The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Ashcroft vote today, Fed's predictable move, Bush's CBC fence-mending, Lockerbie reaction, new govs in Jersey and Wisconsin, more escaped prisoners, Clinton's highs and lows, Skakel's adult trial, Giuliani's book deal:

• The vote to confirm John Ashcroft as attorney general in the full Senate will take place at 1:45 p.m. today, the Washington Times reports. After his expected confirmation, Ashcroft "plans to meet quietly with his Democratic critics."
• The Washington Post reports that a political action committee set up by Ashcroft may have acted illegally, giving "its fundraising list to Ashcroft's 2000 Senate campaign."

• The Federal Reserve board cut interest rates by half a percentage point on Wednesday in order to spur economic growth, the New York Times reports.
• The Commerce Department said Wednesday that "the United States economy grew at its slowest rate in more than five years during the final quarter of 2000," the New York Times reports.
• Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan "appears to be engaged in a game of psychology, struggling less to revive a moribund economy than to restore a sense of confidence to the nation's consumers and businesses," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Because the rate cut was expected, it did not have much of an effect on Wall Street, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• President Bush said Wednesday that the Congressional Budget Office's "new forecast of a $5.6 trillion, 10-year surplus" is "evidence that the government can afford his proposed $1.6 trillion tax cut," Reuters reports.
• Bush met with the Congressional Black Caucus on Wednesday, and he "won the goodwill of several members by promising to give serious attention to fixing problems with the nation's voting system," the Washington Post reports.
• During a meeting about religious organizations with leaders of Catholic charities on Wednesday, Bush joked "that he will make his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the U.S. ambassador to the African nation Chad," Reuters reports.
  
• Bush plans "modest increases" in the Pentagon's next budget, the New York Times reports.
• "Communitarianism" could be the catchword for Bush's ideology, the Washington Post reports. The word means placing "the importance of society ahead of the unfettered rights of the individual."
• The GOP broke many fundraising records this cycle, AP reports. While Bush "was becoming the first candidate to ever raise and spend $100 million," the RNC was raising "$326 million between Jan. 1, 1999, and Dec. 31, 2000."

• After Bush raised reservations, House Republican leaders have backed away "from the creation of a new select committee on electoral reform," Roll Call reports.
• Sen. Russ Feingold, R-Wis., "on Wednesday introduced legislation to halt all federal executions and to urge states to do the same," the Chicago Tribune reports.

• The White House on Wednesday said the split verdict in the trial of "two Libyans accused in the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103" was a "victory for an international effort," CNN.com reports. But the United States will not lift sanctions on Libya.
• Secretary of State Colin Powell and Rwandan President Paul Kagame met Wednesday and agreed "on the need to implement a peace agreement to end the war in Congo," AP reports.
• A bipartisan panel led by former Sens. Warren B. Rudman, R-N.H., and Gary Hart, D-Colo., recommended Wednesday that a new Cabinet-level agency be created "to assume responsibility for defending the nation against the increasing likelihood of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• The Pentagon said Wednesday that "former CIA director John M. Deutch did not compromise U.S. national security by storing classified information on unsecure computers while serving at the Defense Department," the Washington Post reports.

• Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., on Wednesday asked the General Accounting Office to investigate "vandalism at the White House by departing Clinton staffers," the Washington Times reports.
• Bill Clinton will give his first speech as a former president on Monday night, when he will "address 1,000 or so junk-bond investors and issuers Monday night at a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. annual high-yield conference in Boca Raton, Fla.," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• ABCNews.com reports that former President Clinton's new digs in Manhattan's Carnegie Towers "are a little bigger than the infield at Yankee stadium" and "more expensive than the office rents paid for all four other living ex-presidents combined."

• In New Jersey, Donald DiFrancesco (R) "humbly took possession of one of the nation's most powerful governor's offices," being sworn in to serve the remainder of Christie Todd Whitman's term, the New York Times reports.
• "DiFrancesco became governor automatically when Whitman's chief counsel, Robert Fabricant, delivered her letter of resignation to" the secretary of state's office at 10 a.m., the Trenton Times reports.
• Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Scott McCallum (R) "is scheduled to be sworn in as the state's 43rd governor at noon today," following Tommy Thompson's confirmation as secretary of Health and Human Services, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

• Virginia Lt. Gov. John Hager (R) "said he was not angry at" Gov. Jim Gilmore (R) "for initiating informal discussions to have him run instead for re-election as lieutenant governor," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. Instead, Hager "promised to go full speed ahead yesterday seeking the Republican nomination to run for governor."
• Rep. Rod Blagojevich, D-Ill., "has about $2 million in two political war chests that could be tapped for a gubernatorial bid," the Chicago Tribune reports.
• Illinois Gov. George Ryan (R) has been "paying former TV news anchor Mary Laney more than $2,000 a week since November to raise campaign funds for him -- a move Laney said should send a message about Ryan's re-election plans," the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Meanwhile, Ryan has "dipped into his campaign fund for more than $176,000 to pay legal fees from the licenses-for-bribes scandal."
• St. Paul, Minn., Mayor and 1998 gubernatorial candidate Norm Coleman (R) has "raised more than $85,000 toward a possible second bid for governor," the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

• "Six years after she was ousted in the Republican revolution of 1994, former Indiana Rep. Jill Long (D) is considering an attempt at a Congressional comeback in the open-seat race to succeed retiring Rep. Tim Roemer (D)," Roll Call reports.
• Former Rep. Clyde Holloway, R-La., may run in a new district to take over the seat of retiring Rep. John Cooksey, R-La., Roll Call reports. And on "the Democratic side could be another former House Member, Cleo Fields."

• "Six convicts, including three convicted murderers, escaped Tuesday from a maximum-security prison" in Alabama, AP reports. They "may have fled into dense, hilly forest that surrounds the prison, which is about 20 miles northeast of Birmingham in the north-central part of the state."
• "Tests on vacuum pumps powering flight instruments" on the plane that brought former Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan (D) to his death "so far have proved inconclusive, the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

• "A judge ruled Wednesday that" Michael Skakel, nephew of Robert Kennedy, "will stand trial as an adult and face up to 60 years in prison if convicted of murdering" 15 year-old Martha Moxley in 1975, the Hartford Courant reports.
• After being stuck inside a fallen building for five days following the earthquake in India last week, 24-year-old Viral Dalal, a New Jersey student, was pulled from the rubble on Tuesday, the New York Times reports. Dalal was visiting family in India at the time of the earthquake.
• New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) signed a $3 million book deal with Talk Miramax Books, the New York Post reports.
• "One of the Rev. Jesse Jackson's numerous tax-exempt charities gave his mistress money to help her buy a Los Angeles-area home," the Los Angeles Times reports.