The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Tax cuts, religious service funding, campaign finance reform, election reform, foot-and-mouth disease, economic downturns, pardon investigation, DiFrancesco's luck, Swift's waiting period, Washington portrait, Friendship Heights smoking ban, Ken's birthday:

• House Democrats on Tuesday "circulated a report saying that to make room for his $1.6 trillion of 10-year tax cuts as well as increases in defense, education and medical research," President Bush's "budget for the next fiscal year would cut purchasing power by an average 6.6 percent in remaining programs," Reuters reports.
• Republican leaders cited Monday's stock market drop as evidence that Bush's tax cut plan does not go far enough, Reuters reports.
• The White House said that "sluggish retail sales underline the argument" for a tax cut, UPI reports.
• On Tuesday Bush "reversed" one of his campaign pledges and said "he won't impose mandatory limits on power plants' emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas that has been linked to global warming," USA Today reports.
• Bush will be in New Jersey today to urge support for his budget plan, "exploring a church program that embodies his spending proposals for education and faith-based initiatives," AP reports.

• The administration is going ahead with Bush's "plan to fund religious social service organizations with tax dollars, despite concerns from the right, the left and, apparently, from within," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• The Senate will "wait several months to a year to act on the 'charitable choice' component of the package," the Washington Post reports. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., will "split the proposal in two" and "introduce in coming days a bill that includes various tax incentives to encourage charitable giving, the component of the plan that attracts broad, bipartisan support."
• Meanwhile, the Christian Coalition "has become but a pale imitation of its once powerful self," the Washington Times reports.

• Bush will announce a "'statement of principles' on campaign financing later this week," USA Today reports. The plan will be an "alternative" to the campaign finance bill proposed by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis. Bush has been "working closely with Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., whose less-sweeping proposal would limit, but not totally ban, 'soft money' contributions to political parties."
• Sen. John Breaux, D-La., said Tuesday he will vote against the McCain-Feingold bill, CNN.com reports. Breaux is the first Democratic senator to publicly oppose the plan.
• Other Democrats are now "giving the legislation a close look, though they have previously voted for it," Knight Ridder reports.

• Legislation "to reform the nation's electoral process," which is backed "by organized labor and leading civil rights groups as a way to help remedy the widespread problems unearthed in the 2000 presidential election," was introduced in Congress yesterday, Reuters reports.
• Election reform advocates "bring their ideas" before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee today during hearings on the subject, AP reports. Yesterday Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., joined Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., "in proposing a $3.5 billion plan to help states adopt uniform standards for voting machines by 2004."
• A new study shows that "anywhere from 12.8 percent to 36.7 percent of voters in 125 precincts spread across Chicago either failed to register a vote for president or spoiled their ballots by voting for more than one candidate," the Chicago Tribune reports.

• The Senate defeated "a Democratic proposal that would have prevented" Bush "from using a half-trillion dollars in Medicare surpluses to help pay for his large tax-cut proposal," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• The Energy Department is asking Senate appropriators for "an additional $300 million next year for repairs to nuclear weapons production facilities," the Washington Post reports.

• In response to the foot-and-mouth disease epidemic in Europe, the "Agriculture Department on Tuesday suspended imports of livestock and fresh meat from the European Union," AP reports.
• A study led by a scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that tuna burgers are easily contaminated, the Dallas Morning News reports.

• On Wednesday morning, both "the Nasdaq-100 and Standard & Poor's futures fell sharply," which seemed to "at least partially undo some of the market's rebound Tuesday, when investors seemed to take their first tentative steps toward getting back into badly battered stocks," CNNfn.com reports.
• Motorola "announced another 7,000 job cuts Tuesday," bringing "the total number of jobs dropped from the payroll since December" to 18,000, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

• North Korea criticized the United States on Tuesday, saying U.S. policy toward North Korea is "a 'provocative scheme' aimed at 'stifling' the communist country," UPI reports.
• "The Navy pilot whose bombs killed six people in a training accident in Kuwait had received the go-ahead from a U.S. air controller who then called out 'abort, abort' in a belated attempt to wave off the misplaced strike," AP reports.
• The trial of Ahmed Ressam, "an Algerian accused of taking part in an unsuccessful terrorist plot to bomb U.S. landmarks during millennium celebrations," began Tuesday in Los Angeles, the Washington Post reports.
• The Pentagon has "started a review of the Army's contested decision to issue the Rangers' exclusive black beret to all soldiers," the Washington Times reports.
• Bush nominated Victoria Clarke on Tuesday to serve as Pentagon spokeswoman, Reuters reports.

• The House Government Reform Committee has asked former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak "to detail any contact" he had with former President Bill Clinton regarding the pardon of Marc Rich, UPI reports.
• "Federal investigators have subpoenaed former White House officials, including former Chief of Staff John Podesta, and are asking for documents related to" the pardons Clinton made on his last day in office, ABCNews.com reports.
• "Two student groups at" Benjamin Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University will give Clinton an "Advocate for Peace" award next week, the New York Post reports. Some students are upset that the former president, who cannot practice law, is receiving the award.

• New Jersey acting Gov. Donald DiFrancesco (R) will get some help before his upcoming primary against Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler (R) -- DiFrancesco will introduce Bush as he visits New Jersey today, and there's nothing that "makes you look more gubernatorial than standing next to someone presidential," the Trenton Times reports.
• In Virginia Beach, Va., yesterday, Attorney General Mark Earley (R) "won a decisive delegate victory over" Lt. Gov. John Hager (R). Virginia Beach is the state's second-largest jurisdiction, but Hager "earlier won the state's largest jurisdiction, Fairfax County," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• The Boston Globe reports that former Democratic Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy's announcement that he will not run for Massachusetts governor in 2002 leaves open "a breathtaking array of scenarios" and could lead to "a generational change in the party."
• Despite Kennedy's announcement, Lt. Gov. Jane Swift (R) said "she won't be rushed into a decision on running for governor in 2002," the Boston Herald reports. She "plans to wait until after she gives birth to twins in June to decide whether to seek the GOP nomination."
• In California, William Simon Jr. (R) "has tapped a former Reagan cabinet member and state Republican leader to head his exploratory committee" for a possible 2002 gubernatorial bid. And Anselmo Chavez (R) "announced Tuesday that he will run for governor," the Sacramento Bee reports.
• Oregon Democrats "released poll results Monday that they said make" Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., "one of the most vulnerable Republicans facing re-election next year, especially if the opponent is" Gov. John Kitzhaber (D), the Portland Oregonian reports.
• Philip Bradley (D) "has formed an exploratory committee" to consider challenging Rep. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., in 2002, the Greenville News reports.

• The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation in Las Vegas will donate enough money to buy a life-size portrait of George Washington and keep it in its home at the Smithsonian, heading "off a British aristocrat's threat to... sell it to the highest bidder," the Washington Post reports.
• After urging from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), 14-year-old Lionel Tate, who has been sentenced to life in prison, "was quietly moved to a juvenile prison" from an adult prison, the Miami Herald reports. The Los Angeles Times reports that Gov. Bush "said he will consider speeding up the clemency process for" Tate.
• One "of the toughest smoking bans in the country" was repealed in Friendship Heights, Md., Monday, after two courts ruled that the village "overstepped its powers as a special taxing district by enacting a ban on most outdoor smoking," the Washington Times reports.
• Washington Gov. Gary Locke (D) will make an "official declaration of drought in Washington" today, the Seattle Times reports. "The announcement would free the state from a few cumbersome rules and allow" the Department of Ecology "to obtain $5 million in emergency funds."
• In New York, "only 56 percent of the city's 2001 graduating class have passed" the Regents math exams "so far, which is a new requirement this year to obtain a diploma," the New York Post reports.
• Gerald W. Bivins, who "was sentenced to die for the 1991 murder of the Rev. William Radcliffe," was "executed by lethal chemical injection at 1:26 a.m." in Michigan City, Ind., today, the Indianapolis Star reports.

• Former Rep. Rick Lazio, R-N.Y., "is considering campaigning" for Nassau County Executive. He will "meet with GOP leaders today to talk things over," the New York Post reports.
• "Walter C. Woodward, who as publisher and editor of the Bainbridge Island Review was one of the few editorial voices to consistently oppose the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II," died Tuesday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. He was 91.
• Barbie's companion -- Ken -- celebrates his 40th birthday today, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.