The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush courts unions, Congress returns to sluggish economy, race conference criticism, gov race attacks, Reno announcement, Mass.-09 ads, Gore's uncertainty:

• President Bush spoke to union audiences in Wisconsin and Michigan on Monday "to tell workers that he knows they are worried about the economy -- and that he is, too," the Washington Post reports.
• Bush's overtures drew mixed reviews from union members, the New York Times reports.
• The president is meeting today with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., "to plot strategy for what promises to be a contentious fight over the 13 spending bills that the House, Senate and president must approve in order to keep the government running after Sept. 30," AP reports.
• Bush is also set to meet with Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Reuters reports.

• "Republican congressional leaders, anxious about the sluggish economy, will seek to slash taxes on capital gains to stimulate investment," the Wall Street Journal reports. The proposal would cut the rate from 20 percent to 15 percent.
• "The stock market's summer swoon has Wall Street fearing many small investors might begin to cash in their mutual funds," the Los Angeles Times reports, "eliminating a key source of support for share prices."
• "The Federal Reserve is prepared to continue cutting interest rates, a quarter point at a time, until signs of recovery emerge," the Wall Street Journal reports.

• Mexican President Vicente Fox will visit the White House beginning Wednesday, and the trip to visit Bush "is designed to showcase the relationship of two friends and tout the fruits of their closer cooperation," the Dallas Morning News reports.
• Fox said Tuesday "that he expects it will take four to six years to complete a comprehensive U.S.-Mexico immigration reform," Reuters reports.

• "Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter on Tuesday criticized a U.S. decision to withdraw from a United Nations conference on race," Reuters reports.
• The pullout was also "denounced by human rights groups and the Rev. Jesse Jackson," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
• AP has excerpts from the conference's disputed declaration.

• "Interior Secretary Gale Norton has struck an agreement with four environmental groups to speed federal protection for 29 plant and animal species," USA Today reports.
• "Top welfare, work, marriage and teen pregnancy-prevention officials are gathering in Washington this week to review the impact of the 5-year-old welfare reform law," the Washington Times reports.
• "A Johns Hopkins University study has concluded that criminals in states that require licensing and registration of handguns have a harder time acquiring guns than those in states that don't have such laws," the Baltimore Sun reports.

• New Jersey gubernatorial nominee Jim McGreevey (D) spent Labor Day "campaigning along the Jersey Shore with former Senator Bill Bradley, and he "repeatedly attacked" GOP candidate Bret Schundler for "opposing legal abortion even in the cases of rape or incest," the New York Times reports.
• Schundler on Monday "accused McGreevey of running a 'divisive' campaign and suggested that the Woodbridge mayor was ducking him in public venues," the Newark Star Ledger reports.
• Schundler also "said Monday county-run incinerators that are in financial trouble should be sold off to commercial operators," AP reports.
• "Activists and officeholders are studying his tactics, trying to determine whether" Virginia gubernatorial candidate Mark Warner (D) "has the seeds of a new approach for Democratic candidates," the Washington Post reports. Warner "has avoided divisive social issues such as gun control, the death penalty and gay rights," instead focusing on "economic growth, public education and fiscal caution."
• "With the latest polls showing" Warner "out front by a dozen points, supporters of his Republican opponent," Mark Earley, "have begun running radio advertisements that portray the Democratic ticket as the most liberal ever, saying that one major candidate is eager to legalize gay marriage," the New York Times reports.
• Earley "dispensed with traditional niceties at a Labor Day parade" yesterday, charging that Warner "'cannot be trusted' to preserve tax cuts and other popular GOP initiatives enacted in the past decade," the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports.

• Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno today "will file paperwork to enable her to raise money for the gubernatorial bid," and she "said she plans to announce today whether she would seek the office," AP reports.
• "Reno's high-profile status in Florida would make her an immediate front-runner in the Democratic primary," but polls show that "she may have trouble defeating" Gov. Jeb Bush (R), "whose active, behind-the-scenes involvement in the recount battle that gave his brother the presidency last year makes him one of the leading Democratic targets in 2002," the Washington Post reports.
• "With the backing of much of the Democratic Party's leadership establishment," businessman Tony Sanchez "plans formally to announce his candidacy" for governor of Texas today, the Houston Chronicle reports..
• Illinois Lt. Gov. Corinne Wood (R) "will announce a bid for governor Sunday afternoon, setting up a three-way brawl in what will be the biggest GOP primary in decades," the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
• Winning the GOP nomination for California governor is "a task that may be rougher than some think" for former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, due to his "accommodating stance on touchy issues such as gun control, gay rights and abortion," the Los Angeles Times reports.

• Democratic candidates for the Massachusetts 09 special election "spent Labor Day courting votes and trading barbs over increasingly negative television commercials," AP reports.
• State Sen. Stephen Lynch (D) "has decided to bring out the heavy artillery in the 9th District special primary: an emotional new ad highlighting Lynch's donation of part of his liver to his brother-in-law," the Boston Globe reports.
• Even as "Lynch pivots toward the middle on gun control, his past record haunts him," the Boston Globe reports.

• "Fifty-two Cuban immigrants who said they paid smugglers $8,000 each came ashore in southern Florida over the Labor Day weekend," AP reports.
• Californians' energy consumption dropped 6.5 percent in August, the Sacramento Bee reports.
• "Just two days after a 10-year-old boy was killed in a shark attack off the Virginia coast," a couple in North Carolina was attacked by a shark, "leaving the man dead and the woman in critical condition," the Raleigh News & Observer reports.

• Former Vice President Al Gore said Monday "he is uncertain about whether he will run again for the presidency in 2004," Reuters reports. At a rally to help Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton win a third term, Gore told Democrats: "I don't know what I'm going to do in the future."
• Robert Mueller takes over as head of the FBI today, AP reports.
• Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and her "husband Ray, 68, confirmed Friday they have finalized the adoption of a 4-month-old daughter, Kathryn Bailey Hutchison," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• "Elián González's father Monday denied reports that his 7-year-old son would go to New York this month for a UN conference dealing with the plight of children," the Chicago Tribune reports.