The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush wins in the House, Senate approves annual student testing, Japan's economy slips, too soon for Reagan memorial, Postal Service needs help, Hilleary inches toward gov bid, Jackson defends his record, Ashcroft 2000 under fire, Knight ready to sue:

• By a 230-198 margin, the House on Thursday passed President Bush's across-the-board income tax cut, which would reduce all income tax levels, the San Antonio Express-News reports. The legislation now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to face a tougher battle.
• The New York Times has excerpts from the House debate over the legislation.
• With the House voting along party lines for Bush's tax cut, the legislation was "a major blow" to bipartisanship, Reuters reports.
• The Treasury Department on Thursday "issued numbers... aimed at rebutting Democratic charges that much of the administration's tax cut proposal would primarily benefit upper-income workers. But a close look at the data suggests the administration may have inadvertently given more ammunition to the Democratic argument," the Washington Post reports.
• The National Association of Manufacturers, which supports Bush's tax cut plan and staged a photo op with Republican leaders on Thursday, sent a memo to its lobbyists asking them to dress down so they would look like "real workers," the Washington Post reports.

• As part of his plan to rally support for his tax cut plan by visiting "states where he was handily elected but have Democrat senators," Bush was in North Dakota on Thursday, the Fargo Forum reports. The Forum also reports that about 20 people turned out to protest Bush's plan.
• Bush will be in Sioux Falls, S.D., today to stump for his tax plan, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports. The state's two Democratic senators, Tom Daschle and Tim Johnson, will appear with Bush at the Sioux River Valley Community Health Center but will not attend the pro-tax cut rally.
• Daschle came out with television ads calling Bush's plan "risky and elitist," just in time for Bush's arrival in South Dakota Thursday night, the Washington Post reports.
• Bush also will be in Lafayette, La., today for a "rally... at the Paul Fournet Air Service hangar at Lafayette Regional Airport," the Lafayette Daily Advertiser reports.

• The House unanimously passed legislation Thursday that is designed to encourage organ donation, AP reports. It "would help pay travel costs and other expenses for many people who donate a kidney or a section of liver."
• On Thursday the Senate approved part of Bush's education plan that "would require states to test annually each student in grades three to eight for progress in reading and math, and require states to use national tests on sample populations of students," the New York Times reports.
• As Congress continues work on bankruptcy reform measures, the number of bankruptcy filings may increase, the New York Times reports.
• In an interview with the Washington Times, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay said that "the repeal of President Clinton's workplace regulations and approval of the largest tax cut in 20 years reveal the new muscle of conservatives working with the White House."

• Lawyers in the Navy's court of inquiry into the USS Greeneville tragedy on Thursday "sought to shift the blame... to a crewman who failed to report that the ship was nearby," AP reports.
• An admiral testified that Lt. j.g. Michael Coen, "the officer of the deck of the USS Greeneville at the time of a fatal collision," was "probably the most methodical junior officer aboard the submarine," the Honolulu Advertiser reports.

• "The United States assured allies on Thursday it would help them develop defenses against long- and short-range missiles," Reuters reports.
• "Despite a spreading Albanian insurgency, the Bush administration has told NATO allies that it will not let U.S. peacekeepers cross from Kosovo into other parts of Serbia," New York Times News Service reports.
• The FBI believes that hackers from former Soviet countries are "responsible for recent increases in credit card thefts and extortion attempts," AP reports.
• Abdel Ghani Meskini pleaded guilty Thursday "to charges that he aided the effort to smuggle explosives into the United States as part of an alleged millennium plot to bomb U.S. landmarks," the Washington Post reports.

• Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "both raised the possibility of peace talks Thursday," AP reports.
• In Chile, "an appeals court on Thursday threw out homicide and kidnapping charges against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, but said the retired general could still be tried for covering up the crimes," AP reports.
• Japan's economy is slipping, and it "has strained the government's resources to the breaking point," the Washington Post reports.

• Interior Secretary Gale Norton on Thursday criticized the Clinton administration's "policy of unilaterally setting aside vast tracts of land as protected national monuments" and said she wants "landowners, commercial interests and local governments" to "take part in the decision-making," the Chicago Tribune reports.
• The Bush administration said it is "too soon" for a Ronald Reagan memorial on D.C.'s Mall, AP reports. That honor is usually reserved for deceased presidents.

• The United States Postal Service is facing serious financial losses and has warned "that universal service to every home every day could be in danger without changes to the laws that regulate operation," AP reports.
• Population Action International has released a report that "shows the risk of dying during pregnancy and birth is 33 times higher in poor than rich nations," Reuters reports. Unattributed "family planning experts" accused Bush "of adopting a 'fascist approach' and creating a double standard by blocking U.S. funding for international groups that support abortion." (When originally published, Earlybird mistakenly attributed the above accusation to PAI.)

• A new poll in New Jersey shows gubernatorial candidates acting Gov. Donald DiFrancesco (R) and Jim McGreevey (D) in a virtual dead heat for the 2001 election, the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• Virginia Democrat Mark Warner launched his gubernatorial bid yesterday "with a promise to eliminate the car tax, but he gave no timetable for doing it," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports that Warner "held spirited rallies" in Abingdon, Norfolk, Roanoke and Richmond.
• Michigan state Attorney General Jennifer Granholm (D) joined Democrats former Gov. Jim Blanchard and Rep. David Bonior "as an all-but-announced aspirant to succeed Republican Gov. John Engler," filing "paperwork with the Secretary of State's Office establishing a Granholm for Governor committee" yesterday, the Detroit Free Press reports.
• The Los Angeles Times looks at the tough road that could face Arnold Schwarzenegger should he decide to run for governor of California. "Ronald Reagan is the last Hollywood personality to make the leap from screen stardom to statewide office, and his achievement 35 years ago remains instructive and cautionary."
• Rep. Van Hilleary, R-Tenn., "moved a step closer to being a" 2002 gubernatorial "candidate yesterday when he filed papers with the state Registry of Election Finance to establish an exploratory committee," the Nashville Tennessean reports.

• Common Cause and other groups are charging Attorney General John Ashcroft's 2000 Missouri Senate campaign with violating election law. The complaint said Ashcroft 2000 raised $116,000 by using a list of potential donors from his 1998 presidential exploration," the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports.
• A South Carolina state legislator has introduced a bill "that would guarantee GOP control [of] the U.S. Senate should 98-year-old" Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., "not be able to finish his term," AP reports. The bill would require Gov. Jim Hodges (D) to fill Senate vacancies "with a person of the same party as the previous senator."
• Mary Frances Berry, chairwoman of the Civil Rights Commission, sent a letter to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) telling him "the commission intended to hold more hearings in Florida this spring to follow up on the state's response to the electoral problems last fall," the New York Times reports.
• California Gov. Gray Davis' (D) chief negotiator, David Freeman, said yesterday "he had sufficient elbow room to negotiate a portfolio of agreements intended primarily to see California through the next four years," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

• The Rev. Jesse Jackson "defended his civil rights record" during "a news conference filled with speeches, deferrals, and some answers that dragged on for 1-1/2 hours" yesterday, Reuters reports.
• Jackson said "he will amend the tax return of one of his nonprofit groups to reflect money paid to a staffer who was his mistress" and mothered his child, AP reports.

• A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 1 percent of Americans "have a 'very positive' view" of pardoned financier Marc Rich, the Wall Street Journal's "Washington Wire" reports.
• "The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed Little Rock's financing of the Clinton presidential library site Thursday, rejecting" a "claim that the city needed voter approval before buying the land with bond debt," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

• Former University of Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight has taken the first steps toward suing the university "for wrongfully firing him and damaging his reputation," the Indianapolis Star reports.
• Grady Carter, "a 70-year-old ex-smoker who lost a lung to cancer," became the "first person to collect money from a tobacco company after beating them in court" as he "walked away from his lawyer's Jacksonville office yesterday with a $1.1 million check from Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.," the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports.