The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Today's China meetings, Bush's free trade push, Israel's withdrawal, potential McVeigh Webcast, market's rally, Mississippi's flag vote, Midwest's floods, N.J. gov's persistence, Clinton's office approval:

• Today officials from the United States and China will meet in Beijing to discuss the recent incident involving the U.S. Navy spy plane that landed in China, CBSNews.com reports. "The mood of the talks is expected to be tense" as U.S. negotiators try to get back the plane, which is still in China.
• Defense officials said Tuesday the Pentagon Joint Chiefs of Staff "have recommended that spy flights should not resume immediately off China's southern coast," Reuters reports.
• "If China continues to demand an end to the flights, an outcome the United States has ruled out, the Pentagon will then be forced to protect the EP-3Es, perhaps with fighter escorts," the Washington Times reports.
• President Bush's aides on Tuesday "recommended that he defer the sale to Taiwan of advanced destroyers equipped with a highly sophisticated ship-borne radar system but have advised him to provide a range of less advanced weapons to counter China's growing arsenal," the New York Times reports.
• Christian Coalition leader Pat Robertson "has angered" many conservatives with remarks he made Monday night "describing China's 'forced abortion' policy as a necessary means to control the communist nation's population," the Washington Post reports.

• Bush told the Organization of American States Tuesday that he will push for "fast-track authority" with Latin American nations -- which would allow him "to negotiate trade agreements with foreign governments," Reuters reports. On Friday, Bush will attend the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, Canada, "where he will push a free-trade agenda in talks with leaders of 34 Western Hemisphere nations."
• On Tuesday Bush "upheld Clinton administration rules requiring thousands more businesses to disclose potentially toxic lead emissions," Reuters reports.
• The Bush administration said Tuesday that it will "enforce a previously ignored law denying federal financial aid to college students with drug convictions," AP reports.
• Interior Secretary Gale Norton has "rebuffed a personal appeal from" Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) "and decided to move forward with plans to auction 6 million acres of oil-and-gas-rich seabed in the Gulf of Mexico," USA Today reports.
• Oklahoma Transportation Secretary Neal McCaleb has been nominated to head the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Tulsa World reports.

• "Hours after Washington called on Israel to pull its troops back to the positions they held on Monday," Israeli officials said they would withdraw "its forces from Palestinian-run parts" of Gaza, Reuters reports.
• "North Korea sent a shipment of missile components and technology to Iran two weeks ago aboard a transport aircraft," the Washington Times reports.
• An Agriculture Department official said Tuesday that the chances of a case of foot-and-mouth disease occurring in the United States "are 'quite great,' given the amount people travel between the U.S. and Britain," AP reports.

• Today the Supreme Court will hear a case to decide whether a food company should be required to "contribute to an advertising program that encourages American consumers to eat more mushrooms," the New York Times reports.
• On Tuesday a federal three-judge panel in Utah "shot down all of the state's claims... in its challenge of the 2000 census," the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
• A federal judge in Indiana is expected to decide Friday whether an "Internet entertainment company" has the First Amendment right "to Webcast the execution of Timothy McVeigh" on May 16, the Indianapolis Star reports.
• Today pharmaceutical companies "challenging South Africa's right to import cheap copies of patented AIDS drugs" are expected to drop their case, Reuters reports.
• The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit in California "alleging that the wide variety of voting machines used in California results in sharply disparate levels of accuracy," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• The National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint yesterday with the Federal Election Commission, accusing Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., of "violating federal election law by securing two loans with favorable terms late in her campaign against Slade Gorton, and failing to disclose the transactions until after the election," the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.

• The stock market is "set to rally" this morning, "powered by a generally upbeat outlook from Intel Corp.," CNNfn.com reports.
• "The U.S. auto industry began boosting production substantially last month, signaling that the worst of the economic slowdown is over" for that industry, the Washington Post reports.
• The American Stock Exchange and the parent of the Nasdaq Stock Market," the National Association of Securities Dealers, "just "2 1/2 years into their once-promising marriage, appear headed for a breakup," the Wall Street Journal reports.

• In yesterday's vote, Mississippians chose "overwhelmingly" to keep their 107-year-old state flag, which features the Confederate symbol, CNN.com reports. "With 57 percent of the precincts in," AP reported 67 percent favored keeping the old flag and 33 percent favored replacing it.
• The Jackson Clarion-Ledger reports that state NAACP President Eugene Bryant promises to continue the fight to retire the banner.

• "Weather observers expect the Mississippi [River's] flood to reach its highest point today in southeast Minnesota," the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports.
• AP reports that Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., "spent his Easter break from Congress canoeing his wife and two sons out of their home on French Island, where a quickly encroaching Mississippi River also flooded other houses."

• "Buffeted by fresh charges of ethical misconduct," New Jersey acting Gov. Donald DiFrancesco (R) vowed yesterday to continue his run for a full term this year, "despite growing concern among fellow Republicans and the potential defection of some key allies," the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• DiFrancesco's primary opponent, Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler (R), held a news conference in Newark yesterday and promised to help contain suburban sprawl by seeking to overturn two New Jersey Supreme Court decisions, the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• "Veteran Republican fund-raiser" Ted Welch is not part of Tennessee GOP Rep. Van Hilleary's gubernatorial exploratory committee, despite a campaign news release quoting him this weekend, the Nashville Tennessean reports.
• Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., spent his second day on the campaign trail Tuesday in Augusta, Ga., where he stumped on health care issues, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

• "Some 45,000 students and 3,200 faculty members will return to University of Hawai'i campuses this morning," ending a 13-day strike, the Honolulu Advertiser reports. Meanwhile, the Honolulu Advertiser reports, "the deadlock with the striking public school teachers appeared to be hardening."
• Because of the recent energy problems, "power plants in the Los Angeles basin polluted more than twice as much in the first three months of 2001 as they did in the same period the year before," the Sacramento Bee reports.

• The General Services Administration agreed yesterday to "pay $366,151 a year for the next decade" to lease former President Clinton 8,600 square feet of office space in Harlem, the Washington Post reports. In addition, aides to former President Reagan announced yesterday that the lease for Reagan's Los Angeles office would not be renewed.
• The National Archives announced Tuesday that more than "1,000 additional hours of Richard Nixon's historic White House tape-recordings will be offered for sale to the public," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• Former Washington Mayor Marion Barry (D), "sentenced yesterday to probation and community service in an assault case involving a cleaning woman in a BWI Airport restroom last summer, said he was framed," the Washington Times reports.
• Reuters reports Barry "was ordered on Tuesday to perform 20 hours of community service in exchange for indecent exposure charges against him being dropped."