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conflict.
• The goal is to push legislation through Congress next week so the current 3.4 percent interest rate on subsidized Stafford loans can be preserved for another year. A 2007 law gradually reduced interest rates on the loans but required them to balloon back to 6.8 percent this July 1 in a cost-saving maneuver.
• On another front, the two sides were also close to an agreement to overhaul federal transportation programs, according to House and Senate aides from both parties. Negotiations were expected to continue through the weekend, with votes expected next week on either a major transportation bill or an extension of current programs, said the aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the talks.

• For weeks, Obama has ridiculed Republicans for not moving quickly to prevent student loan interest rates from doubling, a stance that Democrats have hoped will boost his support among young voters who broadly backed him in the 2008 election. With college costs and student debt growing steadily, the issue ties directly into concerns about the economy and jobs that polls show dominate voters' worries.
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• LEALMAN, Fla. (AP) -- After Anthony Giancola was arrested five years ago for buying crack cocaine at the Tampa Bay-area middle school that he oversaw as principal, he told reporters that he needed to make some changes.
• "I need to get my life together, and then maybe from that other people will learn not to, you know, make the mistakes that I've made," Giancola, who lost his job, told WFLA-TV in February 2007.
• Now, the 45-year-old Giancola faces the possibility of life in prison after authorities say he went on a drug- or alcohol-induced rampage on Friday, stabbing several people -- killing at least two -- before driving his car into a crowded porch and brutally attacking a couple at a motel they ran.
• "You'll be very proud of me, I just killed 10 drug dealers," Giancola told his mother afterward, according to Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri.
• The sheriff said Giancola was bloody and "apparently high on drugs, intoxicated."
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