- Newsmaker: Restaurant-Retail Showdown on 3rd Street Promenade - Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade combined retail shops, entertainment and restaurants into a friendly, lucrative downtown revival. But success has driven up rents, threatening one of the three keys to success. Christoper Keough, of the Los Angeles Business Journal, has more on the city's proposals to protect sidewalk dining.
- Reporter's Notebook: Afghanistan before the US-Soviet "Proxy War" - Journalist-aid worker Rob Schultheis first visited Afghanistan some 30 years ago. The author of Night Letters, a harrowing account of Afghanistan during the proxy war between the US and Soviet Union, recounts his experiences in the once hospital tribal country through his latest project aid his beloved Afghanistan.
Argyros and Vasquez Nominations
President Bush wants two prominent Orange County Republicans to serve their country, but their nominations have aroused opposition. Billionaire businessman George Argyros, Bush's pick to become Ambassador to Spain, raised nearly 30 million dollars for Bush's presidential campaign but was implicated in an Orange County consumer fraud case. Former Supervisor Gaddi Vasquez, the President's choice to head the Peace Corps, has no experience in foreign policy. We get the controversial pros and cons from Will Swaim, editor of Orange County Weekly, and Michael Schroeder, former chair of the California Republican Party and California co-chair of the 2000 Bush campaign.