The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Budget goes to Congress, Bush travels south, earthquake shakes Pacific Northwest, lawmakers take up bankruptcy, Greenspan notes downturn, Israel eyes occupied territory, yet another Clinton relative requests pardon, 2001 gov hopefuls raise cash, Florida deals with drought, Gore brings in Murdock, Moseley-Braun considers pecan farming:

• After President Bush released his $1.96 trillion budget proposal on Wednesday, "the House Ways and Means Committee scheduled a vote for today on the largest component of the tax plan -- the $958 billion reduction in income taxes," the Washington Post reports. Click here to read Bush's budget proposal.
• The full House could begin debating Bush's tax-cut plan "as early as next week," USA Today reports. "Democrats say Republicans are rushing through a tax cut that could send the budget back into the red."
• "Getting Congress to exercise fiscal restraint at a time of plenty may be even harder for the president than selling his $1.6 trillion, 10-year tax cut," AP reports.
• The plan, though "light on details," "included cuts and slower growth for a wide range of programs," the Dallas Morning News reports.
• Bush's budget -- released on the same day Seattle was hit with an earthquake -- calls for ending the Project Impact disaster preparedness program, "a federal program designed to help communities protect themselves against the effects of natural disasters," AP reports. Seattle was one of the first Project Impact cities.
• The plan also includes "a prescription drug benefit for seniors and a doubling of federal funds for disease research," UPI reports.
• Experts on both sides of the issue believe "there are significant hurdles to overcome before the U.S. can deploy a national missile defense system," which Bush supports in his budget, UPI reports.

• Bush will visit a Little Rock, Ark., elementary school today "as part of a five-state, two-day trip to promote his budget plan and education agenda," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Bush will give two speeches in Atlanta today to conclude his tour.
• In Beaver, Pa., on Wednesday, Bush "acknowledged that there would be opposition to his plan, including its call to limit much of the government's discretionary spending to an increase of 4 percent," the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. The Omaha World-Herald reports that Bush received cheers when he visited Omaha, Neb., on Wednesday.
• Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., who so far is the only Democratic senator to support Bush's tax-cut plan, "sharply criticized his party's political leaders" on Wednesday for their "class-warfare attacks against" the plan, the Washington Times reports.
• A task force has been created "to study reopening Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House," the Washington Post reports.

• "Lawmakers said the limestone" Capitol dome in Seattle "rippled like origami" yesterday as a 6.8 magnitude earthquake shook the region at 10:54 a.m. local time, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.
• The biggest earthquake in Washington in more than 50 years incurred estimated damages of $1 billion, the Seattle Times reports.
• "The lone death was a 66-year-old woman from Burien, a Seattle suburb near the airport, who died of a heart attack after the quake," CBSNews.com reports.
• "About 250 people were reported injured... at least three of them in serious condition but none with injuries considered critical," AP reports.
• "The temblor was also felt in nearby cities such as Vancouver, British Columbia, and Portland, Oregon, and as far away as Salt Lake City, 700 miles away," Reuters reports.
• Not "many aftershocks were expected because of the depth of the quake," CNN.com reports.
• Bush "said his new emergency management team, headed by recently confirmed Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Joe Allbaugh, is heading to the area and offering to bring any members of the state's congressional delegation along," ABCNews.com reports.
• AP lists major American earthquakes.

• On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a "bill that would overhaul the nation's bankruptcy system and make it far more difficult for people to wipe out their debts," the New York Times reports. AP reports that the House is ready to vote on its bankruptcy reform legislation.
• The Senate also voted unanimously to confirm "Paul Wolfowitz, a veteran of senior positions at the Defense and State Departments, to be deputy secretary of defense," Reuters reports.
• Republican committee chairmen want a $224 million funding increase for congressional committees, Roll Call reports.

• In testimony to Congress yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the economic slowdown "has yet to run its full course," the New York Times reports. Click here to read Greenspan's testimony.
• Analysts are now wondering if "the great bull market of the 1990s" has "finally given way to a bear market," the Washington Post reports. The stock market fell after Greenspan's testimony.

• Attorney General John Ashcroft "met Wednesday with black lawmakers who had opposed his confirmation as head of the Justice Department" to talk about racial profiling, AP reports. Ashcroft said he will investigate "how frequent these stops are, who is affected, where is this happening."
• Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman said Wednesday that the Bush administration "will enforce rather than challenge rules issued in the waning days of the Clinton presidency that go after diesel trucks and buses as a source of dirty air," AP reports.

• Israel is considering "reoccupying territory controlled by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority," the Washington Post reports.
• Shimon Peres will become Israel's foreign minister, Ha'aretz News reports.
• "Serbian prosecutors are ready to lay formal charges of corruption against the former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic," BBCNews.com reports.

• Former President Clinton's brother-in-law Tony Rodham said Wednesday that he "helped obtain a presidential pardon for a Tennessee couple last March over the objections of the Justice Department," the New York Times reports. Edgar Allen Gregory Jr. and Vonna Jo Gregory are "major campaign contributors to both Democrats and Republicans" who "contributed to the Senate campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton."
• Congressional investigators were permitted to look at a list of "top-dollar contributors to former President Clinton's library project" for 45 minutes on Wednesday "to find out if such donations bought last-minute pardons," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. In return, "Congress will honor the organization's privacy concerns and won't force foundation president Skip Rutherford to testify today."
• "Denise Rich is talking with federal prosecutors about cooperating in their investigation of whether her ex-husband bought a pardon with political donations," the New York Daily News reports.

• Retired Army Lt. Col. Jack Hoschouer has been identified "as the 'old friend' whom suspected Russian spy Robert P. Hanssen suggested the KGB recruit as a spy," the Washington Times reports.
• One of Hanssen's duties as an FBI agent was to "carry secret intelligence documents between the State Department and FBI headquarters," the Washington Post reports.
• Hanssen's wife said she "had no suspicion that her husband might be involved in espionage and knew nothing about hundreds of thousands of dollars that he was purported to have received as spy payments," the New York Times reports.

• The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Congress may not prohibit "lawyers in the federally financed legal services program from going to court on behalf of their indigent clients to challenge the validity of welfare laws and regulations," the New York Times reports.
• The court also voted unanimously "to strike down a Missouri law that required a ballot label identifying congressional candidates who oppose term limits," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
• And the court heard the case of former Colorado Sen. Tim Wirth (R) to decide "whether the Federal Elections Commission can limit the 'coordinated expenditures' political parties make to help their candidates, the Rocky Mountain News reports. The case "could open a new loophole in the nation's campaign finance laws."

• Two Georgia Republicans, Reps. Bob Barr and Saxby Chambliss, "have quietly begun organizing challenges to" Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., in 2002, Roll Call reports.
• "Several prominent Republicans expressed their support for" party-switching Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., "this week, just as his likely Democratic rival, Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D), was in Washington visiting with party strategists at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee," Roll Call reports.
• Minnesota state House Majority Leader Tim Pawlenty (R) "met with the National Republican Senatorial Committee yesterday to discuss a possible bid against" Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., Roll Call reports.

• In Virginia, venture capitalist Mark Warner (D) will kick off his gubernatorial campaign on March 8, the Washington Business Journal reports.
• New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Jim McGreevey (D) "will stage a fund-raising gala this month that he said will produce more than $5 million," the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• California Gov. Gray Davis (D) "completed his five-day trip by raising about $200,000 for his 2002 reelection campaign at private events in Manhattan," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• Alexander "Sandy" Treadwell, the man picked by New York Gov. George Pataki (R) to head up the state GOP party, "said Wednesday he is convinced the governor will run for a third term next year," the Albany Times Union reports.
• Tony Sanchez Jr. (D) "impressed members of a Hispanic business group Wednesday in Dallas with a speech on education and left them convinced he will run for governor" of Texas next year, the Dallas Morning News reports.
• "The push for better treatment for all people" remains "a bedrock of" Alma Wheeler Smith's (D) campaign as "she becomes the first black woman to run for governor in Michigan's history," AP reports.
• Rep. Joseph Kennedy, D-Mass., "has changed his tune in recent weeks" and "now talks of making a decision about a gubernatorial run later this year," the Boston Globe reports.
• Wisconsin Gov. Scott McCallum (R) on Wednesday chose state Sen. Margaret Farrow (R) as lieutenant governor," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. "Farrow would become the first woman to hold the job."

• "The South Florida Water Management District urged zero tolerance Wednesday" as the region struggles through the worst drought "in at least a century," the Miami Herald reports. "Starting today, police are under orders to slap water wasters with $75 fines."
• "The unexpected shutdown of four Western power plants for repairs, combined with scheduled maintenance at several in-state plants, forced California grid officials to declare a Stage 2 alert after seven days with no power emergencies," the Sacramento Bee reports.
• A 2-year-old boy found frozen outside his home in Eau Clarie, Wis., early Wednesday morning is "recovering from his ordeal, though he remained in critical condition," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

• Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, "has already racked up more than $450,000 in legal bills as a result of a racketeering lawsuit filed against him by House Democrats last May," Roll Call reports.
• News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch joined Professor Al Gore yesterday in journalism class, where the two discussed "Covering National Affairs in the Information Age," the New York Post reports.
• Former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, upon finishing up her ambassadorship to New Zealand, is contemplating becoming "a pecan farmer in Alabama," the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
• Rap producer Sean "Puffy" Combs "testifies in his own defense against gun and bribery charges today," the New York Post reports.