The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush-Davis meeting, Moakley's death, Russia aid, Mideast talks, J. Bush's poll numbers, Cox's future, Sharpton's hunger strike:

• President Bush is in California today to stump for his energy plan and to meet with California Gov. Gray Davis (D) about the state's energy crisis, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Bush will visit the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton "to underscore his conservation order for a 10 percent cut in energy usage in federal buildings and military facilities," and Fresno and Sequoia National Park "to press his initiative to improve national parks."
• Davis plans to tell Bush "the nation's economic health could be threatened if Washington doesn't move to restrain electricity costs," CNN.com reports.
• But Bush "won't force down soaring electricity prices that have cost California nearly $8 billion since January," AP reports. "There was no indication" Bush and Davis "would break their stalemate" during their meeting today.

• Rep. Joseph Moakley, D-Mass., died Monday at Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland from complications from leukemia, the Boston Globe reports. He was 74.
• Moakley's body "will lie in state at the Massachusetts State House later this week -- an honor bestowed on only the state's most revered public officials," the Boston Herald reports.
• Friends remember Moakley as a man whose "greatest passion was finding a way to help the little guy, the beaten-down constituent with the problem no one else could solve," the Boston Herald reports.

• "Americans across the country marked Memorial Day with solemn remembrance by making pilgrimages to gravesides, bearing flowers and flags to honor soldiers who sacrificed their lives in battle," AP reports.
• Bush "brought cheers from 2,000 people in" Mesa, Ariz., "with a Memorial Day salute to veterans and a promise of quicker action on providing deserved benefits," the Arizona Republic reports.
• Bush also signed a bill Monday to speed up construction of the World War II memorial, which will stand "directly between" the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Post reports.
• After signing the bill, "Bush laid a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery" and spoke at a Memorial Day ceremony there, the Washington Post reports.

• Unnamed Bush administration officials said Monday that "the United States intends to offer Russia military aid, joint antimissile exercises, and possible arms purchases to ease Russian objections" to a proposed U.S. missile defense system, Reuters reports.
• But Russian officials said their "opposition to scrapping the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty would not be changed by a United States proposal that would reportedly incorporate Russian missiles and radar in a new antimissile system," the New York Times reports.

• The United States and China have tentatively agreed "that a damaged American surveillance plane will be partly dismantled and removed from China on a giant Russian-designed cargo plane," the New York Times reports.
• On Monday Palestinians agreed "to attend U.S.-hosted security talks with Israel," Reuters reports. The talks "could be held in Tel Aviv as early as Tuesday."
• "A Muslim extremist group claimed responsibility Monday for abducting 20 people, including three Americans, from a luxury resort and said it was holding the captives on two islands in the southern Philippines," AP reports.
• NATO foreign ministers will meet today in Budapest, and Secretary of State Colin Powell "is under pressure to reassure NATO members of Washington's commitment to peacekeeping duties in the Balkans," CNN.com reports.
• "Thousands of people opposed to the Navy using Vieques island as a target range gathered Monday outside the prison where 38 people are being held for trespassing during recent military exercises," AP reports.
• "British authorities Monday blamed a weekend of rioting by whites and Asians... on white extremists from outside the area," Tribune News Services reports.

• The Newark Star-Ledger reports on the "legend" of Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler's (R) "rise to power": The gubernatorial candidate's "original victory has often been glossed over as a triumph of Republicanism in one of the nation's most Democratic cities."
• And "for all the turmoil that has marked the Republican race for governor, Schundler appears no better off than when he began his insurgent campaign six month ago," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
• A Miami Herald poll shows Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) with a "40 percent job disapproval rating among 600 likely voters" and a six-point lead over possible challenger former Attorney General Janet Reno (D).
• AP reports that Reno "said Saturday she will decide shortly on running for governor."
• A new Chattanooga Times Free Press poll showed hypothetical gubernatorial match-ups involving former Nashville Mayor Phil Bredesen (D) and Tennessee Reps. Van Hilleary (R) and Bob Clement (D) "too close to call if the election were held today."

• Roll Call reports that Rep. Chris Cox, R-Calif., "has decided to take his name out of consideration for judgeship," but some of his "Republican allies" are "still trying... hard for his seat."
• Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., "one of the few remaining rebels who swept into the House in the 1994 landslide," said Friday he will resign from Congress Sept. 6, Roll Call reports. "Scarborough's move will require Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) to declare a special election in the Pensacola-based 1st district, a GOP stronghold where Democrats have failed to recruit a candidate in the past two election cycles."
• Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, announced that he will seek a fourth term in 2002 and not run for mayor of Cleveland, as some had speculated, AP reports. Kucinich "became the city's youngest mayor when he was elected to a two-year term in 1977."

• At least 12 people were injured and one died in car wrecks blamed on smoke from wildfires in Central Florida Monday, the Miami Herald reports.
• "More than 1,000 firefighters worked into the night Monday to save" parts of Nevada near Reno "from a raging forest fire that prompted the evacuation of several neighborhoods," the Reno Gazette Journal reports.
• "The National Fire Plan, financed by a $1.78 billion congressional appropriation late last year, will add nearly 7,000 jobs to firefighting efforts by the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service," the New York Times reports.

• "After nearly a week in federal jails in Puerto Rico and Brooklyn, the Rev. Al Sharpton said Monday that he would begin a hunger strike this morning to publicize the Navy bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques," AP reports.
• South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges' (D) "office confirmed that the governor will traverse the state on foot in probably July or August," the Columbia State reports.