The Earlybird: Today's headlines

More Mideast peace negotiations, another Iowa visit by Bradley, new numbers in New Jersey and some taxing financial questions:

• President Bush made telephone calls to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Wednesday "to urge them to honor a cease-fire agreement brokered last week by CIA Director George Tenet," Reuters reports. "The Israeli government pledged yesterday to stick to the cease-fire deal, but said it would not fully lift its blockade of Palestinian towns and villages until attacks on Israelis stop."
• Bush will send Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Middle East next week "to help shore up the teetering cease-fire and try to push the Israelis and Palestinians on a path toward political talks," the New York Times reports.
• A new poll from CBS News and the New York Times shows that "more than half of Americans say they are uneasy about Mr. Bush's ability to tackle an international crisis, and more people than not say he is not respected by other world leaders."

• The Joint Committee on Taxation released a study Wednesday showing that Bush's tax cut "would cost $467 billion more than its advertised $1.35 trillion price tag over 10 years without provisions that Democrats say hide its true cost," AP reports.
• "States are scrambling to plan for the potential loss of $50 billion to $100 billion over 10 years from the repeal of the federal estate tax enacted last month," the New York Times reports.
• Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday that "the quality of loans at U.S. banks has deteriorated, but there is no sign yet that lenders are denying credit to sound borrowers," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• On Wednesday members of the Business Roundtable met with Bush, Powell, Vice President Dick Cheney and U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick, the New York Times reports. The meeting "occurred while Mr. Bush's aides were still addressing questions about private meetings between business executives and top White House officials."

• "House Republican leaders grudgingly agreed Wednesday to a limited new right to sue HMOs as they struggled to derail a more far-reaching bipartisan patients' bill of rights pending in Congress," AP reports.
• Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D., "tried to silence complaints" Wednesday "that he was rushing the legislation by insisting on completing action next week," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
• Meanwhile, health insurance premiums are expected to increase "significantly... for the fourth consecutive year in 2002" the Boston Globe reports.

• California Gov. Gray Davis (D) said during a Senate Government Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission "should order power generators to pay California $9 billion in refunds for alleged overcharges," the San Francisco Chronicle reports. FERC member Patrick Wood told the committee that "he would consider denying power generators the right to charge market prices for electricity."
• Deputy Secretary for Health and Human Services Claude A. Allen told the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health that the Bush administration "favors the most far-reaching of several competing bills to make human cloning a federal crime -- one that would outlaw not only the creation of cloned children, but also the creation of cloned human embryos for research," the Washington Post reports.

• The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved an amendment forcing the Washington Metro transit agency to "rename its National Airport subway stop to reflect the official name of the airport, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport," the Washington Times reports.
• National Journal News Service reports on the committee's markup of the bill, which does not include funding to pay for the change.

• "Conservatives in the House unsuccessfully attempted yesterday to cut all federal programs except Social Security, Medicare and defense by 1/3 of 1 percent across the board for the remainder of fiscal 2001," the Washington Times reports.
• "The House approved an extra $6.5 billion this year for defense and other programs on Wednesday after Democrats lost efforts to block cuts in disaster funds and stop the IRS from mailing rebate check letters," AP reports.
• Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., on Wednesday "criticized President Bush... for 'an excessively personal endorsement' of Russian President Vladimir Putin last week," McClatchy Newspapers reports.
• "Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee asked Wednesday that Arkansas Rep. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, be confirmed expeditiously as director of the Drug Enforcement Administration," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.
• Daschle "has hired a longtime Democratic aide to serve as Secretary of the Senate, the top non-political office in the chamber," Roll Call reports.

• Powell said during testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that "U.S. peacekeeping troops in the Balkans may eventually help disarm fighters in Macedonia 'but we have not made a commitment yet,'" AP reports.
• NATO will send a "force of up to 3,000 troops" led by the British "to Macedonia to disarm ethnic Albanian rebels if a political settlement is reached to end the insurgency in the troubled republic," the New York Times reports.

• Attorney General John Ashcroft on Wednesday "ordered a top-to-bottom review of the FBI" to be completed by the end of the year, the Dallas Morning News reports.
• "Federal prosecutors are close to indicting several people in the 1996 bombing that killed 19 American servicemen in Saudi Arabia," CBS News.com reports. A press conference could come as early as today.
• The Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal law enforcement agencies have indicted 268 people involved in "a major drug trafficking operation responsible for smuggling Colombian cocaine and marijuana through Mexico into Texas and other U.S. destinations," the Dallas Morning News reports.

• The head of Russia's Federal Bodyguard Service said international terrorist "Osama bin Laden has threatened to assassinate... Bush at a G-8 meeting in Italy" in late July, CNN.com reports.
• Meanwhile, "a man who threatened to assassinate President Bush claimed he was only kidding when he sent an e-mail to police prior to the U.S. leader's weekend visit to Slovenia," AP reports.

• A new poll in the New Jersey GOP gubernatorial primary shows Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler with "a wide lead" over more moderate former Rep. Bob Franks among likely voters. The poll also "found that conservatives were far more likely than moderates to vote" in Tuesday's primary, the New York Times reports.
• The two are in a dead heat among all registered Republicans, AP reports.
• Franks and Schundler faced off last night in a debate that "quickly reverted to the now-familiar arguments about who would cut taxes, reform insurance and fix the school," the Newark Star-Ledger reports.

• Florida state Rep. Lois Frankel (D) said Wednesday she's "going to make it pretty obvious" she's running for governor in 2002 at the Democratic Party's annual Jefferson-Jackson fund-raising dinner Saturday, the AP reports.
• "Five Democrats interested in challenging" Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) in 2002 will pay $10,000 each to speak at a fundraiser this weekend, the Miami Herald reports. They are Frankel, former Attorney General Janet Reno, lawyer Bill McBride, state Sen. Daryl Jones and U.S. Rep. Jim Davis.
• Maryland businessman John M. Kane (R) "said he would form an exploratory committee to consider a long-shot" gubernatorial bid if Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., R-Md., "decides to remain in Congress," the Baltimore Sun reports.
• Former California Gov. George Deukmejian (R) will chair GOP Secretary of State Bill Jones' gubernatorial campaign in the Golden State, AP reports.
• Massachusetts acting Gov. Jane Swift (R) on Wednesday "hinted strongly at a longer-than-expected working maternity leave that could stretch into September," the Boston Herald reports.

• College of Charleston President Alex Sanders (D) said he won't announce whether he will run for Senate in South Carolina until after Labor Day, Roll Call reports. "State Democratic leaders... note that Sanders cannot formally join the race until the 12,000-student college he has headed for nine years installs a successor."
• "National Democrats have targeted the [South Carolina] race," which is "expected to cost as much as $8 million," AP reports.
• "Denver Mayor Wellington Webb [D] leaves for a two-city trip today, abandoning his pledge to announce by Friday" if he will enter the 2002 Colorado Senate race, the Denver Post reports.
• The Boston Globe reports that "gay advocates are mobilizing against" state Sen. Stephen Lynch (D) as he runs for the 9th District congressional seat, "fearing that a victory would give a bigger platform to a politician they consider antigay."
• Randy Forbes (R) "received a hero's welcome at the Oval Office" Wednesday after winning the special election in Virginia's 4th District, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports that a post-election voting analysis shows that race was "the single predictor in all 10 counties in the congressional district."

• "Iraq's state-run television said yesterday that a U.S.-British airstrike killed 23 people during a soccer game," AP reports. "U.S. and British officials denied the report, deriding it as propaganda."
• "American Lori Berenson was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison Wednesday for collaborating with leftist guerrillas in a thwarted plot to seize Peru's Congress," AP reports.
• Two protesters halted U.S. Navy bombing exercises over Vieques island on Wednesday, AP reports.
• Pakastani military leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday "appointed himself president and formal head of state," the New York Times reports.

• Former presidential candidate Bill Bradley (D) will be in Iowa this weekend "to meet with old friends." This is his second trip there this year, but for "the record, the former New Jersey senator says, he's not coming here to court Iowans in advance of the 2004 presidential election," the Des Moines Register reports. "The political pundits' response? Yeah, right."
• Former President Bill Clinton "accepted the first Dayton Peace Prize late Wednesday night at the U.S. Air Force Museum" in Dayton, Ohio, for his work on the Dayton Peace Accords, the Dayton Daily News reports.
• Chandra Levy's landlord said yesterday that in January, the missing intern told him that she "might break the lease on her Northwest Washington apartment so she could move in with her boyfriend," the Washington Post reports.
• The Washington Times reports that Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., was scheduled to speak to detectives today about the case.
• New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson (R) allegedly "violated basic precautions by exceeding his skill level in an ill-equipped kayak and making the attempt solo" when he had an kayaking accident on Sunday, the Los Angeles Times Wire reports.
• The Rev. Al Sharpton "offered an 'unconditional apology' for" saying he saw himself replacing the Rev. Jesse Jackson "as a national black leader and for raising the issue of Jackson allegedly smearing Martin Luther King Jr.'s blood on his shirt when the civil-rights leader was slain," the New York Post reports.