The Earlybird: Today's headlines

German chancellor visits Bush, House passes budget, McCain-Feingold vote today, Bush reinforces abortion rule, Mideast violence explodes, Rep. Baldacci announces gov bid, Puffy wants new nickname:

• President Bush will meet with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder today, and they are expected to discuss "U.S. opposition to the Kyoto global warming treaty and differences over trade and missile defense," Reuters reports. "Schroeder asked the United States last week to abide by the" Kyoto agreement.
• Bush has "abandoned" the Kyoto treaty, "which sought to reduce the emission into the atmosphere of gases that create the warming greenhouse effect" and "was never approved by the U.S. Senate," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• The European Union has "expressed dismay" over Bush's decision, the New York Times reports.
• Many Democrats and environmentalists are also upset about the decision, CNN.com reports. "Advocacy groups have charged the Bush administration is hostile to the environment."

• On Wednesday Bush "reactivated" a high-tech advisory panel after he met with 150 tech executives at a White House meeting that was "called to show his support for an industry that has been drubbed in the stock market," the Washington Post reports.
• Bush has decided he "will not revive a special White House office on women's issues that was created under President Clinton," AP reports.
• Bush has decided not to hold "formal news conferences," AP reports. Instead, Bush will "'be accessible' to reporters during his public appearances and meetings with world leaders."

• The House on Wednesday passed Bush's $1.94 trillion budget for fiscal year 2002, AP reports. The legislation faces a "rougher test" next week in the Senate.
• The House is expected to pass legislation that would lessen the marriage tax today, Reuters reports. The House Ways and Means Committee also will begin considering eliminating the estate tax today.

• The Senate will finish up its debate on campaign finance reform today, the Houston Chronicle reports. On Wednesday "Republicans and Democrats agreed to modestly increase current limits on what people may give to candidates and political parties."
• Republican "insiders... claim that a top House Democrat has made an overture to House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, seeking to potentially join forces in an effort to kill the measure" in the Senate, Roll Call reports.
• Republicans say they will have a fund-raising advantage if the campaign finance reform bill is approved, the Washington Times reports.
• Campaign finance reform "is merely one round in a continuing struggle between President Bush and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to shape the center of American politics," the Washington Post reports.

• House leaders said Wednesday that "they had failed to reach a compromise" to create "a bipartisan task force on election reform," the Washington Post reports.
• Two groups that say "they are attempting to genetically replicate human beings" were questioned by a House subcommittee on Wednesday, the Boston Globe reports.
• Bush said he would work with Congress to ban human cloning, the Washington Times reports.

• Bush on Wednesday "issued a presidential memorandum to implement his so-called Mexico City policy instead of proceeding with initial plans to use a rule-making process that can be overturned by Congress" in an effort to head "off a potentially divisive Senate vote to reverse his ban on U.S. funding for international family planning groups that counsel abortion," Reuters reports.
• The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League began a "$40 million, four-year campaign to stop what they say is an unprecedented, GOP-led assault on abortion rights" on Wednesday, the Houston Chronicle reports. "The NARAL campaign will include direct mail, grass-roots organizing, outreach, paid advertising and other efforts."
• A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that a Web site featuring "Wild West-style 'wanted' posters identifying abortion providers as 'baby butchers' who should be punished are free speech under the 1st Amendment," the Washington Post reports.
• The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved legislation that would "treat fetuses as federal crime victims if they are harmed by assaults on pregnant women," National Journal News Service reports.

• Israel conducted air raids on Wednesday to send a warning to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, BBCNews.com reports. Three Palestinians "are reported to have been shot dead by Israeli troops" on Thursday.
• The Bush administration "implicitly" criticized the raids Wednesday and said "that force cannot resolve the bloody conflict that has roiled the Middle East for six months," AP reports.
• Arafat "said Thursday that the Palestinian uprising will continue despite Israel's warning," AP reports.

• "The Army has downgraded one of its 10 active duty divisions to the second-lowest rating for wartime readiness, citing a lack of training and personnel caused by peacekeeping work in the Balkans," the New York Times reports.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday "appointed a trusted ally and fellow KGB veteran as defense minister," which is "part of a sweeping reshuffle of top security posts that signals the Russian leader's determination to reform his nation's military," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• The Bush administration is reviewing "all American aid programs to Russia set up to stop the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons," the New York Times reports.
• The Army is considering "revamping the no-fly zones in Iraq that could mean fewer combat overflights and an increased emphasis on surveillance to provide early warning of Iraqi aggression," the Chicago Tribune reports.

• "Attorneys for accused spy Robert Philip Hanssen charged Wednesday that Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft violated the Justice Department's own guidelines by publicly threatening to consider the death penalty against the former FBI agent to coerce a plea bargain," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• On Wednesday the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case to decide whether freelance writers' copyrights are violated when publications post their works online "without special permission," AP reports.
• America is "hooked on prisons," which are "now seen primarily as sources of jobs and revenue, rather than as places for rehabilitating criminals," Salon.com reports.

• California "state regulators approved a $4.8 billion-a-year utility rate hike Tuesday but couldn't guarantee that the increases will remedy California's electricity crisis," the Sacramento Bee reports.
• "Nobody in California will escape the high risks or burden" of the new rate hike, the Los Angeles Times reports. The Sacramento Bee reports that state GOP lawmakers "want the state to pay $530 to every California family to help absorb record electricity rate increases approved this week."

• In the face of his state's energy crisis, California Gov. Gray Davis (D) "still maintains a vigorous money-raising pace, more than 20 months before the 2002 general election," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• The Washington Post reports that Arnold Schwarzenegger "is considering bidding hasta la vista to his Hollywood career and" entering California's 2002 governor's race as a Republican. "To help him make up his mind, Schwarzenegger has been conferring with" former Gov. Pete Wilson (R) and "state GOP leaders."
• Jersey City, N.J., Mayor Bret Schundler (R), who is seeking a 2001 gubernatorial nomination, released his financial records yesterday, the Newark Star-Ledger reports. A spokesman said "that criticism from his opponent in the GOP primary, acting Gov. Donald DiFrancesco, coupled with media pressure, prompted yesterday's release."
• The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Schundler recently spent "$800,000 from his New Jersey Scholarship Fund on television commercials that gained him wide exposure to voters as the election season was getting under way."
• Rep. John Baldacci, D-Maine, made his 2002 gubernatorial bid official Tuesday "in the Hall of Flags in the State House, with hundreds of supporters on the stairs behind him," the Portland Press Herald reports.
• Rep. Steve Largent, R-Okla., said yesterday that he is "'definitely' contemplating resigning his House seat before the end of his current term" to run for governor, CongressDailyAM reports.
• "Former Oklahoma Gov. David Walters this week said he's 'leaning very seriously' toward" running for the Democratic nomination to battle Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., in 2002, Roll Call reports.

• "Attempting to convince the political world that he is a viable candidate, Centre County Commissioner Scott Conklin (D) this week became the first to air television ads in the special election contest to replace" former Rep. Bud Shuster, R-Pa., Roll Call reports.
• University of South Carolina President John Palms (D) faxed a letter everyone on his board of trustees promising "to make a final decision" on a Senate bid before May 1, the Columbia State reports. Yesterday Palms "flew to Washington to meet with national Democratic officials to discuss" the potential race.

• Legislators in the Iowa state House yesterday "voted 99-0 to prohibit people from using false or misleading information in political material opposing a candidate or ballot issue," the Des Moines Register reports.
• "Several residents" of Friendship Heights, Md., "have organized to unseat" Mayor Alfred Muller "because he's a convicted sex criminal," the Washington Times reports.
• The "Illinois House on Tuesday narrowly passed a bill that prohibits employers, businesses and most landlords from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation," the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
• Philip Workman, who was convicted with slaying a Memphis police officer, will be executed at 1 a.m. tomorrow in Tennessee, the Nashville Tennessean reports.

• In the book "American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing," which goes on sale Tuesday, McVeigh says he did not know about the day care center in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, and he calls the deaths of the children "a large amount of 'collateral damage,'" the Oklahoman reports.
• Sean "Puffy" Combs "is contemplating a nickname change as he seeks a 'fresh start' after his acquittal on gun and bribery charges," the New York Daily News reports.
• Friday is the 20th anniversary of the attempted assassination on former President Reagan. Jim and Sarah Brady and other gun-control activists met yesterday "to recall their progress since the shooting and to dispute claims that their movement has stalled because both political parties view the issue as a loser," the Palm Beach Post reports.