The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Taliban delays bin Laden decision, Bush meets with Chirac and Blair, Congress considers airline bailout, markets attempt rebound, Condit has a challenger:

• "Talks are continuing on Tuesday between a Pakistani delegation and the Taleban, but a special session of 1,000 senior Afghan Islamic clerics, the Shura, called to discuss [Osama] Bin Laden's fate, was postponed for at least a day," BBCNews.com reports.
• A Pakistani government source said Tuesday that Taliban rulers in Afghanistan have discussed "extraditing Osama bin Laden to a country other than [the] United States" under certain conditions, AP reports.
• The Taliban's Bakhtar News Agency reported Tuesday that Taliban leaders are telling people in Afghanistan to "prepare for a holy war against the United States," AP reports. The Taliban still insists that bin Laden was not responsible for the attacks.
• The Taliban on Tuesday "fiercely denied reports that it had declared jihad against the United States," Agence France-Presse reports. But a spokesman "reiterated [the group] would do so automatically if Washington attacked."
• Taliban leaders have reportedly "moved missiles and thousands of troops to the border with Pakistan," the London Times reports.
• "A radical Indonesian Muslim group on Tuesday threatened to attack the U.S. Embassy and seek the expulsion of Americans in Jakarta if Washington carries out revenge strikes against any Islamic nation," the Washington Post reports.
• "Sources tell CBS News that federal investigators have recovered physical evidence from the cars and homes of the dead hijackers indicating if the 19 hijackers failed in Tuesday's mission they had an alternative target -- it would have been hit with more conventional weapons."

• French President Jacques Chirac will arrive in Washington today, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to arrive on Thursday. The two leaders will "show solidarity and discuss with President Bush their contributions to a coalition against terrorism," the New York Times reports.
• "Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Tuesday he had informed the United States he is ready to join... Bush's global coalition against terrorism," Agence France-Presse reports.
• "Japan's ruling bloc on Tuesday began discussing a new law that would allow logistical support for any U.S. military retaliation" against last week's terrorist attacks, Reuters reports.
• Bush's reference to the fight against terrorism as a "crusade" has "provoked a wave of condemnation throughout the Arab world," the Boston Globe reports. White House officials told one leader that "it was not part of the official message the president was trying to send."
• Bush visited a Washington mosque Monday and "appealed to the public to get back to everyday business and not turn against their Muslim neighbors," AP reports. Since last week, the FBI has "opened 40 hate crime investigations into reported attacks on Arab-Americans."
• Attorney General John Ashcroft said on CNN's "Larry King Live" last night that "he is very concerned there may be more terrorist assaults planned against the United States," CNN.com reports.

• Bush said Monday that bin Laden is wanted "dead or alive," and during a visit to the Pentagon on Tuesday the president "continued to hammer home an ominous message that the United States was preparing for a long war against terrorism that likely would include American casualties," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Monday that even though the ban on state-sponsored assassination remains in place, it will not affect the fight against terrorism because "the nation would be acting in self-defense," the Boston Globe reports.
• General Joseph Ralston, NATO's supreme allied commander, said Tuesday that "casualties would be unavoidable among U.S. forces when they retaliated against the perpetrators of last week's attacks," Reuters reports.

• "The FBI is investigating whether some people detained as part of the probe into last Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center may have been planning other hijackings that went awry," the Washington Post reports.
• French officials "confirmed Monday" that Habib Zacarias Moussaoui, a suspect "being held by the FBI for questioning in the nation's worst terrorist attack," is "considered a well-known associate of Osama bin Laden," the Chicago Tribune reports.
• German police are "hunting three suspected accomplices," the Washington Post reports.
• Intelligence officials told the Washington Times on Monday that they are "investigating ties between the terrorists who carried out suicide airliner attacks and associates of Osama bin Laden based in Albania."
• "At least 49 people questioned in the so-called PENTTBOM investigation" are "being held on immigration violations," the Dallas Morning News reports.
• In Broward County, Fla., "court orders were executed to collect computer information from public libraries where someone fitting the description of Mohamed Atta, the man emerging as a leader of the terrorist group, was seen using computers with Internet access," the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports.
• Federal officials are attempting to narrow the scope of their investigation "by milking information from an elite cadre of government informants who have direct knowledge of Bin Laden," the New York Daily News reports.
• FBI Director Robert Mueller "continued to insist yesterday that federal authorities had no reason to suspect Islamic extremists were training at U.S. flight schools before last week's suicide hijackings, even as more evidence surfaced raising questions about those assertions," the Boston Globe reports.
• One reason "no one stopped" five Middle Eastern men who purchased "one-way tickets with cash, arriving late to Boston's Logan International Airport on the fateful morning of Sept. 11 and boarding the plane" was to avoid discrimination lawsuits, the Washington Times reports.
• The FBI has is recruiting people who speak Arabic, Persian or Pashtun to help with the investigation, the Los Angeles Times reports. However, "not many native English speakers are fluent in these Middle Eastern tongues, and many native speakers of these languages are wary of working with the American government."

• Congress is expected to "move quickly this week to help the airline industry cope with economic losses," AP reports. "The House could pass legislation providing at least $15 billion in grants and credit to the industry."
• The airlines on Monday increased their request for a bailout to $24 billion, USA Today reports.
• During yesterday's trading, airline stocks were hit the hardest, and defense stocks "soared," USA Today reports.
• US Airways, which is based in Arlington, Va., will cut 11,000 jobs "and trim its flight schedule by 23 percent" to make up for the financial losses it suffered for canceling flights last week and for an expected slump in flight bookings, the Baltimore Sun reports.
• "American, United, Delta and Northwest said they will reduce flights by about 20 percent, but didn't specify layoffs," the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports. "That follows Continental Airlines' announcement Sunday it will slash 12,000 jobs and cut 20 percent of flights."
• Bush "signaled yesterday that he was prepared to support a new tax cut to stimulate the economy and would support a significant bailout of the U.S. airline industry in an effort to prevent last week's terrorist attack from tipping the economy into a recession," the Washington Post reports.

• Today the markets will try "to bring themselves up from the lowest levels in more than three years, but may not find that an easy task as they mark the one-week anniversary of the worst terrorist attack against the United States," CNNfn.com reports.
• Stock markets around the world are "struggling to find their balance" today, BBCNews.com reports. The markets in Tokyo and South Korea showed gains, while Hong Kong and Singapore markets dropped, and European markets showed a slight drop after a slow start.
• "European stocks fell on concern interest rate cuts in Europe and the U.S. won't be enough to stave off recession," Bloomberg reports.
• "Oil-dependent Gulf Arab economies will suffer in the medium term following the US terror attacks as demand for crude drops," Agence France-Presse reports.
• The CIA has asked investigators in London to look into "suspicious sales of millions of shares before last Tuesday's attacks in America in the belief that the paper trail will lead to the terrorists," the London Times reports.

• "A Virgin Airlines jumbo jet flying from Heathrow [England] to New York had to be diverted to Canada following a bomb threat" on Tuesday, BBCNews.com reports.
• A traveler with "what is believed to be a knife in his luggage waltzed through security yesterday unchallenged, setting off a fruitless search that shut down" part of Logan International Airport, the Boston Herald reports.
• Today the U.S. Postal Service will resume shipment of letters on commercial airlines, AP reports.
• Aviation experts are exploring the possibility that "advanced fuels may one day make commercial planes safer, less likely to flare with the intensity of the jets that slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon," the New York Times reports.
• Real-estate magnate Larry Silverstein "tearfully vowed yesterday to rebuild the World Trade Center and its glorious Twin Towers -- even though he only leases the destroyed property," the New York Post reports.
• The Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island "is now a fortress set up for the more than 1 million tons of debris that once was the World Trade Center," Long Island Newsday reports.
• The Rev. Jerry Falwell "apologized Monday for saying God had allowed terrorists to attack America because of the work of" civil liberties groups, abortion rights supporters, gays and feminists, AP reports. Falwell said his comments "were ill-timed" and "insensitive."

• National Republican committees "steered $1.1 million toward" Virginia gubernatorial nominee Mark Earley (R) this summer, "replenishing his campaign for governor just in time for a TV ad push" featuring Virginia's GOP governor and U.S. senators, the Washington Post reports. The spot will air across the state and is the first time Earley will broadcast "in the expensive media market of Northern Virginia."
• New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler (R) "called a news conference at his headquarters to say he was resuming the business of politics, but with a new focus: on finding ways to defend the state against terrorism and to speed the rebuilding of the New York and New Jersey regional economy," the New York Times reports.
• North Carolina state Rep. Dan Blue (D) "filed a statement of candidacy with the Senate, a move that allows him to raise money for a campaign to succeed" Sen. Jesse Helms (R), the Charlotte Observer reports. Blue "described his campaign as 'suspended' and said he'll postpone a formal announcement until the legislature approves a state budget."
• "Confident that he can win an election in the redrawn 18th Congressional District," California state Sen. Dick Monteith (R) announced Monday that he will seek the seat now held by Rep. Gary Condit (D), Scripps-McClatchy Western Service reports.
• A California judge ordered the American Taxpayers Alliance, which "ran television ads attacking Gov. Gray Davis" (D), to "identify its financial backers," AP reports.