The Earlybird: Today's headlines

NGA energy policy, FERC resignation, market doomsayers, Arafat request, cloning doctor, Clinton's deal, Riordan's bike ride: President Bush continued his Texas vacation Monday by "running, fishing, reading and working around the ranch," the Dallas Morning News reports. Bush also "spoke to his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and to his chief of staff, Andy Card, by telephone and held a 45-minute meeting with his traveling staff, who are staying in a trailer near the ranch," Reuters reports. Bush is spending most of his vacation working, the New York Times reports. No Vacation For These Guys The National Governors Association released its version of a national energy policy Monday, calling "for increased production of coal, nuclear power, grain-based fuels and other sources, coupled with greater conservation efforts," the Baltimore Sun reports. Curt Hébert, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, announced Monday that he will resign at the end of the month, the Dallas Morning News reports. "The move clears the way for President Bush to appoint former Texas Public Utility Commission Chairman Pat Wood to the job." "The Immigration and Naturalization Service plans to raise fees for immigrants for services ranging from fingerprinting to obtaining green cards," AP reports. "Pro-military groups are pressing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to follow through on a George W. Bush campaign promise to re-examine the practice of training male and female recruits in the same units and barracks," the Washington Times reports. David Walker, the General Accounting Office's comptroller general, on Monday accused Vice President Dick Cheney "of misrepresenting the investigator's demands for the release of information about a White House energy task force," USA Today reports. Interior Secretary Gale Norton appointed Kit Kimball, executive director of the Western Resource Council and mining lobbyist, to director of external and intergovernmental relations, the Denver Post reports. On Wednesday NASA will attempt to "launch its Genesis spacecraft on a mission to gather and return bits of the sun," AP reports. Impending Crash? Some stock analysts are predicting a "crash in the coming weeks" because of revised productivity reports expected to be released today, FoxNews.com reports. A survey conducted by the business group Challenger, Gray and Christmas released Monday showed that "corporations announced a record 205,975 job cuts in July," CBSNews.com reports. Legally Speaking The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that gunmakers cannot be sued when their products are used illegally, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The Federal Communications Commission will "appeal to the Supreme Court to try to overturn the recent ruling that the government had illegally confiscated wireless spectrum licenses from NextWave Telecom while the company was under bankruptcy court protection," the New York Times reports. The North Carolina attorney general's office asked the Supreme Court in a letter Monday "not to review the case of a man on North Carolina's death row that has drawn international attention for its focus on executing the mentally retarded," the Raleigh News & Observer reports. "A study by a Northwestern University law professor released Monday accused the American Bar Association of a liberal bias in ratings of nominees for federal appeals court openings during the Clinton administration," UPI reports. The American Bar Association's governing body on Monday agreed that "attorneys should be freer to tell on clients who are doing something wrong," the Chicago Tribune reports. In a paper to be released today, the American College of Physicians "has joined the AMA in opposing physician-assisted suicide," AP reports. Arafat's Appeal Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has sent Secretary of State Colin Powell a letter asking him "to persuade Israel to stop its assassinations and begin carrying out confidence-building measures," AP reports. On Monday "Israel took the unusual step of publishing the names of seven militants it wants Palestinian leaders to arrest," the Boston Globe reports. Palestinians accused Israel "of maintaining hit lists." "An Israeli delegation met UN officials yesterday to discuss the viewing of two videotapes and seven bloodstained items that may shed light on the abduction of three Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese border last October," AP reports. Around The World Bolivian President Hugo Banzer, who is suffering from cancer, resigned yesterday and will continue to be treated in the United States, AP reports. Vice President Jorge Quiroga will be sworn in as president today. On Monday the Irish Republican Army "agreed to a method of destroying its arsenal," the New York Times reports. Britain and Ireland "hailed" the agreement "as the long-sought breakthrough needed to push forward the stalled Northern Ireland peace accord." "A peace deal that was supposed to be signed Monday" in Macedonia was delayed after both sides "appeared to backpedal on agreed-upon issues," the Chicago Tribune reports. Planet Of The Clones Dr. Severino Antinori, an Italian doctor "whose team has been touring the world in search of a country in which to clone human beings," said yesterday "that his 'therapeutic cloning' was a scientific development that could not and should not be stopped," Reuters reports. The researchers will unveil their cloning plans before the National Academy of Sciences in Washington today, CNN.com reports. Antinori said he plans to start cloning human beings in November, AP reports. He risks losing his right to practice medicine in Italy over the cloning plans. The Next Clinton? Former President Bill Clinton on Monday signed a book deal for more than $10 million with Alfred A. Knopf to publish his memoirs in 2003, the Washington Post reports. "That is the largest advance for a nonfiction book in U.S. publishing history and it beats the $8 million paid his wife," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. The Washington Post profiles potential 2004 presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.: "Edwards's slight drawl, his centrism, his humble origins as the son of textile workers, his populist ideals... his skill at simplifying things without seeming patronizing -- all this stirs memories of Clinton without the seamy side." On The Air, On The Attack Virginia gubernatorial hopeful Mark Warner (D) released a new statewide television ad today in a $350,000 media buy, the Washington Post reports. Leaders of Ceasefire New Jersey and the Million Mom March said yesterday that New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler's (R) campaign manager was attempting to "confuse voters" by saying that a 1990 state Senate vote by opponent Jim McGreevey (D) "supported the right to carry an assault weapon," AP reports. Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan (R) "charged up to the state Capitol on a racing bike yesterday to dramatize his role as a vigorous potential competitor in next year's gubernatorial campaign," the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Dane County, Wis., Executive Kathleen Falk (D) announced Monday that she will seek her party's nomination for governor in 2002, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Former Illinois Rep. Glenn Poshard (D) "cited family concerns for opting out of the party's 2002 gubernatorial contest," the Chicago Tribune reports. And Gov. George Ryan (R) is expected to announce his 2002 intentions Wednesday in his hometown of Kankakee, Ill. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that while "other Democrats with pro-labor voting records drew early union endorsements this year, Poshard alienated his once powerful union base by making them guess about his intentions." What's "striking about the early fund-raising reports in the 2002 Democratic gubernatorial contest" in Pennsylvania between Auditor General Robert P. Casey Jr. and former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell "is how different the donor lists look," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Pennsylvania Treasurer Barbara Hafer (R) "yesterday began what is believed to be the earliest television advertising campaign in a Pennsylvania governor's race," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. He Won't Survive Michael Skupin (R) "couldn't survive the Australian Outback or Michigan politics." The former "Survivor" contestant announced Monday that he will not challenge Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., in 2002, the Detroit Free Press reports. Dates have been set for Arkansas' 3rd District special election to replace Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., whose "resignation took effect at midnight last night," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. "An early December special election... is being planned, with party primaries Sept. 25 and a primary runoff Oct. 16." Names In The News The New York Post reports that federal authorities "are unlikely to decide whether to pursue obstruction-of-justice charges against" Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., and his aides until a new U.S. attorney is appointed in Washington this fall. Three members of Hillary Clinton's 2000 campaign staff "have formed their own legal-defense funds as the New Square Pardongate probe presses ahead," the New York Post reports. Three years ago, accused spy Robert Hanssen "posted a racy short story with an Internet newsgroup that features erotic writing online," the New York Daily News reports. "A Miami-Dade County judge dropped the charge of simple battery against Miami Mayor Joe Carollo on Monday," though the mayor admitted to throwing "the cardboard tea container that hit his wife in the head during a domestic dispute in February," the Miami Herald reports. Lou Bullington Tower, the 81-year-old wife of former Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, died Monday, the Dallas Morning News reports. "Mrs. Tower was critical to her husband's success in 1961, when he became the first Republican since Reconstruction to be elected statewide."