In Today’s Times
- The death of Senator Frank R. Lautenberg on Monday puts Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey in a difficult spot: having to choose between raising his party’s fortunes in Washington and furthering his own political ambitions at home, David M. Halbfinger, Jeremy W. Peters and Kate Zernike write.
- President Obama will nominate three candidates on Tuesday to fill the remaining vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is often described as the second most powerful court in the country, Michael D. Shear reports. By nominating three judges at once, the president is hoping to put pressure on Senate Republicans to confirm them.
- Wide racial disparities have been found nationwide in marijuana law enforcement, with advocates for legalization criticizing the Obama administration for its aggressive approach on the drug, Ian Urbina reports. In the president’s first three years in office, the arrest rate for marijuana possession was about 5 percent higher than the average rate under George W. Bush.
- Representative Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is trying to turn the recent scandal surrounding the Internal Revenue Service into an opportunity to tackle tax reform, not to scar the Obama administration, Jonathan Weisman reports.
Around the Web
- Some Californians - the ones who don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on a fund-raising ticket - are annoyed at President Obama’s lack of public events in the state, The San Francisco Chronicle reports. He has not attended a free event for the public in Northern California since before he first won the White House in 2008.
- Tornadoes that devastated parts of Oklahoma and Missouri may have been the impetus for funding changes at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, allowing it to cancel sequester furloughs for 12,000 employees, The Washington Post reports.
Happenings in Washington
- President Obama will participate in a meeting with President Sebastián Piñera of Chile, along with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
- Later, Mr. Obama will visit wounded soldiers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
