The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bipartisan spirit is lagging, a new anti-nuclear organization, Israeli protests, and a former Louisiana governor goes to prison. End Of An Era?

• The era of bipartisanship may already be over, the Washington Post reports. "Democrats threaten to oppose three of Bush's Cabinet appointments," and the president-elect and his aides "vow publicly to stick to their campaign agenda without any concession to Democrats."
• Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., "is drafting legislation aimed at forcing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to impose regional wholesale price caps on electricity" because of the rising prices in California, CNN.com reports.
• Ted Turner and former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn (D) on Monday "unveiled Turner's latest philanthropic venture--an organization called the Nuclear Threat Initiative, dedicated to reducing the risk posed by nuclear weapons and other means of mass destruction," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. A bipartisan board that includes several senators will "govern the organization."
• Today the Senate will begin debating whether to pay "a large chunk of the debt" the United States owes to the United Nations, Reuters reports.

• Many Israelis were in Jerusalem Monday to protest the United States' plan to split up that city, the New York Times reports.
• Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (D) "ended a two-week trip to a tense and anxious Israel yesterday with a tribute to the slain Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin," the Baltimore Sun reports.
• "A key suspect in the attack on the USS Cole told authorities in his confession that he believes the suicide bombers acted on the orders of Osama bin Laden," AP reports.
• The United Nations has found that "hunger now afflicts 830 million people around the world because of natural disaster, armed conflict and a grinding poverty that consigns the poor to chronic malnutrition," New York Times News Service reports.
• When its members meet next week, OPEC is expected "to slash production by about 1.5 million barrels" in order to avoid "a repeat of the 1998-99 oil-price crash that left its members with lingering economic problems at home," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• "Secretary of State Madeleine Albright this week ends four years of globe-trotting to some of the world's farthest-flung corners with a more predictable trip to close allies in Western Europe," Reuters reports.

• The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear a Massachusetts case to decide whether "a state rule that sharply restricts outdoor advertising for cigarettes, cigars and smokeless tobacco" is constitutional, the Washington Post reports.
• The court turned down a Virginia appeals case, letting stand a law that "generally bars state employees from using state computers to gain access to sexually explicit material," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

• Mike Dombeck, head of the Forest Service, on Monday "issued a policy... barring the cutting of old-growth timber on public lands," the New York Times reports. The policy is expected to be a challenge to the incoming Bush administration.
• Following the dismissal last month of the agency's only investigator, the Environmental Protection Agency has "put a hold on all investigations of mismanagement at hazardous waste cleanup sites requested by members of Congress," the Washington Times reports.
• An investigation in Texas has determined that "lax security in a prison guard tower and other areas of the Connally prison unit near Kenedy led to the escape of the seven inmates accused of killing an Irving police officer," the Dallas Morning News reports. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice will "be held accountable."

• "The American Airlines proposal to buy 20 percent of US Airways and swallow up the ailing Trans World Airlines is meeting stiff resistance from consumer advocates and some politicians," the New York Times reports.
• "The Ford Motor Company and Bridgestone/Firestone have both agreed to settle a high-profile lawsuit involving a Texas woman who was left a quadriplegic after the Explorer she was riding in rolled over because the tread separated on one of its tires," the New York Times reports. The New York Times also reports that today Ford will announce plans to begin producing "hybrid" Ford Explorers in 2004.

• On Monday, "striking Seattle Times workers ratified the company's latest contract offer... ending a 49-day strike," the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.
• Time Inc. will publish On, a new magazine "about life on the Internet," in March, the New York Times reports.

• Former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards (D) on Monday was sentenced to 10 years in a federal prison for his conviction on corruption charges in May, the Baton Rouge Advocate reports.
• New Hampshire state Rep. Tom Alciere (R), who has been criticized for his views about police, said Monday that he would "resign if the House finds a substitute sponsor for each of the bills he has introduced and guarantees each one will be introduced on the House floor for a roll call vote," the Manchester Union-Leader reports.
• President Clinton awarded 28 Presidential Citizens Medals Monday, CNN.com reports. Recipients included Muhammad Ali, Hank Aaron and Elizabeth Taylor.
• Hillary Rodham Clinton is searching for someone to co-write her memoir, AP reports.

• It's almost impossible to avoid hearing one of the many Internet "fables" making its way around the Web, the Washington Times reports. "Recent cyberspace myths have included the urgent warning that the post office will try to add a surcharge to all e-mails" and "the claim that Nostradamus predicted the election of George W. Bush in a cryptic 1555 reference to ascension of 'the village idiot.'"