The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Afghans prepare for war, Bush targeted at G-8 meetings, Congress takes its time, Israel and Palestine plan truce, runoffs set in NYC and Ark.-03, Hollywood steps up fund raising:

• Pakistani officials said Wednesday they have reached an agreement with U.S. defense and intelligence officials on "major points of an operational plan that includes attacks on camps in Afghanistan," AP reports.
• Afghanistan's ruling Taliban "stepped up its preparations for war with the United States on Wednesday" after "Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar spoke on state-run Radio Shariat, saying that the country was ready and waiting for an attack," MSNBC.com reports.
• Thousands of people in Afghanistan protested possible U.S. attacks by "setting fire to buildings in the empty U.S. Embassy compound" Wednesday, UPI reports.
• The United States on Tuesday "promised aid for the Northern Alliance, Afghanistan's largest opposition force, and received pledges of help from four former Soviet republics across Afghanistan's northern border in its military campaign against terrorism," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• The Pentagon called 2,000 additional reservists for duty Tuesday, AP reports.
• Today NATO defense ministers in Brussels are debating their response to this month's attacks on the United States, Reuters reports.
• The Pentagon has renamed the fight against terrorism "Operation Enduring Freedom," a change from the original "Operation Infinite Justice," the Washington Times reports.

• During a press briefing Tuesday, President Bush "called on the citizens of Afghanistan to help the United States oust the Taliban" and "moved swiftly to shore up support for Attorney General John Ashcroft's plan to give law-enforcement authorities broad new powers," the Washington Times reports.
• "In an interview on French television on Monday," Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak "spoke in specific terms about" a threat against Bush, "saying that 'on June 13 of this year, we learned of a communiqué from" Osama bin Laden "saying he wanted to assassinate George W. Bush and other G8 heads of state during their summit in Italy,'" the New York Times reports.
• Afghan sources told UPI that "Afghanistan's former king, Zahir Shah, is being offered a role in the new government that the United States hopes to install in the country after ousting its Taliban rulers."
• Pakistan on Tuesday "warned the United States... against forging an alliance with rebels fighting the Taliban movement in northern Afghanistan," the Washington Post reports.
• "Saudi Arabia asked Taliban diplomats Wednesday to leave the kingdom within 48 hours, a day after it severed all ties with the regime," UPI reports.

• Watchdog groups said Tuesday that nuclear power plants in the United States remain vulnerable to attack, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
• "U.S. intelligence agencies have uncovered new information that Osama bin Laden and his terrorist group, al Qaeda, are acquiring from the Russian mafia components for weapons of mass destruction," the Washington Times reports.

• "About 20 of the people arrested after the Sept. 11" terrorist attacks "had obtained or tried to obtain special driver's licenses allowing them to transport explosives, poisons or other types of hazardous materials, federal officials said today," the New York Times reports. Authorities are still "investigating whether these men may have been part of a terrorist plot."
• "Interpol, the France-based international police organization, has issued an arrest warrant for Ayman al-Zawahri, the leader of Egypt's Islamic Jihad movement and Osama bin Laden's reputed top deputy," who "is being called the 'operational brains'" behind the attacks, the Boston Herald reports.
• "Spanish police have arrested six suspected associates of Osama bin Laden," CNN.com reports.
• Al-Kifah, a "self-described Islamic relief agency with a Boston address," appears "to be linked to a group cited this week by President Bush as being a major financial conduit for terrorist activities," the Boston Globe reports.
• "New evidence emerged yesterday that critical aspects of the worst terror attack in the country's history were planned in northern New Jersey -- where 13 of the hijackers had their lairs," the New York Post reports.

• Members of Congress seem "to be in no rush" to pass Bush's anti-terrorism package, and some are talking about "a compromise bill or passing only the package's noncontroversial portions and leaving the rest for later," AP reports.
• Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday that security needs to be increased on the U.S.-Canada border, the Toronto Star reports.
• Ashcroft also told the committee that "civil liberties will not be trampled in the Bush administration's effort to capture terrorists," the Washington Times reports.
• The Senate voted Tuesday to "table a measure that would have stopped the upcoming round of" military base closures, the Washington Times reports.
• Argenbright Security, which provides "40 percent of all the passenger screening at the nation's airports," said "its metal detectors cannot spot the small knives that federal authorities banned from planes after the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings" and "urged federal officials to consider pat-downs for most airline passengers to check for banned items," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

• Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin "advised Congress against cutting the capital gains tax" during a closed meeting of the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday, the New York Times reports.
• "The House overwhelmingly approved a $343 billion defense bill last night after diverting some money from President Bush's missile-defense program to counterterrorism efforts," the Washington Times reports.
• "Congressional leaders and budget analysts say it is possible that as a result of the attacks Sept. 11 and the response to them, the nation will run a deficit next year for the first time since 1997," USA Today reports.

• The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will hear a case to determine the constitutionality of Cleveland's school voucher program, which gives low-income students "$2,250 annually in public money to attend religious and other private schools in the city," the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

• During truce talks in the Middle East Wednesday, "Israel and the Palestinians agreed... on a series of confidence-building measures aimed at ending a year of fighting," AP reports. "The two sides said they would resume security coordination and exert maximum efforts to enforce a cease-fire."
• "Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian teenager in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday as Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat held talks nearby," Reuters reports.

• "Quarterly results from two major brokerage firms will be among the factors that could determine if U.S. stocks post a third straight day of gains" today, CNNfn.com reports.
• The Conference Board said Tuesday that "consumer confidence plunged more sharply than at any time since the last recession" before the attacks, which suggests "that the nation was moving quickly toward a recession even before the attacks," the New York Times reports.
• Members of OPEC meet today, and they are "unlikely to cut production," CNN.com reports.
• Economists told the Wall Street Journal that the economy "is headed for recession" but that it "will bounce back next year."
• "The U.S. poverty rate dipped last year to its lowest level in over a quarter-century, driven down by a healthy economy that helped a broad range of workers," AP reports.

• Proposals for re-developing the World Trade Center Site "range from the grandiose and ambitious to the small and intimate," the New York Times reports.
• "Aerial views" of the site "reveal the scale of devastation: At least 16 acres of pulverized concrete and steel -- a tenth of the city's office space -- have supplanted New York's dominant skyscrapers and their surrounding environment," the Washington Post reports.
• Calling it "the largest single rescue in the history of the United States," New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) said yesterday that on Sept. 11 "firefighters and emergency crews rescued at least 25,000 people from the blazing twin towers of the World Trade Center before the buildings collapsed," Agence France-Presse reports.

• "In a mayoral primary overshadowed by the terrorist attack on the city, Democratic rivals Mark Green and Fernando Ferrer this morning were headed to a runoff in 15 days," the New York Post reports.
• Michael Bloomberg (R), "the billionaire communications entrepreneur, trounced his opponent, Herman Badillo, to become the Republican mayoral candidate in the general election on Nov. 6," the New York Times reports.
• Giuliani "said yesterday that he is 'available' if people want him to keep his job," the New York Daily News reports. "For Giuliani to be eligible for a third term, either the City Council or the Legislature would have to pass a bill repealing" New York City's mayoral term limits law.

• "Voters in the Republican stronghold in northwestern Arkansas decided two special primaries Tuesday, choosing state Reps. Mike Hathorn and Jo Carson on the Democratic side and state Sen. Gunner DeLay and optometrist John Boozman in the GOP race," AP reports.
• The runoff is set for Oct. 16, and the general election will be Nov. 20, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

• Virginia gubernatorial candidate Mark Warner (D) on Tuesday "outlined a counterterrorism initiative," while GOP candidate Mark Earley "said the state has to do more to help police officers and firefighters," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• "Acting very much like the state's next governor," New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Jim McGreevey (D) "yesterday convened a high-profile group of regional planners, economists, public health professionals and others for a strategy session to plan New Jersey's long-term response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack," the Trenton Times reports.

• "Republican Richard Chalk, a Hilton Head Island Realtor, kicked off his campaign" for South Carolina's 2nd District seat on Tuesday, "calling for an end to political posturing and a new era of cooperation in Congress," the Columbia State reports.
• "Some Texas Republicans are urging" Sen. Phil Gramm (R) "to change his mind and seek re-election in the wake of the terrorist attacks, saying the nation's shaky economy demands leaders with experience," but a Gramm spokesman "said the senator will not reconsider his decision to leave office," the Dallas Morning News reports.
• Retired Army Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy "has decided against running next year as a Democrat against" Sen. John Warner R-Va., AP reports. "Kennedy, the highest-ranking woman ever to serve in the Army, had opened an exploratory campaign aimed at challenging Warner's re-election," but she "felt soliciting campaign contributions after the terrorist attacks two weeks ago would be inappropriate."

• Solicitor General Theodore Olson, whose wife Barbara K. Olson was on the plane that hit the Pentagon, has volunteered "to take on a far more prominent profile in lobbying for the anti-terrorism legislation," the Washington Post reports.
• Michael Jordan "issued his long-awaited statement Tuesday that he intends to resume his NBA playing career, this time as a member" of the Washington Wizards, the Chicago Tribune reports.

• "Appeals by Hollywood actors and musicians during an unprecedented telethon last week generated more than $150 million in pledges to benefit families of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attack victims," AP reports. "The money will be distributed through the United Way with no administrative costs deducted."
• Howard Stern "has put his shock-jock strength behind the World Trade Center relief effort, getting his legions of fans to donate more than $1.5 million so far to the Twin Towers Fund," the New York Post reports.
• "Comedy king Bill Cosby will trade gags with Jerry Seinfeld to help New York laugh again at a special Twin Towers charity show" to be held at Carnegie Hall on Oct. 8, with funds going "to the Twin Towers Fund and the New York Police and Fire Widow and Children Benefit Fund," the New York Post reports.