The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush pushes military research, Greenspan testifies, Cellucci goes north, Ashcroft supports pardon probe, soldiers die in Army plane crash, court turns off the music, DiFrancesco faces money questions, Pennsylvania Republicans head to court, Kournikova messes up hard drives:

• President Bush will be in Norfolk, Va., today to speak about defense at the U.S. Joint Forces Command, the Wall Street Journal reports. Bush is expected to pledge more money for military research and development and announce his support for "a lighter, rapidly deployable force able to fight anywhere on the globe."
• During his first visit to a military base since being sworn in as commander-in-chief, Bush on Monday traveled to Fort Stewart, Ga., and announced his plan for a $1.4 billion military pay hike, CNN.com reports.
• Bush wants to cut $180 million from an Energy Department program that is "intended to ensure the reliability of the nation's nuclear arsenal," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• When Bush visits Mexican President Vicente Fox on Friday, he hopes to agree on "an across-the-border bargain to allow billions of dollars of energy to flow to the United States," the New York Times reports.

• Today's "Senate testimony of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will draw rapt attention from U.S. stock investors trying to outwit, outplay and outlast the recent market doldrums," CNNfn.com reports.
• Congress will begin working on Bush's proposal for a $1.6 trillion tax cut today, Reuters reports. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill will appear before Congress to urge members to enact the legislation.
• Republican leaders in Congress have discovered that "it will be difficult, if not impossible, to undo many of" former President Clinton's executive orders on the environment and land use, the Washington Post reports.
• Adjusting to the routine of legislating, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is keeping a low profile while "courting political adversaries, immersing herself in committee work and the minutiae of policy," the Washington Post reports.

• Massachusetts Gov. Paul Cellucci (R) is expected to be named ambassador to Canada today, the Boston Globe reports.
• Richard Armitage, long-time friend of Secretary of State Colin Powell, will be named Powell's deputy today, the New York Times reports.
• Powell may reduce the number of special envoys who work with "the world's hot spots and hot issues," AP reports.
• Laura Unger has been tapped as acting chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Reuters reports. She replaces Arthur Levitt, "who ended his career on Friday as the longest-serving SEC chairman."
• Scott Whitaker, policy adviser to Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., will be named assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for legislation, the Palm Beach Post Wire reports.

• In his first press conference since being confirmed by the Senate, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Monday that he will support an investigation into Clinton's last-day pardons and may also support immunity for Denise Rich, the wife of pardoned financier Marc Rich, ABCNews.com reports.
• Ashcroft also said during the press conference that he will not rein in his conservative views as attorney general, Reuters reports.
• Clinton may acquire office space in Harlem rather than Manhattan, in response to criticism, Reuters reports.

• "Six soldiers were killed Monday when two Army helicopters crashed in Hawaii during a nighttime exercise involving up to 30 aircraft," CNN.com reports. AP reports seven others were injured.
• The crash came "three days after another fatal military mishap in Hawaii" in which the "USS Greeneville collided with a Japanese training vessel nine miles off the coast of Diamond Head," the Honolulu Advertiser reports.

• Japan's prime minister, Yoshiro Mori, is pressuring the U.S. Navy "to explain why the Navy submarine that sank a Japanese fishing and training vessel here Friday did not render more assistance," the Washington Post reports. Mori also is "appealing to the Navy either to raise the sunken ship, the Ehime Maru, from its watery tomb off Diamond Head or to attempt to find any remains trapped below."
• Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon "moved close to a deal on forming a national unity government with the vanquished Labor Party" on Monday, the New York Times reports.

• A federal judge in California "rejected a utility company's request yesterday for an immediate increase in electricity rates," which will keep customers' power bills lower -- for now, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
• The "current California utility crisis has underscored the disdain and suspicions that color" Democratic Gov. Gray Davis' "relationships with other Democrats," the Sacramento Bee reports.

• A federal court on Monday ruled that Internet music site Napster must stop its music swaps and sent the copyright-infringement case back to a lower court, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The decision was called a "major setback for Napster."
• U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist will lend his name today to the effort of two lawyers' organizations that "are lobbying for a boost in federal judicial pay," AP reports.

• A study by the National Abortion Rights Action League found that access to legal abortion in America is becoming more difficult, Reuters reports.
• A report from Amnesty International found that "Chinese live in a society where torture is widespread and systematic," the Baltimore Sun reports.
• And a study from the International Energy Agency has found that "OPEC's efforts to maximize its revenue, despite a widespread weakening in oil demand," mean "high volatility in prices," the Wall Street Journal reports.

• "As of late Monday, at least 500" voter registration cards had been determined to be fraudulent" in an investigation into the 2000 election in St. Louis, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
• In New York, a new study shows that "statewide computerized record of registered voters, modern technology and functioning voting machines are among a host of multimillion-dollar improvements needed to assure fair elections," the Albany Times Union reports.

• "With yesterday's revelation that he once received financial assistance from a man who later earned a lucrative state contract," New Jersey Gov. Donald DiFrancesco (R) "faces nettlesome questions about his personal finances -- at the very moment he is working to solidify his position as the Republican Party's front-runner in the 2001 governor's race," the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
• Virginia Attorney General Mark Earley (R) announced that he supports Gov. Jim Gilmore's (R) car tax cut plan, the Richmond Times-Disptach reports. Earley is running for the bid to succeed Gilmore in 2001.
• Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., said that Illinois Gov. George Ryan (R) "should not seek re-election because it could drag down the GOP's chances statewide in the 2002 election," the Chicago Tribune reports. "Fitzgerald is the first top Republican in the state to say Ryan should not run again."
• Michigan GOP Gov. John Engler, who can not run for re-election because of term limits, "acknowledged that the environment and education will be leading issues in next year's gubernatorial campaign," in which "Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus is viewed as a leading Republican candidate," the Detroit Free Press reports.
• Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros spent Inauguration Day "trying to persuade South Texas petroleum and banking tycoon" Tony Sanchez Jr. (D) to enter the 2002 gubernatorial race and offering his help in the campaign," the Dallas Morning News reports. Sanchez is "not granting interviews yet."

• Former Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn (D) and state Senator Stephen Lynch (D) are two potential candidates for the 9th District seat of Rep. Joseph Moakley, D-Mass., who has been diagnosed with leukemia and will retire in 2002, the Boston Globe reports.
• "Party brethren from Blair County" go to court today "in a legal battle over picking the Republican who will face Democratic nominee Scott Conklin" in the race to succeed Rep. Bud Shuster, R-Pa., who is retiring, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
• "Fifty-two percent of likely voters polled last week approved" of Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone's (D) decision to seek a third term in 2002, despite promises that he would only serve two, the St. Paul Pioneer-Press reports.

• Former Vice President Al Gore and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., taught their first class at Fisk University yesterday, the Nashville Tennessean reports.
• Ohio Gov. Bob Taft (R) is recovering from successful surgery "to remove a noncancerous tumor from a salivary gland below his left ear," the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.
• Miami Mayor Joe Carollo (D) returned to work "Monday for the first time since his arrest last week on charges he threw a tea box at his wife," the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports.
• Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen "have become the first women to cross the Antarctic land mass on skis." The two spent 90 days covering the 1,800 miles, AP reports.
• Indianapolis Star columnist Lynn Ford "was in serious but stable condition" after being stabbed Sunday night, the Indianapolis Star reports.
• "A federal appeals court denied Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski's bid for a trial Monday, saying his request was made in bad faith and he was not coerced into pleading guilty to three fatal mail bombings," AP reports.

• The Anna Kournikova computer virus "overwhelmed e-mail servers throughout Europe and North America on Monday," AP reports. One expert put part of the blame on the fact the virus was sent so close to Valentine's Day, when many people expect to receive pictures and cards over e-mail.