Around the Nation

Spending bill moves through Congress

The $314 billion measure financing education, labor and health programs squeaked through the Senate by a 49-48 vote, narrowly averting an embarrassing GOP setback. The measure contained a 0.97 percent across-the-board reduction in proposed spending by federal agencies this year; Democrats said it would cut "muscle and bone" from programs, but Republicans said the savings would be money that otherwise would have been wasted.

White House officials and lawmakers spent much of the day locked in private talks. They focused on Clinton's request for $1.3 billion for the Wye River Middle East peace accord, plus a new, scaled-down White House request for $1.4 billion more for international debt relief, nuclear threat reduction and other foreign aid programs, said people familiar with the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Even as they met, the president promised again to veto the "deeply flawed" education-labor bill with an unusually biting denunciation that underlined partisan tensions coloring the bargainers' work.

Bush urges schools to discipline students

"Learning must no longer be held hostage to the brazen behavior of a few," the Republican presidential front-runner told a business group.

In his third speech laying out his education agenda, Bush called on schools to set limits and to enforce boundaries. "When children and teen-agers go to school afraid of being bullied, or beaten, or worse, it is the ultimate betrayal of adult responsibility," he said.

Linking character education to school safety, the Texas governor decried the "mixed and muddled" moral message put out by some schools. "Our schools should not cultivate confusion," he said. "They must cultivate conscience."

He called for a zero-tolerance policy for disruptive behavior in America's classrooms, and said teachers should have the right to remove persistently violent and unruly students. Those children, he said, should only be allowed to return with the teacher's consent.

Shooting in Honolulu Xerox ofce kills 7

Two hours later, police surrounded the suspect and began trying to talk him into surrendering.

The gunfire erupted shortly after 8 a.m. (1 p.m. EST) in an industrial section of Honolulu, far from the Waikiki tourist district. Five victims were found dead in a conference room and two other bodies were found nearby. All had been shot with a 9 mm handgun, authorities said.

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