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pick up.
• And yet on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve is expected to take its first step toward reducing the extraordinary stimulus it's supplied to help the U.S. economy rebound from its deepest crisis since the Great Depression.
• If it does, the Fed will likely spark a debate: Has the economy strengthened enough to withstand the pullback?
• The answer might not be clear for months.
• The Fed is meeting this week at a time of deepening uncertainty about who will succeed Chairman Ben Bernanke when his term ends in January. On Sunday, Lawrence Summers, who was considered the leading candidate, withdrew from consideration.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is seeking credit for an economic turnaround, using the fifth anniversary of the collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment bank to highlight signs of recovery and to warn against potentially market-rattling fights over the federal budget and the nation's debt ceiling.
• Obama was scheduled to address the state of the economy Monday in a Rose Garden speech, accompanied by a selection of Americans who the White House says have benefited from the administration's policies. The event marks the start of a week-long focus on the economy after a month of preoccupation with the crisis in Syria.
• For Obama, the anniversary of Lehman's bankruptcy in 2008, which marked the beginning of the global financial crisis and played havoc with an economy already in recession, is an opportunity to confront public skepticism about his stewardship of the economy and to put down his marker for budget clashes with Congress in the weeks ahead.
• The White House's National Economic Council on Sunday issued a report detailing economic policies that it says have helped shore up the financial system and put the economy on a path toward growth. Those steps range from the unpopular Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that shored up the financial industry and bailed out auto giants General Motors and Chrysler, to an $800 billion stimulus bill to sweeping new bank regulations.
• Gene Sperling, a top Obama adviser and director of the National Economic Council, said Obama's policies "have performed better than virtually anyone at the time predicted."
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