The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush visits Mexico, Dems offer tax plan, Barak accepts defense post, committee subpoenas Clinton aides, Thompson makes a decision, two small planes crash, Davis attempts power rescue, Fitzgerald begins fund-raising role:

• President Bush will make his first foreign trip today to visit Mexican President Vicente Fox at Fox's ranch "near the village of San Cristobal," CNN.com reports. "Both leaders will have economic cooperation as their No. 1 priority," and "the California power crisis has added urgency to a Bush goal of creating more cooperation on energy production and sharing."
• Immigration also will be a top issue. "Fox and Bush are expected to announce the formation of a cabinet-level 'immigration group' aimed at working out new solutions," the Washington Post reports.
• The two leaders also "are poised to remove the regulatory roadblocks now preventing U.S. and Mexican trucks from carrying long-haul freight into the interior of each nation," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Bush will be on familiar turf when he visits Mexico, the Los Angeles Times reports. He "has visited the country about a dozen times. And, having served for six years as the governor of a large border state, he is no stranger to the panoply of controversies between the United States and Mexico."
• On Thursday, a group of senators "proposed suspending for one year an annual evaluation of Mexico's cooperation in fighting drugs -- an evaluation Mexicans find irksome," AP reports.

• Vice President Dick Cheney spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday and "told conservatives... that the administration will be 'honest and civil' and will 'show a decent regard for other points of view' in the fights it faces with Congress," the Washington Post reports.
• The White House apologized Thursday to Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, "for failing to invite" her "to join President Bush on his visit this week to" the military base in Fort Stewart, Ga., AP reports.
• Today Bush is expected to "issue four executive orders... that are opposed by organized labor," Reuters reports. "The move also calls into question the standing within the administration of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao."
• In his first talk to Congress on Feb. 27, Bush will discuss Social Security, the Wall Street Journal's "Washington Wire" reports. He "will give prominence to his privatization plan and may give more details on how to proceed with an overhaul commission."
• Charles James, "a veteran antitrust lawyer who helped craft government rules on corporate mergers" and who "has a reputation for conservatism on antitrust matters," has been nominated to head the Justice Department's antitrust division, AP reports.

• Democrats in Congress introduced their own tax plan Thursday in response to Bush's call for a $1.6 trillion tax cut, AP reports. The plan would cut "$750 billion... over the next decade" and "would be aimed more at lower- and middle-income Americans than Bush's."
• Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee, R-R.I., on Thursday became the second Republican senator to say "he could not vote for Bush's proposal because it is too big," the Washington Post reports. And "Republicans told Bush at a late afternoon meeting at the White House that he does not yet have the votes needed to pass the tax cut proposal in the Senate."
• Within the Democratic party, the moderate-to-conservative Blue Dog Coalition and the moderate New Democrat Coalition may develop their own tax plan, CongressDaily reports.
• Sens. John Breaux, D-La., and Bill Frist, R-Tenn., on Thursday introduced a "plan to modernize the Medicare program and make medicine more affordable to retirees," Reuters reports.
• "A bipartisan group of lawmakers launched a bid Thursday to overturn President Bush's ban on giving federal funds to international family planning groups that use other funds to pay for abortion-related activity," the Los Angeles Times reports.

• "Some of the 16 civilians aboard the U.S. Navy submarine that smashed into a Japanese trawler last week were donors to a private, nonprofit foundation that is restoring the World War II battleship Missouri and whose honorary chairman is former president George Bush," the Washington Post reports.
• Bush on Thursday "ordered a review of all policies on civilian activity during military exercises" in light of the USS Greeneville tragedy, MSNBC.com reports.

• Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak "is said to have accepted the post of defence minister in a government of national unity headed by" Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon, BBCNews.com reports.
• "Serbia pledged Thursday to expel or extradite non-Yugoslavs sought by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, meaning the Yugoslav republic may no longer be a haven for suspects from Bosnia and Croatia," AP reports.

• The House Government Reform Committee on Thursday prepared subpoenas for three of Bill Clinton's former aides -- former chief of staff John Podesta, adviser Bruce Lindsey and counsel Beth Nolan -- to "testify on White House deliberations over the last-minute pardon of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich," Reuters reports.
• The White House won't interfere with the investigation into Rich's pardon, even though Bush said earlier this week that it is time to "move on," the Washington Times reports.
• And, "with Mr. Clinton still defending his pardon of" Rich, "pardons on the state level are coming under increased scrutiny, particularly those that involve accusations of favoritism or unvarnished politics," the New York Times reports.
• Clinton called Geraldo Rivera on Thursday and said "he is 'bewildered' by the controversy over his last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich and he blamed Republicans for fueling the criticism," AP reports.
• Meanwhile, the Senate Intelligence Committee has begun "investigating the circumstances surrounding the presidential pardon of former CIA Director John Deutch," Reuters reports.
• New Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe "confirmed Thursday that he urged Mr. Clinton to consider pardoning James H. Lake," who is a Washington lobbyist, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., announced yesterday that he will not run for governor, ending "months of speculation," the Nashville Tennessean reports. Thompson said that he "probably will seek re-election in 2002."
• Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., "will make the announcement" that he is running for the seat which will be vacated by Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., in 2002, "in a fly-around the state" Wednesday, the Columbia State reports.
• Illinois Gov. George Ryan (R) "dug into his campaign fund for $6,000 in cash 'gifts' to the caregiver of his mother-in-law in 1998," AP reports. Ryan has not yet announced whether he will run for re-election.

• "Two light planes collided off the California coast near Long Beach Thursday afternoon," CNN.com reports. One is dead and three are still missing.
• In Webb Lake, Wis., a single-engine plane crashed, killing "a popular Minnesota flight instructor, a student pilot and their wives coming home from a Valentine's Day dinner," AP reports.
• California Gov. Gray Davis (D) "is expected to unveil a rescue plan today for California's near-bankrupt utilities that includes buying their transmission lines and putting their parent corporations on the hook for some of their $12.7 billion debt," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
• New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) stepped "into another First Amendment minefield" yesterday, saying "he wants to slap 'decency standards' on artwork at city-funded museums after a photo depicting Jesus as a nude woman was unveiled at the Brooklyn Museum of Art," the New York Daily News reports.

• Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., has been named "chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee's premier contributors club, called the Republican Senatorial Trust, at the same time he is embroiled in a deepening feud with Illinois' top Republicans," the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
• Former Rep. Rick Lazio, R-N.Y., is considering a run for county executive in Nassau County, the New York Times reports.
• "Former President Jimmy Carter has published a notice seeking a limited amount of 1930s-vintage farm implements and farmhouse furnishings" to "complete the furnishing of [his] boyhood home," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
• Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh let the deadline to appeal to President Bush for clemency pass "without filing the 10-page form with the U.S. Justice Department," the Daily Oklahoman reports.