News briefs: GOP primaries in three states today; mass murder shooting at Christian school

3 GOP primaries Tuesday, but Romney and Obama act as though the fall campaign is all but set

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Republican front-runner Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama are trading jabs even before Republicans vote in their latest presidential primaries, a sign that both sides believe the race to decide who will oppose the Democrat this fall is coming to a close.

With GOP primaries Tuesday in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia, Romney is set to hold one campaign event before an election night party in Milwaukee. He spent the weekend campaigning across Wisconsin, working to win yet another big industrial state that rival Rick Santorum was counting on to keep his flagging candidacy alive.

“Take the next step here in Wisconsin,” Romney urged supporters at his last campaign stop Monday. “I need you to go out and vote. Get your friends.”

Obama is treating the former Massachusetts governor as though he’s already won the GOP nomination. The president’s re-election campaign is running a new TV ad in five swing states attacking Romney by name for the first time — in this case as a backer of “Big Oil” amid high gasoline prices.

While charging that Obama’s version of a perfect world is one with “a big-spending big government,” Romney is acting as though his opponents for the nomination no longer matter.

Students ran, hid behind doors after gunman opened fire at small Christian college in Calif.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — One wounded woman cowered in the bushes after the gunman opened fire on the campus of a small Christian university. One student hid in a locked classroom as the shooter banged on the door. Another heard the shots and ran to safety.

All within an hour Monday, police said, a 43-year-old former student named One L. Goh walked into Oikos University, and began a rampage that left seven people dead and three people wounded, trapped some in the building and forced others to flee for their lives.

It was an “extremely chaotic scene,” police Chief Howard Jordan said.

Soon after the shooting, heavily armed officers swarmed the tiny college of fewer than 100 students in a large industrial park near the Oakland airport. For a time, police believed the gunman could still be inside. But he wasn’t.

Instead, officers said he apparently drove about three miles from campus before surrendering to officers inside a supermarket.

Explosion in student loan debt reaching crisis proportions, but largely flying under radar

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal student loan program seemed like a great idea back in 1965: Borrow to go to college now, pay it back later when you have a job.

But many borrowers these days are close to flunking out, tripped up by painful real-life lessons in math and economics.

Surging above $1 trillion, U.S. student loan debt has surpassed credit card and auto-loan debt. This debt explosion jeopardizes the fragile recovery, increases the burden on taxpayers and possibly sets the stage for a new economic crisis.

With a still-wobbly jobs market, these loans are increasingly hard to pay off. Unable to find work, many students have returned to school, further driving up their indebtedness.

Average student loan debt recently topped $25,000, up 25 percent in 10 years. And the mushrooming debt has direct implications for taxpayers, since 8 in 10 of these loans are government-issued or guaranteed.