The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush's Mideast meeting, China's hard stance, Senate's CFR vote, Dems' tax amendment plans, Serbia's aid, California's energy alert, DiFrancesco's troubled campaign, Providence mayor's indictment, Hastert's hospitalization, Clinton's visit to Mother Teresa:

• When they met on Monday, President Bush and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak agreed to try to "persuade the parties" in the Middle East "to stop the violence and work for peace," Reuters reports.
• Bush met with the Hispanic Congressional Caucus on Monday, AP reports. The meeting was closed to the media, but "the caucus was to focus on education, immigration and Bush's proposed budget for the Small Business Administration."
• Bush will be in Delaware today to attend the Leadership Forum on Education and then to visit the H. Fletcher Brown Boys and Girls Club, Delaware State News reports. Bush is the first sitting president to visit the state in almost three years.

• Chinese President Jiang Zemin said Tuesday that "the United States should bear full responsibility for the collision between a Chinese military jet and a U.S. surveillance plane," UPI reports. U.S. officials are expected to meet with the plane's crew members Tuesday night.
• China also said it "has the right to inspect the plane -- despite the U.S. claim that it is protected American territory," AP reports.
• Bush yesterday "demanded immediate access to" the 24 military personnel and the plane, the Boston Globe reports.
• Bush "has a wealth of diplomatic and economic levers to wield against China" if it refuses to obey his request for the crew's release, the Washington Times reports.
• Officials still have not been able to contact the crew members, and "China may not move quickly," the Christian Science Monitor reports. One expert said that "this is an opportunity for the Chinese to force the U.S. to take them more seriously."
• Sunday's collision "reflected an increasingly dangerous rivalry between the Chinese and American militaries," the New York Times reports.
• AP lists the names of the crew members.

• On Monday the Senate approved the campaign finance reform bill by a 59-41 vote, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. "Action by the House, the president and the courts is still to come," but the "step is a personal victory for the bill's authors," Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis.
• The legislation is "the most significant campaign finance reform bill since the Watergate era," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• The bill's opponents say that if it is signed into law, they will "challenge it in federal court on the same terms they attacked it in the Senate: as a violation of the constitutional guarantee of free speech," the Washington Post reports.
• The Chicago Tribune lists how each senator voted on the bill.
• AP runs down the bill's key provisions.

• As the Senate considers Bush's tax cut plan this week, "Democrats have prepared a pile of amendments aimed at savaging the package," AP reports.
• The House Ways and Means Committee on Monday approved legislation that would phase out the federal estate and gift taxes by 2011, National Journal News Service reports.

• The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a Texas man who admitted to "killing a woman and her toddler" did not need to have his attorney present when he confessed to police while he was being questioned for another crime, the Houston Chronicle reports.
• The court said Monday that it will "once again take up Kansas' sexual predator law" to "decide whether states seeking to commit sex offenders to a predator treatment program must prove that they cannot control their criminal sexual behavior," the Kansas City Star reports.

• The Serbian government plans to charge former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic sometime during the next two months "with ordering the murders of personal and political enemies," the Boston Globe reports.
• "The Bush administration rewarded reformists for arresting Milosevic for a domestic trial, announcing they could count on U.S. aid and support at the international lending bodies," Reuters reports.
• In Macedonia on Monday, ethnic Albanians and Macedonian Slavs began peace talks, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
• "Israelis assassinated a Muslim militant in Rafah" on Monday, the New York Times reports.

• Software company Ariba said Monday "that it will post a fiscal second-quarter loss instead of the earnings that were expected," which is expected to keep the "slump" in the stock market going today, CNNfn.com reports.
• "Political tensions with China" contributed to Wall Street's losses on Monday, BBCNews.com reports.
• Meanwhile, "consumer credit debt stands at a record $1.5 trillion," CBSNews.com reports. "While personal income has risen 72 percent in the past decade, personal debt is up 123 percent and rising."

• On Monday California state "power grid officials called a Stage 2 alert after transmission lines went down east of Los Angeles and urged consumers to conserve electricity," the Sacramento Bee reports.
• The Los Angeles Times reports on precautions that other states are taking after witnessing California's power shortages. "The West is bound to suffer the most this summer, experts agree, but it's going to feel long and hot across much of the rest of the country, whether it really is or not."
• "Some 150 gallons of fuel oil were spilled in New York Harbor yesterday, threatening an island bird sanctuary between Staten Island and New Jersey," the New York Post reports.

• An "increasing number of" New Jersey Republican "party leaders and activists are" getting "uneasy" about Donald DiFrancesco (R) and the future of the state GOP as the acting governor's bid for a full term faces new obstacles, the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Jane Swift (R), who is expecting twins in June, "will unveil an aggressive political agenda later this month... designed to appeal to moderate voters" as she gears up for a 2002 bid at a full term, the Boston Globe reports.
• Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster (R) "has asked Senate President John Hainkel [R] for help lifting the term limit" so he can run for a third term. Meanwhile, Hainkel "said Monday that he might run for governor himself," the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.
• Indiana state House Speaker John Gregg (D) "is believed to be considering a campaign next year for" GOP Rep. John Hostettler's 8th District seat, AP reports.

• Providence, R.I., Mayor Vincent Cianci Jr. "was charged yesterday with presiding over a Dark Ages-style corruption racket" in a "30-count indictment" alleging "that Cianci and his co-defendants took more than $1.5 million during the 1990s," the Providence Journal-Bulletin reports. The Boston Herald reports that Cianci "vowed to fight to prove his innocence 'until my dying day.'"
• Former President Bill Clinton is in India today for a week-long visit that "will include a visit to the earthquake-hit state of Gujarat and Mother Teresa's orphanage in the eastern city of Calcutta," Reuters reports.
• Vernon Jordan, "a Washington power broker and confidant of former president Bill Clinton," will be presented the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP's highest honor, Reuters reports.
• House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was hospitalized Monday near Chicago for "follow-up treatment to a kidney stone problem he suffered earlier this year," Reuters reports.
• Businessman David Chang "put several thousand dollars down" toward a car for Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., and now "FBI officials are investigating whether Torricelli improperly solicited the car and other gifts," AP reports.
• King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía of Spain are in Florida today, the Miami Herald reports. Last night they dined with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), and today they will attend a black-tie dinner.
• "Mary Robinson has reversed her decision to step down as the United Nations human-rights chief and asked for a one-year extension of her current term," AP reports.
• The New York Times profiles Michael Gerson, Bush's head speechwriter, and reports on the job he has been doing so far: "By the estimates of many political observers, Mr. Gerson has been striking a pretty good balance, or at least hitting some memorable notes."
• Swiss tennis star Martina Hingis took the stand yesterday in a case against her alleged stalker, Dubravko Rajcevic, the Miami Herald reports.