Featured eBooks
The Earlybird: Today's headlines
- Today U.S. diplomats plan to visit the 24 crew members of the Navy spy plane that landed in China last week, CNN.com reports. It will be the fourth visit to the crew members, whom officials are still working to have released from China.
- White House officials said Sunday that President Bush wrote "a letter to the widow" of the missing Chinese pilot, the Los Angeles Times reports. The letter was "in response to a letter she wrote to Bush last week" that "charged that the president was 'too cowardly to voice an apology.'"
- Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell, warned China over the weekend that "it is risking long-term damage to U.S.-Chinese relations" by not ending the standoff, the Houston Chronicle reports.
- Meanwhile, China's "top military newspaper" on Sunday wrote that China "had the right to 'thoroughly investigate' the crew members" and "demanded an end to spy flights near China's coast," AP reports.
- "The Chinese have essentially agreed to a joint commission to look into what caused the April 1 collision... but first want the U.S. to express more than 'regret' for the presumed death of a Chinese pilot," the Wall Street Journal reports.
- And China is "preparing to conduct a small, underground nuclear test in the midst of" the standoff, the Washington Times reports. "Intelligence officials said the EP-3E surveillance aircraft that collided with a Chinese interceptor jet April 1 was gathering electronic intelligence related to the impending test, along with other intelligence targets."
- Today the White House will release the full details of Bush's $1.96 trillion budget plan, AP reports. The plan will detail "where the administration intends to reduce government programs to cap the increase in spending at 4 percent next year and make room for the president's proposed $1.6 trillion, 10-year tax cut."
- Cheney said Sunday that "the president will not hesitate to veto spending bills he considers excessive," AP reports.
- But "some members of Congress from both parties" said that the cuts in federal spending in Bush's budget "are compelled mainly to pay for the large tax cuts Mr. Bush has been seeking," the New York Times reports.
- Bush will have to "scale back" some of his tax cut plans because of the smaller budget the Senate approved Friday, the Wall Street Journal reports.
- Today Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas, will send a letter to House Republicans asking them to "go slow" in addressing the issue of Internet privacy, the New York Times reports. Part of the letter said: "We must avoid silver-bullet solutions that will quickly become obsolete or leave ourselves vulnerable to criticism that the government is not meeting the standards it requires from others."
- Conservative legal group Judicial Watch is expected to announce Tuesday that it will take legal action against Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, "for allegedly selling meetings with the Bush administration to political donors," Roll Call reports. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dropped an unrelated racketeering lawsuit against DeLay last week.
- In March the unemployment level reached 4.3 percent, the highest it has been in 20 months, the Wall Street Journal reports.
- "Economists say the boom and tight labor market in" old-economy businesses "is an important reason that the economy hasn't fallen into recession, despite the biggest slump in manufacturing and technology in a decade," the Washington Times reports.
- On Sunday rescuers found "the bodies of seven Americans and nine Vietnamese who died in a helicopter crash" on Saturday "while searching for the remains of U.S. soldiers missing in action from the Vietnam War," AP reports.
- Israelis attacked "Palestinian targets in the northern Gaza Strip last night," injuring four people, AP reports.
- Over the weekend three "Islamic militants were arrested... in connection with last year's bombing of the destroyer USS Cole," Tribune News Services reports.
- California Gov. Gray Davis (D) and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. "traded barbs over who is to blame for the bankruptcy of the state's largest utility," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
- The energy crisis has cost consumers "their ability to exert political pressure over a rescue plan for the state's biggest utility," the Sacramento Bee reports.
- Teacher strikes in Hawaii left "parents of 183,000 children scrambling for day care and 43,000 university and community college students idle as the work stoppages enter their third day," the Honolulu Advertiser reports.
- Teachers in Washington state have decided they will not go on strike, "but they remain furious with the state Legislature over wages and proposed cuts and may hold one-day walkouts," AP reports.
- Tomorrow is the Democratic primary in the special election to fill the 32nd District seat of the late Rep. Julian Dixon, D-Calif., Roll Call reports. Former state Sen. Diane Watson "released a poll last week indicating that her high name recognition has helped her build a commanding lead in the campaign's closing days."
- Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore (R) has set a date for the special election to succeed late Virginia Rep. Norman Sisisky (D) in the state's 4th District. The race will be June 19, Roll Call reports.
- Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Jane Swift (R) will officially take over the governor's office tomorrow, the Boston Globe reports.
- "Eager to make an impact and get her administration off to a good start, Swift is rapidly piecing together a menu of policy initiatives to roll out during her first weeks" in office, the Boston Herald reports.
- The road ahead might be bumpy for Swift, who is pregnant with twins. "As a Republican in a Democratic state, she must fend off potential candidates from both parties for the gubernatorial election 20 months away," AP reports.
- New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Jim McGreevey (D), who faces no primary opposition, is already on the stump 14 hours a day, the Newark Star-Ledger reports. "The upside of McGreevey's peripatetic travels... is that he knows nearly every elected Democratic official in the state personally."
- "Census schmensus." Black female voters in Detroit "will do a lot of the deciding" in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, the Detroit Free Press reports. "That's a cold splash for fans of Attorney General Jennifer Granholm, whose presumed advantage among female voters isn't a lock, especially in Motown."
- Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark., "announced Saturday that he would not try to unseat Republican Sen. Tim Hutchinson and would run for re-election in 2002," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.
- Former California Rep. James Rogan (R) "has started lining up support for a comeback House bid" amidst talk that Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., might be nominated to a life position on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Roll Call reports.
- Oklahoma first lady Cathy Keating (R) "on Saturday officially announced her candidacy for 1st District" seat, which is currently held by Rep. Steve Largent, R-Okla., who is expected to run for governor, the Tulsa World reports.
- "Keating pointed out Saturday that" if Largent retires, "a special election would be held within present district boundaries and would be followed almost immediately by another campaign for a full term in a district redrawn according to the 2000 census," the Oklahoman reports.
- Former President Bill Clinton on Sunday dedicated the Hillary Clinton Center for MultiMedia Technology in India, AP reports. Clinton's visit to India, "which ends Tuesday, is meant to generate funds for relief from the earthquake that shattered Gujarat state in January."
- Some former Clinton aides said he "is starting to add stamps to his passport in a bid to overtake former President Carter in the foreign-policy and influence business," U.S. News and World Report's "Washington Whispers" reports.
- Milwaukee "fundraising executive" Scott Evertz (R) will be named director of Bush's Office of National AIDS Policy today, the Washington Post reports. He will be the first gay man to hold that position.
- Rep. Joseph Moakley, D-Mass., was admitted to a Maryland hospital Thursday with a fever. He could go home as early as today, Reuters reports.
- "Frank Annunzio, a former Democratic congressman from Illinois, died Sunday morning," CNN.com reports. He was 84.
NEXT STORY: The Earlybird: Today's headlines