The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush warns China, Congress likely to kill budget cuts, Maryland negs death penalty moratorium, Cleland begins re-election campaign, Calif.-32 holds primary, Davis reaches deal with Edison, DeLay faces lawsuit:

• On Monday President Bush "cautioned China that relations with the United States will suffer unless the 24 crew members of a U.S. spy plane are released soon," AP reports.
• Chinese President Jiang Zemin said Monday that "China 'will not succumb to pressure on issues of national sovereignty and territorial integrity,'" and Chinese experts said that "practical concerns about the political or economic consequences of refusing to compromise would not sway a regime focused on issues of national sovereignty, dignity, and respect," the Boston Globe reports.
• The United States and China are working on a "letter that would try to bridge what are profound differences in Washington's and Beijing's understanding of the incident," the Wall Street Journal reports. The two countries are struggling over the language of the letter.
• But some of Bush's advisers "have concluded for now that the most severe acts of retaliation they could threaten in the spy-plane standoff with China... would not speed the release of the 24 American crew members," the New York Times reports.
• The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson is offering to go to China to mediate the standoff, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

• Bush released his $1.96 trillion budget plan on Monday, the Houston Chronicle reports. The plan "fulfills a number of Bush pledges, including more money for education and defense and new funding for charitable organizations," and it "includes program cuts that he didn't talk about on the campaign trail, such as reductions in health care, housing, flood insurance subsidies, environmental and energy conservation programs."
• Bush's budget features "billions of dollars in proposed spending that would benefit Texas," the Dallas Morning News reports.
• Many of the cuts in spending "are unlikely to survive on Capitol Hill." The Bush administration has already "let Congress take the lead in shaping the tax cut and 2002 spending plan," USA Today reports.
• "Democrats predict many Republicans will end up deserting Bush rather than vote for some of the sharp cuts the president is proposing in popular government programs," AP reports.
• The New York Times breaks down how different federal departments will be affected by the budget.

• Bush met with President Haydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Armenian President Robert Kocharyan on Monday, and officials said the meetings were "extremely warm in tone," UPI reports.
• Today Bush will meet with King Abdullah of Jordan at the White House, BBCNews.com reports. Abdullah "will try to convince the United States to re-engage in the Middle East peace process."

• "For the first time in more than two years, investors in venture-capital funds are seeing losses on their portfolios," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Expected first quarter losses from Motorola are likely to affect the stock market today, CNNfn.com reports.

• On Monday the Maryland General Assembly killed legislation that would have halted "executions while researchers determine whether racial bias plays a role in Maryland's use of capital punishment," the Baltimore Sun reports.
• Speaking at the University of the District of Columbia on Monday, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said she supported the legislation, AP reports.
• Connecticut is considering both a two-year moratorium on the death penalty and legislation that "would make the killing of an on-duty police officer an aggravating factor allowing for imposition of the death penalty," the Hartford Courant reports.
• On Monday Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating (R) commuted the sentence of death row inmate Phillip Dewitt Smith, "saying he did not have 'moral certainty' that Smith committed the crime," the Oklahoman reports.
• Convinced Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh will have his "last chance to ask for a stay of execution... two hours before he's scheduled to die" on May 16, AP reports.

• "Rumors of Saudi King Fahd's death sent oil prices soaring across the world," UPI reports.
• "The spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-orthodox Shas party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has provoked outrage with a sermon calling for the annihilation of Arabs," BBCNews.com reports.
• Palestinians are now using mortars in their fight against Israel, the Los Angeles Times reports. "An Israeli government spokesman on Monday branded the firing of mortars at the Jewish state an act of hostility that marks a dangerous new level of warfare."

• Koch Petroleum Group reached a court settlement Monday that requires the oil company "to plead guilty to one count of concealment of information and pay a $10 million fine... for air pollution at its Corpus Christi refinery," the Wichita Eagle reports. The fine is "the fifth-largest in the nation for environmental crimes."
• Under Bush's proposed budget, "some responsibility for enforcing federal environmental protection laws" would shift "from the Environmental Protection Agency to the states," the Washington Post reports.

• Polling places in Los Angeles will be open until 8 p.m. today as voters choose the candidates to run for the late Rep. Julian Dixon's (D) seat in the 32nd District and a new mayor, the Los Angeles Times reports.
• NationalJournal.com offers a primary guide to the 32nd District race, in which more than a dozen Democrats are running.

• Virginia Del. Riley E. Ingram (R) has decided against running for the seat vacated by the death of Rep. Norman Sisisky, D-Va., the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports. "Ingram immediately endorsed Del. M. Kirkland Cox [R]... who kicked off his campaign for the nomination on Friday."
• Steve Edwards, chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party, on Monday officially withdrew from the election for GOP Rep. Steve Largent's 1st District seat, the Tulsa World reports.
• Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., "will kick off his 2002 re-election campaign" next week "with an eight-day swing of fund-raisers and public events," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
• The New York Post reports that "the view of leading experts" is that New York Gov. George Pataki (R) "could find himself in political danger because of skyrocketing auto-insurance rates."

• Florida state lawmakers "are moving dozens of measures aimed at diluting Supreme Court authority and making it harder for justices to keep their jobs" after the election debacle, the Washington Times reports.
• A legislative committee in Connecticut approved a bill yesterday requiring all cities and towns "to electronically link its voter registration databases to a centralized state system, to prevent voter fraud and allow voters to register on Election Day," the New York Times reports. Connecticut joins "a handful of states" that apply such measures.

• California Gov. Gray Davis (D) "announced a deal Monday to buy Southern California Edison's transmission lines for $2.76 billion," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• "An excited and awed" Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Jane Swift (R) "will assume the governorship this morning" with "approval ratings [that] are in the basement," the Boston Herald reports.
• Two trains derailed early this morning in the Northeast -- "one severe enough to release up to 2,200 gallons of diesel fuel into the Connecticut River" in Vermont, marking "one of the area's most significant spills in the past five years," the Albany Times Union reports.
• Fargo, N.D., is facing a shortage of volunteers to help fight current rain and flooding conditions as citizens "have been repeatedly reminded this spring's flood will not be as devastating as in 1997," the Fargo Forum reports.

• Garabed "Chuck" Haytaian (R), who has been involved in New Jersey state politics for 20 years, "announced yesterday that he will step down as chairman of the state Republican Party after the June primary," the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• Judicial Watch "announced Monday that it intends to sue" House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, "for what it calls selling access to the White House," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• David Graf, who played officer Tackleberry in the "Police Academy" movies, died Saturday of a heart attack, AP reports. He was 50.