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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.

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.

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.

Are these things cryptocurrencies, top electronic dance music DJs, or board games?

The top two Democrats in Congress, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, unveil what they called a "pre-buttal" in advance of President Bush's State of the Union address, which will be given Wednesday evening.

Hurricane Ivan moves inland along the Gulf Coast, spawning tornadoes, causing flooding and tearing beach houses from their foundations. Its top winds have dropped to 80 mph, but the storm remains dangerous. Hear NPR's Jon Hamilton.

Saddam Hussein's top scientific adviser surrenders to U.S. forces in Baghdad. Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi has been tied to Iraq's chemical weapons program, though he insisted as he gave himself up Saturday that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction. Hear NPR's Anne Garrels.

The Senate votes of 53-45 to approve former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor's nomination to a lifetime seat on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Republicans hailed Pryor as a top-notch public servant, even as many Democrats described him as a right-wing extremist.

"I just didn't think it would take this long," one veteran head of diversity, who's been job-hunting since last summer, tells NPR.

Top security clearance is hard to come by — even for some senior White House officials.