way to do it."

Eventually, he realized it was an opportunity he couldn't pass up. The role, after all, allowed Sarsgaard to explore his favorite material, the strange unconscious feelings we all have.

"Some people can watch a movie where somebody gets dismembered and sit there and eat popcorn while they're watching it," he says. "I try to wake up the side that actually gets horrified by somebody getting dismembered. Real feelings about real things that people actually have are my territory."

That yearning for realness has landed Sarsgaard respect and a quirky career. The fact that he traded Manhattan a few years ago for a modest home in a tree-lined, family neighborhood in Brooklyn's Park Slope is another stab at keeping it real.

He's passionately political and does public service announcements to encourage young people to vote. It doesn't take long to identify his own blue-state leanings: On this day he wears an American Civil Liberties Union baseball cap with the slogan "Freedom Can't Protect Itself."

Sarsgaard, who says his favorite performances are in movies that no one saw, seems to relish the fact that he's mostly only recognized in certain demographics. As the coffee bar incident shows, he's usually left unmolested.

"The type of thing that I love is walking down the street and when someone comes up to me and says, 'I saw one of your movies the other night and it affected me,"' he says

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