The Earlybird: Today's headlines

CFR debate, energy plan, Senate approps, Compaq layoffs, Jeb's injury, N.J. gov ads, Saturday mail, Condit's apartment search, Ripken's legacy:

• "The fate of a sweeping campaign finance reform bill is shaping up as a political cliffhanger," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• "House Democratic leaders are offering to create a get-out-the-vote fund to keep black Democrats from defecting to a Republican-backed campaign finance bill," the Washington Times reports.
• Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is thought to support the Shays-Meehan bill, the Washington Post reports, but has refrained from lobbying fellow Congressional Black Caucus members to back the bill.
• House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, described the battle between the Shays-Meehan bill and the GOP's alternative legislation as "pretty much a jump ball," the New York Times reports.
• "Democratic strategists are privately warning that Democrats could be far harder hit than Republicans" by a ban on soft money, the Washington Post reports.

• Although House Republicans are pushing to pass "a package of energy measures" before its summer recess, the Washington Post reports that "a much longer list of high-priority measures... are stalled or tangled by divisions within the energy industry or between the industry and environmental critics."
• The House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee held its first markup on President Bush's energy plan Tuesday, National Journal News Service reports.
• "The Bush administration said late on Tuesday it wants to immediately begin a government review that could lead to increased auto fuel efficiency standards," Reuters reports.
• Republican leaders in the House said Tuesday that "tougher mileage requirements for sport utility vehicles will probably emerge in an energy package expected to be ready for a House vote later this month," AP reports.

• "The White House is devising a plan that will offer pharmacy discount cards to all older Americans by the beginning of next year," the Washington Post reports.
• Visiting New York Tuesday for the first time since his inauguration, Bush "bestowed the nation's highest civilian award posthumously on John Cardinal O'Connor," the New York Daily News reports.
• Bush also proposed "ways to ease immigration," the New York Times reports.
• "Things got chummy aboard Air Force One yesterday when President Bush popped in from 'first class' for coffee with [Democratic New York] Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chuck Schumer in the 'coach' section," the New York Post reports.
• "The Bush administration rejected a proposed regulation Tuesday that would have allowed religious groups to receive federal funds even if they discriminated against gays and lesbians in hiring," USA Today reports.
• "Richard Walker, the Securities and Exchange Commission's top cop, said he plans to return to the private sector," the Wall Street Journal reports. On Tuesday, "the White House formally nominated" former SEC general counsel and longtime Washington securities lawyer Harvey Pitt as SEC chairman.
• "Bush intends to nominate Mark W. Olson, a former president of the American Bankers Association who has been a consultant and a Republican congressional staffer," to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• "The Senate approved $6.5 billion more this year for defense and other programs Tuesday," AP reports, "after Democrats and Republicans blocked each other's efforts to protect Social Security and Medicare trust fund surpluses."
• Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Monday that the Bush administration's proposed $328.9 billion defense budget would likely require deficit spending, "dipping into the Social Security trust fund or cutting important domestic programs," the Washington Post reports. "None of those are acceptable alternatives," Levin said.
• "Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle on Tuesday tapped lawmakers to negotiate a final compromise on education reform," Reuters reports.
• U.S. Appeals Court Judge Roger Gregory comes up today as the first Bush nominee to face the Senate Judiciary Committee, AP reports. The judge "probably owes his nomination hearing to a feud between Democrats and North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms, a Republican."
• The Wall Street Journal reports that more-controversial judicial nominations are being put off until September.

• "The pharmaceuticals industry has launched an intensive lobbying campaign to derail legislation... that would allow pharmacies and wholesalers to import cheaper prescription drugs," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• The House will debate such legislation today, AP reports.
• Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said Tuesday that opening U.S. borders to reimported drugs could allow counterfeit or contaminated medicine onto the shelves, AP reports.

• In a development that "will undoubtedly have political ramifications," scientists at a Norfolk, Va., fertility clinic "have mixed donated eggs and sperm to derive embryonic stem cells," the New York Times reports.
• The Food and Drug Administration has informed doctors that a controversial class of fertility treatments can only be performed with the agency's approval, "marking the federal government's first significant foray into regulating the fertility field," the Washington Post reports.

• Houston-based Compaq Computer Corp. announced Tuesday that it will lay off an additional 1,500 workers this year and by year's end "expects to lay off 8,500 workers worldwide, or 12 percent of its 70,000-member work force," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• The Detroit Free Press reports General Motors Corp. is "moving closer" to completing the sale of its Hughes Electronics Corp. satellite and TV business to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
• Jacques A. Nasser, the CEO of Ford Motor Co., today begins "arguably the most important" board meeting of his tenure, at which "the board's 12 outside directors are expected to grill Nasser about a litany of troubling issues at Ford," the Detroit News reports.

• Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski "begged forgiveness Tuesday for a wartime massacre of hundreds of Jewish villagers by their Polish neighbors 60 years ago," AP reports.
• Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) returned "from vacation in Maine with a fractured middle finger, injured in a boating accident involving his father," the Miami Herald reports.

• After a jury in Manhattan deadlocked on whether to impose the death penalty on a terrorist convicted in the 1998 bombing of the American Embassy in Tanzania, the bomber, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the New York Times reports.
• A loose network of mostly Algerian terrorists, which "has evolved considerably in the last two years," poses a growing threat to Americans and U.S. interests, AP reports.
• The Chinese government confirmed Tuesday that Li Shaomin, an American business professor accused of spying for Taiwan, will go on trial in Beijing on Saturday, the New York Times reports. The trial will not be open to the public, but an American diplomat and interpreter will be allowed to observe.

• The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which have held plenary sessions of their annual meetings at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel on Washington's Woodley Road NW for 20 years, will move this year's meetings to their headquarters buildings in downtown D.C. because of planned anti-globalization protests, the Washington Post reports.

• The Newark Star-Ledger reports that gubernatorial candidates Jim McGreevey (D) and Bret Schundler (R) "are running their first radio ads of the general election campaign." Both campaigns have released negative ads.
• On Tuesday, "Schundler's campaign softened his position" on prohibiting "Medicaid funding of abortions," AP reports.
• Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (D) on Tuesday gave what "sure sounded like" an endorsement of Gov. George Ryan (R), who is deciding whether to run for re-election in 2002, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
• Former Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., "led fund raising among GOP" gubernatorial candidates, "but the Republicans combined raised less money and had lower cash reserves than" South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges (D) in anticipation of a primary that is 11 months away and a general election that is 15, the Greenville News reports.

• The St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minnesota Public Radio released a new poll showing Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., with "only a slight lead over a likely Republican opponent," St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman.
• CongressDailyAM reports that "many of the most vulnerable House Democratic freshmen have already banked at least $225,000" as they look toward 2002.

• The Virginia General Assembly on Tuesday approved a redistricting plan amid "Democratic charges that it violates the federal Voting Rights Act because it dilutes the black vote in the proposed 4th District," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. The Washington Post reports that the new plan will "protect the GOP-dominated delegation."
• Massachusetts state House Speaker Thomas Finneran (D) will announce "a radical congressional redistricting plan that obliterates" Rep. Martin Meehan's (D) district. Finneran said the plan "was spurred partly by his 'assumption' that Meehan is running for governor," the Boston Herald reports.
• The Boston Globe reports that Finneran's "plan seeks to eliminate Massachusetts' famously odd-shaped districts and create geographically compact seats," and it gives "new influence to minority voters."
• The Postal Service has dropped its consideration of ending Saturday deliveries, AP reports. Postal officials "decided Tuesday that the money saved by going to a five-day delivery schedule would not be worth the public outcry."
• Four fire fighters were killed as they battled "an explosive, wind-whipped blaze that grew to more than 2,500 in the rugged Okanogan National Forest" in Washington state yesterday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.

• Washington police "began a search late last night of the Adams Morgan apartment of" Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., in their investigation into the disappearance of former intern Chandra Levy, the Washington Post reports.
• CNN.com reports that the search lasted "about three-and-a-half hours," and police left Condit's apartment with "two grocery-sized bags and several rectangular-shaped items bundled together."
• Also on Tuesday, police asked Condit "to take a lie detector test and submit a DNA sample," AP reports.
• A "law enforcement source" told the Washington Times that Condit is being investigated "on charges of witness tampering and suborning perjury in trying to persuade a flight attendant to deny their affair in the Chandra Levy investigation."
• The Los Angeles Times reports that "Republicans are sizing up their best political opportunity in years" in California's 18th District, which Condit represents.

• The St. Paul Pioneer Press interviewed former Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn., who's had "a tough month... of court dates in this first summer after being bounced from the most exclusive club in the world."
• Francisca Castro, daughter of Fidel Castro, has been "living quietly in Miami" for two years "and has no desire to say anything bad about her papa," the Miami Herald reports.
• "A beaming Fidel Castro greeted 7-year-old Elián González with a kiss Tuesday in a rare public appearance by the most famous boy in Cuba," AP reports

• Cal Ripken of the Baltimore Orioles, playing in his final All-Star Game, become the oldest man to homer in an All-Star Game. And he earned his second All-Star Game MVP, the Baltimore Sun reports.