Across the Nation

Senate approves budget over objections

WASHINGTON - Republicans pushed a $1.83 trillion budget for 2001 through the Senate on Friday, setting an election-year collision course with President Clinton over taxes and spending even as it maps a stunning string of surpluses.

The measure was approved after four days of debate on a mostly party-line 51-45 vote, putting the GOP on track to move a final House-Senate compromise through Congress next week.

The budget, which does not need Clinton's signature, sets broad tax and spending targets but leaves details for later legislation. It is those bills that will become political battlegrounds as the two parties draw contrasts over school spending, cutting married couples' taxes and dozens of other issues.

''We think this is not the time to grow government,'' said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) as Republicans batted down yet another Democratic effort to reshape the spending plan.

Soon after passage, Clinton branded the budget an "empty political document'' and called on lawmakers to work with him on a better one.

''This new Republican budget combines bad fiscal policy and a flawed economic strategy,'' he said in a written statement. ''It undermines our efforts to strengthen Social Security and Medicare, makes it harder to pay off the debt and rests on dramatic cuts in education, law enforcement, the environment and efforts to promote peace and national security.''

Marine helicopter crash kills 19 in Ariz.

MARANA, Ariz. - A Marine Corps aircraft attempting to land during a nighttime training mission crashed and burst into flames, killing all 19 aboard and adding to a checkered history for a new breed of hybrid plane that can take off and land like a helicopter.

The MV-22 tiltrotor Osprey, which looks like a turboprop, is part of a new generation of aircraft scheduled to eventually replace all of the Marines' primary troop-transport helicopters. The military began flying the aircraft six months ago.

The four crew members in Saturday night's crash were from a task force headquartered in Quantico, Va. The passengers were 14 Marines from 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and one from Marine Corps Air Station-Miramar in San Diego County, according to the Marine Corps.

Yesterday, investigators were reviewing the crash site at Marana Northwest Regional Airport about 30 miles northwest of Tucson. Few details were released.

Groups oppose high court's 1966 decision

WASHINGTON - Law-enforcement groups across the nation are urging the Supreme Court to abandon its landmark Miranda ruling, part of a concerted effort by opponents of the 1966 decision to end the requirement that police read suspects their rights.

The unprecedented legal assault on Miranda by police is one component of a calculated strategy by the ruling's opponents to appeal to the pragmatic, swing-vote justices who are likely to decide the case. Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy - by highlighting Miranda's costs to society. Victims' rights groups have joined police by filing their own brief in the case, to be argued before the court April 19.