The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush courts the Irish, Senate to vote on taxes, Annan blasts Bush, Powell calls for peace, NRA attacks McCain, Sharpton looks to 2004, Bonior makes it official, Carnahan hints at 2002, and Traficant launches a counteroffensive.

• President Bush spoke Sunday at the University of Notre Dame's graduation, where he told graduates "that the 'War on Poverty' still is being waged -- but religious groups and people must enlist if it ever is going to be won," the Indianapolis Star-News reports.
• In the speech "Bush framed his faith-based programs as the logical extension of fellow Texan Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 War on Poverty and former President Clinton's campaign 'to end welfare as we know it,'" the Houston Chronicle reports.
• AP has the text of Bush's speech.
• Today Bush will accept an honorary doctor of laws degree from Yale University, and he will "give a short speech to graduating students making light of his own checkered career at Yale," Reuters reports.

• Appearing on NBC´s "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney said "it is uncertain whether the easing of U.N. sanctions on Iraq would require the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to check if Saddam Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction," the Washington Times reports.
• Cheney also said that "the damaged U.S. spy plane that made an emergency landing in China last month will probably not be able to fly home and will have to be shipped out in crates," Reuters reports.

• Cheney said Sunday that "capping electricity prices or pressuring OPEC to cut oil prices will not solve U.S. energy problems," AP reports.
• Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said on "Fox News Sunday" that "he did not believe there would be another oil embargo because of the current tensions in the Middle East," Reuters reports.
• Today the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will begin airing ads in California criticizing the Bush administration's energy proposals, CNN.com reports.

• Today the Senate is expected to vote on the $1.35 trillion tax cut plan, the Boston Globe reports. "The coalition backing the plan knows its fragile concoction could easily shatter before today's vote." (Details on the legislation are available in the Floor Bills section of today's Earlybird.)
• "Almost five full months into the 107th Congress, Senate leaders remain at loggerheads over how to convene a conference committee with the House," Roll Call reports.
• Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt., "refused" two offers to chair committees as a Democrat last week, according to "officials close to Senate Republican leaders," the Washington Times reports.
• The Senate Judiciary Committee may hold a "quick bipartisan inquiry" this week "that could clear the way for a full Senate vote on the nomination of Theodore Olson for Solicitor General," the Wall Street Journal reports.

• "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the changes he's considering in the size and structure of the military will be 'very difficult to accomplish' and may take at least a decade," USA Today reports.
• Civilians in the Bush administration "are raising questions" about the Navy's 12 aircraft carriers' "vulnerability to attack in a world where smart bombs can seek out a small building and anti-ship missiles streak to their targets at twice the speed of sound," USA Today reports.

• U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday "criticized President Bush's decision to abandon the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, saying the move could severely harm international efforts to stop the potentially disastrous climate changes that he said are being caused by human activity," the Boston Globe reports.
• Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who was NATO's commander during the war with Yugoslavia, has written a memoir in which he says "that the Pentagon repeatedly hampered the alliance's military planning and discouraged steps that might have made the fighting unnecessary," the New York Times reports.

• "Israeli helicopters shelled Palestinian police headquarters in two West Bank towns yesterday, despite calls by the United States and other countries for an end to the violence," AP reports.
• Secretary of State Colin Powell "is planning to present an American proposal to help bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict under control," the New York Times reports. Powell "is likely to make a formal statement, as early as Monday, in which he will offer the two sides 'lifelines' that could lead to further public and personal diplomacy."
• The proposal Powell will use is the "Mitchell Committee report into the causes of eight months of Israeli-Palestinian violence," which "is due to be released" today, CNN.com reports. The report, "led by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities by both sides and recommends a freeze on the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza."

• Manpower Inc. will release a study today showing that companies are hiring similar numbers of employees as they did in 1990 and 1991, "when the U.S. had its last major recession," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Ford will recall about 45,000 2002 Explorers and 7,000 Mercury Mountaineers "because their Goodyear and Michelin tires might have been sliced by a defect on the assembly line," USA Today reports.
• "Vivendi Universal agreed yesterday to acquire the online music-sharing site MP3.com for $372 million," the New York Times reports. "The deal is a response, in part, to the growing number of alliances that music companies and their media conglomerate parents are feverishly entering with the once-ignored online start-ups."

• During their annual convention in in Kansas City, "the National Rifle Association is slamming Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and attempting to lead a popular assault on McCain's high-profile bill to reform campaign financing," ABCNews.com reports.
• During the convention on Sunday "a panel of conservative pundits" said that the NRA "is in battle with a biased, hypocritical and out-of-touch liberal media for the hearts and minds of Americans," the Kansas City Star reports.
• Charlton Heston said during the convention that he will be elected to "an unprecedented fourth one-year term" as the NRA's president, AP reports.

• The Rev. Al Sharpton "said he will help organize a national effort to find a progressive candidate to run in the Democratic presidential primary" for 2004, and he said he's "available to be that candidate," AP reports.

• "At least 10 House Members have already announced campaigns or appear likely to run for governor of their home states in 2002," Roll Call reports.
• Michigan Rep. David Bonior (D) is expected to officially file for candidacy in the Michigan gubernatorial race today, the Detroit News reports.
• Former Attorney General Janet Reno (D) said she would like to decide "as soon as possible" whether to challenge Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) in 2002, Reuters reports. AP reports that should she decide to run, Reno "would be on a short list of challengers who could match the fund-raising muscle of" Bush.
• American Indian activist Carl 'Two Feathers' Whitaker announced he will run for governor of Tennessee as a Republican in 2002, the Knoxville News-Sentinel reports.

• Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., "told about 400 people attending the state Republican Party" Saturday that he will decide whether to run for re-election by September, AP reports.
• Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., suggested over the weekend that she will run for a full term in 2002, the Kansas City Star reports. "Carnahan said a formal campaign announcement could wait."
• Rep. Mike Ferguson, R-N.J., "learned that the White House had targeted him as a vulnerable Republican in need of assistance from the administration," but the freshman representative "says he isn't biting his nails" about his chances in 2002, the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• Oklahoma state Rep. John Sullivan (R) "kicked off his campaign" for the 1st District race on Saturday, the Tulsa World reports. Sullivan faces state first lady Cathy Keating (R) for the nomination to run for the seat currently held by Rep. Steve Largent, R-Okla., who is planning to run for governor.

• Rep. Jim Traficant, D-Ohio, "indicted on corruption charges, is planning to launch a counteroffensive against the Justice Department when he hosts a Youngstown radio talk show for four days next week," Roll Call reports.
• Former Vice President Al Gore and former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander (R) "will team up to lead a one-day workshop Aug. 11 at Vanderbilt University for young people interested in politics," the Nashville Tennessean reports.
• Massachusetts acting Gov. Jane Swift (R) was released from the hospital Sunday morning, but her newborn twins "were held for observation after receiving nearly 24 hours of light-therapy treatment for jaundice," AP reports.
• On Sunday Former Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., 72, "married 54-year-old Patricia Derge, the widow of a former president of Southern Illinois University," home to the Paul Simon Institute on Public Policy, AP reports.