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Bush starts 3-day tour on schools

VAN BUREN, Ark. - President Bush on Tuesday defended the No Child Left Behind Act amid criticism that the administration has come up short in funding schools and that the education law's standards are too rigid.

Campaigning in Arkansas - a state he won narrowly in 2000 - Bush opened a three-day swing focused on his education policies and told voters, "I'm not changing my mind about high standards and accountability."

The president's education tour follows a similar swing by Democratic rival John Kerry, who voted for the education law but now complains about the administration's budget spending and the way student progress is measured.

Bush's tour will get a boost from first lady Laura Bush, star of an Internet ad blitz her husband's re-election campaign launches today. The former librarian promotes and defends Bush's education policies in the ad, which is being placed on about three dozen Internet sites, many of which cater to Internet-savvy women who are watching less television.

WASHINGTON - Teresa Heinz Kerry earned more than $5-million from investments last year and paid more than $587,000 in federal income taxes, the presidential campaign of her husband, Sen. John Kerry, said Tuesday.

The campaign said that Heinz Kerry had received a routine extension until October to file her 2003 tax return and that she would then make public the summary pages of that return.

Heinz Kerry, the heir to the Heinz food fortune and one of the wealthiest people in America, has been criticized since her husband became the likely Democratic presidential candidate for refusing to release her tax returns.

She maintained that she could not release her tax forms without violating the privacy of her three children from her marriage to Sen. H. John Heinz III, R-Pa., who died in a plane crash in 1991. Most of her assets are in trust funds that she shares with the children.