The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush gives speech tonight, Blair comes to Washington, Congress lobbies for National, clerics want bin Laden to leave voluntarily, campaign committees cease fund raising:

• President Bush will give a televised speech before a joint session of Congress at 9 p.m tonight, the Baltimore Sun reports. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said the speech was not to announce any military action but to explain "why we are entering this long struggle."
• Bush will meet with British Prime Minister Tony Blair today at the White House, the London Guardian reports. Blair wants "to ensure that Washington's inevitable military retaliation against its presumed attackers is only part of a much wider policy package."
• After a breakfast meeting in Paris on Thursday, French President Jacques Chirac and Blair "have pledged to back any 'effective' U.S. action against the 'menace' of terrorism," CNN.com reports.
• Bush also will meet with Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal today, Reuters reports. "Saudi Arabia has offered support and cooperation with its key ally but has not given details."
• "Palestinian gunmen shot dead a Jewish settler woman in her car in the West Bank on Thursday, marring a tentative cease-fire that is crucial to U.S. efforts to forge an international anti-terror coalition," Reuters reports.

• As part of "Operation Infinite Justice," the Pentagon sent aircraft and bombers to the Persian Gulf region Wednesday, the Houston Chronicle reports.
• The United States does not plan to invade Afghanistan, the London Times reports. The United States and Great Britain are "producing secret plans" for a 10-year "war on terrorism" that would utilize "a completely new military and diplomatic strategy to eliminate terrorist networks and cells around the world."
• Bush administration officials don't agree "over the scope and timing of its military response to last week's attack on the United States," the New York Times reports.
• The Pentagon announced Wednesday that it has "issued an order suspending discharges -- including those of service members who disclose their homosexuality," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

• The White House sent Congress "an $8 billion plan to stabilize the airline industry" last night, the Washington Post reports. The legislation would "give the commercial and cargo carriers an immediate cash infusion of $5 billion" and earmark an additional $3 billion for airport security, among other things.
• On Wednesday Sen. George Allen, R-Va., introduced a bill that would "exempt victims of last week's terrorist attacks from federal income and estate taxes," CongressDailyAM reports. "The House unanimously passed a similar bill last Thursday."
• "The House Administration Committee and the Capitol Police began briefing House staffers Wednesday on a new Capitol evacuation plan and other security changes," and some lobbyists now fear that they will not have the same level of access to the Capitol that they had before last week, CongressDailyAM reports.
• Members of Congress are lobbying to re-open Reagan National Airport, and "some on Capitol Hill are discussing changing the Congressional schedule if the airport of choice for most lawmakers remains closed permanently," Roll Call reports.
• Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., crossed the partisan divide Wednesday and said "she was looking for President Bush to lead the way for the United States," Reuters reports.
• On Wednesday congressional leaders met for "a series of unusual bipartisan meetings... both to gather ideas and also to underscore that they are serious about working closely together" on an economic stimulus package, the Washington Post reports.
• "Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan told congressional leaders yesterday that the economy 'froze' during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 and that lawmakers considering emergency action should slow down," the Washington Times reports.

• After Wednesday's "late-day comeback" in the stock market, stocks are expected to drop today "amid anxiety about pending military action and the precarious state of the nation's economy," CNNfn.com reports.
• The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday it is "prepared to go ahead with a sizable loan for Pakistan and is closely monitoring the financial situation in Turkey as it seeks to counter a world economic slowdown and support front-line states in the battle against terrorism," the New York Times reports.
• "The parent company of American Airlines said Wednesday it would lay off at least 20,000 employees," AP reports.
• British Airways announced Thursday it will cut 5,200 jobs, CNN.com reports.
• General Motors Corp. announced Wednesday that it will offer "zero-percent financing on all of its cars and trucks" in order to help the economy, the Detroit News reports.

• Islamic clerics in Afghanistan announced Thursday that they "have recommended to the ruling Taliban leadership that they ask accused terrorist Osama bin Laden to leave the country voluntarily," CNN.com reports.
• Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf gave a speech Wednesday urging Pakistanis to "choose wisdom over emotion and back his decision to help the United States in its war against terrorism," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• "A leading authority on Pakistan's nuclear programme" warned Wednesday that the United States must prepare for the possibility that Pakistan could lose "control of its nuclear weapons to supporters of the Taleban," the London Times reports.
• And exiled former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar told Reuters Thursday "that Afghanistan would become another Vietnam for the United States as Afghans would fight to repel foreign invaders."

• FBI agents "have arrested three men in Detroit after a search of their house uncovered airport-employee identification badges and a date book with hand-drawn diagrams of aircraft and runways," the New York Times reports.
• "At least 115 people have been detained in the FBI's probe," the New York Post reports.
• Saudi government officials "said yesterday that they have determined that at least two of the terrorists used the names of living, law-abiding Saudi citizens," and FBI officials said yesterday the terrorists "may have stolen the identities of other people, and their real names may remain unknown," the Washington Post reports.
• The FBI "this week subpoenaed computer records from at least two East Coast public libraries and has contacted several popular e-mail services, such as Microsoft Hotmail and Yahoo, in an effort to track" possible communications of the terrorists behind last week's attacks, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
• After visiting the Pentagon on Wednesday, Attorney General John Ashcroft said it is "'pretty clear' that a 'variety of foreign governments' were involved in supporting and protecting" the terrorist networks, FoxNews.com reports.
• A telephone call from a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11 "details for the first time the frantic, violent path of the doomed airliner as hijackers slit the throat of a passenger and stormed the cockpit," the Los Angeles Times reports.

• A six-year "struggle to uncover Osama bin Laden's financial network failed because American officials did not skillfully use the legal tools they had, did not realize they needed stronger weapons, and faced resistance at home and abroad," the New York Times reports.
• Federal officials "said their hunt for bin Laden's holdings is complicated by his likely reliance on the hawala, a 400-year-old, underground banking network with roots in Asia and the Middle East," the New York Post reports.
• The FBI has asked "major US banks to search their databases for any records linked to the suspects," the Boston Globe reports.
• SunTrust Bank "confirmed Wednesday that suspects in last week's attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had opened accounts at its Florida branches," the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports. As well, the FBI is looking into "suspicious securities maneuvers related to the hijackings on Sept. 11."

• Virginia gubernatorial candidate Mark Warner (D) on Thursday "renewed his call for a regional tax referendum" to pay for transportation projects, while his GOP opponent, Mark Earley, "condemned the proposal as ill-timed given the slumping economy," the Washington Post reports.
• A Mason-Dixon poll taken in mid-September "shows Warner leading Earley 46 percent to 40 percent," the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports.
• Texas Democrat Marty Akins "announced Wednesday that he is abandoning his gubernatorial campaign and will run for state comptroller," the Dallas Morning News reports. Atkins said he is "throwing his support for governor to front-running Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez, a Laredo businessman expected to spend as much as $30 million in the campaign."
• National Democratic and Republican campaign committees "pledged yesterday to refrain from fund raising and other political actions in the midst of the nation's plans for a war against terrorism," but "neither party was willing to say precisely how long it intends to honor the fund-raising moratorium," the Washington Times reports.
• Arkansas 03 candidates Jim Hendren (R) and Mike Hathorn (D) "headed into the final three weeks of the race to succeed" former Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., "with solid cash-on-hand leads over their respective primary foes," Roll Call reports.

• Washington's Metro system began opening stations at 5 a.m. today -- half an hour earlier than usual -- so that workers will have an easier time reaching their offices, the Washington Post reports. The Defense Department requested the change because more people are using the subway system instead of driving after the Pentagon attack.
• "From Death Row inmates at San Quentin State Prison to minimum-security inmates fighting on fire lines, thousands of convicts" at 10 of California's 33 prisons "are giving money to the American Red Cross and to funds established for the families of fallen police and firefighters," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
• FedEx and Sears "pulled out as 'Politically Incorrect' sponsors after host Bill Maher called past U.S. military actions 'cowardly,'" AP reports.
• "Unprecedented numbers of consumers" are purchasing gas masks, first-aid kits, bulletproof vests, guns and alarm systems, the Hartford Courant reports.