The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Labor leaders hear energy plan, Senate attempts tax cut compromise, House takes up education, McVeigh considers fighting execution, Pennsylvania special election tomorrow, homosexual Defense worker to leave, Kennedy photographer dies:

• Today President Bush will meet with "30 labor leaders" at the White House to give them a preview of the national energy plan he is expected to release this week, the Dallas Morning News reports. "But union leaders who will attend the meeting say it remains unclear whether they will endorse all of the plan."
• The Washington Post previewed Bush's plan on Sunday, reporting Bush will "emphasize the need for conservation and alternative fuels," but "the farthest-reaching parts of his proposal would clear the way for more coal mines, oil refineries, gas pipelines and nuclear reactors."
• "With rising gasoline prices and more blackouts likely in California, Bush faced growing pressure Sunday for immediate federal action" on energy, AP reports.
• California Gov. Gray Davis (D) "warned yesterday that the state faces economic disaster this summer unless the president steps in and imposes a cap on energy prices," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
• Meanwhile, solar power in California "has suddenly become so popular there's waiting lists of up to three months for rooftop installations," the Los Angeles Daily News reports.

• Today Bush also will visit Philadelphia, where he will speak at the Philadelphia Police Academy graduation and "call for the expansion of a program that takes criminals who use guns to federal court, where penalties are stiffer and trials are faster," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
• Bush plans to "review a presidential commission's recommendations on curbing tobacco use and increasing the federal tax on cigarettes by 17 cents," Reuters reports.
• "Talks between Beijing and Washington on finalizing China's entry to the World Trade Organization have ground to a halt," the Wall Street Journal reports.

• Republican leaders said Sunday that "President Bush's nomination of Theodore B. Olson to be the Justice Department's solicitor general will be approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee this week," the Washington Times reports.
• Harvey Pitt, Bush's pick to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, "helped an online distributor of 'teen sex' videos and other adult entertainment resolve troubles with the NASDAQ stock market," AP reports.
• Attorney General John Ashcroft spoke at a ceremony Sunday to add the "names of 313 slain officers" to the national law enforcement memorial, the Houston Chronicle reports.

• This week the Senate Finance Committee will begin work "on a compromise tax measure that could provide all taxpayers with fatter paychecks this year," USA Today reports. "But leading Democrats are attacking it as too costly and skewed to the rich."
• Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, "is already taking advance fire from conservative activists who fear that he has been far too compromising in negotiating the tax-cut package," Roll Call reports.
• Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Sunday "that backers of his Senate-passed campaign finance bill must get it through the House of Representatives by next month if it is to survive efforts by opponents to delay it to death," Reuters reports.

• This week the House is scheduled to vote on Bush's education plan, the Washington Times reports. Conservatives will stage "a final effort to rescue the bill from what they say has become a watered-down, Democratic version of school reform."
• "A panel of state and local election officials told House Members last week that they need funding from Congress by early next year -- at the very latest -- if they are going to implement significant election reforms in time for the 2002 voting," Roll Call reports.

• Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh "is weighing a fight against execution" because of the documents the FBI withheld from the case, the Houston Chronicle reports.
• Ashcroft "says he will not delay the execution of Timothy McVeigh beyond June 11," the Washington Times reports.
• "The FBI lapse has prompted members of Congress to urge hearings into how it happened," and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., "wants President Bush to appoint a commission to review the FBI," AP reports.
• And the lapse "has only confirmed" the fears of militia leaders "of an omnipotent government, vindicated them in their convictions, and breathed new life into what specialists have been calling a dying right-wing movement," the Boston Globe reports.
• Meanwhile, "two former federal prosecutors have filed legal claims against the FBI, seeking as much as $600 million in damages for two families whose lives they say were destroyed by the bureau and its mobster informants James 'Whitey' Bulger and Stephen Flemmi," the Boston Globe reports.

• "Chaos and long lines" kept some polls in Italy "open until early today" for the election of a new prime minister, AP reports. The New York Times reports that conservative candidate Silvio Berlusconi appears to be in the lead.
• In the Philippines, Rep. Marcial Punzalan Jr. was killed Saturday, just two days before today's elections there, FoxNews.com reports. "At least 55 people have died in poll-related violence since early this year."
• "Israeli helicopters heavily rocketed Palestinian security compounds near Yasser Arafat's office and several other points in the Gaza Strip late Sunday," AP reports.
• "Mahmoud Abbas, a deputy to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat headed to the United States Sunday for talks with U.S. and U.N. officials," UPI reports.

• Tomorrow's special election in Pennsylvania's 9th District looked like "a slam-dunk for Republicans.... Yet, some Republicans seemed a bit worried late last week," the Washington Post reports. William Shuster (R), son of retired Rep. Bud Shuster, R-Pa., "has run a less-than-dazzling campaign, they said."
• Still, W. Shuster "is considered the favorite heading into the contest" against Democrat Scott Conklin "for the heavily Republican seat," Roll Call reports.

• The Washington Post reports that three 2004 Democratic hopefuls--Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut--all have co-sponsored bills with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
• California Gov. Davis' "state of political grace ended abruptly in January" with the onslaught of the energy crisis," but that "is not Davis' only headache on the downslope of his first term," the Sacramento Bee reports. "California's economy is clearly slowing."

• Senate Republicans "cautioned that the Montana race, one of their top targets in the 2002 cycle, remains 'extremely fluid.'" Last week, state Sen. Mike Taylor (R) traveled to Washington, "emerging as a likely GOP challenger to" Sen. Max Baucus," D-Mont., Roll Call reports.
• University of South Carolina President John Palms is expected to announce today whether he will seek the Democratic nomination to run for the Senate seat currently held by retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., the Columbia State reports.
• Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., who is "facing a re-election campaign next year in which Republicans will try to paint him as too liberal for Georgia," has "a problem that goes by the name of the most popular politician in Georgia"--Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., who Cleland said has made "it look like I'm more to the Democratic side than I am," Cox News Service reports.
• Arkansas state Rep. Jim Bob Duggar (R), who has announced a 2002 Senate bid, "says the race he plans to make... is an act of faith more than calculation," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. "State Republican leaders, however, say the... two-term lawmaker doesn't have a prayer against incumbent" Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R).
• Oklahoma state Sen. Scott Pruitt (R) "on Saturday became the second official candidate in what could become a crowded race for the 1st Congressional District seat," the Tulsa World reports. The seat is "now held by GOP U.S. Rep. Steve Largent, who has all but officially announced a gubernatorial bid in 2002." First lady Cathy Keating is the other announced candidate.
• The "upheaval" in the New Jersey GOP race for the gubernatorial nomination between former Rep. Bob Franks, R-N.J., and Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler "has had little impact on voters," the Newark Star-Ledger reports.

• Tom Green, a "man who lives with his five wives and 29 children" in Utah, will go on trial today "in the state's first polygamy prosecution in decades," AP reports. Green could be "sentenced to as much as 15 years in prison," the Salt Lake City Deseret News reports.
• "Sunday, the Million Mom March returned to the capital, but as a shadow of its former self," the Washington Post reports.

• Stephen Herbits, a "homosexual activist who is serving as a principal job applicant screener at the Pentagon," will leave his job as early as this week amidst complaints from "several Republican lawmakers... to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about Mr. Herbits' tenure," the Washington Times reports.
• Jacques Lowe, who served as the official photographer to John F. Kennedy during his 1959 campaign and subsequent presidency, died Saturday, News Services reports. He was 71.