The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Sales to Taiwan, Peru's at fault, back to ANWR drilling, education debate, new Japanese premier, Cincinnati hate crime indictment, Waddle's reprimand:

• President Bush is expected to announce "as early as today" that he "has decided to sell Taiwan older destroyers, diesel submarines, sub-hunting aircraft and a new version of Patriot air defense missiles -- but not the advanced radar system sought by the Taipei government," the Houston Chronicle reports. The decision is seen as a compromise between what Taiwan and China want.
• The sale would "sharply upgrade Taipei's ability to defend itself against China's bigger and stronger navy," Reuters reports.
• And "the White House has made it clear that depending on the threat level China poses in the future, it could go ahead with an Aegis sale to Taiwan," CBSNews.com reports.
• On Tuesday Chinese officials said they were "concerned" about the sale and "threatened to take further action over the issue," UPI reports.

• Bush administration officials said Monday "that the Peruvian Air Force failed to follow established procedures before firing on a plane carrying American missionaries" on Friday, CNN.com reports. Two people died in the crash.
• A tape of the plane that was shot down "shows the craft had not been taking evasive action prior to the attack," USA Today reports. One official "said the lack of suspicious activity had led a U.S. crew in a nearby tracking plane to doubt the ill-fated craft was a drug smuggling flight."
• "CIA personnel on" the U.S. surveillance plane "did not attempt to read the registration number on the side" of the plane before it was shot down "because they were afraid it would flee out of Peru if they got too close," the Washington Post reports.

• With the Senate preparing to take up Bush's education reform plan, "teachers unions and reform-minded education groups are battling" over the bill, the Washington Times reports.
• Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Monday that Democrats may "hold up debate on... education reform... until a multibillion-dollar dispute with the White House over school funding is settled," Reuters reports.

• White House officials said Monday that "the president's energy task force will call for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• Today a bipartisan group of "about four dozen lawmakers" will send Bush a letter pressuring him to drop the plans for drilling in the ANWR, Reuters reports.
• Meanwhile, Bush "will allow a ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks to take effect," USA Today reports. "The regulation was published by the Clinton administration."

• Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri will meet with Bush today in Washington to discuss economic issues, UPI reports.
• Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev met briefly with Bush at the White House on Monday, AP reports. After the meeting, Gorbachev said Bush "wants to work for a good and friendly relationship of cooperation between Russia and the United States."
• On Monday Bush met with the NCAA championship basketball team from Duke University and "offered the team a personally guided tour of the Oval Office," the Raleigh News & Observer reports. The South Bend Tribune reports Bush also met with the Notre Dame women's champion basketball team on Monday.
• This week Bush is expected to name John Walters -- "an anti-drug policy veteran" from the first Bush administration -- to be his drug czar, the Houston Chronicle reports.

• Bush will mark his 100th day in office on Monday with a lunch for all 535 members of Congress at the White House, the Washington Post reports.
• U.S. News and World Report's "Washington Whispers" prints the White House Communications Office's talking points on Bush's first 100 days. They include the statement that "President Bush is a strong leader who is doing what he said he would do."

• The Supreme Court on Monday rejected "suicide doctor" Jack Kevorkian's appeal "to revive his libel suit against medical groups that called him a criminal and a 'reckless instrument of death,'" AP reports.
• AP lists the court's actions on Monday.
• Opening arguments begin today in the the Alabama trial of former Klansman Thomas Blanton, who is charged "in connection with the 1963 church bombing that killed four black youths," the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reports.
• "A $500 million agreement to end Mississippi's 26-year college desegregation case has been signed by all sides and forwarded to federal court," AP reports.
• Amnesty International will release a report today showing that the number of death row inmates who waive their appeals is increasing, USA Today reports.

• "Reformer Junichiro Koizumi was elected Tuesday to lead Japan's ruling party and replace Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori as premier," AP reports.
• More violence broke out in the Middle East Tuesday, as Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres made plans to visit the United States this weekend to talk with Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Los Angeles Times reports.
• Financial markets in South America are experiencing "turmoil," the Wall Street Journal reports. "Currencies from Brazil to Chile tumbled Monday."

• The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports that Virginia State Sen. J. Randy Forbes (R) on Thursday "picked up 354 of the 402 votes he needs to win the nomination" for the 4th District special election. Meanwhile, candidate Del. M. Kirkland Cox (R) "said the delegate race will be much closer by the party's convention Saturday in Prince George County."
• Illinois state Sen. Patrick O'Malley (R), a "staunch abortion foe" who is "embraced by the conservative flank of the GOP," announced yesterday that he will challenge Gov. George Ryan (R) in 2002, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
• Arkansas Attorney General Mark Pryor (D) officially announced his bid to challenge Sen. Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark. "Chances are slim Pryor will have a Democratic opponent," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

• Students in Hawaii should return to class Thursday "after 19 grueling days of picketing and round-the-clock negotiating" between the teachers union and the state. An agreement was reached late last night, the Honolulu Advertiser reports.
• "The first 'hate crime' indictment stemming from Cincinnati's riots was handed down Monday," as 20-year-old Craig Carr was indicted "on charges of ethnic intimidation, criminal damaging and aggravated menacing," the Cincinnati Post reports.
• The Mississippi River is "expected to crest late today" in Davenport, Iowa, AP reports. "Through Monday, 1,115 Iowa homes had been damaged by Mississippi flooding."
• A bill that unanimously passed through the Texas House yesterday bans the execution of "capital murder defendants whom a jury finds are mentally retarded," the Dallas Morning News reports.

• USS Greeneville Cmdr. Scott Waddle received "a letter of reprimand" yesterday from a Navy official "that effectively will end his Navy career," the USA Today reports.