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Investigators are continuing to examine the training and experience of the cockpit crew of the Asiana flight that crashed Saturday in San Francisco. The pilot at the controls had nearly 10,000 hours of experience flying large jets, but only 43 hours in that particular plane, a Boeing 777. Saturday was also the pilot's first 777 landing at San Francisco International.

Pilots transition from flying one airplane model to another all the time; it's a regular part of the job as airlines add new aircraft and pilots fly new routes or get promotions to piloting bigger jets.

Most of the training for those pilots, in the U.S. and abroad, is done in very sophisticated simulators. John Barton, a senior pilot for a major U.S. airline, has been an instructor on the 777. He says once you buckle the simulator's shoulder harness and fasten the seat belts, it's just as though you are inside the actual jet.

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The Senate is planning to vote Wednesday on a plan to bring interest rates on subsidized federal student loans back down to 3.4 percent for one more year. The rate doubled on July 1 when the chamber failed to agree on a plan.

While the Senate prepares to take the issue back up, college students are left staring at several competing proposals.

This fight has been all about what's best for those students. To make that point, House Republicans recently gathered more than 100 of them to sweat and squint under the summer sun for a press conference on the Capitol steps. The guys were wrapped in wool suits and ties — most of them congressional interns plucked from offices just that afternoon.

One of them was Wes Hodgin, who said he kept thinking one thing while he waited 45 minutes for House leaders to arrive: Do not faint.

"I'm just going to try to stand out here, sweat all I can, and just not faint today," he said.

Hodgin's going to be a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this fall. He has student loans, but not the subsidized kind, so the rate doubling on July 1 technically didn't affect him.

Nevertheless, House Republicans had one central message: The Senate still hasn't passed a student loan plan.

"They've been more involved in internal bickering rather than actually addressing the issue," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chairwoman of the House Republican Conference. "And the students that are surrounded with us today — they're all suffering because of it."

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"Teresa Heinz Kerry continues to improve and remains in fair condition at Massachusetts General Hospital, while doctors seek the cause of seizure-like symptoms she experienced on Sunday," State Department spokesman Glen Johnson says in a statement sent to reporters Tuesday afternoon.

In the most extensive comments so far about her condition, Johnson also says that:

"As evaluations continue, she, Secretary of State John Kerry, and their family are deeply grateful that physicians have ruled out a variety of possible triggers or other ailments, including heart attack, stroke, or a brain tumor."

There is no one definition of a summer book. It can be a 1,000 page biography, a critically acclaimed literary novel, a memoir everyone is talking about. Or it might be your favorite guilty pleasure: romance, crime, science fiction. Whatever you choose it should be able to sweep you away to another world. Because there is nothing like getting totally lost in a book on summer day. Here are a few books that swept away some of our favorite critics.