Three Takeaways From South Carolina  —  1) There is no good news buried in here for Mitt Romney.  None.  As of this writing, Mitt Romney is leading in three counties in South Carolina: Charleston, Beaufort (Hilton Head) and Richland (Columbia).  He lost fast-growing, coastal Horry County, home of Myrtle Beach, by 15 points.

Giffords to step down from Congress  —  U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will step down from Congress this week to focus on her recovery, her staff announced Sunday.  —  “I have more work to do on my recovery, so to do what is best for Arizona, I will step down this week,” Giffords said in a video message.

Romney partially caves on tax returns  —  Watching Mitt Romney discuss his willingness to disclose his tax returns, it's been hard not to marvel at the rapid evolution.  It was only about a month ago when he was asked whether he'd release his tax returns, and Romney replied, “I doubt it.”

An open letter to Republican leaders  —  Dear Govs. Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, John Kasich, Bobby Jindal; Sens. Jon Kyl, Marco Rubio and Jim DeMint; and Reps. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and Mike Pence (R-Ind.):  —  You've each declined to run for the presidency or even endorse one of the final candidates.

Showtime at the Apollo  —  FOR eight seconds, we saw the president we had craved for three years: cool, joyous, funny, connected.  —  “I, I'm so in love with you,” Barack Obama crooned to a thrilled crowd at a fund-raiser at the Apollo in Harlem on Thursday night, doing a seductive imitation as Al Green himself looked on.

2012: The Year We Put an End to the War on Women  —  GOP Choice Women , Romney Choice Women , Congress Women Choice , Pro Choice Naral , Pro Choice Politics , Pro Choice Women , Republicans Roe v Wade , Roe v Wade GOP , Roe v Wade Women , War On Women , Politics News  —  2011 was the year of the War on Women.

Joe Paterno's long career  —  Penn State coaching legend Joe Paterno dies at age 85  —  Perhaps the most ironic element when looking at the way Joe Paterno lost his job as Penn State's football coach after 46 seasons lies in the fact that Paterno, as a young man, had his eyes set on law school.

Boehner: ‘Pathetic’ if Obama State of the Union proposes ‘same old policies’  —  House Speaker John Boehner said that President Obama would be “pathetic” to propose the same policy prescriptions in Tuesday's State of the Union that he has in his first three years.

Muslim Brotherhood Wins 47% of Egypt Assembly Seats  —  CAIRO — Egyptian authorities confirmed Saturday that a political coalition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, the 84-year-old group that virtually invented political Islam, had won about 47 percent of the seats in the first Parliament elected since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.