The Earlybird: Today's headlines

U.S.-Russian relations, patient-rights politics, Va.-04 voting, Paige's job plans, FERC's price ceilings, court rulings and could-be candidates:

• During a meeting with American journalists on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said "that if the United States proceeded on its own to construct a missile defense shield over its territory and that of its allies, Russia would eventually upgrade its strategic nuclear arsenal," the New York Times reports.
• Michael McFaul, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who helped President Bush prepare for his meeting with Putin over the weekend, said on Monday that Bush "was getting too 'chummy' with his counterpart," the Dallas Morning News reports.
• Putin said Monday that he and Bush "do not agree on the security threats their countries face but reached 'a very high level' of trust during their weekend summit," AP reports.

• "Secretary of Education Rod Paige is denying a published report that he plans to leave his position," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• "The General Accounting Office is investigating the propriety of private meetings by Vice President Cheney's energy task force, and Cheney's office is refusing to provide some of the requested information," the Washington Post reports.
• "The Federal Election Commission has decided to drop a 4-year-old case accusing major business organizations of illegally coordinating their 1996 campaign efforts with the Republican Party," the Washington Post reports.

• The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted unanimously Monday to "place price ceilings on wholesale electricity sales in California and 10 other states across the West," AP reports.
• "FERC's action will have little immediate effect on electricity consumers in California because retail rates are set by the Public Utilities Commission and do not fluctuate with market changes," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in California "has added county maps to its Web site so customers can see if they are part of the next blackout," the Sacramento Bee reports.
• California Gov. Gray Davis (D) said that "San Diego utility customers won't have to pay the $750 million debt amassed since summer under a deal... that promises no rate increase to pay off the debts," AP reports.

• "The first legislative battle between President Bush and the Democratic-controlled Senate began yesterday, with the Republicans preventing the Democrats from taking up the Kennedy-McCain patients' bill of rights that the White House has threatened to veto," the Washington Times reports.
• "On Monday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer stopped just short of threatening a Bush veto of any bill that gives patients broad rights to sue in state or federal court," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• Officials from Ford and Firestone will testify before Congress today, Reuters reports. "Lawmakers will be seeking answers and providing information gleaned from their own investigation of U.S. tire quality during the hearing that will focus on Ford's plan to replace up to 13 million Firestone Wilderness AT tires on all its vehicles."
• On Thursday former Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine A. Ferraro will testify before a Senate hearing about her use of thalidomide to help her blood cancer, the New York Times reports.

• The Supreme Court on Monday let stand an Alabama ruling that "allows student-initiated prayer at public school functions," the Birmingham News reports.
• The court also "refused an attempt to reinstate the 40-year-old murder conviction of jailhouse journalist Wilbert Rideau," AP reports.
• The Supreme Court asked the federal government Monday "for its views on whether employers must hire disabled individuals who are unable to carry out essential job functions without facing grave risks to their health or their lives," Reuters reports.
• Federal death row inmate Juan Raúl Garza was executed this morning in Terre Haute, Ind., the AP reports. "Prosecuted under the federal drug kingpin statute, Mr. Garza was convicted in 1993 of ordering two murders and committing one himself." Bush turned down Garza's request for clemency on Monday, and the Supreme Court denied his appeal," the Dallas Morning News reports.

• "In its first official reaction to American proposals to resume talks, North Korea has dismissed a Bush administration request that the issue of conventional forces be included along with questions of nuclear and ballistic missile control," the New York Times reports.
• Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said during an interview Monday that "U.S. military forces should focus on fighting wars and leave peacekeeping duties to Norway, Canada and other nations with a 'long tradition' of carrying out humanitarian missions," USA Today reports.
• "U.S. warplanes have significantly reduced their bombings of northern Iraq this year, with pilots concerned that Saddam Hussein is hiding his guns in civilian areas and could shoot down an American plane," AP reports.
• "Military officials in the Philippines said Tuesday they believed Muslim guerrillas have killed an ailing American hostage, Guillermo Sobero," UPI reports.

• Polling places in Virginia's 4th District will be open today from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m., the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. NationalJournal.com has details on today's race between state Sens. Randy Forbes (R) and Louise Lucas (D), who are vying for the seat vacated by the March 29 death of Rep. Norman Sisisky, D-Va.
• "The special election at an unusual time in the middle of June is expected to draw a light turnout," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports -- "despite a blizzard of often negative and misleading television advertising financed by arms of the national political parties."
• "Forbes plans to vote today at Cedar Road Assembly of God Church in Chesapeake," while Lucas "will vote at Lakeview Elementary School in Portsmouth," the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports.
• The New York Post reports that "racial division among voters looks to be key" in today's voting.
• The outcome in today's race "is widely viewed as an early indicator of voter attitudes toward President Bush and his policies," the Los Angeles Times reports.

• The Newark Star-Ledger reports that the GOP gubernatorial primary in New Jersey next Tuesday "presents a peculiar challenge": "Delayed from June 5, the election will take place after school lets out for the summer in most New Jersey communities this week, posing conflicts with vacations and other early-summer family plans."
• An "assault" on Monday from former Rep. Bob Franks (R) on Jersey City, N.J., Mayor Bret Schundler (R) "was particularly hard-hitting, and it came as the Franks campaign conceded the race has tightened," the Newark Star-Ledger reports. "The most serious charge" came "in a burst of radio and television ads."
• On Monday, Franks was joined by Grover Norquist, president of the Americans for Tax Reform, at a senior center in Mercer County, the Trenton Times reports.

• Florida state Sen. Daryl Jones (D) "plans to announce his bid for the Democratic Party's nomination for governor at a Saturday-night fund-raiser for the state party," the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports. The announcement could make him "the first declared Democratic candidate among several potential challengers" to Gov. Jeb Bush (R) in 2002.
• "An early poll on the Oklahoma governor's race shows a commanding lead" for Rep. Steve Largent, R-Okla., over Democrats Vince Orza and Jack Mildren, the Oklahoman reports. Mildren and Orza both said they "aren't worried."
• Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Brian Sullivan (R) toured the "southwest portion of the state" Monday, saying that he is running because Gov. Jesse Ventura (I) "squandered his opportunities," the Worthington Daily Globe reports.

• College of Charleston President Alex Sanders (D) "said Monday he is leaning toward running" for the Senate seat currently held by Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., who is retiring in 2002, the Columbia State reports. "Sanders could announce his intentions to run as early as Wednesday."
• On Monday, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (R) was in upstate South Carolina fund-raising for Rep. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., where "she hinted at plans to use her new-found fame as a springboard to Washington," the Greenville News reports.
• "Republican leaders said they are committed to" Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., "until he decides to leave office," the Times News Service reports.
• Former Massachusetts state Rep. Marc Draisen (D), a "liberal Democrat" who "heads the nonprofit Massachusetts Community Development Corp.," said "he's now leaning toward running for" the 9th District seat vacated by the death of Rep. Joe Moakley, D-Mass., the Boston Herald reports.

• Governors of the eight states surrounding the Great Lakes "signed an agreement to find a binding way to manage the basin holding 20% of the world's fresh water without draining it," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. The Chicago Tribune reports that "Environmentalists are calling the decision a victory."
• In Florida, "Everglades fires touched off by recent lightning storms are expected to continue burning today," the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports.

• Yemen has arrested nine suspected terrorists "for allegedly plotting an attack against American investigators who were probing last fall's suicide bombing of the USS Cole," the Washington Post reports.
• And police in India "have arrested a third man in connection with an alleged plot hatched by the Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden to blow up U.S. embassies in India and Bangladesh," UPI reports.

• Justice Department official Robert S. Mueller III "has emerged as the strong favorite to be the Bush administration's pick to take over" the FBI, the Houston Chronicle reports. "The other top contender for the nomination, former deputy attorney general George Terwilliger, was dropped from the list late Monday after a meeting of White House officials."
• USA Today reports that Air Force Gen. Ralph "Ed" Eberhart "is on a short list of favorites to become" chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "the Pentagon's top military officer and principal uniformed adviser to the president," when Gen. Henry Shelton's term ends Sept. 30.
• The parents of missing intern Chandra Levy "refused a phone call from" Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., "instead telling him to speak with their attorney," CNN.com reports. The New York Daily News reports that Susan and Robert Levy "will arrive in Washington tonight to press investigators" about the investigation into their daughter's whereabouts.
• Jacqueline Jackson, wife of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, was arrested Monday for trespassing as she protested Navy bombing exercises in Vieques, the Houston Chronicle News Services reports.
• Baseball player Cal Ripken, who holds the record for playing in the most consecutive games ever, will announce today that he plans to retire at the end of the season, "his 21st with the Baltimore Orioles," the Washington Post reports.