Poll: Rick Santorum takes slight lead in GOP race  —  CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.  —  Rick Santorum has pulled slightly ahead of Mitt Romney in Republican primary voters' preference for the presidential nomination …

Media Matters memo called for hiring private investigators ‘to look into the personal lives’ of Fox employees  —  A little after 1 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2009, Karl Frisch emailed a memo to his bosses, Media Matters for America founder David Brock and president Eric Burns.

Romney op-ed: Taxpayers should get GM shares' proceeds  —  Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney campaigns in Portland, Maine.  The candidate contends that the Obama administration should sell its ownership in GM and return the money to taxpayers.  (Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Fox News ‘course correction’ rankles some  —  As a white, male, middle-aged conservative talk radio host from Virginia, John Fredericks is something close to the Platonic ideal of a Fox News fan.  —  And until last year, he was one.  But then Fox's treatment of the Republican primary race …

CDC Warns Untreatable Gonorrhea is On the Way  —  A new strain of gonorrhea is resistant to one of the last known effective treatments  —  Gonorrhea, one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the United States, is increasingly showing resistance to one of the last known effective …

Harry Reid: GOP roads bill a ‘love note to the tea party’  —  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Tuesday bashed the House's transportation bill as a “love note to the tea party.”  —  Reid said that former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower wouldn't recognize the GOP bill …

Apple, Suppliers Test Tablet With Smaller Screen  —  By By LORRAINE LUK in Taipei and JESSICA E. VASCELLARO in San Francisco  —  TAIPEI-Apple Inc. is working with component suppliers in Asia to test a new tablet computer with a smaller screen, people familiar with the situation said …

Music director's marriage leads to his firing from St. Gabriel Catholic Church  —  The last five months have been eventful for Steav Bates-Congdon.  —  First he got married.  Then he got fired.  —  The popular music director at St. Gabriel Catholic Church in south Charlotte lost his job …

59% of Catholics Disapprove of Obama's Job Performance  —  Catholics strongly disapprove of the job President Obama is doing as the debate continues over his administration's new policy forcing Catholic institutions to pay for contraception they morally oppose.

It Was Lehman Wot Did It  —  These days the bizarre economic notions are flying so thick and fast that it's hard to keep up.  Economics of Contempt informs us that Taylor and Cochrane(pdf) are denying the importance of the Lehman shock.  —  This is, among other things …

VALENTINE'S DAY GOOGLE DOODLE: Today's charming musical animation makes for one sweet gift  —  SOMETIMES, not even Google keywords can navigate the search for love.  —  Today, Google is celebrating Valentine's Day the world over with a charming animated “Doodle” that is free of dialogue — yet is all heart.

Upton's niece makes splash with S.I.  —  Kate Upton, the buxom blonde on the cover of this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, has a Washington connection.  —  She's the niece of a congressman: Michigan Rep. Fred Upton, chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Pentagon working with FAA to open U.S. airspace to combat drones  —  The military says the nearly 7,500 robotic aircraft it has accrued for use overseas need to come home at some point.  But the FAA doesn't allow drones in U.S. airspace without a special certificate.

It's Time to Bring Lugar Home  —  “Earmarks,” also known as pork-barrel spending, are considered a “gateway drug” to corruption and bigger government in Washington.  They got that well-deserved title because there's a history of both Republicans and Democrats using earmarks as a currency to buy votes for all sorts of bad policies.

Herman Cain nixes appearance on ‘Dancing with the Stars’  —  A spokeswoman for Herman Cain confirmed this morning that the former GOP presidential candidate was approached by ABC's “Dancing with the Stars” to appear on this season's competition .  But Cain nixed the idea.  “He can't dance in an eight-count.

Report: 1.8M dead registered to vote  —  The United States's voter registration system is in chaos — with about 24 million registrations are no longer valid and nearly 2 million dead people still on voter rolls, according to a new report Tuesday.  —  Along with the one of every eight voter registrations …

Happy Valentine's Day: Economist Edition  —  You might think that the dismal science has very little to offer on matters of the heart.  But I disagree.  And so does Elisabeth Fosslien.  She's a brilliant young analyst interested in design, math, and economics.

WBUR Poll: Brown, Warren Running Neck And Neck In Senate Race  —  BOSTON — A new WBUR-MassINC poll shows U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren running neck and neck.  Forty-six percent of people polled said they would vote for Warren compared to 43 percent for Brown.

Rats or Not, Transit Chief Opposes Ban on Eating in the Subways  —  It did not take long for Joseph J. Lhota, the new chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, to find himself at the center of two of the most contentious quality-of-life issues for subway riders …

Thank you! … Rating Action: Moody's adjusts ratings of 9 European sovereigns to capture downside risks  —  As anticipated in November 2011, Moody's Investors Service has today adjusted the sovereign debt ratings of selected EU countries in order to reflect their susceptibility …