The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush at labor summit, Forbes goes to Washington, Justice to seek tobacco settlement, O'Neill sells Alcoa stock, Davis and FERC officials testify, Maryland GOP may woo Ripken:

• President Bush will speak today at the 21st Century Workforce Summit in Washington, "a government-sponsored conference of labor leaders, company executives and government officials," AP reports. During the summit the Labor Department will announce "several new job initiatives, including a partnership with Monster.com, a job search Internet site, and creation of a national high school for Job Corps youth."
• Bush visited the Pentagon Tuesday "for an update on the progress of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld," the Washington Times reports. One official said that the Pentagon "has decided to dump the two-war readiness requirement that has shaped the armed forces in the post-Soviet 1990s."
• The Natural Resources Defense Council on Tuesday asked Bush "to abolish the secret U.S. nuclear war plan directed against Russia, China and other potential enemies, saying it is 'a recipe for unceasing arms requirements by the Pentagon and a continuing competition with Russia,'" the Washington Post reports.
• Gen Nakatani, Japan's defense minister, "will meet top U.S. military officials in Washington this week in a move analysts say could pave the way for Tokyo to endorse" Bush's missile defense plan, Reuters reports.
• Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "will make an unannounced visit to Washington next week with expectations to meet with both... Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell" to discuss the Middle East peace process, AP reports.
• The Republican Party is planning a $2,500-a-plate gala for next Wednesday that will feature Bush, the New York Times reports. Republicans fear the fundraiser "may be a last chance to raise huge amounts of soft money donations before they are banned."

• On Tuesday, "Republicans sought to slow action" on the McCain-Edwards-Kennedy patients' rights bill, and Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., "vowed to 'stay on this bill for whatever length it takes,'" AP reports.
• "House GOP leaders say they are on track in drafting a Republican alternative" to the patients' rights bill this week, CongressDailyAM reports.
• The House on Tuesday approved "one of the biggest increases ever" for the Montgomery GI Bill, AP reports. "Some lawmakers said the boost, to cost $9 billion over 10 years, still was too small to keep pace with rising higher education costs."
• Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., said during a congressional hearing yesterday that "he has data showing Ford Motor Co. is replacing Firestone tires with other brands that fail more often, but he refused to make most of the information public," AP reports.
• Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., is pushing legislation that would require mandatory prison sentences for "terrorism by radical environmentalists," the Washington Times reports.
• Daschle said Tuesday that "he would hold votes later this week on two Republican proposals concerning the treatment of judicial nominees," the New York Times reports.
• NationalJournal.com interviews former Clinton official and judicial nominee Kent Marcus on what it's like to go through the nomination process.

• Republican Randy Forbes (R) won Virginia's 4th District special election Tuesday with 52 percent of the vote, compared to Democrat Louise Lucas' 48 percent, the Virginia Secretary of State reports.
• "Forbes' nearly 10,000-vote margin in Chesapeake, the district's largest locality, was enough to put him over the top," the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports.
• "Forbes' victory gives Republicans a 12-seat advantage over Democrats in the House," AP reports.
• "Voters turned out in respectable numbers yesterday," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• "Republican National Committee Chairman and Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore called Forbes' victory 'a monumental win for Republicans in Virginia and nationwide' and said it would help build momentum for Republican election gains in 2001 and 2002," Reuters reports.

• On Tuesday, Senate Democrats said "they would no longer try to impose stringent price controls on Western electricity sales, opting to give federal regulators' price-dampening plan time to work," AP reports.
• California Gov. Gray Davis (D) will come "face to face with all five FERC commissioners" for the first time during a Senate hearing today, Reuters reports. The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee "plans to quiz the FERC commissioners and Davis on federal and state efforts to stabilize the chaotic Western electricity market."
• Davis "used his emergency powers yesterday to authorize borrowing up to $5 billion for energy purchases," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
• "The House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee approved a $23.7 billion bill Tuesday that restores money that the Bush administration sought to cut in energy research and water projects," National Journal News Service reports.
• An international campaign that originated on an Internet message board "has proponents hoping that from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday, homes will go dark as people unplug in peaceful protest of high energy costs," the Dallas Morning News reports.

• Justice Department officials said Tuesday that they "will seek a pretrial settlement" in the "multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the tobacco industry after deciding the government could lose the case," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• FBI support employee James J. Hill "has been arrested for allegedly selling bureau secrets to the Mafia and criminal defense lawyers for the past 19 months," Reuters reports.
• Robert W. Pickett, who "opened fire outside the White House in February," pleaded guilty Tuesday to "one count of violating a local weapons law and agreed to an Alford Plea on the charge assaulting a federal officer," CNN.com reports.
• Accounting firm Arthur Andersen on Tuesday settled a lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission and agreed to pay a $7 million penalty, the New York Times reports. "The suit stemmed from failed audits at Waste Management Inc., the large trash company, which led to a $1.43 billion restatement of earnings in 1998."

• A new poll in Virginia shows gubernatorial candidate Mark Warner (D) with a five-point lead over his opponent, Mark Earley (R), the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the "Earley campaign was buoyed by the" poll "results, saying they proved that Warner's current advantage in cash and technology had not blunted the Republican message."
• The Newark Star-Ledger reports that there will be some "big obstacles" for former Rep. Bob Franks (R) to face if he wins the New Jersey GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday, namely "key members of his own party."
• Franks has more cash on hand than does opponent, Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler (R), the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• With "a re-election campaign ahead," Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) "is rearranging his senior executive staff," the Tallahassee Democrat reports.
• Former Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Mark Singel (D) "has written to 7,000 Democratic Party activists" drumming up support for Ed Rendell in a Democratic gubernatorial primary, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
• The United Auto Workers is expected to announce today its support of Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., for governor of Michigan, the Detroit News reports.
• The Frederick News-Post reports that some Maryland Republicans "are hoping the party drafts" retiring Oriole legend Cal Ripken Jr. "to run for governor in the 2002 election."

• "Former U.S. Attorney Tom Strickland on Tuesday withdrew his promise not to challenge Denver Mayor Wellington Webb in [Colorado's] Democratic Senate primary next year," saying "Webb had missed several private deadlines to decide whether to run," the Denver Post reports.

• "Despite the debacle of last November's presidential vote and subsequent marathon recount," Broward County "commissioners on Tuesday turned a cold shoulder on" touch-screen voting, calling it a "waste of money," the Miami Herald reports.
• The Sacramento Bee reports that "a huge fire raging through the Sierra and into western Nevada" has slowed down.
• In California, a Virginia man "was found guilty Tuesday of felony animal cruelty for grabbing a dog from its owner's lap and flinging it to its death in an act of road rage that infuriated animal lovers worldwide," USA Today reports.

• "Israeli officials have confirmed plans to build a 'buffer zone' along sensitive parts of the unmarked border between Israel and parts of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, regardless of a cease-fire brokered recently by CIA Director George Tenet," Knight Ridder News Service reports.
• "U.S. and Yemeni officials said Tuesday that 10 people possessing hand grenades, machine guns and bombmaking equipment had been arrested in a suspected terrorist plot to attack the U.S. Embassy and its staff in Sanaa, Yemen," USA Today reports. More arrests are likely.
• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Tuesday "donated $100 million to an international health fund to fight AIDS and called on the European Union and other countries to contribute," the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.

• Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill "finished the task of divesting his $100 million-plus portfolio," including stocks in Alcoa that "had sparked questions of conflict of interest," the Dow Jones Newswires reports.
• Friends of the Earth, The Wilderness Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund are "working to defeat" Steven Griles' nomination to the No. 2 position at the Interior Department, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.
• The parents of missing intern Chandra Levy "have hired Washington attorney Billy Martin, hoping that he will articulate their fears, wishes and concerns," the Washington Post reports. Martin also represented Monica Lewinsky's mother.
• California state Supreme Court Justice Stanley Mosk died unexpectedly Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times reports. The 88-year-old judge was the "longest-serving member in the court's 151-year history."
• A Manhattan judge pronounced Etan Patz dead Tuesday. Patz, who disappeared 22 years ago at the age of 6, "sparked the modern missing children's movement," CNN.com reports. "Attorneys say the declaration clears the way for a wrongful death lawsuit against the man" his parents "consider his killer."