The Earlybird: Today's headlines

CFR, prescription prices, government spending, wrestler in Washington, Thune's new race, more Castros in Miami:

• Supporters of the Shays-Meehan campaign finance bill do not yet have the votes for passage, the Washington Post reports.
• Republican freshmen and black Democrats remain the key voting blocs on the bill, the New York Times reports.
• A proposed amendment to ban contributions from noncitizens could "kill the entire package," the Boston Globe reports.
• There is "the possibility that parliamentary gamesmanship by GOP leaders could delay the bill into next week," USA Today reports.
• And House Republicans' efforts to "derail federal campaign-finance reform... are on a collision course with President Bush's efforts to expand their party's support among Hispanic voters and immigrants," the Wall Street Journal reports.

• "Both campaign-finance measures being considered by the House likely will lead to a proliferation" of issue ads, the Wall Street Journal reports. Such spots are "much harder to regulate and to identify their sponsors under current laws than are traditional politician- and party-sponsored ads."
• "The National Republican Congressional Committee... raised a record $39 million in the first six months of 2001," Roll Call reports.
• The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, "raised a record $48.6 million in the first half of the year," AP reports. The Democratic National Committee raised $23 million during that period.

• Bush made his "first lobbying trip" to Capitol Hill Wednesday, the Washington Times reports. The president pressed House Republicans to "rededicate themselves to his faith-based social service plan."
• The presidential "pep talk... also urged fiscal discipline and told GOP Members to shrug off accusations that the sweeping tax cut passed earlier this year could become a political liability," Roll Call reports.

• "House Republican tax writers Wednesday slashed President Bush's grand package of tax breaks to boost charitable giving," National Journal News Service reports.
• "President Bush threatened yesterday to veto any bill that prevents Mexican trucks from operating on U.S. roads," AP reports, "just as a Senate committee was poised to take up House-passed legislation that does just that."
• "The Senate voted yesterday to block new coal mining and oil and gas drilling projects on national monument lands in the West," the Washington Post reports.
• "Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. said the federal budget surplus for 2001 could be as much as 40% smaller than the $275 billion forecast earlier this year," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• Bush adviser Karl Rove "was the Salvation Army's first White House contact in its effort to win approval of a regulation allowing religious charities to practice anti-gay workplace bias," the Washington Post reports -- despite "the administration's initial insistence that senior officials were not involved."

• "President Bush's recent decision requiring California to use ethanol as its gasoline additive will add to the state's already steep gasoline prices," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Meanwhile, Enron Corp. is suing the California Senate Select Committee to Investigate Market Manipulation "to stop the subpoena of its financial and electricity trading records," AP reports.

• The House on Wednesday voted "to make it easier for people to import low-cost prescription drugs for their own use," the New York Times reports. "A more sweeping proposal to allow such imports by drug wholesalers and pharmacies" was rejected.
• The president "will propose offering pharmacy discount cards to older Americans to help the elderly with soaring prescription drug costs," Reuters reports.
• Bush "is proposing a $35 million public-awareness campaign" to "help Medicare patients obtain prescription drug discounts," AP reports.
• The White House and Congress remain "miles apart from bridging differences about the cost of any Medicare drug plan," the Boston Globe reports.
• Nevada, meanwhile, has already launched "a state-funded, privately managed prescription drug insurance plan," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• And "the National Academy of Sciences warned yesterday that the Bush administration's emphasis on funding medical research has cut or frozen spending on physics and engineering," the Washington Times reports.

• "More than a dozen Senate Democrats this week officially reaped the rewards" of majority status as new committee assignments were made, Roll Call reports.
• "A House panel quickly passed the fiscal year 2002 Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government appropriations bill Wednesday," National Journal News Service reports, "saving debate over several contentious issues for the full Appropriations Committee markup."
• The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold confirmation hearings for Arkansas Rep. Asa Hutchinson's (R) appointment "to be the next head of the Drug Enforcement Administration on Tuesday," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

• Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "is no longer considering the radical step of bringing a retired officer back onto active duty" to serve as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Washington Post reports.
• "The Pentagon will notify Congress on Monday that it plans to begin preparatory work in mid-August on a new missile-defense test site at Fort Greely, in Alaska," the New York Times reports.
• "The United States has told Russia and its allies that it expects its development of a missile defense will conflict with a Cold War-era treaty in months, not years," Reuters reports.

• "The Justice Department is preparing a formal legal opinion that individuals, not just groups, have a constitutional right to own guns," Reuters reports. This would be a reversal of the position Justice has held for 30 years.
• "Key arms makers in the United States and Europe are willing to accept a voluntary program to mark and trace small arms to help curb illegal trafficking," AP reports.

• "A Minnesota appeals court has ruled that an engagement ring is 'a conditional gift' and must be returned to the person who gave it, regardless of who put an end to the relationship," the Washington Times reports.
• "The Wisconsin Supreme Court has upheld a probation order that bars a man convicted of failure to pay child support from having more children unless he shows that he can support all his offspring," the New York Times reports.

• The Newark Star-Ledger reports that New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler (R) "awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal work to a close friend and major political donor who now serves as finance chairman of his Republican campaign for governor."
• Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas told Illinois Democrats that "he will announce a steering committee on Monday and make his" 2002 gubernatorial bid "official in about two weeks," the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
• Former University of Iowa wrestling coach Dan Gable (R) traveled this week to Washington, where he met with "top political officials" to discuss a possible gubernatorial bid, the Des Moines Register reports.
• Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) has tapped Karen Unger, "a former Republican Party operative in South Florida," to head up his 2002 re-election effort, the Miami Herald reports.

• Rep. John Thune, R-S.D., "is looking much more seriously at abandoning his planned gubernatorial bid and challenging" Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., Roll Call reports.
• St. Paul, Minn., Mayor Norm Coleman (R) has raised more than $600,000 "in the eight weeks since he set his sights on ousting Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone," the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. Meanwhile, a new poll by the paper "gave Wellstone a narrow lead of 48 to 44 percent over Coleman in a hypothetical race."
• Florida state Rep. Jim Miller (R), real estate consultant Randy Knepper (R) and attorney Bob Condon (R) -- who are running in the special election primary in Florida's 1st District -- have all "recently started running TV ads with largely positive themes," Roll Call reports. The primary is July 24.
• Michigan Prosecutor Carl Marlinga (D) "disclosed Wednesday he is considering running for Congress in either of two districts -- including one that could pit him against" Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., the Detroit News reports.

• Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Almond (R) on Wednesday "vetoed a bill that would have made Rhode Island only the second state in the nation to ban the use of hand-held cell phones while driving," the Providence Journal-Bulletin reports.
• A new poll shows that "more than half of Minnesota's voters are pleased with President George W. Bush's performance in office," the the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports.
• Indiana Gov. Frank O'Bannon (D) announced yesterday the resignation of state Democratic Party Chair Mike Pannos and the appointment of Peter Manous, the Indianapolis Star-News reports.

• Items taken from California Rep. Gary Condit's (D) Washington apartment in a police search "were to be sent to the FBI crime lab in Quantico, Va.," as authorities continue to investigate the case of missing intern Chandra Levy, AP reports.
• A Pentecostal minister told authorities that his then-18-year-old daughter and Condit had an affair and that "the congressman had warned her never to speak of the relationship," the Houston Chronicle News Services report.
• "Before the Levy affair," California Democrats "had hoped to create a new, Democratic-leaning district encompassing the city of Stockton. But... they may now have to scrap that plan in favor of adding Stockton to Condit's district, keeping it safe for Democrats but giving up a chance to gain an extra seat in the House," the Washington Post reports.

• Former President Clinton plans to build a "mini-Camp David" in Hot Springs, Ark., U.S. News reports.
• Former Rep. Dick Zimmer, R-N.J., has accepted a job in Washington as "a lawyer for a prominent law firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher," the Trenton Times reports.
• The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that "CNN Headline News, long the attention-deprived stepchild of CNN, gets a dramatic face-lift Aug. 6," starting with new "anchor Andrea Thompson, the former star of" television show "NYPD Blue."
• A granddaughter and daughter of Fidel Castro have both been living in Miami, the Miami Herald reports. On Wednesday, the Herald reported that another daughter of the Cuban president lives there as well.
• The Kennedy family will "pay the family of Carolyn and Lauren Bessette $15 million for their deaths in the crash of the plane piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr.," which crashed in July 1999, the New York Post reports.