The Earlybird: Today's Headlines

Bush's bid for Hispanic support, extra billions through accounting, Middle East updates, gov-race announcements, cell phone safety, Condit's opponents, merging media and a calmer Capitol Hill:

• During President Bush's Wednesday visit to Griegos Elementary School in Albuquerque, N.M., he stumped for his education plan and "announced the federal government would provide a $6 million grant over three years to Albuquerque Public Schools for magnet schools," the Albuquerque Tribune reports.
• Bush also visited Albuquerque's Hispano Chamber of Commerce, where he attended the opening of a new job-opportunity training center and "said it's important to tear down barriers to trade with Mexico," the Santa Fe New Mexican reports.
• "Bush's two-day swing through New Mexico and Colorado is geared toward shoring up Hispanic support" in 2004, the Washington Times reports. Bush is back at his Texas ranch today to continue his vacation.
• Some Republicans fear Bush's proposed immigration policies "will put millions of illegal Hispanic immigrants on the path to U.S. citizenship, with far more of them voting Democratic rather than Republican at the polls," the Washington Times reports.

• White House officials said Tuesday they are "making an accounting change involving Social Security that would free $4.3 billion for Congress to use for spending or cutting taxes," AP reports.
• The Congressional Budget Office will "release a revised budget-surplus estimate" later this month "that indicates Social Security reserves will be tapped for other government spending during the current fiscal year," USA Today reports. The "White House budget office soon will produce its own estimate that shows the Social Security surplus untouched -- but only because of a change in long-standing accounting methods that the administration says make surplus data more accurate."
• The dollar's recent slide may help Bush politically, the Wall Street Journal reports: "Bush could reap the political benefits of a boost in exports later this year, spurring growth just when the economy needs it most."

• Bush administration officials are expected to announce today that they will "overhaul Clinton-era rules aimed at adding protections for millions of Medicaid patients in managed-care plans," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Administration officials said Wednesday that House Republican leaders will "hold up payment of money the United States owes the United Nations unless the Bush administration agrees to legislation designed to undercut the International Criminal Court," the Washington Post reports.
• A new poll from the Pew Research Center found the majority of Western Europeans "disapprove of most of President Bush's foreign policy positions and have little confidence in the American leader's handling of world affairs," Reuters reports. (Additional recent polling on foreign policy is available in NationalJournal.com's Poll Track archives.)
• During Bush's visit to Colorado this week, he "raked in nearly $2 million from people with the means to pay $500 to $25,000 to rub shoulders with the leader of the free world," the Denver Post reports. The amount exceeded expectations by about $500,000.

• New Jersey "state election officials yesterday cleared the way for the Republican National Committee to pour millions of dollars into advertising for GOP gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler," the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the ruling could could give the GOP "the edge in spending on TV ads in the governor's race."
• Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., formally announced his candidacy for governor Wednesday when he kicked off "a four-day swing" through Michigan, the Detroit Free Press reports.
• Bonior "will leave his leadership post" as House Majority Whip "by the end of the year, with insiders expecting the election of a replacement to occur within weeks of Members returning from the August recess," Roll Call reports.
• Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., "said he's not interested in nudging anyone out of the" crowded Florida Democratic gubernatorial primary, "noting he benefited from a crowded primary in 1978, when he ran for governor," the Miami Herald reports.
• The Tallahassee Democrat reports that "nine Democrats have opened campaign accounts."
• Illinois Lt. Gov. Corinne Wood (R) has started to put together her 2002 gubernatorial campaign staff, a move "aimed at taking advantage of sharp divisions within the state's Republican establishment, especially among those who believe" Attorney General Jim Ryan (R) and state Sen. Patrick O'Malley (R) "are too conservative to win in November 2002," the Chicago Tribune reports.
• The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Wood will make her candidacy official "in a week or so."
• Connecticut Senate Majority Leader George Jepsen (D) "launched his bid for governor Wednesday by setting $4 million as a fund-raising goal," the Hartford Courant reports.

• Sen. Wayne Allard, D-Colo., "has a 5-point advantage over Tom Strickland (D), according to a new independent poll" Roll Call's "At the Races" reports. "The survey showed that Rep. Mark Udall (D), who opted to forgo a Senate bid," leads Strickland among Democrats.
• Bush adviser Karl Rove "is believed to be behind" a potential North Carolina Senate bid by Elizabeth Dole, should Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., retire, the London Times reports.
• Arkansas state Sen. Gunner DeLay (R) filed Wednesday to run in the upcoming 3rd District special election, as did Democrat Bill Williams, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.
• Former Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn., who was defeated in 2000, "is reportedly considering a Congressional bid for the 6th district against" Rep. Bill Luther, D-Minn.," Roll Call's "At the Races" reports.
• Finn Caspersen Jr. (R), "son of a prominent Republican contributor," wants to challenge Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., "and has been lobbying the highest levels of the Republican Party... seeking support for his effort," the Trenton Times reports.

• "California Republicans are plotting protests and recruiting challengers to run against" Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., "who is scheduled to formally kick off his campaign with an Oct. 20 fund-raiser," the Washington Times reports.
• Don Vance, a friend of missing intern Chandra Levy's family, "has set up a series of Web sites -- 'www.defeatgarycondit.org' and 'www.condidit.com' -- that offer the latest news about the search for Chandra and provide people with dates, times and locations of planned protests against Condit," the New York Post reports.
• Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., "has become the first House Democrat to call for Condit's resignation," Roll Call's "Heard on the Hill" reports.

• The American Civil Liberties Union and two other groups "sued to block Florida's election reform law on Wednesday, saying it creates an illegal literacy test that discriminates against minorities by requiring that a list of 'voter responsibilities' be posted at the polls," Reuters reports.
• "A tropical depression that formed Wednesday in the Atlantic could grow into Tropical Storm Chantal by this morning and a hurricane by Friday," the Miami Herald reports.
• "Competition for the proposed national slavery museum has intensified," with three Virginia cities fighting to land the project, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

• Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Wednesday that Israeli leaders are not "considering a full-scale invasion of Palestinian-controlled territories," FoxNews.com reports.
• "The U.N. Security Council may meet early next week to discuss the Middle East situation," UPI reports.
• A Palestinian witness said "Israeli soldiers hiding in a truck killed a Palestinian militia leader with a burst of shots yesterday," AP reports.

• "NATO gave the go-ahead yesterday for 400 British troops to deploy in Macedonia, the vanguard of a one-month mission to disarm ethnic Albanian rebels," AP reports.
• "South Korea's president, Kim Dae Jung, called on the United States today to 'make its best efforts to resume talks' with North Korea," the New York Times reports.

• The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday gave death row inmate Napoleon Beazley a stay of execution, hours before he was scheduled to die, AP reports.
• "Crime in Capitol Hill neighborhoods has declined steadily over the past eight years," Roll Call reports.

• Astronomers have discovered "the first distant multiplanet system in which the planets have near-circular orbits like those in this solar system," the New York Times reports. "The astronomers said they had detected a Jupiter-size planet orbiting the star 47 Ursae Majoris, a member of the Big Dipper, 51 light-years from Earth."
• The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism said Wednesday that analysis shows "Hispanics have the nation's highest rate of death from cirrhosis of the liver," AP reports.
• The National Safety Council will release a study today showing that there is no safe way to drive and use a cell phone -- even a hands-free cell phone, CNN.com reports.
• In a report released Wednesday, the NAACP said "television networks have made scant progress in putting minorities in front of and behind cameras," AP reports.

• Bosses at ABC News and CBS "have stepped up their talks with CNN about a possible partnership," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. CNN also "had discussions with both ABC and CBS in the 1990s, but those efforts fell apart."

• Paula Jones has "sued the eccentric" New York "real estate mogul Abe Hirschfeld to pay her the $1 million he promised for dropping her sexual harassment case against former President Bill Clinton," Reuters reports.
• British officials have cleared up false reports that Queen Elizabeth II would allow Prince Charles to marry long-time girlfriend Camilla Parker Bowles, UPI reports.