The Earlybird: Today's headlines

House votes on budget, Hagel bill rejected, spy may get death penalty, consumer confidence up, energy rates increase, Wolverine admissions struck down, Utah heads to court, Lieberman mulls future, Sisisky recovering.

• The House is expected today to approve President Bush's budget, which includes a 10-year, $1.6 trillion tax cut plan, Reuters reports. The "budget faces a tougher test next week in the evenly divided Senate."
• Bush will discuss his economic plan at a White House technology forum today, AP reports. He is "hoping to enlist the leaders' support for his... tax cut proposal, and seeking to open a dialogue with a vital industry -- and one highly sensitive to economic fluctuations."
• Bush "pitched" his tax cut plan at a Kalamazoo Chamber of Commerce luncheon at Western Michigan University on Tuesday, the Detroit News reports. Bush said, "Real, meaningful tax relief can ignite another generation of growth." AP has a transcript of the speech.
• During his Michigan stop, Bush also said he would oppose "short-term tax relief if it were not linked to across-the-board rate reductions," the Washington Post reports.
• Senate Democrats proposed an alternative tax cut plan Tuesday that would give each "American taxpayer... a $300 tax rebate check this year," AP reports.

• On Tuesday the Senate rejected Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel's (R) alternative campaign finance reform bill, which sought to "cap -- not ban -- unlimited 'soft money' donations to political parties," Reuters reports.
• The debate over campaign finance reform will include discussion of a controversial severability clause -- "that is, a provision ensuring that if one part of the law is struck down on constitutional grounds, the rest will remain 'severable' and in force," the Washington Post reports.
• Aides say Bush will not veto the campaign finance reform bill if it makes it to his desk, CBSNews.com reports.
• In other legislative news, Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy (D) and "a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Tuesday" introduced a bill that would "extend federal hate-crime protection to gays," the Houston Chronicle reports.

• Attorney General John Ashcroft said Tuesday that "he will consider seeking the death penalty against Robert Hanssen, the former FBI agent accused of spying for Moscow since 1985," UPI reports.
• Ashcroft also said that "the Justice Department will aggressively investigate cases of people being forced into sexual or employment servitude," the Kansas City Star reports.
• Environmental Protection Agency chief Christie Whitman said Tuesday that "the Bush administration has no plans to implement the 1997 climate treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, because it's clear that Congress won't ratify it anyway," AP reports.
• "The Bush administration wants to direct more federal money toward putting police officers into schools and toward fighting drugs, rather than encouraging communities to put more police on the street," the Detroit News reports.
• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will announce today that it will "give $100 million over six years to religious organizations that run volunteer programs to help elderly, disabled or chronically ill Americans," USA Today reports. "The foundation's plan has the approval of the White House, where staff members of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives met with foundation representatives in February."

• The March report on consumer confidence from the Conference Board showed a rebound when it was released on Tuesday, the New York Times reports. "Financial markets interpreted the data, which were much better than anticipated, optimistically."
• But "Nasdaq-100 and Standard & Poor's futures fell sharply early Wednesday," CNNfn.com reports.

• In California, "besieged utility regulators Tuesday adopted the largest electricity rate hike in the state's history" -- "as much as 42% for some Southern California Edison customers and up to 46% for" others, the Los Angeles Times reports.
• The rate hike "will fall hardest on businesses," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Gov. Gray Davis (D), "convinced that he can't win votes by delivering bad news, avoided the task of telling Californians" about the increase and instead "quickly moved to distance himself from" the rate hike, the Los Angeles Times reports. The AP reports that the "power crunch is just the weakness" Davis' "political foes are looking for."
• Bush named Patrick H. Wood III and Nora M. Brownell, both "Republicans who support free markets for natural gas and electricity," to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, "a move that could lead to a shift in the agency's largely hands-off approach to California's power crisis," the New York Times reports.

• A suicide bomber killed at least three people "in an explosion at a gas station in central Israel" on Wednesday, the Washington Post Foreign Service reports.
• "The United States late Tuesday vetoed a Non-Aligned Movement draft Security Council resolution calling for a U.N. observer force in the Israeli occupied territories to protect Palestinian civilians," UPI reports.

• Foot-and-mouth disease in Britain "has been traced to swill fed to pigs on a northern farm and may have come from meat imported illegally or food smuggled in by a traveler," AP reports.
• Army butchers in Britian are now helping to "slaughter a backlog of more than 270,000 infected or suspect animals" in an effort "to create a firebreak around areas where foot-and-mouth is prevalent, and stop it spreading," BBCNews.com reports.
• The 260 Vermont sheep sent to Iowa because of suspected mad cow disease have been killed, AP reports.

• Macedonia has "launched a fresh offensive... to clear ethnic Albanian rebels from the hills along the northern border with Kosovo in an apparent push to crush remaining insurgent strongholds," AP reports.
• "The commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific told Congress yesterday that China's ongoing missile buildup opposite Taiwan is 'destabilizing' and will lead to a U.S. response unless halted," the Washington Times reports.

• A federal court ruled Tuesday that the University of Michigan's "race-conscious law school admissions policy is unconstitutional," the Detroit Free Press reports. The case is "believed to be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court."
• Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a California medical marijuana case, the Los Angeles Times reports. "At issue is distribution of medical pot by the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative and other centers that sprouted in California after 56% of the voters passed Proposition 215."
• "The American Bar Association (ABA) said on Tuesday it will still rate federal judicial nominees -- even though" Bush "recently ended its formal half-century role in helping pick them," Reuters reports.

• A bipartisan group appointed by former President Clinton released a study Tuesday indicating "the census may have overlooked more than 208,000 people in Florida" and nearly 61,000 in Arizona, AP reports.
• "Utah will go to federal court Wednesday to argue that the Census Bureau overlooked more than 11,000 Mormons overseas on church missions last year, costing it a congressional seat" that went to North Carolina, AP reports.
• The decision in federal court "probably won't be the last word on the matter. The losing party will almost certainly appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court," the Deseret News reports.

• "In the most telling example" that Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., might be considering a 2004 White House bid, "he invited nearly two dozen political operatives, old friends and Democratic thinkers to a private luncheon on Capitol Hill last week to mull over his political future," the New York Times reports. The Hartford Courant reports that when Lieberman was asked about WH 2004, he answered: "I don't rule it out. It's early."
• Former House member and 2000 Senate candidate Bob Franks, R-N.J., "left little doubt yesterday that he is preparing to challenge" Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., in 2002, the Newark Star-Ledger reports.

• A "clear sign of" New Jersey Democrats' "desire to reclaim the Statehouse this fall" was last night's 3,000-person "gala," where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim McGreevey raised $8.1 million, the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• Michigan Attorney General Jennifer Granholm (D) officially announced her gubernatorial candidacy Tuesday, "promising a compassionate government that rouses the public against crime, racism, poor schooling and pollution," the Detroit Free Press reports. The Lansing State Journal reports that she made her announcements in Lansing, Grand Rapids and Detroit.
• The New York gubernatorial campaign of Carl McCall (D) "suffered a surprise setback yesterday as his longtime political consultant quit the campaign," the New York Post reports.
• Massachusetts Gov. Paul Cellucci (R) said Tuesday that a gubernatorial bid by Lt. Gov. Jane Swift (R), who is expected to become acting governor when Cellucci is confirmed as ambassador to Canada, "is the best chance Republicans have to hang onto the governor's office in 2002, even as he admitted the lieutenant governor's image is still mired in caricature and scandal," the Boston Herald reports.
• If Rep. John Sununu, R-N.H., decides to challenge Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., in 2002, "former GOP Rep. Bill Zeliff -- who held the seat from 1990-96 -- could be the 800-pound gorilla in the contest to succeed him," CongressDailyAM reports.
• "University of South Carolina President John Palms is giving serious thought to seeking the Democratic nomination" for a Senate run in 2002, the Columbia State reports.

• The Iowa state House voted Tuesday to change the state's voting laws by "closing polls an hour earlier and making the voter registration deadline 10 days earlier," the Des Moines Register reports.
• The Maryland state Senate passed a bill banning "discrimination against gays and lesbians, just hours after it broke an overnight Republican filibuster against the measure," the Baltimore Sun reports. The bill is expected to pass in the House easily.