Edwards Talks Tough on Iraq, Business

Fidelity releases annual estimate

(NEWSER) - Retiring this year? You and you significant other will need $240,000 for health care expenses, according to Fidelity Investments' latest annual projection. That's up 4% from last year's $230,000 estimate, which is a typical—and actually fairly modest—increase, BusinessWeek reports. Since 2002's $160,000 estimate, the annual figure has increased an average of 6% per year. More»

(NEWSER) - Social Security and Medicare are headed toward disaster, and that’s a good thing, Robert J. Samuelson writes in Newsweek. The programs are expected to run out of money by 2017 and 2037, respectively, and when they do, politicians will have to make painful, necessary reforms. “The counterintuitive lesson: a ‘crisis’ is just what we need,” writes Samuelson. More»

Ex-senator's fall from grace touches off second-guessing

(NEWSER) - Hillary Clinton strategist Mark Penn is kicking himself in the wake of reports that Elizabeth Edwards thinks her husband shouldn't have run for president, ABC News reports. If news of John Edwards' infidelity had forced him to drop out of the race, Penn said, “No question in my mind, it would have been a very different race.” More»

3 months on from scandal, attorney returns to public life, alone

(NEWSER) - Elizabeth Edwards is cautiously reemerging into public life—sans wedding ring—after her husband's headline-grabbing affair, the Washington Post writes. She declines to play the role of the wronged wife and avoids interviews. But she's giving speeches again, a physically fragile but fierce advocate of a more fair health care system, drawing on her extensive legal experience and her continuing battle with cancer. More»

...and hence the nomination

(NEWSER) - Hillary Clinton’s former communications director is convinced that had the media outed John Edwards last year, Clinton would be the Democratic nominee. “We would have won Iowa,” Howard Wolfson tells ABC. “Our voters and Edwards’ voters were the same people. They were older, pro-union.” Obama won Iowa with 37.6% of the vote, followed by Edwards with 29.7% and Clinton with 29.5%. More»