The Earlybird: Today's Headlines

Bush's turn on patients' rights, new plans for Mexico, economic troubles, Florida results, Harris' exploration, Virginia's minute of silence, Mandela's recovery:

• During President Bush's visit with American troops in Kosovo on Tuesday, he told them "that the peacekeeping mission will not be indefinite," but "there was still much work ahead to achieve stability," the Boston Globe reports.
• Bush "called on Europe to shoulder a greater share of the peacekeeping duties in the Balkans and urged local and international police to quickly take the place of NATO forces so that American troops can go home," the Washington Times reports.
• Bush also "signed a defense-spending bill in front of the troops that includes $1.9 billion for increased military pay and benefits," Knight Ridder News Service reports.
• Russia's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, on Tuesday "signaled willingness... to change the terms of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty," the Boston Globe reports. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ivanov are scheduled to meet in Washington today and tomorrow with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

• Now that Bush has returned to Washington, House Republican leaders pushing their version of a patients' rights bill say Bush "will have to ride the phone hard starting Wednesday morning to secure the estimated 10-15 votes needed to boost the Fletcher bill over Norwood-Dingell," CNN.com reports.
• A CongressDaily poll found "that the crucial bloc of GOP supporters" of the 1999 patients' rights bill "has split into three factions." Click here to see the results of the survey.

• The White House panel on Social Security "backed away from its assertion that the system is already broken" on Tuesday, the Boston Globe reports.
• The panel said that a solution to the Social Security problem "should include Mr. Bush's proposal to create personal investment accounts within the system," the New York Times reports.

• Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said during an interview with the Washington Times Tuesday that the "United States needs to keep a strong military presence in Asia to deter any future threats from China."
• The Pentagon is considering consolidating "its bases by relocating some operations from congested areas to more sparsely populated regions," USA Today reports.

• On Tuesday a White House panel headed by Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of State Colin Powell recommended "that the White House create a new Mexican guest-worker program that could cover the service, construction and other industries," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Lawmakers from both parties on Tuesday criticized Bush's plan to "eventually give permanent legal status to many of the millions of undocumented immigrants from Mexico," AP reports.
• Illegal immigrants are becoming more politically active, a trend likely to increase as Congress considers Bush's plan, the Houston Chronicle reports.
• Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Tuesday "threatened... to slow the Senate's work on a bill that would sharply restrict Mexican truck travel in the United States," the New York Times reports.

• The House voted Tuesday against a plan to "allow unlimited numbers of American civilians to work under contract on U.S. military and other aid operations in Colombia," the Washington Post reports.
• The House Judiciary Committee voted 18-11 Tuesday to ban human cloning, AP reports.
• Senate Governmental Affairs Committee staffers said Tuesday that committee chairman Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., is likely to "subpoena Bush Cabinet agencies over their handling of environmental regulations," the Washington Post reports.
• House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, will hold a fundraiser tonight featuring radio host Rush Limbaugh to raise money for DeLay's legal defense fund, the Houston Chronicle reports. The invitation seeks "a minimum contribution of $1,000" and says that "being an outspoken critic of the liberal elite can be a lonely and dangerous job."

• On Tuesday the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell "by triple digits for a second day, as investors were hit by a new batch of gloomy news from the likes of corporate giants Lucent Technologies, Exxon Mobil and AT&T," FoxNews.com reports.
• Tuesday's reports from several major companies "are undermining hopes that the U.S. economy can recover by year's end," the Washington Post reports.
• During the second part of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's semiannual monetary policy report to Congress on Tuesday, he said that "the economy's biggest risk remains economic weakness -- not inflation," the Wall Street Journal reports. Greenspan's statements left "investors confident the Fed will cut rates at least one more time."
• "Federal safety officials opened an investigation yesterday into 2.7 million tires that Ford Motor Co. is using as replacements for Firestone tires recalled by the automaker because they were deemed dangerous," AP reports.

• In Macedonia yesterday, "mobs in the capital accused NATO of siding with the guerrillas and attacked the US, British, and German embassies," AP reports.
• Today the United States "formally announced it was rejecting a U.N. draft treaty designed to give teeth to an anti-germ warfare accord," AP reports.
• The space shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth late last night, the Houston Chronicle reports.

• Democrat Steve Briese and Republican Jeff Miller "breezed through Tuesday's primary" in Florida's 1st District to replace retiring Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., the Pensacola News Journal reports.
• "Miller, a state representative, garnered 54.1 percent of the vote in the six-way Republican contest," AP reports. The general election is slated for Oct. 16.
• Massachusetts state Sen. Stephen Lynch (D), who "has 44 labor endorsements already under his belt," "exuded the confidence of a front-runner during the AFL-CIO's forum" of 9th District candidates Tuesday night, the Boston Globe reports.
• Former Arkansas state Rep. Jim Hendren (R) "has loaned $300,000 to his campaign for the Republican Party nomination for the 3rd Congressional District seat," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

• Virginia gubernatorial candidate Mark Earley (R) on Tuesday "accepted endorsements from four GOP-leaning Hispanic groups, making a portion of his remarks in Spanish," the Richmond-Times Dispatch reports.
• Former Vice President Al Gore's decision to keep his 2004 options open "could create some interesting dynamics in the Tennessee governor's race," the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. "The Republican gubernatorial primary front-runner, Rep. Van Hilleary, said it is 'very possible' the general election could become a referendum on Mr. Gore."
• Former Ambassador to Vietnam Pete Peterson (D) filed campaign papers "in preparation for a possible run" for Florida governor, the Tallahassee Democrat reports. The Miami Herald reports Peterson "said he's still weeks away from making a decision on running."
• Former Oklahoma Lt. Gov. Jack Mildren (D), a one-time University of Oklahoma quarterback, filed papers Tuesday to open an exploratory committee to make a second gubernatorial bid, the Oklahoman reports.
• The New York Daily News reports that "a campaign finance loophole" has allowed real estate developers Douglas Durst and David Feinberg to each donate $100,000 to New York Gov. George Pataki's (R) re-election efforts "through dozens of corporations they control."
• Michigan Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus (R), who is expected to run for governor, "join[ed] all five Democratic gubernatorial candidates" and split with Gov. John Engler (R) when he "flew to three shoreline cities Monday to call for a continued ban on new leases for directional oil and gas drilling under the Great Lakes," the Detroit News reports.
• "The timing could have been better for" Massachusetts acting Gov. Jane Swift's (R) "long-awaited fund-raiser at former state treasurer Joseph D. Malone's Waltham steak house," the Boston Herald reports. The event "came less than 24 hours before word surfaced that yet another defendant in the embezzlement scandal that has damaged Malone's legacy will plead guilty to corruption charges."
• Tomah, Wis., Mayor Ed Thompson "said he expects to announce his [gubernatorial] candidacy with the Libertarian Party by next January," the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports. In the first six months of 2001, Thompson, brother of Health and Human Services Sectary Tommy Thompson, raised $7,198.

• A "top" Florida GOP official said Tuesday that Secretary of State Katherine Harris (R) will run for the 13th District seat currently held by retiring Rep. Dan Miller, R-Fla., AP reports. CNN.com reports that Harris "is putting together a campaign team" and is "about to open an exploratory account."
• Former Rep. Rick Lazio, R-N.Y., "yesterday threw cold water on speculation that he may run for his old congressional seat," the New York Post reports. Lazio "has indicated the only way he might be convinced is if keeping Republican control of the House hinged on his old seat -- an unlikely prospect."

• A Virginia federal appeals court yesterday "narrowly affirmed the constitutionality" of the state's "daily schoolroom minute-of-silence law," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• Also in Virginia, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit calling on the state to "list the name of the Libertarian Party alongside its nominees on November's ballots," the Washington Post reports. Current Virginia law says "that candidates from outside the major parties be listed as 'Independent.'"
• Officials at Southern California Edison "said Tuesday that they were content to let negotiations" with the state "continue, in essence granting an informal extension to the agreement between the company and Gov. Gray Davis [D]," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• "Pacific Gas and Electric Co. officials asked Tuesday for a public hearing on revised state revenue requirement figures it says show PG&E" California "customers could see a 44 percent rate increase in 2003," AP reports.
• A campaign consultant during New Hampshire's 2000 governor race, Christopher Lyon, "told investigators he believed he was making a legal 'independent expenditure' when he drew up postcards attacking" former governor candidate Gordon Humphrey (R) and his wife, the Manchester Union Leader reports. Lyon worked for candidate Jeffrey Howard (R) during the primary.

• California Rep. Gary Condit's (D) lawyer, Abbe Lowell, met with Washington police yesterday "to discuss the possibility of a fourth interview with the congressman about" missing intern Chandra Levy, the Washington Times reports.
• Two of Condit's longtime staffers -- Michael Dayton in Washington and Michael Lynch in Modesto, Calif. -- "appear to be key figures in a federal obstruction-of-justice investigation" related to the Levy case, USA Today reports.
• Condit "agreed Tuesday to help the FBI create a profile of" Levy "as early as this week," AP reports.

• Former South African President Nelson Mandela "began radiation therapy" Tuesday "for prostate cancer," AP reports. "The cancer was not considered life-threatening."
• A new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows first lady Laura Bush with a 64 percent favorable rating, showing that "she hasn't faced the resentment generated by Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 1990s," AP reports.