The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Europe braces for Bush, Senate considers vouchers, Kennedy backs out in Mass.-09, Israel agrees to cease-fire, McCain faces recall effort and Chafee discusses what would make him switch:

• President Bush began his European trip last night. CNN.com reports that Bush will meet with "European and Russian leaders skeptical about his administration's national security and environmental policies... [in] a major test of his powers of persuasion and the first glimpse of the strategy and style he will employ in hopes of winning over his colleagues overseas."
• Bush is "not well-known in Europe, where many people are wary not only of his conservative politics and policies, but also of what they perceive as a stereotypical Texan right out of the old days of the Wild West," the Dallas Morning News reports.
• Bush will be "met not just by European heads of state but, it is expected, by tens of thousands of protesters," BBCNews.com reports. And "Bush, accustomed to a public that consumes genetically modified foods and hormone-treated beef with scarcely a second thought, will encounter hostility bordering on hysteria in Europe."
• When he arrived in Spain last night, "Bush was immediately whisked away for a private meeting with Spain's King Juan Carlos and was later due to hold talks with center-right Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar," Reuters reports. Bush also will "visit Belgium, Sweden, Poland and Slovenia during the six-day tour."
• Before he flew to Spain, Bush "said he was committed to fighting global warming and promised to fund new research into one of the world's most vexing environmental problems," the Baltimore Sun reports
• But during his Rose Garden speech Monday, Bush said "he had no intention of reversing his opposition to a global warming accord supported by the European leaders he will meet with this week," the New York Times reports. "And he strongly suggested that any new accord would have to bind developing nations, especially China and India, to the kind of commitments that would be made by the United States."
• "Economists from the Clinton White House now concede that complying with Kyoto's mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases would be difficult -- and more expensive to American consumers than they thought when they were in charge," USA Today reports.
• Bush blamed "the rest of the world, including Europe, for creating most greenhouse gases," the Washington Times reports.

• The co-chairmen of Bush's Social Security commission said Monday "that they would probably have to propose politically difficult steps like raising the retirement age and reducing cost of living adjustments when they make recommendations to the White House for restoring the system's long-term financial health," the New York Times reports.
• Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said Monday that "the Bush administration is deeply divided over whether to fund experimentation on cells from human embryos," the Washington Post reports.
• A study by the liberal research group Citizens for Tax Justice found that "more than one-quarter of all American adults will not get a tax rebate this year," the New York Times reports. "No one in the government disputes the organization's findings" even though the Bush administration has "been promoting the benefits of" the recently signed tax cut bill "to people of modest means."

• In Arizona, "petition applications... were filed last week calling for a recall election" of GOP Sen. John McCain, "and a 'Recall John McCain Committee' was formed online to solicit signatures," the Washington Times reports. "More than 300,000 signatures are needed to force a recall election Oct. 1."
• Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., said Monday that if the Republicans regain a majority in the Senate, he will consider leaving the party, the Providence Journal-Bulletin reports.

• During its debate over the education bill Monday, the Senate voted 57-36 "to target more education money for school districts with the highest concentration of poor children," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Today the Senate will debate an amendment to the education bill that "would provide $50 million to help a maximum of 10 cities and three states create a private school voucher program for low-income students," Reuters reports. The amendment is "a scaled down version of Bush's hotly contested voucher initiative."

• The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision Monday "that public schools must allow church groups to use classrooms after school hours as long as a school doesn't endorse or show preference toward a group," the Dallas Morning News reports.
• The court also ruled that "police must get warrants before using devices that search through walls for criminal activity," AP reports.
• And the court ruled 5-4 in a Texas immigration case that "mothers and fathers can be treated differently when seeking citizenship for their children," the Houston Chronicle reports.

• "Israel said Tuesday it was giving its full backing to a U.S. plan, presented by CIA chief George Tenet, for a ceasefire with the Palestinians, dropping earlier reservations," UPI reports. "A senior Palestinian security official said the Palestinian Authority would give its response later Tuesday."
• As his predecessor Bill Clinton did, Bush "has backed off a campaign pledge to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and will keep it in Tel Aviv, at least for now," AP reports.

• Muslim rebels who are holding more than two dozen hostages in the Philippines said Tuesday that they beheaded an American hostage, AP reports. "The military was skeptical of the report."
• "China is shipping arms and explosives to Cuba in a sign of increased military cooperation between Beijing and Havana," the Washington Times reports.

• An announcement by Max Kennedy (D) Monday that he will not run in Massachusetts' 9th District "capped an unusual, and occasionally humiliating, four-month period during which the young Kennedy tested the waters for a candidacy," the Boston Globe reports. Kennedy said "he was not ready to submit to the rigors of a rough-and-tumble campaign."
• Kennedy's announcement "is expected to trigger a gold rush of candidates, from state lawmakers with nothing to risk in a special election, to former local politicians hoping their names can carry them in a relatively short campaign," the Boston Globe reports.

• The latest campaign finance filings in Virginia's 4th District race show Republican state Sen. Randy Forbes with a fund-raising lead over Democratic state Sen. Diane Watson going into the June 19 special election, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. However, the numbers do "not include the so-called soft-money contributions from national party committees, which are expected to far exceed the money raised by the campaigns." (NationalJournal.com's Ad Spotlight has the latest ads from both the campaigns and their respective parties.)
• "There were no surprises as two Democrats and five Republicans qualified Monday for a special election to replace resigning" Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., AP reports. The election will be held July 24.

• Virginia gubernatorial candidate Mark Warner (D) on Monday made his 28th trip to Southwest Virginia, where "he delivered a brief version of his campaign pitch -- that technology, particularly the Internet, has turned economies and politics inside out. It will take a guy that 'gets it' to bring prosperity to this region," the Washington Times reports.
• Polls in Virginia's Democratic primary will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. today, the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports. "Turnout is expected to be light" as voters chose candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general. Warner is unopposed in the gubernatorial category.
• Former Rep. Bob Franks, R-N.J., and Jersey City, N.J., Mayor Bret Schundler (R) showed up for their second debate last night in the GOP gubernatorial primary where they "clashed... over social issues ranging from gun control to abortion," the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• Meanwhile, the Democratic candidate, Jim McGreevey, "is launching a $1.9 million television advertising campaign today with two campaign commercials that will run in the New York, Philadelphia and Atlantic City," the Trenton Times reports.
• "Conservative" Illinois state Sen. Patrick O'Malley (R) "officially kicked off his campaign for governor Monday," becoming the "first officially declared GOP candidate for governor in 2002," the Chicago Tribune reports. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that O'Malley's announcement creates "the possibility of a Republican primary battle against incumbent George Ryan."
• Should Rep. Robert Ehrlich Jr., R-Md., decide not to run for governor, Maryland "GOP Chairman Michael S. Steele said there is a '50-50 chance' that the ticket will be headed by someone outside the ranks of politicians," the Baltimore Sun reports.
• California "GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bill Jones asserted Monday that" Los Angeles Republican Mayor Richard Riordan, "who is still exploring a bid for governor," has "no place running in a Republican primary," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• The San Francisco Chronicle reports that "last year Riordan gave $12,500 to Gov. Gray Davis [D], his potential opponent should Riordan make a gubernatorial campaign run."
• And California gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon (R) "met with Latino leaders" Monday "to rally support and educate himself about issues affecting residents of Santa Barbara County," the Santa Barbara News-Press reports.

• The New York Times reports that despite California's request "to be exempted from a Clean Air Act requirement to use fuel additives like ethanol to cleanse its gasoline," the Bush administration today will announce that the state must "use ethanol as an antipollution fuel additive, a move that the critics say could result in an increase of at least 5 cents a gallon at the pump this summer in that state."
• Meanwhile, Gov. Gray Davis "agreed Monday to lift air emission limits on heavily polluting power plants... as long as the electricity they produce is sold in the state," the Los Angeles Times reports.

• Larry Cockell, who led Clinton's "security detail with the Secret Service, has been promoted to be the agency's new deputy director," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
• "Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is transforming his first novel into a 20-hour TV miniseries," the New York Post reports. The "miniseries will reportedly have the two ingredients that standard TV blockbusters demand these days: steamy sex and graphic violence."
• Today, the cast and crew of the Bozo Show will tape its last episode, AP reports. "In August, WGN will air for the last time 'The Bozo Super Sunday Show,' the latest version of a series that once ran five days a week."