Romney Support Up; Widens Advantage in 2012 Preferences  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Republicans' support for Mitt Romney as their party's 2012 presidential nominee has increased significantly to 24%, compared with 17% in late May.  As a result, Romney has widened his advantage over Sarah Palin …

RNC chair struggles to defend double standard  —  NBC's “Meet the Press” hosted a discussion between the two major party chairs — the DNC's Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the RNC's Reince Priebus — and right off the bat, host David Gregory wanted to talk at length about Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.).

In Reversal, 3 Democratic Senators Will Back Gay Marriage  —  ALBANY — Three wavering Democratic lawmakers in the State Senate have agreed to support legislation legalizing same-sex marriage in New York, several people with knowledge of the negotiations said on Monday, marking a potential turning point for the long-debated measure.

Missing Iraq money may have been stolen, auditors say  —  U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion, sent by the planeload in cash and intended for Iraq's reconstruction after the start of the war.  —  Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills, pictured last month, has held hearings on waste and fraud in Iraq.

Gov. Perry: Economic Crisis Is Part of God's Plan To Return Us To Biblical Principles  —  For the past week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has been roundly criticized by religious and LGBT groups alike for inviting other governors to join him at an anti-gay prayer event hosted by stridently bigoted American Family Association.

Why We're Going Back to Single-Sex Dorms  —  Student housing has became a hotbed of reckless drinking and hooking up.  —  My wife and I have sent five children to college and our youngest just graduated.  Like many parents, we encouraged them to study hard and spend time in a country where people don't speak English.

F.B.I. Agents Get Leeway to Push Privacy Bounds  —  WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.

Rep. Anthony Weiner's Nissan Pathfinder is unregistered, DMV says  —  Lying about sexting apparently isn't Rep. Anthony Weiner's only gray area.  —  When Weiner (D-Queens, Brooklyn) was photographed by the Daily News fleeing the Capitol in his Nissan Pathfinder, it was clear …

Medicare Saves Money  —  Every once in a while a politician comes up with an idea that's so bad, so wrongheaded, that you're almost grateful.  For really bad ideas can help illustrate the extent to which policy discourse has gone off the rails.  —  And so it was with Senator Joseph Lieberman's proposal …

Scientific Consensus on Global Warming  —  Scientific societies and scientists have released statements and studies showing the growing consensus on climate change science.  A common objection to taking action to reduce our heat-trapping emissions has been uncertainty within the scientific community …

How to avoid a lost decade  —  Even with the massive 2008-09 policy effort that prevented financial collapse and depression, the United States is now halfway to a lost economic decade.  From the first quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2011, the U.S. economy's growth rate averaged less …

Heard on the Hill: West Intern Fired Over Retweet  —  It's not Monday without a Member of Congress making a very public faux pas the week before ... and on the social networking site Twitter, no less.  (Members, never stop tweeting.  Politics and Twitter paint the rest of our lives with a bit of Technicolor.)

British fear ‘American-style’ healthcare system  —  As leaders debate ways to reform healthcare, politicians repeatedly tell a worried public that Britain will not turn the National Health Service into an ‘American-style’ private system.  —  British Prime Minister David Cameron speaks …

Why Anthony Weiner Shouldn't Quit  —  THE DAILY BEAST ON:  —  The congressman's public flogging doesn't fit the crime, and is emblematic of our kick-'em-when-they're-down culture.  Peter Beinart on why we need a new rulebook for political sex scandals.  —  Excuse me for asking, but why exactly should Anthony Weiner resign?

Obama pushes to extend payroll tax cut  —  DURHAM, N.C. - President Barack Obama signaled Monday that a deficit-cutting package should include an extension of the one-year payroll tax cut for workers, saying any effort to slash government spending must be coupled with targeted investments.

How educated are state legislators?  —  The Chronicle has looked at where each of the 7,000-plus state legislators in America went to college - or whether they went at all.  In doing so, we got a glimpse of how the citizens who hold these seats reflect the average American experience.

Pawlenty: Bush Tax Cuts “Didn't Fully Serve Their Intended Purposes”  —  DERRY, N.H. — Addressing a packed, boisterous room at Halligan Tavern here, accompanied by half a dozen state legislators (not all had endorsed him), Tim Pawlenty made a mostly economics, competence-based case against the Obama administration.

Neocon flak: Weiner may have converted to Islam  —  A neoconservative public relations operative argues the Jewish congressman may have converted to Islam  —  We thought everything that could be said about Anthony Weiner's lewd photo scandal had been said.

The health care skeletons of 2012  —  Huntsman also fancied some aspects of the Massachusetts model.  Shortly after he took office, Huntsman's team flew there to meet with experts on how the state had implemented the exchange with the individual mandate and met with many policy experts over how a mandate might work in Utah.

Secret US and Afghanistan talks could see troops stay for decades  —  Russia, China and India concerned about ‘strategic partnership’ in which Americans would remain after 2014  —  American and Afghan officials are locked in increasingly acrimonious secret talks about a long-term security agreement …