NATIONAL BRIEFS

WASHINGTON: House sets student loan vote

In an escalating election-year clash, the House will vote Friday on a $5.9 billion Republican bill preventing interest rates on federal loans from doubling this summer, paid for by cutting money from President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law. Wednesday's abrupt announcement by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) came with Obama and Democrats clamoring daily for congressional action to block the 3.4 percent interest rate on subsidized Stafford student loans from automatically going to 6.8 percent on July 1. That increase, set by law unless Congress blocks it, would affect 7.4 million students. With Obama engaged in a series of campaign-style speeches, Wednesday in Iowa, about the need to block the interest rate boost, Republicans came under even more pressure when Mitt Romney announced he, too, favored the move. Democrats in the Senate introduced legislation Tuesday to block the increase for a year. The Obama campaign announced, meanwhile, that the president will headline his first re-election rallies next week, an important turning point in the race for the White House. Obama will hit the campaign trail in back-to-back rallies May 5 in Ohio and Virginia.

A lifeline for Postal Service

The Senate offered a lifeline to the nearly bankrupt U.S. Postal Service on Wednesday, voting to give the struggling agency an $11 cash infusion while delaying controversial decisions on closing post offices and ending Saturday delivery. Senators approved, 62-37, a measure that had divided mostly along rural-urban lines. The issue now goes to the House, which has yet to consider a separate version of the bill.

CONNECTICUT: Death penalty abolished

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy quietly signed a new law Wednesday that ends the state's death penalty for future crimes, making Connecticut the 17th state to abolish capital punishment. The law, effective immediately, was signed the same day a new Quinnipiac University Poll showed that 62 percent of registered Connecticut voters still favor the death penalty for those convicted of murder.