The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Dems back down on judges, Bush meets with Yugoslav president, House approves budget, U.N. dues in spotlight, labor could support GOP, Gore visits Florida:

• President Bush sent the Senate his first slate of 11 judicial nominees on Wednesday, and Senate Democrats "warned anew that they are on guard against any effort to pack the courts with staunch conservatives," the Baltimore Sun reports.
• But Democrats also "backed down from demands for veto power over judicial nominees, and said they will move forward with President Bush's first 11 candidates," the Washington Times reports.
• Bush met with Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica on Wednesday, and he said the United States "was ready to help Belgrade's transition and bid to establish closer ties with European nations," the Reuters reports. Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice also met with Kostunica.
• Bush named Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., to head the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. "The announcement, rumored for days, came at the daily press briefing held by Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary."

• On Wednesday the House approved a $1.95 trillion budget plan for fiscal year 2002, and the Senate is expected to approve the plan today, AP reports. "The budget's crown jewel is its call for $1.25 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years," which "is less than the $1.6 trillion, 10-year tax reduction that Bush had sought, but still one of the biggest tax reductions ever."
• Senate Finance Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, "said Wednesday that there aren't enough votes to cut tax rates as much or as quickly as President Bush wants," USA Today reports.
• The Senate's tax cut package is likely to include "a proposal that would increase tax benefits for pension savings," the Baltimore Sun reports.

• "Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said yesterday the White House's energy proposals" -- which will be released next week -- "would have a 'disproportionate,' positive effect on New England's home heating and electricity supplies," the Boston Globe reports.
• The Bush administration "has invited officers of about a dozen unions to the White House next Monday" to preview the energy policy, the New York Times reports.
• California Public Utilities Commission President Loretta Lynch introduced a proposal Wednesday that would increase the monthly electricity bills of about 4 million Californians by up to 60 percent, the Los Angeles Times reports.
• Republican moderates in Congress "are warning" Bush "that they risk alienating key suburban voters and endangering the party's majority on Capitol Hill if the administration doesn't soften its stance on environmental issues," Roll Call reports.
• "The Bush administration has declared a moratorium on new proposals for expanding the national park system," the Washington Post reports.
• The administration also "is canceling a 2004 deadline for automakers to develop prototype cars that would get up to 80 miles per gallon," the Houston Chronicle reports.

• On Wednesday the House Education Committee approved Bush's education plan, which "includes annual testing for millions of elementary and junior high school students," AP reports. National Journal News Service has a markup report on the bill.
• "The House will vote today on a Republican proposal to withhold U.S. aid from any nation that approves of prosecuting U.S. military personnel in a new International Criminal Court," the Washington Times reports.

• In Russia on Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin marked "the 56th anniversary of the Nazi defeat" with a warning "that no nation should pursue its own security at the expense of others, an apparent reference to the United States and its missile defense plans," AP reports.
• Meanwhile, "a group of powerful legislators has signed a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld urging him to give 'thorough consideration' to developing the DD-21 destroyer," the Boston Globe reports.
• Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said Wednesday that "Washington would resume its dialogue with North Korea" after a review of North Korea policy is completed in a few weeks, the New York Times reports.

• On Wednesday United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan asked the Bush administration to help pay "for a multibillion-dollar program to fight AIDS in Africa," AP reports. "The administration is considering an initial pledge of $200 million to the global AIDS fund."
• "Relations between the United Nations and Washington grew increasingly testy yesterday, as diplomats reacted with dismay to threats by Congress to hold up payment of back dues unless the United States regains a seat on the UN Human Rights Commission," the Boston Globe reports.
• The Bush administration "urged" Congress not to withhold the dues, the Washington Post reports.

• "A stampede at a packed soccer match between top Ghana teams killed at least 100 people Wednesday night," AP reports.
• Six Palestinians were injured after "a gunbattle" with Israelis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, Reuters reports.
• On Wednesday Russia "lost contact with four military satellites after a fire broke out in a regional command post for the Defence Ministry's space programme," BBCNews.com reports.

• "The Justice Department will not support a moratorium on federal executions based on its review of racial and geographic disparities among defendants in death penalty cases," USA Today reports.
• The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Virginia Military Institute Wednesday on behalf of two students there, saying the school's "mandatory prayer before evening meals" is unconstitutional, the Lynchburg News and Advance reports.

• Hopewell, Va., Mayor Anthony Zevgolis could pose "a threat to House Republicans' hopes of capturing the seat of late" Rep. Norman Sisisky, D-Va. Zevgolis, who has run for the 4th District seat twice before as a Republican, has entered the June 19 race "as an Independent to protest the way the party selected its nominee," Roll Call reports.
• Randy Forbes (R) and Louise Lucas (D) -- also candidates for Virginia's 4th District seat -- have both released television ads in anticipation of the upcoming special election, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• Democrats "have turned to" Rep. Bobby Etheridge, D-N.C., as a possible candidate for the North Carolina 2002 Senate race after Erskine Bowles (D) said he wouldn't run, Roll Call reports.
• "Frustrated by failures to marshal their agenda on Capitol Hill, top labor leaders have approved what is being called the biggest and earliest grassroots communication program in labor history and have green-lighted a new approach to endorsements that could result in unprecedented labor support for Republican candidates in 2002," Roll Call reports.

• New York Gov. George Pataki (R) sent out a fund-raising letter using "the liberal politics of" Democrats "former Gov. Mario Cuomo and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to raise money for his expected re-election run next year," AP reports. The New York Times reports that in "a sense, Mr. Pataki has never stopped running against Mario Cuomo, the governor he unseated in 1994."
• A current "top aide" to Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., "is rejoining the staff" of Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., "further fueling speculation" that Meehan will run for governor, the Boston Herald reports.
• Tomah, Wis., Mayor Ed Thompson, brother of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, "took a step toward making his own bid for governor Wednesday by naming an exploratory committee that will look into a possible" third party candidacy in 2002, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
• Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin (D), "who is weighing a run for governor," criticized acting Gov. Jane Swift (R) for conducting a Governor's Council meeting on speaker phone from her hospital room, where she is preparing to deliver twins, the Boston Herald reports. Council members voted "to ask the Supreme Judicial Court whether Swift can legally preside over meetings by telephone."

• The New Jersey "Legislature's ethics committee dismissed yesterday a request to investigate acting Gov. Donald T. DiFrancesco's [R] business dealings and personal loans," AP reports.
• The Virginia Legislature "ended budget talks for good" Wednesday night "and returned home worrying openly about how voters in the November elections will react to their historic legislative failure," the Washington Post reports. "The impasse may end up costing taxpayers upwards of $1 million for special sessions of the House and Senate, committee hearings and extra staff work."
• The family of an unarmed black man who was shot by a police officer in Cincinnati is suing the city, arguing "that the 19-year-old's April 7 death is indicative of a continuing pattern of civil rights abuses by Cincinnati police that the city has perpetuated by failing to adequately train and discipline its officers," the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.
• "This is the second year" the South Carolina "state government has been closed for" Confederate Memorial Day, which "honors those who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War," the Columbia State reports.
• Boeing "will announce today" that it is moving its new corporate headquarters to Chicago, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. The chairman "is expected to" call "Illinois Gov. George Ryan [R], informing him that Chicago has won out over Dallas and Denver, the other cities that were in the running."

• Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) signed legislation Wednesday "that will never again allow butterfly ballots or punch-card votes," the Palm Beach Post reports. The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports Bush "made the proclamation at Palm Beach County's Emergency Operations Center, where county election workers hand-counted 462,000 presidential ballots."
• Al Gore made his first trip Wednesday to Florida since the contested election, and while speaking to tourism executives, he "laughed at his political misfortunes, explained that he has retreated from the limelight so that the country could heal and demonstrated that campaigning and politicking is still in his blood," the Orlando Sentinel reports.