The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Arafat accepts Clinton peace plan with reservations, 107th Congress is sworn in, Fed cuts rates and Utah takes on the Census Bureau: Steps Toward Peace

• Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has conditionally accepted President Clinton's proposal for Mideast peace, and he will discuss the plans with Arab leaders in Cairo today "before announcing whether he would accept them," Reuters reports.
• An Israeli negotiator will be in D.C. today to "talk with U.S. officials" about "Arafat's willingness to curb the violence in the region and to make the tough compromises needed for a settlement," the Wall Street Journal reports.

• The 107th Congress, which convened Wednesday, "will not take up any new legislation until after Jan. 20, when the GOP again controls both chambers," the Washington Times reports.
• Congressional Democrats complained that "a GOP-backed rules package and committee ratio margins were unfair and designed to stifle the minority," Roll Call reports.
• After recently-elected senators were sworn in Wednesday, the chamber boasted a record 13 women members, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.--the only first lady ever elected to the body, AP reports.
• Clinton was welcomed to the Senate with a hug from Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., CNN.com reports.
• Rep. James V. Hansen, R-Utah, who is likely to be named chairman of the House Resources Committee, has written a letter to President-elect Bush saying he wants to do away with "a wide variety of Clinton administration environmental initiatives," the Washington Post reports.
• Rep. James A. Traficant Jr., D-Ohio, is not in good standing with his party's leaders because he did not support a Democrat for House speaker, the Washington Times reports.
• Vice President Al Gore was greeted with a standing ovation when he spoke to the Congressional Black Caucus on Wednesday--his first speech since conceding the presidential election last month, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• In a surprise move, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan cut interest rates by half a percentage point Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• The move caused the stock market to "surge," Financial Times reports.
• "Some seasoned Wall Street strategists and economists warned that the Fed's move could signify that the economy was in worse condition than many people suspected," the New York Times reports.

• The State Department is preparing to question the Russian government "about the recent deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to a military base in a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea," the Washington Times reports.
• "A United Nations official who wrote and lectured on poverty in Africa faces a lawsuit from a Zambian man who claims the official held him in indentured servitude for 17 months," the Washington Post reports.

• The IRS will make electronic tax filing "truly paperless" this year, and the agency expects more people to file their taxes that way, AP reports.
• More trouble for Microsoft: Seven former and current employees of the company filed a class action lawsuit Wednesday "contending that the company had engaged in racial discrimination in its employment practices," the New York Times reports.
• Ford wants to settle all of the remaining lawsuits resulting from rollovers of its Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicle, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• After it missed out on gaining a congressional seat by a small margin because thousands of residents are living overseas doing missionary work, Utah's state officials "may challenge the Census Bureau's practice of excluding residents serving LDS missions abroad from the state-by-state reapportionment count," the Salt Lake Deseret News reports.
• Because of the state's energy crisis, the California Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday recommended emergency utility rate increases, AP reports.
• Traverse City, Mich., is being criticized by Christian conservatives who say the city's bumper sticker featuring a rainbow -- a gay-pride symbol -- "promotes immorality," the Detroit Free-Press reports.
• Craig K. Bieber will resign from his position as executive director of Virginia's Democratic Party in two weeks, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

• William P. Rogers, who served as President Nixon's secretary of state, died Tuesday at the age of 87, the New York Times reports.
• The Rev. Theodore E. McCarrick became the archbishop of Washington Wednesday, the Washington Post reports.