The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Bush's tax cut, Chretien's visit, White's second chance, Barak's likely loss, McAuliffe's triumph, CNN's election night study, WH gifts' intended purpose, Ford's secrets:

• President Bush will begin trying to drum up support from Congress today for his $1.6 trillion tax plan, CNN.com reports.
• A budget analyst who is helping Bush with his budget plan said the president "will need to make budget cuts and slow the growth in government spending to offset the costs of his tax cuts and the rest of his agenda," the Washington Times reports.
• Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien will become "the first foreign leader to meet" Bush tonight in Washington, but the two leaders are not "likely to see eye to eye on issues like defense and the environment," Reuters reports.
• At the House Democrats' retreat on Sunday, Bush called for bipartisanship and answered questions about his tax plan, Reuters reports.

• House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., is still considering giving Democrats an extra seat on the Appropriations Committee, Roll Call reports.
• Rep. James Traficant, D-Ohio, who angered Democrats by choosing Hastert for speaker, may be the only member of the 107th Congress without a committee seat, Roll Call reports.
• In a letter released Friday, Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., asked Bush to "renominate... Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ronnie White to a federal judgeship," AP reports. White, who was nominated by President Clinton in 1999, was "the key witness against" Attorney General John Ashcroft's in his Senate confirmation hearings.

• Ehud Barak is trailing Ariel Sharon in the polls, but Barak believes that even if he does not win re-election as prime minister Tuesday, "he was absolutely right in single-mindedly pursuing a comprehensive peace with the Palestinians," the Washington Post reports.
• With Sharon expected to win, Israelis already are looking to the future, the New York Times reports. They "are tired after months of disorienting commotion."
• Many American Jews find Sharon "difficult to accept," the Boston Globe reports.
• Israeli negotiator Yossi Beilin said Monday that "a treaty between Israel and the Palestinians could have been signed within six months had electoral politics not gotten in the way," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• During an interview Sunday, Secretary of State Colin Powell said "the Bush administration is not taking sides in this week's Israeli elections because 'it is up to the Israeli people to decide what will happen in their country,'" ABCNews.com reports.
• Powell said Sunday there are "no immediate plans to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem," CNN.com reports.

• Powell said Sunday that "the Bush administration remains committed to pursuing a national missile defense system," CNN.com reports. The Los Angeles Times reports that Bush faces a challenge in receiving support for the system from both world leaders and Republican lawmakers.
• Powell also said he disagrees with Bush's decision to "reimpose the total ban on U.S. funding for foreign family planning organizations which support abortions or abortion counseling," Reuters reports.

• After he was picked this weekend to head the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe said he will push an "electoral reform agenda," CNN.com reports.
• McAuliffe predicted that, contrary to rumors, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., will not run for president in 2004, the Washington Post reports.

• Some of the gifts the Clintons took with them when they left the White House actually were intended by the donors to be kept in the White House and were not meant for the Clintons personally, the Washington Post reports. The Post has a list of the gifts.
• AP reported Sunday that Clinton may receive $250,000 to play his saxophone at the San Remo Song Festival in Italy later this month. Today, however, AP reports "a source familiar with the invitation said it was for Clinton to 'make a few remarks' at the festival -- not play the sax -- and that Clinton had decided to turn it down."
• Robert McNeely, Clinton's official photographer from 1992 to 1998, has published a book of photographs that he took at taxpayer expense, ABCNews.com reports. Some people at the White House complained that "the veteran photographer was trying to take unfair advantage of his official position."
• Financier Marc Rich, the recipient of a controversial pardon from Clinton, is not free and clear yet: He "is under investigation by Swiss authorities in connection with suspected money-laundering violations," the Washington Times reports.
• "The Bush White House is spending $10,000 a day to reprogram and reconnect the hundreds of phones yanked out of their wall jacks by exiting Clinton-Gore aides," U.S. News and World Report's "Washington Whispers" reports.

• The Wall Street Journal reports that "an independent study commissioned by CNN concluded that network coverage of election night was a 'debacle' that rattled public confidence in both the press and the electoral process."
• The National Association of Secretaries of State plans to endorse 15 recommendations today to improve election procedures nationwide, including better "training and pay for poll workers" and "certifying elections officials," the New York Times reports.
• A report being released today by the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University shows "interest groups poured tens of millions of dollars into crucial House and Senate races last fall, spending more than the candidates and in some cases affecting the outcome," the Washington Post reports.

• Roll Call reports on six senators facing re-election in 2002 who have "already amassed war chests of more than $1 million": Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Max Cleland, D-Ga., Bob Torricelli, D-N.J., Phil Gramm, R-Texas, Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
• "In one of his first public appearances since announcing his candidacy for" New York governor in 2002, state Comptroller H. Carl McCall called for a "first-class education for everyone, affordable prescription drugs for seniors and retaining college graduates," the Albany Times Union reports.

• "Thousands of previously top-secret documents that could radically reshape history's view of the Vietnam War, U.S. involvement in Chile and the role of the CIA" are being released by former President Gerald Ford's library at the University of Michigan later this year, the Detroit News reports.
• "An 11-year-old boy was stabbed to death at a movie theater in Massachusetts by another 11-year-old boy" Saturday night, AP reports.
• Former Pennsylvania school teacher William Michael Stankewicz has been charged "with two counts of attempted homicide, seven counts of aggravated assault and one count of bringing a weapon onto school property" after "storming into an elementary school with a machete and provoking a bloody confrontation." AP reports.

• Former GOP Rep. Rick Lazio's failed New York Senate campaign "disbursed about $200,000 to 60 smaller creditors as of Feb. 1, 2001, cutting in half the overall number of vendors who claim to be owed money from the failed effort," Roll Call reports. As of Dec. 31, Lazio's debt stood at less than $3 million.
• Howard Wolfson, "former communications director for then-first lady and Senate candidate" Hillary Clinton, "has been tapped to be the new executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee," Roll Call reports.
• Green Bay Packer Mark Chmura "was acquitted of sexually assaulting his children's former baby sitter at a drunken post-prom party" as his trial wrapped up this weekend, AP reports.
• Kenneth Gluck, a volunteer for Doctors Without Borders, was freed Saturday night after being "held hostage for 26 days in war-devastated Chechnya," the Boston Globe reports. Gluck "appeared to be in good health."