USA

To shore up border security, the Bush administration proposed new travel regulations Tuesday that would require Americans returning from trips to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, the Caribbean, and Panama to show their passports on re-entry. The new system, if approved, would take effect in 2008. Currently, Americans crossing the border from Canada must show a driver's license or other government- issued photo identification. Similar procedures are in place with other countries. Tighter security, critics say, could hamper tourism and commercial traffic.

The textile industry asked the federal government to reimpose quotas on 14 categories of clothing to protect American manufacturers from a flood of Chinese imports. Industry officials said they acted despite the administration's filing of complaints against China earlier this week because they believe that effort did not go far enough. An estimated 17,200 textile-plant employees have lost their jobs in the US since an import quota was lifted Jan. 1.

Connecticut said it intends to become the first state to file a federal lawsuit challenging the legality of Bush's No Child Left Behind educational mandate. The suit will contend that the law requires states and communities to spend millions more than the federal government provides for test development and school reform programs.

By an overwhelming margin, voters in Kansas made their state the 18th to ban same-sex couples from a from marrying or engaging in civil unions. Unofficial returns put the margin at 70 percent to 29 percent for adding the ban to the state constitution. Supporters and opponents of the measure both said they anticipate the outcome will be challenged in court, however.

Baylor University won its first national championship, defeating Michigan State, 84-62, Monday in the NCAA Division I women's basketball final. Baylor's Kim Mulkey-Robertson became the first coach in the women's game to play for a national championship team (at Louisiana Tech in 1982) and then coach one.

Novelist Saul Bellow, who died Tuesday in Brookline, Mass., won the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes for "Humboldt's Gift," in 1975. His writing, which often looked at class and social mobility in 20th-century America, also earned him three National Book awards.