The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush reaches out, Dems take over, Tenet heads to Mideast, judge hears McVeigh appeal, Watson wins Calif.-32, Earley releases ads, Torricelli requests special counsel:

• President Bush had dinner with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and met with a "tri-partisan group of senators" to discuss education on Tuesday, the Dallas Morning News reports. On Thursday Bush is scheduled to meet with Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., and later this week Bush "will break bread with a newly empowered Democrat, incoming Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota."
• Democrats take over as the majority party in the Senate today, which will set "the stage for renewed partisan struggles over the remainder of President Bush's legislative agenda," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• On Tuesday "the Democrats began flexing their muscle by demanding more money for education and by placing legislation that would make it easier to sue managed health care companies ahead of Bush's energy proposals," the Baltimore Sun reports.
• During an interview with the New York Times, Bush "expressed optimism about the future of his agenda." Bush said he was trying to change the perception "that his policy goals were not sufficiently bipartisan and that they were significantly to the right of most voters."

• Bush helped build a house for Habitat for Humanity in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday, in an effort to build support for his faith-based initiatives program, the Orlando Sentinel reports. "Bush wants to boost from $22 million to $66 million what the government spends on a Self-help Home-Ownership Opportunity Program."
• Today Bush will give the keynote address at the dedication of the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va., the Lynchburg News and Advance reports. "Construction teams... remained at the site past midnight working to restore the grounds" of the site, which were damaged by hail and rain on Tuesday.
• Bush's speech is likely to focus on "the history of strong transatlantic ties rather than on how he may hope to blunt sharp European criticism of U.S. plans for a missile defense system, his decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Treaty on combating global warming and several simmering trade disputes," Reuters reports.

• On Tuesday the Congressional Hispanic Caucus heard testimony from Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and others that "the U.S. Navy physically abused and humiliated protesters trying to stop bombing practice on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques," the Orlando Sentinel reports.
• Next week the House Financial Services subcommittee on capital markets will hold a hearing on "the supposed erosion of the barrier between stock analysts and investment bankers, who may work under the same roof but have different interests," Reuters reports.

• The United States "has managed to work out a settlement freeze formula" with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Ha'aretz reports. "According to the terms of the understanding, no new settlements will be constructed, in accordance with the basic guidelines of the government."
• Ha'aretz also reports that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "decided to declare a cease-fire only after he received a pledge that European representatives would be involved in supervision of the cease-fire."
• CIA Director George Tenet arrives in the Middle East today to "build on a cease-fire," Reuters reports.
• The family of a murdered Palestinian donated his organs to an Israeli hospital, despite their belief that he was killed by an Israeli, Cox News Service reports. "As of Tuesday, four Israeli Jews and a Palestinian had received his organs."

• "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday that his visit with U.S. peacekeeping troops in Kosovo this week convinced him of the need to keep an American military presence there," Reuters reports.
• Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey said Tuesday that "he believes the decline in the U.S. economy 'is largely over' and that a recovery will begin later this year or early next year as the administration's tax cuts kick in," the Washington Times reports.

• Today a federal judge will hear Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's request to postpone his execution, the Dallas Morning News reports. McVeigh is scheduled to be executed Monday, and the judge could make a decision on the case as early as today.
• McVeigh's attorneys accused the U.S. government Tuesday "of hiding evidence federal agents knew about the bombing beforehand," the Oklahoman reports.
• FBI Director Louis Freeh suggested during a speech to the Simon Wiesenthal Center Tuesday that "the FBI had done the right thing by admitting the mistake," AP reports. The center, an "international Jewish human rights and Holocaust remembrance group," gave Freeh a national leadership award.
• Some of Freeh's associates "are urging him to postpone his retirement for a few months to help the agency ride out the turmoil caused by its miscues involving" McVeigh "and accused spy Robert Philip Hanssen," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• House Government Reform Committee chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., on Tuesday "issued a sweeping document request to the US Justice Department demanding FBI records on agents, informants, and policies dating to the late 1950s," the Boston Globe reports.
• "A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that an FBI sharpshooter can be tried for manslaughter in the slaying of white separatist Randy Weaver's wife during the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff in Idaho," AP reports.

• "Hundreds of young people of Asian descent clashed with police Tuesday night in the northern city of Leeds" in Great Britain "as racial tensions boiled over for the second time in two weeks," AP reports.
• Iranian President Mohammad Khatami -- "who is seeking to be re-elected on Friday" -- said Tuesday "that the United States would have to change its policies toward Iran if relations are to improve," the New York Times reports.

• On the 20th anniversary of the first reports of AIDS, "Surgeon General David Satcher said Tuesday that he will release a call-to-action report on the nation's sexual health by the end of the month, emphasizing that Americans need to learn more and talk more about sex," the Dallas Morning News reports.
• Meanwhile, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute will release a report today showing that "rates for cancer cases and deaths have continued to decline," AP reports.

• Former California state Sen. Diane Watson (D) "sailed to victory Tuesday night" in the race to replace the late Rep. Julian Dixon, D-Calif. "Watson, 67, will become the oldest freshman member in the current House," the Los Angeles Times reports. She will be sworn in on Thursday.
• James Hahn (D), overcoming "his opponent's support from much of the political establishment" in California, won yesterday's mayoral contest, the Los Angeles Times reports. "The election signaled a return of the city to its more native liberal politics and the end of the eight-year interlude in which Richard Riordan, a Republican anti-politician, governed at City Hall."

• Virginia state Sen. Randy Forbes (R), who is running in the special election in the 4th District, criticized a "piece of direct mail sent to some 4th District voters" by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee "that claims the Bush administration tax cut won't help most minority families," the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports.
• The Boston Globe reports on "how vital labor unions could be in" the upcoming Massachusetts 9th District special election: "Almost a third of [9th District] residents have some type of union affiliation," and the candidates "have been falling over themselves to win the affections of the state's unions."
• Ninth District candidate Max Kennedy (D) "plans to open a congressional campaign account next week," when a date for the special election is set. His formal announcement "is set for the beginning of July," the Boston Herald reports.
• Arkansas state Rep. Jo Carson (D) announced Tuesday that she will run in the 3rd District race to fill the seat of Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., who "is expected to leave the seat to" head the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

• "Bruce Waldack, who had given $47,000 to" Virginia gubernatorial candidate Mark Earley (R) through March, is founder and chief executive of a company that "markets specifically to the online pornography industry," the Washington Times reports.
• Earley "intends to launch three television ads by this weekend" in his race against Democrat Mark Warner, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• Bill McBride, a "prominent" Florida attorney, "resigned Tuesday as managing partner of one of Florida's biggest law firms to begin a campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor," the Tallahassee Democrat reports.

• Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) "issued an immediate, sharply worded response" to a report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights "with a five-page letter to the commission from his general counsel... that derided the report's 'faulty analysis driven by political bias,'" the Miami Herald reports.
• "The Ohio Department of Health on Tuesday recommended vaccinating 5,800 students and staff from six" high schools "to protect them from a meningitis-related outbreak that has killed two students and left a third seriously ill," AP reports.
• Tropical Storm Allison hit parts of Texas Tuesday, marking the "first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began Friday," the Galveston Daily News reports. No injuries were reported.

• Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., "will ask the Justice Department today to appoint a special counsel to take over the criminal investigation of his campaign activities" in an effort to avoid a "'politicized' effort to influence control of the Senate," the Washington Post reports.
• The National Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a new "consortium of power companies," has hired former Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour "to try to fend off clean-air lawsuits from the federal government," the New York Times reports.
• "The owner of the Tex-Mex restaurant where President Bush's 19-year-old twins got in trouble for alleged underage drinking" is apologizing for the way the situation was handled, the Dallas Morning News reports.