The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush-Dalai Lama meeting, tax vote, media win, Mitchell report push, Ford- Firestone split, campaign committee for Bonior, more ads for Warner, Midwest tornadoes, more Jeffords party talk:

• President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell will meet with the Dalai Lama on Wednesday, Reuters reports. "The news was likely to annoy China, whose suppression of Tibetan nationalism has made the fate of the territory a deeply emotive issue in the United States."
• On Monday Bush appointed Sharon Prost, the Senate Judiciary Committee's chief counsel, "for a vacancy on the federal bench in the District of Columbia," AP reports.
• Bush spoke Monday to Yale's graduating seniors, giving a speech filled with self-deprecating jokes and no policy talk, the New Haven Register reports. Bush received an honorary doctor of laws degree from his alma mater.
• While Bush was in New Haven, "hundreds of protesters took to the streets to spread the word on everything from the environment to oppression of Falun Gong followers," the Hartford Courant reports.

• Campaign watchdog groups complained Monday that a reception at Vice President Dick Cheney's house "honoring 400 top Republican donors" was "too similar to President Clinton's plying Democratic supporters with overnights in the Lincoln Bedroom," the Houston Chronicle reports. The reception "was the kickoff for nearly a week of activities raising money for GOP coffers in Washington."
• Sandy Kress, Bush's senior education adviser, said Monday "that a movement in Congress to modify the President's education plan by removing requirements to test students annually would 'cut out the heart and soul' of the effort to overhaul" education, the New York Times reports. "Bush met with House Republican leaders" yesterday "to discuss education and tax cuts and restate his commitment to pass a bipartisan education bill."
• "The Bush administration is weighing a proposal from snowmobile manufacturers that could eventually result in lifting the ban on snowmobiling at several Western national parks," AP reports.
• Attorney General John Ashcroft on Monday visited Mexico, where he "stressed border security and safe immigration" and "said the Bush administration will send Congress a program that would grant Mexican immigrants guest worker visas," AP reports.

• On Monday the House voted to offer a four-month grace period to resident immigrants hoping to become legal residents of the United States, the Los Angeles Times reports.
• The Senate on Monday rejected "a series of amendments designed to alter" the $1.35 trillion tax cut bill, the Dallas Morning News reports. The Senate is expected to approve the bill today.
• The Senate approved a bill "aimed at putting construction of a World War II memorial on the fast track," AP reports. But the bill also "contained a provision... that allows ongoing review of the process by three commissions that have oversight."
• Today Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., plans to introduce a program that would allow "students at poor-performing D.C. schools... to attend private or religious schools with federal help," the Washington Times reports.

• The Supreme Court ruled Monday that "the media may not be held liable for publishing illegally intercepted information as long as the subject is one of 'public importance' and the media itself did not participate in the interception," AP reports.
• The court said it will hear a case to "decide whether a law aimed at curbing children's access to online pornography trampled the rights of adults to see or buy what they want on the Internet," AP reports.
• The court said it will not hear "a challenge to Houston's 1997 redistricting plan by voters who argued that white districts' power in at-large City Council races had been illegally diluted," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• AP summarizes the court's actions on Monday.

• Powell on Monday "urged Israelis and Palestinians to embrace" the peace recommendations from the Mitchell Committee "as a step toward U.S. engagement in Middle East negotiations," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• Powell named William Burns, the current U.S. ambassador to Jordan, as special assistant to work on a cease-fire in the Middle East, the Baltimore Sun reports.

• "The UN Security Council has formally declared the Congo River open to commercial traffic after" 2 1/2 years of war, AP reports.
• The World Trade Organization "has delayed until late June the release of a decision in a trade dispute between the European Union and the" United States involving a tax subsidy the European Union says "violates world trade rules," the Wall Street Journal reports. The WTO was originally scheduled "to release its findings Monday."
• Iraqi President Saddam Hussein "said Monday that Iraq rejected a British proposal to ease U.N. sanctions," AP reports.
• The Taleban in Afghanistan will begin requiring Hindus "to wear an identity label on their clothing... to distinguish them from Muslims," CNN.com reports.
• Officials in Beijing "opened a window on forced labor practices in China on Monday when they said that 39 miners trapped since Friday in a flooded coal shaft and feared dead were convicts working in a prison-run mine," Tribune News Services reports.

• Firestone announced Monday that it has decided "to sever ties with Ford Motor Co.," ending "one of corporate America's most lasting, enduring relationships between two blue-blood families," the Detroit News reports.
• Ford now "plans to replace 10 million to 13 million Firestone tires, far surpassing the massive recall ordered last summer," the Houston Chronicle reports.

• Minority Whip David Bonior, D-Mich., established a campaign committee Monday, taking "a big step" toward a 2002 gubernatorial bid, the Detroit Free Press reports.
• "Bonior's decision to leave Congress also sets off a spirited fight to succeed him in the Democratic leadership--pitting California Rep. Nancy Pelosi against Maryland Rep. Steny H. Hoyer," the Washington Post reports.
• The gubernatorial campaign of Virginia businessman Mark Warner (D) announced yesterday the release of two new television ads "that will push his TV spending to nearly $2 million, a Virginia record," the Washington Post reports.
• Virginia Lt. Gov. John Hager (R) sent out a letter to supporters May 18 attacking "the conservative credentials of Attorney General Mark L. Earley, his opponent for the Republican nomination to run for governor," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• Former Rep. Bob Franks, R-N.J., "raised some $2 million last night for his belated gubernatorial primary campaign" at an event "packed with many of the same special interest lobbying groups that he has complained hold too much sway in Trenton," the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• New York Comptroller Carl McCall (D), who is running for governor, "blocked" likely Republican nominee Gov. George Pataki's "controversial use of luxury chartered jets," the New York Post reports.
• Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) "said Monday his possible opponent in 2002 won't have any effect on his re-election decision," as speculation swirls about a possible bid by former Attorney General Janet Reno (D), the Tallahassee Democrat reports.
• Arkansas state Senate President Pro Tempore Mike Beebe (D) has officially ruled out a gubernatorial or Senate bid, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. Beebe "said Monday that he would run next year for attorney general instead."

• Hopewell, Va., Mayor Anthony J. Zevgolis "withdrew as an independent candidate for the 4th District congressional seat yesterday and urged voters to unite behind Republican" Randy Forbes, saying he "would rather be a healer than a divider," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• Former South Carolina "state representative and current Public Service Commission member Phil Bradley" (R) "said Monday he is officially in the race to challenge" Rep. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., in that state's 4th District GOP primary next year, the Greenville News reports.

• A poll by the Public Policy Institute of California shows many Golden State "residents now saying the state is headed for a long spate of tough times," Reuters reports. It "also showed Gov. Gray Davis' [D] popularity suffering as he struggles to resolve the state's the energy emergency."
• "No serious injuries were reported, but about a dozen homes were either destroyed or seriously damaged" as "surprise tornadoes... hedge-hopped across" parts of Michigan, the Detroit News reports. The Times Wire reports that "at least a dozen tornadoes were reported" in Michigan and Ohio, "and three were confirmed by the National Weather Service."
• Samuel D. Smith, "a man from St. Louis," is "to be executed tonight for murdering a fellow inmate during a knife fight in the Jefferson City prison 14 years ago," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

• Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt., "stoked speculation yesterday about a possible party switch" when a spokesman said: 'This is not about committee chairmanships. Regardless of party label, Sen. James Jeffords will continue to do what's best for Vermont and the nation,'" AP reports.
• The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., faces a daunting task as chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee: Over the next two years, the DSCC must raise $119,863.01 every day to reach a goal of $87.5 million.
• McCain spoke to the University of Pennsylvania's graduating class yesterday and told them "to cast self-interest aside and serve a cause greater than themselves," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
• "Former President Gerald R. Ford was honored with the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award yesterday for pardoning his predecessor, Richard Nixon," the Boston Herald reports.
• The AP reports on two possible successors to retiring FBI director Louis Freeh -- "Joel Flaum, chief judge of the 7th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago" and former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb.
• Judith Nathan, "very good friend" of New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R), has been banned from the official mayoral residence, Gracie Mansion, by the state Supreme Court, the New York Daily News reports. "The decision was at least a temporary triumph for First Lady Donna Hanover."