NATIONAL BRIEFS

WASHINGTON: Obama with court candidates

President Barack Obama has begun conversations with potential Supreme Court nominees, a senior administration official said Tuesday. Obama's review will throttle ahead Wednesday morning when he meets privately with the top Democrat and Republican in the Senate along with the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is choosing a successor to Justice John Paul Stevens, who is retiring this summer after nearly 35 years.

Virtual fence criticized

Two senators said Tuesday it's time to consider ending a contract for a "virtual fence" along the U.S.-Mexico border, contending it doesn't stop illegal immigration. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) suggested a real fence may work better than the electronic one designed by Boeing Co. Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) asked Border Protection commissioner Alan Bersin whether the contract could be canceled. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in March she was halting funding for an expansion of the fence.

CALIFORNIA: Suit over pedophile priest

A Mexican citizen filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Tuesday, accusing Roman Catholic cardinals in Mexico City and Los Angeles of conspiring to shelter a Mexican pedophile priest. The lawsuit alleges that then-Bishop Norberto Rivera, head of the Diocese of Tehuacan, and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony shuttled the Rev. Nicolas Aguilar Rivera between the United States and Mexico in the late 1980s to shield him from prosecution. Aguilar Rivera was defrocked last summer and remains at large in Mexico.

NATIONWIDE: 'High holiday' for potheads

Stoked by advancing legalization efforts, pot smokers across the country lit up in public parks and outside statehouses to observe the movement's annual high holiday. Those who weren't within whiffing distance of a college campus or a reggae concert may not have realized Tuesday was 4/20, the celebration-cum-mass civil disobedience derived from "420" - insider shorthand for cannabis consumption.