• Attorney General Eric Holder is leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration’s interrogation practices. “Newsweek” is also reporting that Holder has asked his staff for a list of 10 candidates who might serve as that prosecutor if one is named.

• After weeks of meeting senators and preparing for tough questions, Sonia Sotomayor today begins the formal hearings on her nomination to become the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. Sotomayor, 55, received a good-luck phone call yesterday from President Obama.

• Dems on the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday proposed a graduated tax on wealthy Americans to pay for health care reform. The new tax would apply to individuals who make more than $280,000 a year and married couples who make more than $350,000 a year.

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has life-threatening pancreatic cancer, a news report in South Korea said today, days after new images of him looking gaunt spurred speculation that his health might be worsening following a reported stroke last year.

• Comedian John Fugelsang joins us in studio at 8:06am Pacific to hang out and talk about the news of the day.

• The results of a “stress test” on the nation’s banks show that 10 of the nation’s 19 largest banks will need to raise a total of $74.6 billion in capital. Under the most severe economic scenario, regulators estimated losses could reach $600 billion for the group, the bulk of which coming from residential mortgages and other consumer loans such as credit cards.

• President Obama asked Congress yesterday to eliminate or trim 121 federal programs for a savings of $17 billion in the upcoming budget year. The proposed cuts amount to less than one-half of 1 percent of his $3.6 trillion federal budget outline. GOPers denounced his proposed reductions as too small.

• GOPer-turned-Dem Sen. Arlen Specter gained a Judiciary subcommittee chairmanship yesterday when Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said he would give up his chairmanship of the Judiciary Crime and Drugs subcommittee so that Specter could have it.

• The Obama administration will not release terrorists from Guantanamo Bay into neighborhoods in the U.S., Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress yesterday as he sought to reassure worried lawmakers.

• Bay Buchanan, President of The American Cause, calls in at 7:06am Pacific to talk about the GOP’s reaction to President Obama’s first 100 days.

• President Obama unveiled a $75 billion multi-pronged plan yesterday that seeks to help up to 9 million borrowers suffering from falling home prices and unaffordable monthly payments. The plan will make it easier for homeowners to afford their monthly payments either by refinancing the mortgages or having their loans modified.

• President Obama makes his first foreign trip as president today with a visit to Ottawa, Canada. Obama comes bearing a pro-trade message to assuage Canadian concerns over protectionism, a promise of a new strategy in Afghanistan as Canada moves to yank all its troops out of there, and talk of clean-energy cooperation as controversy hangs over Canada’s oil-rich sands.

• Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said yesterday that a Senate ethics panel is investigating Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) after his disclosure that he had spoken with the brother of Rod Blagojevich about raising money for the disgraced governor while seeking appointment to the Senate. Burris insisted yesterday that he was innocent of any wrongdoing.