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 …

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)

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.

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.

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 …

Protesters Shout Down Santorum As He Speaks Against Marriage Equality In Washington State  —  Occupy Wall Street protesters nearly drowned out Rick Santorum for 44 minutes as he tried to deliver remarks at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma, Washington on Monday night.

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 …

Christie plans tribute to Whitney Houston  —  With a funeral service for the late Whitney Houston scheduled to take place in Newark, New Jersey on Saturday, Gov. Chris Christie says he is planning to order flags to be flown at half-staff in the singer's honor.

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.

Oliver Stone's son converts to Islam in Iran  —  US filmmaker Sean Stone, son of Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone, converted to Islam on Tuesday in Iran, where he is making a documentary, he told AFP.  —  “The conversion to Islam is not abandoning Christianity or Judaism, which I was born with.

The Materialist Fallacy  —  The half-century between 1912 and 1962 was a period of great wars and economic tumult but also of impressive social cohesion.  Marriage rates were high.  Community groups connected people across class.  —  In the half-century between 1962 and the present …

The Internal Contradictions of Mitt Romney  —  And by “internal”, I mean in the same paragraph: … Yep, Obama has failed to resolve the problem of excessive entitlement spending; furthermore, he's cutting entitlement spending!  —  It gets even better when you bear in mind that Romney …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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.

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.

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.

Pressure mounting for GOP caucus reconsideration  —  AUGUSTA, Maine — Pressure is on the Maine Republican Party to reconsider its weekend declaration that Mitt Romney won the state's caucuses.  —  The Maine GOP announced Saturday that Romney narrowly edged Ron Paul, 39 percent to 36 percent …

Xi Visit Includes Top Chinese Business Leaders  —  Some of China's most powerful business leaders are accompanying Vice President Xi Jinping on his visit to the U.S. this week.  —  Here is the roster, including the heads of private companies as well as state-owned enterprises …

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 …

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.