• House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about health care reform.

• Comedian John Fugelsang joins the Mooks in studio in L.A. for another edition of “Fridays with Fugelsang.”

• After scouring northern Colorado by foot and air, frantically chasing a now-infamous Mylar balloon for dozens of miles and interviewing his big brother over and over, local and federal authorities ended their search for 6-year-old Falcon Heene where it began – at his house. He was in a box. In the attic. The whole time.

• House speaker Nancy Pelosi warned her Senate counterparts yesterday that she intends to fight hard for a public plan option as part of any comprehensive health care overhaul bill. Dem Senate leaders have not yet indicated whether they will include the option when they combine their two measures.

• President Obama signed legislation yesterday providing an additional $7.5 billion in assistance to the Pakistani government to help them combat a wave of attacks orchestrated by the Taliban.

• Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized Wednesday night for what appeared to be an adverse reaction to medication, but she was released Thursday.

• Terry O’Sullivan, President of the Laborers International Union of North America, calls in at 7:05am Pacific to talk about health care reform.

• Comedian John Fugelsang calls in at 8:30am Pacific to talk abou all things politics and pop culture.

• The U.S., Britain, and France today will accuse Iran of building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel and demand that Tehran grant access to international weapons inspectors, The New York Times reported.

• The Senate Finance Committee defeated a Dem amendment that would have gradually closed the coverage gap in the Medicare drug benefit at the expense of drugmakers. Nonetheless, another proposal to shield seniors in Medicare private insurance plans from benefit cuts remained alive.

• Advocates for a public insurance plan, the idea that has generated the most passion in the health care debate, are pressing for a crucial test vote in the Senate Finance Committee.

• Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized yesterday after becoming ill in her office at the court. She had received a treatment for an iron deficiency and developed “lightheadedness and fatigue” about an hour later. She is expected to be released today.

XM Satellite Radio is now carrying all three hours of The Stephanie Miller Show live from 9am to Noon Eastern!!!  Now, even if your city or town doesn’t have a Steph affiliate, you can hear her wherever you go.  Be sure to check it out on America Left XM167!

• Angela Shelton and Frances Callier, otherwise known as Frangela, join us in studio at 8:30am Pacific for another edition of “Fridays with Frangela!!!”

• President Barack Obama said last night that “the scale and the scope” of his economic plan is right, turning up the heat on critics he said were hawking “phony arguments” and “false theories of the past” to chip away at the bill’s progress. He said that “tired arguments” and “false theories of the past” helped to create the economic crisis.

• The Senate wrapped up last night after hours of sometimes acrimonious work without voting on a massive economic recovery plan championed by President Obama. The Senate had worked its way through dozens of proposed amendments to the plan when Majority Leader Harry Reid – who earlier had vowed to work “through the night” – called it quits shortly after 8:30pm Eastern.

• The Obama administration took its first steps into the politically delicate world of church-state relations yesterday, issuing an executive order establishing a new review process to encourage nondiscriminatory hiring practices among religious groups accepting federal money. The order is designed to strengthen the constitutional grounding of Bush’s controversial Office of Faith Based Initiatives.

• Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman on the Supreme Court, had surgery yesterday for early stage pancreatic cancer. She is expected to remain in the hospital for 7 to 10 days.