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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- As Mitt Romney has emerged as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, Republicans in Congress are increasingly taking their cues from him -- even if it causes heartburn and grumbling among conservatives unhappy about having to beat a tactical retreat.
• That dynamic was on full display last week as House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, moved to defuse a student loan grenade President Barack Obama threw at them. And Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky sidestepped attempts by Democrats to tag Republicans as soft on violence against women.
• It's a defensive game for Republicans, who are determined to avoid the kinds of stumbles they endured last year when they lost the political battle over renewing Obama's payroll tax cut.
• "Some folks in an election year would say you need to take tough issues off the table," said Rep. Rob Woodall, R-Ga. "Other folks in an election year say you need to bring your best solutions to the toughest issues, and I'm in that latter camp."
• Student loan interest rates was a back-burner issue until the White House lit it up barely a week ago and put it at the top of its agenda with a two-day Obama campaign swing to three university campuses in North Carolina, Iowa and Colorado, all early tossup states in the November election.
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• LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Ted Nugent said he was insulted by the cancellation of his planned concert at an Army post over his comments about President Barack Obama.
• Commanders at the Fort Knox, Ky., post nixed Nugent's segment of a June concert after the rocker and conservative activist said at a recent National Rifle Association meeting that he would be "dead or in jail by this time next year" if Obama is re-elected.
• Nugent told The Associated Press this week that his words were not intended as a threat against the president.
• "To think that there's a bureaucrat in the United States Army that would consider

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