UPDATED 6:00

Alex Goldmark here from the night shift, hitting the ground running today. 

A few announcements are planned out of Washington that we want to be sure we're ready for. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, is set to comment on rising health care premiums. We're getting responses from some of the health insurance companies most criticized for upping their rates. And, as we are wont to do on this radio show, we're putting out lines to everyday folk about how their lives have been or might be changed by increased health costs and by any potential actions from HHS. 

The second political tidbit to keep an eye on is President Obama's new fiscal commission. The Senate wouldn't pass it so he's making it happen by executive order, but still trying to keep the bipartisan mission of debt reduction. What does this new executive style of bipartisanship show us about Washington right now? And will it work? 

We would have checked in on the Olympic news anyway, but now that Lindsey Vonn has become the first American to win downhill gold, we will do it with renewed aplomb and national pride. Or love of sport and international fraternity. Or maybe it's just me that has an Olympic obsession this week and the rest of the editorial team will finally tell me to stop watching TV in the office. 

POSTED 12:05 Anna Sale here on the dayside producing shift.

After all the talk about Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the military, we're looking at how another sector of the military population is faring: women. Our partners at the BBC are looking at Women in Warfare all this week. As part of that coverage, they've talked to women who experienced the trauma of sexual assault while serving. It's a subject we've talked about before, and we continue the conversation about what more should be done with Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA). She sits on the Military Personnel Subcommittee and is the highest ranking female on the House Armed Services Committee.

Just after the one-year anniversary of the signing of the stimulus bill, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced today which cities received big bucks for ambitious new transportation projects. We'll look at two of them — a green housing and transportation project in Kansas City and a new kind of busway in car-heavy Las Vegas.

We are also looking into a new program that would create a pathway for some 10th graders to go directly into college. We're curious to see how it will actually work in schools, and if this suggests that high school may no longer be a rite of passage in America. What will be lost if we don't all have cafeteria horror stories to swap?

Finally, tomorrow is the 80th anniversary of the discovery of the planet formerly known as Pluto. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson join us to celebrate Pluto's birthday, and to offer their takes on the future of space exploration.