USA

President Bush's proposed 2003 budget will result in a $121 billion deficit next year and a $681 billion surplus over the next decade, a review by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan budget forecaster, found. That's a larger deficit and a smaller surplus than the White House had predicted. The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad (D) of North Dakota, said the CBO figures show a need to "restrain spending and tax cuts."

The remains of seven American servicemen killed in eastern Afghanistan were returned to the US, arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Monday's casualty count was the highest for the US since the campaign began five months ago. Ricky Crose, whose son, Sgt. Bradley Crose, was among the casualties, said he would like him interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

There's ample evidence to file criminal charges against former President Clinton in the scandal over his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, a final report by special prosecutor Robert Ray concludes. On his next-to-last day in office, Clinton's lawyers made a deal with Ray that removed the threat of prosecution. A Clinton attorney said in response that after the "intense, expensive, partisan, and long," investigation, "it's time to move on."

Six federal agencies have two months to turn over records on the energy task force headed by Vice President Cheney, a federal judge ruled. The decision covers the Energy, Commerce, and Interior Departments, among others. The General Accounting Office, the investigative wing of Congress, has filed a separate lawsuit to learn which industry executives and lobbyists met with Cheney or his aides on energy policy. Cheney has disclosed several meetings with Enron representatives.

Two well-known politicians are out of the running after losing their California primaries Tuesday. On the Republican side, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan was defeated by conservative businessman Bill Simon for the right to challenge incumbent Gov. Gray Davis in November. Democratic Rep. Gary Condit, caught up in a scandal over missing intern Chandra Levy, lost to a protege, state Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza (above). (Story, page 1; Editorial, page 10.)

After a delay due to a leaky spacesuit, shuttle Colombia astronauts replaced a power unit on the Hubble Space Telescope, the trickiest task of their 11-day repair mission. It was the third of five spacewalks in five days.