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The Early Word: Pivot

In Today’s Times:

  • In a speech Thursday afternoon at the National Defense University, President Obama is expected to announce changes in his counterterrorism policy that include restricting the use of unmanned aircraft to target terrorism suspects and shifting control of the drones from the Central Intelligence Agency to the military. The move, Charlie Savage and Peter Baker explained, “underscores a desire by the president and his advisers to balance them with other legal and diplomatic tools” as the president tries to distance himself from his predecessor on terror.

  • After a contentious hearing on Wednesday, Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official at the heart of a Congressional inquiry into the agency, may have to appear again before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jeremy W. Peters reports. Representative Darrell Issa of California, the panel’s Republican chairman, said Ms. Lerner had waived her Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination when she gave an opening statement on Wednesday denying that she had done anything wrong.

  • As the Senate immigration bill moves to the chamber floor for debate, its supporters are trying to shore up support among Republicans by strengthening provisions on border security, Ashley Parker and Julia Preston write. The Senate is expected to begin debating the bill in June.

  • The Federal Reserve is reluctant to scale back its efforts to stimulate the economy until monetary policy makers see stronger signs that the job market is improving and a decline in the unemployment rate, Nelson D. Schwartz writes, drawing from the testimony Wednesday of Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman, and minutes from the last meeting of the bank’s policy-setting committee.

  • As Congress moves to pass a five-year farm bill, Representative Stephen Fincher, a Republican farmer from Tennessee, has emerged as a huge supporter of cutting $20 billion from the federal food stamp program. There’s just one thing: he’s one of the biggest beneficiaries of federal farm subsidies, having received $3.5 million in payments since 1999, according to an independent study, Ron Nixon reports.

Happening in Washington:

  • At 9:30 a.m,. a subpanel of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology will hold a hearing on “restoring U.S. leadership in weather forecasting” with Barry Myers, the chief executive of AccuWeather, and Jon Kirchner, the president of GeoOptics.
  • At 11 a.m., the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will hold its first nomination hearing on Penny Pritzker’s selection to be commerce secretary.
  • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association will issue its initial outlook for the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season during a news conference at 1:00 p.m.