USA
Interrupting his vacation, President Bush was visiting two Western states to raise money for his reelection campaign and to promote his environmental policies. At his first stop, Bush was touring the devastation wrought by an early summer blaze in Summerhaven, Ariz.. The administration says the "Healthy Forests" initiative will help prevent huge wildfires. But environmental groups criticize it as a boon for logging companies. Later, Bush was to attend a $2,000-a-plate fund-raiser in Denver, his 11th such event this year. He already has raised $40 million for the 2004 presidential race.
A random drawing to pick the order in which more than 190 candidates appear on the ballot in the Oct. 7 vote to recall Gov. Gray Davis (D) was being held by California's secretary of state. Several Republican candidates, meanwhile, took aim Sunday at perceived frontrunner Arnold Schwarzenegger, questioning the movie star's ability to address issues such as the state's deep fiscal crisis. Schwarzenegger's campaign also said he voted in favor of Proposition 187, a 1994 initiative that denied social services to illegal immigrants and was deeply unpopular with the large Hispanic and Asian communities.
No change in interest rates is expected as Federal Reserve policymakers meet Tuesday. But market analysts said they'll be looking for a signal on how the central bank might curb rising long-term rates. Low long-term rates - which have driven the economy for the past two years - have shot up since the panel cut a key short-term rate to a 45-year low of 1 percent at its previous meeting in June.
A top antiterrorism official and the highest-ranked African American in federal law-enforcement, Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, will step down at the end of August, the Justice Department announced. A senior official said Thompson will join the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank.
Police in New Castle, Del., were looking for a motive in weekend shootings that killed two people, one of them the suspected gunman. A third person was wounded. Evidence found at the home of Kenneth Tripp, a former worker at MBNA America bank, linked him to attacks on an ex-supervisor and a coworker. Tripp's remains were found Sunday at a golf course.
Gregory Hines, who died Saturday in Los Angeles, was considered the greatest tap dancer of his generation and won a 1992 Tony Award for the musical "Jelly's Last Jam." Hines also starred in films with Billy Crystal and ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov, among others, and appeared often on TV.
