The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush on the Koreas, Cheney back to work, House continues tax debate, debate video scandal solved, school shooter arraigned, Sharon takes over, Napster shot down, census decision made, no Arnold for gov, beware the naked wife:

• South Korean President Kim Dae Jung will meet with President Bush today in Washington, D.C., and the two leaders may "clash... over the right strategy for dealing with North Korea as it emerges from self-imposed isolation for the first time in nearly 50 years," the New York Times reports.
• Bush "plans to slow down talks with North Korea on curbing its missiles and will focus instead on reducing conventional arms on the Cold War's last battleground," USA Today reports.
• In Chicago on Tuesday to promote his tax-cut plan, Bush visited the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley, the Chicago Tribune reports. There was "no noticeable taint of lingering partisan hostilities" between the two leaders.
• Today the Bush administration will outline a plan for faith-based charities "to separate their religious and secular works," the Washington Post reports. The plan will "divide religious and social service activities, although both could be offered as part of the same program."

• Vice President Dick Cheney will be back at work today, "24 hours after another round of heart trouble landed him in the hospital for surgery to clear a partially blocked artery," Reuters reports.
• Despite his heart problems, Cheney "has no desire to slow down," the Los Angeles Times reports.

• Juanita Yvette Lozano, "who worked with a media company that produced commercials for George W. Bush's presidential campaign," was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday in Texas "on three counts accusing her of sending a videotape of Bush's debate preparations to Al Gore's campaign last September," the Austin American-Statesman reports. "She faces up to 15 years in prison and a $750,000 fine if she is convicted."
• Last fall, the Bush campaign "stood by Lozano even as it became clear she was the target of the FBI probe" into the tape incident, the Washington Post reports.

• The House will vote Thursday on President Bush's plan for an across-the-board cut in income tax rates, the New York Times reports. The plan is expected to pass.
• On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas., said "he will press for tax cuts in excess of the administration's $1.6 trillion plan, despite President Bush's insistence to go no higher," the Washington Times reports.
• Bush's tax cut is often compared to former President Reagan's 1981 tax cut, and though the two are similar in some ways, "Reagan's tax cut, adjusted for inflation, was three times as large as Bush's, and it was enacted during a time of double-digit inflation and economic stagnation," USA Today reports.
• Today the House will work to overturn a safety regulation passed under the Clinton administration that was "aimed at curbing repetitive strain injuries that affect 1 million workers," Reuters reports. The Senate voted to repeal the measure on Tuesday.
• The Senate Commerce Committee will meet today to look at ways to ensure that "as many votes as humanly and mechanically possible are counted in the next election," Reuters reports.

• John Negroponte, a diplomat for 37 years, has been nominated as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the Washington Post reports.
• Bush nominated Ralph Boyd Jr., a Boston lawyer, to head up the civil rights division of the Department of Justice, the New York Times reports.
• Bush will appoint "Bay State high-tech mogul" Richard J. Egan as ambassador to Ireland, the Boston Herald reports.

• Charles Andrew Williams, 15, will be arraigned today "on charges including murder and assault with a deadly weapon" stemming from Monday's school shooting in Santee, Calif., the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Williams "has shown little remorse and offered no explanation."
• Williams took the gun he used at school "from his father's locked collection of weapons," the Washington Post reports.
• "When asked what a president could do to stop such shootings, Bush... cited the relationship between children and their parents or other adults in their lives," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• At least four communities "in recent weeks were able to sidestep disaster" in their schools "because people acted on their suspicions in time," the Houston Chronicle reports.

• Just nine days after they began surveillance of accused spy Robert Hanssen, the FBI bought a house near his, USA Today reports. "From their perch... FBI investigators were able to watch Hanssen's comings and goings in the weeks leading up to his arrest Feb. 18."
• Hanssen "may have sold Russia some of America's most precious intelligence secrets," Knight Ridder reports. "The loss of such technical secrets could demolish a number of the nation's most important intelligence programs and wipe out more than $1 billion in research and investment."
• Hanssen may have been partly responsible for the 1988 arrest of Gennady Vasilenko, a former KGB agent the United States tried to recruit to be a spy, the New York Times reports.
• One of the problems prosecutors will face if they bring the Hanssen case to trial will be "the disclosure of some of the U.S. intelligence community's most sensitive secrets," the Washington Times reports.

• An admiral testifying Tuesday at the court of inquiry hearing into the USS Greeneville tragedy said "two senior officers aboard the USS Greeneville felt the submarine's captain was preparing a complex surfacing procedure too quickly but raised no objections before the submarine collided with a Japanese fishing vessel," the Honolulu Advertiser reports.
• Marine Corps Gen. James Jones "has ordered the Marines to search for helicopter alternatives to the V-22 Osprey," which is "the first clear acknowledgment by the Marines that the [Osprey] program is in peril," the New York Times reports.

• Ariel Sharon takes over as prime minister of Israel today, the Los Angeles Times reports. He "will be confronted immediately with demands from the people who elected him, by an overwhelming majority, to put a halt to escalating violence in the region."
• United Nations officials said Tuesday that "Iraqi officials have begun to demand in recent months kickbacks and illegal commissions on contracts for food, medicine and other essential civilian goods bought from foreign companies under a supervised 'oil for food' program," the New York Times reports.
• Meanwhile, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday that he thinks Arab countries "will support the new U.S. plan for sanctions against Iraq," AP reports.

• A federal judge late Monday "ordered Napster to block access to millions of free downloadable songs" within three days, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
• An Arkansas judge on Tuesday "set aside the adoption of twin girls" who were adopted over the Internet, "potentially clearing the way for their biological parents to battle each other for custody of the 8-month-old girls in a Missouri court," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.
• "The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday halted the execution of Antonio Richardson hours before he was scheduled to die by injection" in Missouri yesterday, AP reports.
• "The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday spared Ronald Keith Spivey from the electric chair, issuing a stay just four hours before the killer's scheduled execution," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

• Commerce Secretary Donald Evans announced Tuesday that adjusted census figures will not be used "to draw up Congressional districts and distribute federal money to the states even though the Census Bureau's own estimates showed that 3.3 million people might have been missed in the 2000 count," the New York Times reports.
• "The first numbers are expected to be released on a state-by-state basis later this week, and all states must have their redistricting data by April 1," AP reports.

• The National Science Foundation released a study finding "that remote Internet voting using available technology would actually 'pose a significant risk' to electoral integrity and 'should not be fielded for use in public elections until substantial technical and social science issues are addressed,'" the Washington Post reports.
• "At least a dozen states have legislation pending that request studies of Internet voting," the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
• For a pro-Internet voting argument, see NationalJournal.com's Insider Interview with Election.com Vice President Mark Strama.

• "Legislation aimed at cutting prices for more than a fourth of the power consumed in California stalled Tuesday," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• Washington Gov. Gary Locke (D) "yesterday announced deals that will eventually increase energy generation in the state by about 1,100 megawatts, enough to power the city of Seattle," AP reports.

• The Washington Times reports that "with about half of the delegates chosen" for Virginia's GOP nominating convention for governor, "Lt. Gov. John H. Hager has made it a tight race," even though Attorney General Mark L. Earley has an early and expected lead.
• "Hager won a narrow victory in his home base of Richmond yesterday" as his "52.5 percent victory over Earley at the Richmond mass meeting left him with fewer votes than would have been gained had the mass meeting not been held," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• In New Jersey, acting Gov. Donald DiFrancesco (R) and Democratic challenger Jim McGreevey may be jumping on the "no tolls" bandwagon, though they are not "anywhere near as definitively committed to eliminating the tolls as" Jersey Mayor Bret Schundler (R) has been, the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced that he will not run for governor of California in 2002, the Los Angeles Times reports. The actor has "family and film obligations that will keep him tied up at least through 2004."
• Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) "has sent an invitation to the supporters he calls 'Team Perry' to meet on March 24 at the convention center to plan strategy for his election campaign" as he continues to portray "himself as bipartisan at the state Capitol," AP reports.
• Alabama State Auditor Susan Parker (D) said that she will either challenge Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., or run to replace Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala., if he decides to retire, the Decatur Daily reports.

• Jesse Jackson has released a 102-page statement detailing his $120,000 salary in order "to parry questions about payments made to the woman" who mothered his out-of-wedlock child, Reuters reports.
• "A destructive computer virus" called "Naked Wife" hit "at least 30 organizations and one federal agency Tuesday," AP reports.