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President Bush nominates Trade Representative Rob Portman as the White House budget director. Portman is a Washington insider and longtime friend of the president. Bush also selected Susan Schwab, the deputy trade representative, to move up to the top trade job, replacing Portman.

Mike Luckovich, the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, got a behind-the-scenes look at the Pentagon this week. He was allowed to sit in on briefings with the defense secretary and top generals and came away with some surprising insights. Read his War Diary and see a sketch from his visit.

Two top executives and the outside auditor exit the federally backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae after the Securities and Exchange Commission finds fault with the company's accounting. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Mike McNamee of Business Week.

A miniature poodle is the upset winner of the nation's most prestigious dog show. Surrey Spice Girl, a 3 year old with black pompoms, beat out the favorites with her performance. Robert Siegel talks with Deborah Woods, author of Top Dogs: Making it to Westminster. Woods' book is published by Hungry Minds, January 2002.

Investigators looking into the space shuttle Columbia accident say NASA workers made safety a top priority, but may have become so comfortable with successful missions that they didn't keep track of small issues that can turn deadly. NPR's Richard Harris reports.

Tom Terrell has a review of a new boxed set of reggae music that spans 1960-1975. The four CDs include music from top artists such as The Wailers and Jimmy Cliff, and lesser-known singers from reggae's early beginnings.

Updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is one of Congress's top priorities in 2008. FISA, as the law is known, generally tells the president that he must have a court order to spy on Americans in the United States.

Noah talks with NPR's national political correspondent Elizabeth Arnold, who is with the Dole campaign today in Ohio. Dole spoke at a Christian school in Dayton, where he talked about his education proposals and criticized plans for elections next week in Bosnia-Herzegovina. His campaign was shaken up today by the resignation of two top media advisors.

Jacki speaks with Edward Murphy, president of the Medal of Honor Historical Society about the importance of combat medals to military personnel. This week, the Navy's top naval officer Admiral Jeremy 'Mike' Boorda took his own life. His suicide has been linked to questions over whether he was qualified to wear two Vietnam war decorations.

David Welna reports from Tijuana, Mexico on the on-going controversy in the fight against drugs in that country. Last night, military forces replaced Tijuana's civilian agents. This comes amidst disclosures that the army general in charge of Mexico's drug fighting agency worked for the country's top drug lord. Welna says Mexicans are now skeptical about the effectiveness of this military takeover.