The Fed holds an auction

So because banks are having trouble borrowing money to lend out, the Federal Reserve is holding an auction. Banks get to bid on money that they can't borrow from each other.

Essentiallly the Fed is injecting money into the system to offset the credit crunch, not just here, but also in Europe. From the story:

The Fed linked the new auction process to an announcement that it was extending a line of credit in dollars to the European Central Bank and the national bank of Switzerland so that those institutions could better deal with credit problems in Europe. The Fed said it was also coordinating with the central banks of England and Canada.