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The use of personal memoirs by politicians to grab headlines has become a common occurrence. Now, it’s officially legit as well.

In an advisory opinion issued on Friday, the Federal Election Commission said that Senator Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, “may engage in, and use campaign funds to pay for, a variety of activities related to the upcoming publication and promotion” of his book, “Against All Odds,” scheduled to be released Tuesday.

Mr. Brown had asked the commission to consider whether it was proper for his official campaign committee to pay for and promote the book. In a ruling that will likely set precedent for other political authors, the commission offered a qualified yes.

The commission said that Brown may use campaign funds to buy copies of the book from the publisher — at fair market value — as long as the royalties from the book sales are donated to charity.

The group said Mr. Brown’s political Web site can have a small advertisement for the book on it. And Mr. Brown can use personal funds to pay his campaign committee for the use of the political e-mail list on behalf of the book.

Those rules are likely to affect others. Tim Pawlenty, also a Republican and the former governor of Minnesota, has just published a book and is actively considering a presidential bid in 2012. Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, has written two books. And President Obama has written several.

But the commission could not agree about whether Mr. Brown should be allowed to host fund-raisers in cities where his publisher has paid his travel costs. And they also punted on whether his campaign committee could scoop up the e-mail addresses of people who attend his book events for future fund-raising.

That will keep lawyers in business as politicians keep writing books.

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Fighting to prevent an accelerating debt crisis from engulfing Portugal and Spain, Europe’s finance ministers approved an 85 billion euro bailout package for Ireland, while also agreeing for the first time to hold private investors accountable for losses in future crises, beginning in 2013. With the European Union engaged in a high-stakes battle with financial [...]

Sarah Palin has a message for Katie Couric, the CBS anchorwoman: Don’t even bother asking.

Ms. Palin, the former Alaska governor and possible presidential candidate in 2012, said Monday that she would not consider doing another interview with Ms. Couric.

Why do an interview “with a reporter who already has such a bias against whatever it is that I would come out and say? Ms. Palin said during an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” program, which is scheduled to air Monday night. “Why waste my time? No.”

Ms. Couric famously interviewed Ms. Palin in 2008 when she was the Republican vice presidential nominee, drawing scorn from conservatives for what they said were “gotcha” questions designed to make Ms. Palin look dumb.

Among the questions Ms. Couric asked were a series about why Ms. Palin had cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as an example of her experience in foreign policy. Ms. Couric asked whether Ms. Palin had “ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians.”

Ms. Palin answered: “We have trade missions back and forth, we do. 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 do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.”

In the interview on Fox, Ms. Palin suggested that Ms. Couric had intentionally tried to “create controversy” with the 2008 interview, and she cited that as a reason to avoid another one.

“So a journalist, a reporter who is so biased and will, no doubt, spin and gin up whatever it is that I have to say to create controversy, I swear to you, I will not my waste my time with her,” Ms. Palin said. “Or him.”

A spokesman for CBS News declined to comment.

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Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg News The Securities and Exchange Commission proposed regulations on Friday that would require the registration of hedge funds and other private funds, the first such move regarding the private asset pools since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act on financial regulation. There were few surprises for hedge funds, as many of the proposals [...]

Michel Euler/Associated Press Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of the Blackstone Group, is critical of the new Basel III regulations. SEOUL, South Korea – Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chairman and chief executive of the Blackstone Group, is not happy about the Basel III regulations that leaders of the world’s biggest economies are set to [...]

Doug Kanter/Bloomberg News SEOUL, South Korea — Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank and head of the Institute of International Finance, said on Thursday that the financial regulatory overhaul under way in much of the world, through the Dodd-Frank overhaul in the United States and the Basel III bank capital requirements, had to be [...]