The political elite of the nation -- including President and Mrs. Bush -- will lay down their partisan swords tonight in Washington D.C. to honor Nancy Reagan for a lifetime of work. The affair is a fund-raiser for the Air Force One Pavilion now under construction at the Reagan library in Simi Valley. Star Washington correspondent Michael Collins (collinsm@shns.com) will be in attendance at the Ronald Reagan Building and writing the story for tomorrow's Page One. That topped the list at our 9 a.m. news budget meeting this morning of potential A1 stories.

We will also be checking out a new report being released today that says California's superpower economic status is threatened by cuts in college funding in the state. Education writer John Scheibe (jscheibe@VenturaCountyStar.com) is checking out the report, also trying to determine if there are any biases in the prepartion of the study.

We still have available (after holding for several days) the story about free CDs that are flooding libraries and schools in the county, courtesy of a settlement in a music price fixing case. This is the kind of story, by the way, that newspapers love to have available: interesting, a good read and no specific time hook. That allows us to push it along on our news budget until we find a "slower" news day.

Naval Base Ventura County is unveiling a demonstration desalinization facility at the base today. Staff writer Raul Hernandez (rhernandez@VenturaCountyStar.com) will be there to learn about the new science involved in this project and how it differs from past (failed) desalinization efforts in California.

Ventura High School senior Dallas Woodburn, who recently received the Julius Gius Scholarship from The Star, is in line today to get national recognition for her amazing high school career. We'll have the story tomorrow.

About 1,500 Ventura residents face a power outage Thursday. But it's not your normal outage. Southern California Edison says it's going to pull the plug on them for about 20 hours for an extensive repair task. The outage includes a 104-unit seniors-only complex. Staff writer Kevin Clerici (kclerici@VenturaCountyStar.com) will try to figure out today why it's happening and how residents can cope without electricity for almost a full day -- particularly those who may have health issues and need electric-driven help such as respirators or emergency phones.

And, off the wires, we're following the newest car bombings in Iraq and the anti-U.S. demonstrations in Afghanistan, as well as the latest in the mass killings in Riverside County and the deaths of the two school girls in Illinois.