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White House: Drop immigration rules from 9/11 bill

WASHINGTON - The White House on Tuesday asked Congress to reject an attempt by Republican leaders in the House to place in an intelligence reorganization bill some anti-illegal immigration measures that Democrats say they won't support.

The Bush administration wants "an effective bill that both Houses can pass and the president can sign into law as soon as possible to meet the nation's security needs," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and budget director Joshua Bolten said in a letter to congressional leaders.

The House bill would expand the number of aliens subject to quick deportation by increasing the amount of time they would have to be in the United States to be exempted from speedy deportation.

It also would force asylum seekers accused by their home countries of being involved in terrorist or guerrilla activities to prove that their race, religion, nationality or political opinion will be a "central reason" for their persecution if deported.

WASHINGTON - Tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities are soaring at double-digit rates for the second straight year, and students are taking out bigger loans to cope, the College Board reported Tuesday.

This year's tuition and fees at public four-year schools average $5,132, up 10.5 percent from last fall. At two-year community colleges they average $2,076, up 8.7 percent.

During the same period, the consumer price index rose by 2.1 percent.

Things could have been worse, said C. Peter Magrath, president of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges.

"It is most encouraging that the rate of increase in public universities' tuition has declined this year for the first time since 1999," Magrath said.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Two former Los Alamos National Laboratory employees accused of being part of a purchasing scandal that rocked the nuclear lab two years ago have pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and mail fraud.

Peter Bussolini, 66, and Scott Alexander, 42, each entered guilty pleas in federal court Monday. Attorneys for the two said their clients face 12 to 18 months in prison under the deal, which also specifies that the federal government could still mount a civil case.

They were fired in December 2002 after being accused of making hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable purchases using a lab account.

NEW ORLEANS - The Louisiana Supreme Court threw out a $1.3-billion judgment Tuesday for oystermen who said that a coastal restoration project ruined their businesses.

The 130 oystermen, who leased water bottoms in Breton Sound, sued the state after a 1991 freshwater diversion program channeled some Mississippi River water and sediment into the sound, destroying their oyster beds.

A Plaquemines Parish jury awarded the oystermen $1.3-billion in 2000, but the high court reversed that decision Tuesday, saying that all but 12 of the oystermen's leases renounced any legal claim to damages from such projects.

The plaintiffs who had the 12 leases without such clauses waited too long to sue, the court ruled.

Justice John L. Weimer wrote in a concurring opinion Tuesday that reversing wetland erosion is important to the viability of the oyster industry as a whole.

STORMS SOAK SOUTH: Strong storms continuing to surge across the South dumped more than 5 inches of rain in Tennessee on Tuesday, causing flash floods and at least one death. A day after tornadoes destroyed homes in Arkansas and Alabama and left three dead in Missouri, heavy rain caused a Tennessee driver's vehicle to hydroplane, jump and guardrail and overturn. Police said the woman died instantly.

PLANE MISSES KING'S BIRTHPLACE: A twin-engine plane crashed shortly after takeoff Tuesday, plunging into an auto body shop and narrowly missing a national landmark, the birthplace of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., according to Atlanta police. Both people inside died. The twin-engine, six-seat BE55 Beech Baron left metro Atlanta bound for Venice. It crashed just before 11 a.m. into the Edgewood Collision auto body shop. The King home is about 100 yards away. The plane is registered to J&R Aircraft in Nokomis.