CNN

Compiled by Mary Grace Lucas

CNN Washington Bureau

NY Times: Candidates Are Slow to Identify ‘Bundlers’
Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have long been among the most outspoken critics of the influence of money in politics. Yet records show that in their presidential campaigns, neither has lived up to his promise to fully disclose the identities of his top money collectors who bundle millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

AP: McCain: Mortgage giants can't be allowed to fail
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Thursday the government cannot let mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac go under. The two government-sponsored companies have been operating under a cloud of uncertainty in recent weeks, and their shares have plunged to levels not seen since the early 1990s.

CNN: Obama talks about glass ceilings, child care, equal pay
With Sen. Hillary Clinton beside him, Sen. Barack Obama emphasized the challenges women in his family had overcome as he reached out to female voters at a fundraiser Thursday.

NY Times: A Hint of New Life to a McCain Birth Issue
In the most detailed examination yet of Senator John McCain’s eligibility to be president, a law professor at the University of Arizona has concluded that neither Mr. McCain’s birth in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone nor the fact that his parents were American citizens is enough to satisfy the constitutional requirement that the president must be a “natural-born citizen.”

LA Times: McCain's broken marriage and fractured Reagan friendship
Outside her Bel-Air home, Nancy Reagan stood arm in arm with John McCain and offered a significant - but less than exuberant - endorsement. "Ronnie and I always waited until everything was decided, and then we endorsed," the Republican matriarch said in March. "Well, obviously this is the nominee of the party." They were the only words she would speak during the five-minute photo op.

LA Times: Jackson's Obama comments almost went unnoticed
Jackson's vulgar criticism of Obama came close to going unreported.
A Fox News technician transcribing the tape overnight heard it, and it took off from there.

NY Times: Jackson Barks, but Does He Still Have Bite?
It used to be called “the Jesse Jackson problem”: Democratic presidential candidates fearing they would lose black votes if they got on Mr. Jackson’s bad side, given the influence he accrued as a civil rights activist and his history-making races for the White House in 1984 and 1988.

Washington Post: Jackson Incident Revives Some Blacks' Concerns About Obama
The larger point of Jesse L. Jackson's criticism of Barack Obama - if not the crude way he expressed it - touched a nerve among some African American political activists who have been unhappy about the senator 's pointed critiques of absentee fathers and other problems in the black community.

Washington Post: Gramm Remark Adds to McCain's Difficulty Addressing the Economy
Sen. John McCain ventured to an auto-parts supplier in this hard-hit Detroit suburb to express sympathy for those affected by Michigan's economic malaise and to talk up his ideas for creating jobs in the region. But a day after a top McCain economic adviser dismissed the nation's struggles as a "mental recession," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's message landed with a thud, as workers sat in stony silence.

NY Times: The Candidates Speak Off the Cuff, and Trouble Quickly Follows
At this rate, both John McCain and Barack Obama may want to rethink their fondness for town-hall-style meetings. Both have embroiled themselves in controversies this week as a result of departing from scripted campaign speeches and speaking off the cuff.

Politico: Wolfson: Clinton not being vetted 'as far as I know'
On Fox, former Clinton chief strategist Howard Wolfson indicated that Hillary Clinton is not being formally considered as Obama's running mate, in that she has not been asked to undergo the formal vetting process.

Politico: Pawlenty says McCain not vetting him
Contrary to a blog report this week, Gov. Tim Pawlenty today said he is not being vetted by John McCain's campaign as a possible running mate. "I have not been asked to provide any documents or information to the McCain campaign," Pawlenty said as he headed into a noontime speech to an energy conservation group at the St. Paul Hotel. He also said he hasn't authorized anyone to provide information about him to the campaign.

CNN: Obama, McCain battle for blue-collar vote
In an effort to garner a large chunk of the white, working-class vote, Sen. John McCain once again brought up Sen. Barack Obama's "bitter" comment.

AP: Fellow ex-POW eager to back McCain against Obama
In the decades since they shared a prison cell in North Vietnam, George "Bud" Day has remained a close friend of Republican John McCain and emerged as a staunch opponent of Democrats seeking the presidency.

The Bemidji Pioneer: McCain: Minnesota volunteers vital
Republican presidential candidate John McCain put pressure on his Minnesota campaign volunteers Thursday night, telling them that what they do could spell the difference between him winning and losing.

NY Times: Democrats Dig In as G.O.P. Presses for Oil Exploration in Protected Areas
House Democratic leaders took a hard line Thursday against opening up restricted areas to oil production as Republicans threatened to try to keep Congress in session this summer unless they got a vote on new drilling opportunities.

CNN: McCain misfires on Obama attack
It turns out that John McCain made an off-the-mark error when he launched at Barack Obama this week over Iran’s missile tests. In a statement criticizing Obama’s positions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the organization claiming credit for the missile launches, McCain wrote, “This is the same organization that I voted to condemn as a terrorist organization when an amendment was on the floor of the United States Senate. Senator Obama refused to vote.”

CNNMoney.com: Sizing up Iran's oil threat
The country can strangle nearly 30% of the world's oil output and could send prices to $250 a barrel, but some say all the tough talk is still just that.

CNNMoney.com: Senate poised to pass housing bill
Foreclosure rescue bill takes big step forward. But all of measure's provisions aren't settled since the House wants to have another crack at it.

LA Times: White House vows veto of Medicare bill
The legislation, passed this week in the Senate, would avert fee cuts to doctors who treat patients under the federal program.

LA Times: McCain still behind in the race for money
He's being out-raised by more than 2 to 1. But John McCain expects to spend $400 million by the November election and be competitive with Barack Obama's money juggernaut.

WSJ: Obama Is Catching Up to McCain In Television-Ad Spending
In the three weeks since Barack Obama launched his first general-election television ad he has all but erased John McCain's three-month headstart in ad spending on the airwaves.

Star Tribune: Minnesota's Senate candidates continue furious fundraising pace
Minnesota's two leading U.S. Senate candidates continued their furious fundraising pace this spring, as Republican Norm Coleman and DFLer Al Franken each raised more than $2 million in what has become one of the nation's most expensive races.

Pioneer Press: Franken officially files for Senate
Accompanied by his wife, Franni, and his daughter, Thomasin, Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken today officially filed his candidacy with the Minnesota Secretary of State's office.

WSJ: Impasse Over, FEC Is Back in Business
The Federal Election Commission returned to active duty today with a full complement of newly appointed members and its first quorum in more than six months.

Washington Post: Sudan Leader To Be Charged With Genocide
The chief prosecutor of the Internationals Criminal Court will seek an arrest warrant Monday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charging him with genocide and crimes against humanity in the orchestration of a campaign of violence that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the nation's Darfur region during the past five years, according to U.N. officials and diplomats.

Washington Post: India's Unlikely Obama
An 81-year-old Hindu nationalist who wants to become India's next prime minister has chosen an unlikely model for his election efforts, the Internet-based campaign of Sen. Barack Obama.

CNN: Germany's Merkel skeptical about Obama visit
Presumptive U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama hasn't even set foot on European soil in the campaign. Yet rumors about what he might do in Germany have ruffled feathers in the German government.

Washington Post: McCain Manager Predicts an Even-Money Race
Sen. John McCain raised just more than $22 million during the month of June, and his campaign manager said yesterday he expects the Republican presidential candidate to stay on nearly equal financial footing with Democratic Sen. Barack Obama through the November election.

WSJ: Exemption in Senate's Tax Bill Would Benefit Capital One
A measure inserted into the Senate version of a tax bill would allow credit-card issuer Capital One Financial Corp. to claim a tax break that many other firms would lose.

WSJ: House-Senate Pact Reached On Mental-Health Bill
The House and Senate reached agreement on a policy framework for legislation that would require employers and health insurers to put mental-health coverage on par with that for physical maladies.

Washington Post: Karl Rove had never been so agreeable.
The former chief strategist to President Bush was the only witness listed on the agenda for yesterday's meeting of the House Judiciary Committee, and he proved to be uncharacteristically contained. Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), chairman of the subcommittee holding the hearing, declared herself "extremely disappointed and deeply concerned" about Rove's behavior. Rove was silent.

CNNMoney.com: DNC goes green
Democrats go to great lengths to make this year's Democratic National Convention environmentally friendly.

Indian Country Today: Natives help green the Democratic National Convention
Planners of the Democratic National Convention are limiting the party's carbon footprint through a unique partnership with an Indian-focused environmental business.

Washington Post: Donors Asked To Give for Two
The fundraising machine Sen. Barack Obama is relying on to overwhelm Sen. John McCain this fall has shown signs of wear in recent weeks, as Internet contributions have slowed and efforts to recruit top donors to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign have been beset by lingering tensions.

NY Times: Book Cites Secret Red Cross Report of C.I.A. Torture of Qaeda Captives
Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.

NY Times: Detainees, as Lawyers, Test System of Tribunals
Walid bin Attash, a detainee with a wry smile who is charged as a planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, had a question. Why, Mr. bin Attash asked the military judge at a hearing here on Thursday, was he barred from reading classified reports as he prepares to represent himself at the trial the Bush administration wants to be the centerpiece of its Guantánamo prosecutions.

NY Times: Citing New Report, Lawyers for Canadian Detainee Denounce Abuse
A secret government report indicates that Omar Khadr, a Canadian who has been held at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba since he was 16, has been abused by interrogators, his American military lawyer said Thursday.

AP IMPACT: An American life worth less today
It's not just the American dollar that's losing value. A government agency has decided that an American life isn't worth what it used to be. The "value of a statistical life" is $6.9 million in today's dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency reckoned in May — a drop of nearly $1 million from just five years ago.

LA Times: Cynthia McKinney outlines Green Party goals
The former congresswoman is the leading contender for the party's presidential nomination. She wants to draw enough votes to raise its national status.

WSJ: Bush Riles U.S. Asparagus Growers
His father caused a fuss by turning up his nose at broccoli. Now, George W. Bush's affection for German asparagus has American growers spearheading a bid for the presidential taste buds.

Washington Post: EPA Won't Act on Emissions This Year
The Bush administration has decided not to take any new steps to regulate greenhouse gas emissions before the president leaves office, despite pressure from the Supreme Court and broad accord among senior federal officials that new regulation is appropriate now.

AP: House creates trail following march to Yorktown
The 600-mile route taken by the armies of Gen. George Washington and his French partner in the climactic campaign of the Revolutionary War would become a national historic trail under legislation passed by the House Thursday.