The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush's business alarms, Olson's new job, TV's new election night rules, McCain's latest defection, Japan's formal protest, Clinton's new investigation, Frank's front-runner dibs, Florida's uncounted votes, Kansas' new curriculum:

• Speaking to a group of 1,500 National Guard members in West Virginia on Wednesday, President Bush said that "Guard and Reserve forces will likely become more involved in domestic anti-terrorism work" in the future, "as the nation's security threats change and active-duty military staffing increases," the Charleston Gazette reports.
• The crowd was "thrilled" to see the President, the Charleston Daily Mail reports. The Washington Post reports that "the reception for Bush" was "a contrast to so many service members' discomfort with" former President Clinton.
• Bush has retained one of Clinton's environmental executive orders: "a market-driven air quality program that lets companies buy and trade pollution rights in selected states," the Washington Post reports.
• "The Bush administration is planning broad cuts in government subsidies to U.S. businesses, alarming many corporate executives who expected more from a Republican White House," the Wall Street Journal reports.

• President Bush yesterday nominated Theodore Olson, who "successfully argued Bush's case before the Supreme Court during last year's disputed election," to be solicitor general, "the Justice Department official who represents the federal government before the Supreme Court," the Washington Post reports.
• The New York Times profiles Larry Thompson, Bush's nominee for deputy attorney general, who in 1991 "went before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify to the intellect and character of his longtime friend Clarence Thomas."
• "William S. Farish III, a longtime friend of President Bush's parents and Britain's Queen Elizabeth, is nearing final administration clearance for nomination to serve as ambassador to Britain," the Houston Chronicle reports.

• Testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday, the heads of ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC said "that in all future elections the television networks will wait until voting has finished in any given state before they declare a winner there," and they will "seek improvements in the projection system that has been in use," ABCNews.com reports.
• The House Judiciary Committee passed a bankruptcy reform bill Wednesday similar to the one "approved by both houses of Congress last year but pocket vetoed by" Clinton, National Journal News Service reports.
• The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will begin hearings on Bush's education reform plan today, the Washington Post reports. "Leaders of both parties say the political environment is much more favorable on education reform than last year."
• The Senate Finance Committee will not consider "Bush's campaign proposal for a fundamental restructuring of Medicare," instead opting to "forge a consensus this year on legislation quickly adding prescription drug benefits to the program," the New York Times reports.
• The fight in Congress to abolish the estate tax is dwindling because of the focus on Bush's income tax cut plan, the Los Angeles Times reports.
• All but one of the Senate Republicans are urging Bush "to nominate former Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., for a federal judgeship," Roll Call reports. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is the only Republican who disagrees with the idea.
• McCain also is "considering sponsoring legislation that would give the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products," Roll Call reports.
• Sen. James M. Jeffords, R-Vt., "has become the first Senate Republican to publicly oppose President Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut," the Washington Post reports.

• "The search for nine people still missing from the Japanese fishing trawler that sank after being hit by a U.S. nuclear submarine" last week is likely to end today, CNN.com reports.
• Adm. Thomas Fargo, the commander of the Navy's Pacific Fleet, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday that the captain of the USS Greeneville should have seen that the submarine "was surfacing directly beneath a fishing trawler," the Washington Post reports.
• The Coast Guard said Wednesday that the submarine "was two nautical miles outside a Navy submarine training area" at the time of the accident, USA Today reports. "The Coast Guard initially reported that the accident Friday occurred within a 14-by-4 mile 'test and trial area.'"
• Japan's foreign minister, Yohei Kono, made a "formal protest" to Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday over the "admission that civilian guests were at the controls" of the submarine, BBCNews.com reports. Kono said that "it is an extremely serious matter if civilian participation in the surfacing manoeuvre led somehow to the accident."

• Israeli troops killed a Palestinian man today "as soldiers foiled an attempt by armed Palestinians to enter houses in the Jewish settlement of KfarDarom," CNN.com reports.
• The death toll from the earthquake in El Salvador rose to 255 on Wednesday, AP reports.

• The U.S. attorney in New York began a preliminary criminal investigation Wednesday "into the circumstances of President Bill Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich," the New York Times reports.
• Clinton will deliver "the keynote speech at an Oracle Corp. convention Monday," and there is talk that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison "is trying to persuade his old political friend to fill a vacant seat on the company's board of directors," AP reports.
• "The Senate Ethics Committee has cleared" New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D) $8 million book deal, concluding that it "doesn't violate ethics rules or pose a conflict of interest," Roll Call reports.

• The Census Bureau on Wednesday "released more evidence that last spring's census was the best ever," the Washington Times reports. There was "'a significant reduction' in the undercount of blacks, Hispanics and Indians on reservations."
• But the census still failed to count "about 2.7 million to 4 million people," USA Today reports. Arguments over whether to adjust the numbers "to compensate for the undercount," which Democrats favor and Republicans oppose, are "bound to heat up."
• The census argument could end up in the Supreme Court, the Wall Street Journal reports. President Bush wants to challenge the use of adjusted numbers, which could help Democrats in the redistricting process.

• "Two top Democrats, including Denver Mayor Wellington Webb's (D) wife, are eyeing primary challenges to" Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., "creating the potential for a costly and racially divisive race that DeGette warned could hurt her party's bid to oust Sen. Wayne Allard (R)," Roll Call reports.
• Former Rep. Bob Franks, R-N.J., "yesterday staked claim to next year's Republican nomination for U.S. Senate" in a conference call, during which he "said he deserves to be considered 'the front-runner'" after his close race against Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., in 2000, the Trenton Times reports.
• Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, started gearing up for her re-election bid in 2002 yesterday, naming banking executive William Ryan as finance chairman and accounting executive Leo Loiselle as treasurer of a campaign committee, AP reports.
• William E. Simon Jr. (R), "a Los Angeles investment banker and political unknown, has launched an exploratory campaign" to run against California Gov. Gray Davis (D), the Los Angeles Times reports.

• "Even in the Republican bastion of Seminole County, a hand recount of all presidential ballots may have helped" former Vice President Al Gore. An Orlando Sentinel review of ballots "that cannot be read by machines" found 48 votes for Gore and 35 for Bush.
• The state of California "prepared to spend $500 million more on emergency power purchases, raising the tally to nearly $2 billion," the Sacramento Bee reports.
• "The Kansas State Board of Education voted 7-3 to approve new science standards" that will allow the teaching of evolution in public schools, the Topeka Capital-Journal reports.
• In Georgia, a Baptist minister who was refereeing a basketball game between 7- and 8-year-olds, is accused of knifing the team's coach, Fulton County Marshal Jerry Sweeney, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.