POLITICO poll shows mounting danger for Dems  —  President Barack Obama's job approval slump and voters' entrenched wariness of his health care law are dogging Democrats ahead of the 2014 midterm elections, and Republicans have captured a lead in the areas home to the year's most competitive races, according to a new POLITICO poll.

Exclusive: VA Scandal Hits New Hospital  —  Veterans with serious heart conditions, gangrene, and even brain tumors waited months for care at the Albuquerque VA hospital, a whistleblowing doctor tells The Daily Beast.  —  Add Albuquerque, New Mexico's to the growing list of VA hospitals accused …

Springtime for Bankers  —  By any normal standard, economic policy since the onset of the financial crisis has been a dismal failure.  It's true that we avoided a full replay of the Great Depression.  But employment has taken more than six years to claw its way back to pre-crisis levels …

US to Announce Hacking Charges Against China … The United States government is set to file charges against government officials in China for allegedly hacking U.S. business interests, marking the first time ever that the U.S. government has formally accused another nation of using the Internet …

Haverford College commencement speaker lambastes students  —  In a surprising move, a commencement speaker at Haverford College on Sunday used the celebratory occasion to deliver a sharp rebuke to students who had mounted a campaign against another speaker who had been scheduled to appear but withdrew amid the controversy.

Abramson's Exit at The Times Puts Tensions on Display  —  Back in 2010, before she became executive editor of The New York Times, Jill Abramson sent me a handwritten attaboy note about a big story.  It still hangs in my cubicle: “You wrote a story about the trashing of a once great American institution and people never tire of that.”

No more liberal apologies as Elizabeth Warren takes the offensive  —  BOSTON  —  Elizabeth Warren is cast as many things: a populist, a left-winger, the paladin against the bankers and the rich, the Democrats' alternative to Hillary Clinton, the policy wonk with a heart.

Higher ed becoming a joke: Column  —  American colleges are fraught with petty politics and bad economics.  —  As college graduates around the country fling their caps into the air, college and university administrators are ending the year in a less positive state.

In Arkansas, Obama is a Four-letter Word Hampering Democrats  —  What Bill Clinton's home state says about racial politics, control of the Senate, and Hillary Clinton in 2016.  —  Jerry Hood gives Richard Wyatt a trim while talking politics at his Little Rock barbershop.  (Ron Fournier)

Is This the Democrats' War on Women?  —  In 2013, an ex-boyfriend called the cops on Monica Wehby—and four days before her GOP primary, the police report resurfaced.  To blame for the leak?  A Democratic attack, say Republicans.  —  Republicans are crying foul over an eleventh-hour flurry …

Chinese ships reach Vietnam to extract thousands of citizens after deadly attacks  —  Hong Kong (CNN) — Two Chinese ships arrived at the coast of Vietnam on Monday to begin efforts to collect thousands of Chinese citizens who are fleeing the country after deadly attacks last week.

Boehner's big reform decision  —  It's up to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).  —  Republican and Democratic advocates see one final, long-shot chance to pass immigration reform this summer, and its fate rests with a Speaker stuck between his party's resistance and his search for a career-defining legacy.

Missouri Prisons Ban Magazine For Article Critical Of The Death Penalty  —  Missouri's Attorney General Chris Koster (D) once suggested reviving the gas chamber as a method of execution due to legal uncertainty over whether his state could execute prisoners through lethal injection.

What to Watch for in Three Primaries  —  Not much matters six months before a midterm election, but Tuesday's primaries are an exception.  Republicans will have an opportunity to nominate candidates in three potentially competitive Senate contests: in Kentucky, Georgia and Oregon.  Here's what you need to know.

The Great Society at 50  —  LBJ's unprecedented and ambitious domestic vision changed the nation.  Half a century later, it continues to define politics and power in America.  —  One day shortly after starting his new job as presidential adviser and speechwriter, Richard N. Goodwin was summoned to see the boss.