WASHINGTON -- With Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann opting against a reelection bid, the Democrat who nearly unseated her last November and was gunning for her again is now out of the race too.

Jim Graves, a St. Cloud businessman, told the local website MinnPost that with the polarizing conservative choosing not to run -- perhaps out of fear she might lose -- his feeling was “mission accomplished.”

“She wasn’t representing the people of the 6th District appropriately, and now she won’t be representing them. There’s no way anyone could run and win who would be worse than Michele Bachmann. So we accomplished that task,” he said.

That’s a turnaround from Wednesday, when he told the Los Angeles Times in an interviewthat he still intended to run. “It’s a very winnable race against anybody,” he said then. “We weren’t really running against Michele Bachmann as much as we were running for the people in the district...

WASHINGTON — In another indication of the impact of slowing healthcare costs, the federal government Friday upgraded its assessment of the financial health of the Medicare insurance program for the elderly and disabled.

Medicare’s main trust fund will not begin operating in the red until 2026, two years later than projected last year, according to an annual report from the board of trustees that oversees the nation’s major entitlement programs.

Prospects for the Social Security retirement program, meanwhile, remain largely unchanged from last year, with the trustees estimating that the program’s main trust fund, which provides assistance to some 46 million retirees and their relatives, will be unable to pay full benefits starting in 2035.

Social Security disability insurance faces the most pressing challenge, with its trust fund projected to slip into the red in just three years. About 11 million disabled Americans rely on the program.

The trustees, who include...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama complained about the looming interest rate hike on student loans in a Rose Garden event Friday morning and urged Americans to call, write and tweet their Republican members of Congress to do something about it.

But on Capitol Hill, GOP leaders questioned why Obama doesn’t just ask Senate Democrats to take up the Republican rescue plan already passed by the House.

The two sides are quibbling over the details of how to avert the rise in interest rates on federally subsidized student loans, set to double to 6.8% in a month.

They’re also reenacting a battle that Obama won last summer after raising awareness – and concern – that the rates were about to go up. Republicans and Democrats in Congress agreed to extend the lower rates but Obama still spent the remainder of the election year claiming credit for it.

This spring, Republicans got ahead of the issue and passed their own plan in the House to prevent the rates from doubling. The...

WASHINGTON -- As some Democrats argue that the politics of the gun issue have changed, the first ad run by one of the party's senators highlights his vote against expanded background checks for gun purchases.

The message from Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor reflects the challenge to both gun-safety advocates and conservative Democrats in the next election. Pryor, who faced no Republican challenger in his last campaign, is now stressing his independence as he girds for a difficult race for a third term.

In the ad, Pryor notes that a group founded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is running ads against him for his vote against what he called "President Obama's gun control legislation."

"No one from New York or Washington tells me what to do. I listen to Arkansas," Pryor says.

All 23 of President Obama’s gun policy proposals

Bloomberg's group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, launched an ad against Pryor last week. Pryor is one of two Senate Democrats running for reelection next year, and...

WASHINGTON – A letter apparently containing ricin, similar to those previously addressed to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, was intercepted at a White House mail screening facility, the Secret Service confirmed Thursday.

The letter has been turned over to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force for testing and investigation, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said.

On Wednesday, police revealed that letters threatening Bloomberg because of his stand in favor of gun control had tested positive for ricin. Officials have said the letters addressed to the mayor and to a gun-control organization he has funded, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, were postmarked in Shreveport, La.

An unspecified number of New York Police Department personnel reported minor symptoms from the poison that have since abated, NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne said in a statement.

"The writer, in letters, threatened Mayor Bloomberg with references to the debate on gun laws," Browne said. "Civilian personnel in...

WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to nominate James B. Comey, a former senior Justice Department official who famously challenged a secret eavesdropping program during the George W. Bush administration, to replace Robert S. Mueller III as director of the FBI, officials said Wednesday.

Comey, 52, threatened to resign as deputy attorney general rather than give his consent to the secret interception of international calls routed through the United States. Bush had authorized the domestic surveillance effort after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In March 2004, Comey and Mueller rushed to a hospital room where Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft was gravely ill. They stood firm when Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, and Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, tried to convince Ashcroft to sign a legal extension of the warrantless wiretapping program. Because of Ashcroft's illness, Comey was acting attorney general.

The incident helped cement Comey’s reputation...

WASHINGTON — Immigrants in the United States both legally and illegally are helping sustain Medicare, contributing about $14 billion more a year to the federal health program for the elderly than they use in medical services, a new study indicates.

The surplus generated by immigrants contrasts sharply with deficits caused by native-born Americans, as medical care for elderly beneficiaries depletes Medicare’s reserves more quickly than working-age U.S. natives can refill them.

The report — published Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs as Congress debates immigration overhaul legislation — does not calculate the full impact of immigrants in the country illegally on all government healthcare programs.

But the authors estimate that these immigrants are helping to support the Medicare program because many pay taxes, while they are ineligible to receive benefits.

“Our study should raise skepticism about the widespread assumption that immigrants drain public...

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Michele Bachmann, a conservative sensation and briefly a Republican presidential front-runner, announced Wednesday that she won't seek reelection to her congressional seat in 2014.

The four-term Minnesota lawmaker told supporters in an online video that it was "the right decision" not to run again. She said it was not a reaction to the difficult challenge she may face to hold the seat, or to federal inquiries into her campaign finances and activities.

Bachmann, who won the 2011 Iowa straw poll and showed early strength in the leadoff caucus state before her presidential bid collapsed, did not foreclose a potential future run for national office.

"My future is full, it is limitless, and my passions for America will remain," she said.

[Updated, 8:00 a.m. May 29:For now, however, her decision comes as good news for Republicans, who will likely be in much better position to hold onto her congressional seat with someone else as the candidate, political analysts said....

POINT PLEASANT, N.J. -- President Obama and Gov. Chris Christie reunited for a buddy trip to the beach Tuesday, showing off the improvements to the Jersey Shore in the seven months since it was hit by Superstorm Sandy and encouraging tourists to return to the storied vacation destination.

“The Jersey Shore is back, and it’s open for business,” the president said on a cloudy and drizzly day.

The trip served as a sort of tourism commercial, featuring the two politicians playing at an arcade on the boardwalk, high-fiving excited kids and marveling at a giant sand castle under construction.

The president, in a playful speech, said, “If they ever let me have some fun, I’d have it here.”

Obama said the Jersey Shore had a special place in the nation’s heart and its mythology. He quoted Bruce Springsteen’s “Jersey Girl,” saying, “Down the shore everything’s all right.”

But the day's agenda also played up the role the...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court dealt a setback Tuesday to the campaign of abortion opponents to “defund” Planned Parenthood.

Without comment, the justices turned away Indiana’s defense of a 2011 law that would ban all Medicaid funds to an organization such as Planned Parenthood whose work includes performing abortions.

The high court let stand decisions by a federal judge in Indiana and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago that blocked the measure from taking effect. The “defunding law excludes Planned Parenthood from Medicaid for a reason unrelated to its fitness to provide medical services, violating its patients’ statutory right to obtain medical care from the qualified provider of their choice,” Judge Diane Sykes said last year for the 7th Circuit.

The Obama administration had joined the case on the side of Planned Parenthood and argued that the Medicaid law gives eligible low-income patients a right to obtain healthcare from any...

WASHINGTON – Although the controversies dominating political headlines eventually might undermine President Obama's standing with voters, a longer-term reality – a declining number of people who identify themselves as conservatives – could cause much more trouble for his Republican opponents.

Republicans won big in the 2010 midterm election, taking control of the House and numerous state legislatures. That victory corresponded with a significant increase in the percentage of Americans calling themselves conservative, particularly on economic issues. Since then, however, the percentage has steadily declined, according to an annual "values and beliefs" survey conducted by Gallup.

The latest version shows a further drop, with 41% of Americans calling themselves economic conservatives, down from just over 50% at the 2010 peak. On social issues, the share identifying as conservatives has dropped slightly and is now just more than 1 in 3.

On social issues, the big gain has...