The Earlybird: Today's Headlines

Tougher missile defense, off to Kosovo, Langevin's stem-cell stance, GOP losing on patients' rights, Earley's apology, Florida's primary, Condit's cooperation:

• During a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Monday, President Bush "warned that he will build a missile defense shield even if Russia refuses to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty," the Washington Times reports.
• Bush's remarks represented a much harder line on the issue than he took over the weekend with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the New York Times reports.
• During the press conference, Berlusconi said Russia is "a country whose pride is derived from past greatness" and that "the only significant vestige of Russia's dominance... is its nuclear arsenal," ABCNews.com reports.
• Democratic national security experts are advising congressional Democrats to come up with an alternative missile defense plan "that they contend would be less costly and less threatening to arms control agreements," the New York Times reports.

• Today Bush is in Kosovo "to give a pep talk to U.S. soldiers and meet the heads of the province's NATO-led peacekeeping force and international administration," Reuters reports.
• Secretary of State Colin Powell will visit Vietnam today, USA Today reports. Powell "will hold talks on improved ties with the former U.S. enemy."
• Powell also met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi today and defended the United States' position on the Kyoto global warming treaty, Reuters reports.

• After the Pope condemned stem-cell research as "evil" while meeting with Bush, some analysts said that America's Catholic voters -- 26 percent of the electorate -- have the power to sway Bush's decision on whether to fund it, Reuters reports.
• In what he called "one of the most difficult issues I have ever faced," Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., on Monday "joined the ranks of antiabortion legislators who favor research on the stem cells of human embryos," framing the issue "in unusually personal terms, referring to the accident that crippled him as a young man," the Providence Journal-Bulletin reports.

• "A top White House economic adviser said the Bush administration is considering cutting tax rates on capital gains as an interim step toward fundamental tax reform," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• The Bush administration plans to end "funding for a gun buyback program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development," AP reports. "Critics assailed the move as an attack on gun control laws."
• Bush's commission on Social Security reform will meet today to "focus on an interim report that says by 2016 the government will face politically difficult choices to pay Social Security benefits," Reuters reports.
• "A cabinet-level panel has recommended that President Bush endorse a limited plan allowing some of the estimated three million Mexicans living in the United States illegally to apply for permanent legal status," the New York Times reports.
• "The Pentagon temporarily shut down public access to its Web sites Monday to make sure they are protected against a new computer threat known as the 'Code Red' worm," AP reports.
• Former President Jimmy Carter said during an interview that he was disappointed in Bush's performance as president so far and that Bush "has ignored moderates in both parties," Knight Ridder News Service reports.

• Attorney General John Ashcroft on Monday "ordered the government to halt efforts to deport an AIDS-stricken Thai boy who was used as a decoy for smuggling prostitutes into the United States," the Washington Post reports.
• Ashcroft is featured on the cover of this month's America's 1st Freedom, the magazine of the National Rifle Association, the Washington Post reports.

• Some senior House Republican aides said Monday that Republicans did not have the votes to defeat the Democrat-endorsed patients' rights legislation that the House is expected to vote on later this week, the New York Times reports.
• On Monday, the House "approved the creation of a new position within the Justice Department to oversee the activities of the FBI," AP reports.
• The Senate Judiciary Committee is planning hearings on Microsoft's Windows XP software "and its effect on Internet competition," the Wall Street Journal reports.

• The Wall Street Journal reports on "four examples of individual lawmakers -- Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and Reps. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., and John Murtha, D-Pa., all members of the appropriations committees -- making their imprint, big or small," on this year's federal policy debate.
• "In an unusual show of solidarity for a project that some environmentalists and politicians would rather steer clear of," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and an economist at the Natural Resources Defense Council announced support Monday for a proposal to build a 250-megawatt power plant on Long Island, the New York Times reports.
• Republican Senate candidate Mike Taylor on Monday called on Democratic Montana Sen. Max Baucus "to apologize for falsely taking credit for funding a road project that is actually in Missouri," the Billings Gazette reports.

• Diplomats from 178 nations "drafted a compromise Monday that preserved" the Kyoto global warming treaty, USA Today reports. The United States was the only nation that did not agree to the compromise.
• Trade officials said Monday that the World Trade Organization "has ruled against a U.S. tax break that saves Boeing Co., Microsoft Corp. and other companies billions of dollars a year," Bloomberg reports.
• Gao Zhan, a U.S.-based Chinese scholar, was convicted by China Monday of spying, AP reports.
• A "fireball" -- a piece of rock falling from space -- was seen in the air across the Northeast yesterday before it fell in Montoursville, Pa., AP reports. "Some people reported explosions or thunder, and felt their homes shake."

• Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Earley apologized for a fund-raising letter in which he claimed authorship of Virginia's Public-Private Transportation Act. Former state Sen. Elliot S. Schewel (D) was the author and chief patron of the 1995 legislation, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon, one of seven Republicans seeking the GOP nomination to challenge Gov. Jim Hodges (D) in 2002, on Monday sued Hodges and two other state officers "over the governor's plan to increase funding for higher education," the Columbia State reports.
• Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said Monday that Democrats must avoid a "costly and bloody" gubernatorial primary in September 2002 and that he, Attorney General Bob Butterworth and fellow Sen. Bob Graham will have to hold a "prayer session" to urge some Democrats to drop out, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports.

• Six Republicans and two Democrats today compete for their party's respective nominations in Florida's 1st District special election. NationalJournal.com's Florida 01 tip sheet has info on the race and a link to this evening's results. The Panama City News Herald provides bios for each of the eight candidates.
• State Sen. Larry Diedrich announced Monday in Sioux Falls, S.D., that he will seek the Republican nomination for the House seat being vacated by Rep. John Thune, R-S.D., in the June 2002 primary, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports.
• Sources said Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (R) was "quietly putting together a campaign team and preparing to launch her bid for retiring Republican Rep. Dan Miller's Sarasota-based House seat," the New York Post reports from its wire services.

• Five days after a train derailed and caught fire in a tunnel beneath Baltimore, city officials Monday night announced that nearly all downtown roads will be open this morning, and rail traffic is expected to resume today on the line where the accident occurred, the Baltimore Sun reports.
• Two weeks after four Forest Service firefighters were killed on the job in the northern Cascades, crews harnessed Washington state's Thirtymile Fire by completing a containment trail around it Monday afternoon, AP reports.
• A fire that was first reported Sunday at a half-acre, about six miles southwest of Jackson, Wyo., spread Monday toward several subdivisions containing about 170 homes valued at $500,000 and up, AP reports.

• Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., "signaled his willingness Monday to be interviewed a fourth time" by police who are investigating the disappearance of Chandra Levy, AP reports. A sixth day of searching in Washington parks yielded nothing.
• Almost all of the 3,340 seats at Washington National Cathedral set aside for Katharine Graham's funeral services were occupied Monday, "and still mourners kept coming, electing to listen on speakers outside the mammoth cathedral in Northwest Washington as their way of honoring Mrs. Graham, 84," the Washington Post reports.