The Earlybird: Today's headlines

CFR moves forward, Kerry denies rumors, Bush gets energetic, tax cuts get traction, the economy stays sluggish and Sisisky is remembered:

• The campaign finance reform bill "cleared its last huge hurdle" in the Senate on Thursday when senators rejected a "non-severability" amendment that would void the entire piece of legislation if one part is struck down in court, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Senators are scheduled to vote on the entire bill on Monday.
• The Washington Post has a list of each senator's vote on Thursday's amendment. The Los Angeles Times has a list of the bill's "key provisions."

• The House Ways and Means Committee approved "yet another portion of President Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut plan -- this one phasing out the federal estate and gift tax by 2011 -- through the House Ways and Means Committee" on Thursday, National Journal News Service reports.
• The full House, meanwhile, approved a reduction in the "marriage penalty" tax, Reuters reports.
• "All 50 Senate Republicans" are now committed to Bush's budget, "which contains his $1.6 trillion, 10-year tax cut and a $60 billion immediate tax cut this year," CNN.com reports.

• Bush said Thursday that the United States is experiencing an "energy crisis" and "that the nation's environmental policies must be fine-tuned to meet the changing times," the Dallas Morning News reports. Part of Bush's fine-tuning would include drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
• Bush said that if ANWR in not explored, "the United States will be forced to rely even more heavily on foreign sources for oil and natural gas," the Washington Times reports.
• A "coalition of U.S. religious groups" on Thursday "urged Bush yesterday to reconsider his approach" to the environment, the Washington Post reports.
• Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder met Thursday to talk, Reuters reports. They agreed on almost everything they talked about -- except for the Kyoto treaty on global warming, which Schroeder supports but Bush does not.
• Environmental Protection Administrator Christie Whitman is hearing "dismay and disappointment from" international "counterparts who called" Bush's stance on the Kyoto treaty "an enormous setback on an issue that should allow little room for patience," the New York Times reports.
• Bush and Brazilian leader Fernando Henrique Cardoso will meet today at the White House, and are expected to discuss trade "'in advance' of a 35-country summit of hemispheric heads of state," the New York Times reports.
• Bush "may support variations" on his school choice plan, Reuters reports. The Senate Health and Education Committee has approved "a version of the bill that did not include Bush's key school choice provisions, which would allow students in chronically failing schools to receive $1,500 each in federal aid to attend other public or private schools."

• The stock market's first quarter ends today, and "it's virtually impossible for the major indexes to recover the ground lost since 2001 began," CNNfn.com reports. "The Nasdaq composite index is 26 percent lower than it at the end of 2000, the worst year in the indicator's history. The S&P 500 is down 13 percent and the Dow industrials are 9 percent lower."
• Some analysts believe the economy "may have stopped growing or even slipped slightly into reverse in the current quarter," CBSNews.com reports.
• The stock market in Tokyo dropped slightly Friday, which is the final day of the fiscal year there, Financial Times reports.

• Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas on Thursday defended the court's involvement in Bush vs. Gore, the Washington Post reports. Kennedy "told a congressional hearing yesterday that the court intervened because the case posed 'constitutional issues of the gravest importance' that the court had a 'responsibility' to resolve."
• Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez on Thursday "temporarily suspended a program that helps teachers and police officers buy houses after dozens of people were accused of lying to get public housing bargains," AP reports.

• Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., "flatly denied the reports he's decided to run" for the White House in 2004, the Boston Herald reports. Kerry's "foray into Hollywood last weekend for a celebrity-splashed pre-Oscar party sparked rumors he's already off and running."
• Rodney Slater, former secretary of transportation, and James Lee Witt, former head of FEMA, "will forgo political races in Arkansas next year to work in the private sector in Washington," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

• "New Jersey's legislative ethics committee yesterday agreed to review the circumstances surrounding a $1.2 million mortgage default" by acting governor and 2001 candidate Donald DiFrancesco (R), the Newark Star-Ledger reports. The Trenton Times reports that when DiFrancesco defaulted on the loans, he "was bailed out by a group of politically connected friends."
• NationalJournal.com's Ad Spotlight reports that new ads from DiFrancesco opponent Bret Schundler (R) are on the air in the Garden State.
• "Four of the six major" Massachusetts "gubernatorial challengers are laying plans to run as Clean Elections candidates," the Boston Globe reports. State law provides public funding for those candidates who take only campaign contributions of less than $100.
• "Def Jam recording mogul Russell Simmons" endorsed former Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo (D) for New York governor this week, the Wall Street Journal's "Washington Wire" reports.
• South Carolina House Speaker Pro Tem Doug Smith (R) called on University of South Carolina President John Palms, who is publicly considering a Democratic senatorial bid, to resign now, saying "it would be unfair for Palms to retain his presidency while engaging in partisan activity," the Greenville News reports.

• "The United States on Thursday blamed inaction by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for the cycle of Middle East bloodshed," Reuters reports. Bush "said he was telling Arafat 'loud and clear' to stop the violence so that peace talks can resume."
• Today is "Land Day" for Arabs in Israel, which is an "annual protest against the confiscation of Arab land in 1976 during which six members of their community were killed," BBCNews.com reports. Palestinian leaders have "called for a day of mass protests."

• James Charles Kopp, who is charged with the 1998 "sniper killing of an abortion-providing doctor in New York," was arrested Thursday in France, UPI reports.
• Two United Nations workers who were kidnapped by Somali gunmen on Tuesday were released Thursday, BBCNews.com reports. "Two Britons... are still being held."

• Eighteen people died near Aspen, Colo., Thursday night as a private jet en route from California "slammed into a hillside in snowy weather," the Denver Post reports.
• Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) "on Thursday signed into law a measure to prevent the public from viewing autopsy photos without a court order" after NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt's autopsy had been requested, the Tallahassee Democrat reports. The Orlando Sentinel reports that while lawmakers "may be done with the issue... Florida newspapers and others who question the constitutionality of the law prepared for a what could be a protracted fight in court."
• San Francisco officials "will now receive detailed information in advance... on which blocks will lose their lights during power blackouts," the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The Los Angeles Times reports that a group called Energy for California is running ads that give Gov. Gray Davis (D) "a boost."
• "And about a half hour before" Philip Workman was to be executed this morning in Tennessee, "the court granted" his "wish for an evidentiary hearing on claims he did not fire the bullet that killed Memphis police Lt. Ronald Oliver" in 1981, the Nashville Tennessean reports.

• Architectural firms have submitted proposals outlining the possible reopening of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, the Washington Times reports.
• "The Smithsonian Institution's 16 museums and the National Zoo acquired fewer than 278,000 items in 2000, down from 1999's 345,000," AP reports.

• Rep. Norman Sisisky, D-Va., who served in the House for 18 years, died yesterday, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. He was 73. Sisisky underwent surgery to remove two cancerous growths from his lungs eight days ago.
• "According to the Virginia Constitution," Gov. Jim Gilmore (R) "can issue a writ calling for a special election immediately after a vacancy is declared," CongressDaily reports.

• Bush made fun of his own verbal gaffes at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association annual dinner Thursday night, "reciting a hefty sampling of his past verbal missteps," AP reports.