Politics News

NEW YORK - Former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm resigned Friday from his role as GOP presidential candidate John McCain's campaign co-chairman, hoping to quiet the uproar that followed his comments that the United States had become a "nation of whiners" whose constant complaints about the U.S. economy show they are in a "mental recession."

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate John McCain raised more than $21 million in June and spent nearly $26 million, the campaign reported Friday night.

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama intends to sit down with European leaders as well as King Abdullah of Jordan, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as part of a campaign-season trip that aides described Friday as substantive rather than political.

WASHINGTON - President Bush and Iraq's prime minister have agreed to set a "general time horizon" for bringing more U.S. troops home from the war, a dramatic shift from the administration's once-ironclad unwillingness to talk about any kind of deadline or timetable.

MEXICO CITY - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Friday that U.S. intelligence led Mexican forces to a small submarine captured this week packed with 5.8 tons of cocaine.

HOUSTON - President Bush, in the second half of a Southwestern fundraising trip Friday, backed the candidacy of Republican Pete Olson, who is challenging incumbent Rep. Nick Lampson in Texas' 22nd congressional district.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Republican White House hopeful John McCain said Friday that his Democratic rival Barack Obama is further to the left than the only Socialist US senator.

HOUSTON - President Bush, in the second half of a Southwestern fundraising trip Friday, backed the candidacy of Republican Pete Olson, who is challenging incumbent Rep. Nick Lampson in Texas' 22nd congressional district.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday she is pushing for about $50 billion in a second election-year economic stimulus package being shaped by Democrats in Congress.

Guest lineup for the Sunday TV news shows:

WASHINGTON - Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta says a mix up on a terrorist watch list is still wreaking havoc on his air travel five years after the problem arose.

WASHINGTON - In some versions of a July 17 story about former Vice President Al Gore's energy proposals, the first name of the president of Securing America's Future Energy, a nonpartisan energy policy group, was misspelled. He is Robbie Diamond, not Robby.

GENEVA (AFP) - Iranian, European and US officials were to meet here Saturday for talks on Tehran's nuclear programme with all sides voicing optimism that there would be a positive outcome.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Consumer electronic companies, who depend on open markets to keep their costs low, are mounting a cross-country campaign to persuade worried American voters that trade is good for them.

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations chief told rights advocates Friday that his choice to be the next U.N. human rights commissioner is a South African judge who was the first black woman to serve on her country's High Court, the director of Human Rights Watch said.

WASHINGTON - John Paul Stevens still plays tennis at 88. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75, works out regularly in the Supreme Court gym.

The members of the Supreme Court, by age:

WASHINGTON - Dying of cancer, Thomas Amschwand did everything he was told to make sure his wife would collect on the life insurance policy he had through his employer.

NEW YORK - Former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm resigned Friday from his role as GOP presidential candidate John McCain's campaign co-chairman, hoping to quiet the uproar that followed his comments that the United States had become a "nation of whiners" whose constant complaints about the U.S. economy show they are in a "mental recession."

WASHINGTON - President Bush and Iraq's prime minister have agreed to set a "general time horizon" for bringing more U.S. troops home from the war, a dramatic shift from the administration's once-ironclad unwillingness to talk about any kind of deadline or timetable.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Bush administration plan to define several widely used contraception methods as abortion is a "gratuitous, unnecessary insult" to women and faces tough opposition, Sen. Hillary Clinton said on Friday.