The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush goes to NATO, Senate rejects vouchers, Mideast leaders agree to cease-fire, Swift sets date for Mass.-09, energy hearings begin, North looks to another run:

• Today President Bush arrived at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where he will discuss his "plans for a missile defense system, NATO expansion and a fledgling European defense force" during a summit with 19 world leaders, the New York Times reports.
• "In his opening remarks to the NATO summit," Bush "said there had to be 'a commitment to prepare for the challenges of our times' -- a reference to his plans for a missile defence shield," BBCNews.com reports. "European leaders disagree on the extent of the threat posed by what America calls rogue states, which include North Korea, Iran and Iraq."
• AP lists "areas of contention between the Bush administration and U.S. allies," including the United States' opposition to "treaties to abolish land mines and to create an International Criminal Court."
• Bush "found himself under fire as the European Union flatly rejected the White House global warming initiative unveiled Monday," the Boston Globe reports.
• During his visit to Spain on Tuesday, Bush held a press conference with Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, ABCNews.com reports. Bush said during the event that "sharp differences over environmental and national defense policies would not cause a rift in U.S.-European relations."

• The Senate voted 58-41 Tuesday to reject "a Republican effort... to establish a limited program allowing low-income students to use federal money to attend private schools," AP reports.
• "A $59.1 billion fiscal 2002 spending bill for transportation projects was approved quickly by the House Appropriation Subcommittee on Transportation," National Journal News Service reports, "but not without a stern warning from new Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., that mandatory spending for highway and air projects threatens to undermine other agencies and programs."
• The House International Relations Committee is expected to vote today on "legislation to keep economic sanctions on Iran and Libya for another five years," Reuters reports.
• Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga., is expected to announce today "that he would sign on to" a patients' rights bill "that mirrors Senate Democrats' plan and is opposed by President Bush," AP reports.
• "Legal scholars ranging from the ACLU president to a lawyer who has represented the Christian Coalition and the National Right to Life Committee told a House panel yesterday that current attempts at campaign finance reform are unconstitutional," the Washington Times reports.
• On Tuesday the House "passed measures to renew American help to African and Asian nations trying to save their elephant herds from poachers and other dangers," AP reports.

• "The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee will question energy economists at a hearing today as part of an investigation into whether a small group of power producers and marketers may have manipulated the electricity markets to make huge profits," AP reports.
• The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday "rejected state arguments that an additive is not needed and will increase fuel costs" and said "that California must continue to use ethanol or other gasoline additives to protect air quality," AP reports.
• Vice President Dick Cheney met Tuesday with members of the California congressional delegation, and Cheney "defended the administration's opposition to" energy price controls, CNN.com reports.
• Cheney, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., all speak today at energy-related events. Earlybird's "Today In Washington" section has additional details.

• The Pentagon on Tuesday told the military "services to operate jointly to respond more effectively in the opening hours of a conflict" and said "that the Army needed to streamline its command structure, possibly by eliminating divisions," the New York Times reports.

• A New York jury sentenced Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali to life in prison without parole Tuesday for bombing the U.S. Embassy in Kenya in 1998, AP reports. "Ten of the 12 anonymous jurors said that executing him could make him a martyr for the terrorist cause."
• A federal judge in Seattle ruled Tuesday that "Bartell Drug Co. must pay for prescription contraceptives for its female employees," the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. The ruling "may lead employers around the country to do the same."
• Lawyers for federal death row inmate Juan Raul Garza, who is scheduled to be executed June 19, filed a petition on Tuesday "criticizing Attorney General John Ashcroft's conclusion in a study last week that federal death sentences have been imposed without racial or ethnic bias," the New York Times reports.
• The Bush administration has asked the Supreme Court "to stay out of the patients' rights debate" now going on in Congress, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• The national importance of Virginia's 4th District race "is reflected by the financing and the guest appearances on the campaign trail," AP reports.
• The Boston Globe reports that residents of Massachusetts' 9th District got a candidate Tuesday who supports abortion rights when state Sen. Brian Joyce (D) "announced he is abandoning his longstanding public opposition to abortion."
• Former Boston mayor and U.S. ambassador Raymond Flynn (D) said Tuesday "he's still giving serious thought to the" 9th District race but also said "his first consideration will be not to hurt the chances of fellow South Bostonian candidate, state Sen. Stephen F. Lynch," the Boston Herald reports. Also on Tuesday, acting Gov. Jane Swift (R) "set the election date for Oct. 16 with the all-important Democratic primary on Sept. 11."
• As the official filing period for Florida's 1st District special election closed Tuesday, "departing Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., identified GOP state Rep. Jeff Miller as the frontrunner," CongressDailyAM reports. The election is slated for Nov. 16.
• Nine hopefuls -- six Republicans, two Democrats and one independent -- were left on the ballot to replace Scarborough, AP reports.

• Virginia gubernatorial candidate Mark Earley's (R) campaign has $2.3 million in the bank, while his Democratic opponent, Mark Warner, has $6.7 million, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• Virginia Lt. Gov. John Hager (R), who lost to Earley in the gubernatorial primary, "has agreed to be chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia's coordinated statewide campaign," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• "Virginia Libertarians also have nominated William Redpath as their gubernatorial candidate," the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports.
• National Public Radio reports that turnout for Tuesday's Virginia primary was 4 percent, an all-time low for the state.

• "Arriving day after day in hundreds of thousands of Republican homes across New Jersey, the mail is filled with frightful warnings and wild caricatures" of Republican gubernatorial candidates former Rep. Bob Franks and Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler," the Newark Star-Ledger reports. "First there were the radio ads. Then the television spots began. Now not even your mailbox is safe."
• Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin (D), who is considering a 2002 gubernatorial bid, fell under a regulation passed Tuesday by the state Senate limiting his "appearances in expensive public service announcements," the Boston Herald reports. Galvin accused state Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham (D), a potential foe in a Democratic primary, "of 'collaborating' with Republicans to discredit him."
• Virginia Republicans "are trying to carve out" a district that would set up a race between Oliver North and Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., the Washington Times reports. Boucher's current district is one that North won in his 1994 Senate bid.
• New York Gov. George Pataki (R), who is expected to run for re-election in 2002, "has made another dramatic effort to win Democratic support, offering a prominent Brooklyn Assemblyman a key state job," the New York Post reports.

• Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) signed a law Tuesday banning executions of mentally retarded criminals, the New York Times reports. Florida is the 15th state to enact such a law.
• Confidential government records show that California officials have signed "38 long-term contracts, totaling nearly $43 billion, [that] could saddle consumers with unnecessarily high utility rates for years if recently declining prices represent a trend in the volatile electricity market," the Los Angeles Times reports.

• Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday said they accepted an U.S. cease-fire plan negotiated by CIA Director George Tenet, the Baltimore Sun reports. The plan is "intended to halt nine months of bloodshed and lead eventually to renewed peace talks."
• The militant Islamic group Hamas said it will not abide by the cease-fire, Reuters reports.
• U.S. special envoy Jack Pritchard will meet today with North Korean permanent representative to the United Nations Li Hyong-chol in New York, Reuters reports. "It will be Pritchard's first face-to-face meeting with the North Koreans at this level since President Bush took office in January and ordered a review of policy toward the secretive communist state."
• "An awkward vigil continued Tuesday night in a quiet" Corona, Calif., neighborhood as the family of Guillermo Sobero "waited to hear if he had been beheaded by Philippine rebels," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• A report released Tuesday by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers found that "hundreds of thousands of children, some as young as 7, are fighting in conflicts around the world often because they are regarded as cheap and expendable," Reuters reports.

• "The Southern Baptist Convention plans to issue a report today on what it believes are the major threats to American families" and is expected to target gay rights, AP reports.
• Gay rights activists will protest the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting today, the Houston Chronicle reports.
• The Census shows that "the number of American households indicating same-sex partners skyrocketed over the last decade," AP reports.

• The Akron Beacon Journal "has begun selling a CD version of its daily newspaper," becoming the first in the country to do so, AP reports.