A federal appeals court has ruled that California’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, setting up a showdown in the Supreme Court. The state instituted the ban after voters narrowly passed Proposition 8 in 2008. But Tuesday’s panel affirmed by a 2–1 vote that a lower-court judge was correct when he said the referendum violated the U.S. Constitution. Supporters of Proposition 8 had tried to throw out U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling that the ban was unconstitutional on the grounds that he had failed to disclose his sexual orientation. In a separate ruling Tuesday, the appeal court refused to set aside Walker’s decision.

Rick Santorum came out top dog in Missouri's Republican primary, where he lead Mitt Romney by about 30 percentage points. Missouri state election officials told CNN that turnout looked even lower than expected. The Missouri secretary of state predicted 960,000 voters would show up at the polls Tuesday, but more recent reports suggested that number was lower. The contest in Minnesota was also called in favor of Santorum, who, with 87 percent of precincts reporting, had 44.9 percent of the vote, with Ron Paul holding second place at 27.1 percent. Late in the evening, Colorado's GOP chairman completed the hat-trick, announcing that the state tipped for Santorum.

Rick Santorum, riding high off projected victories in the Minnesota caucuses and Missouri primary and a strong early showing in Colorado (he would later win), rallied supporters Tuesday night. “Mitt Romney has the same positions as Barack Obama,” Santorum said flanked by his top super-PAC donor Foster Friess. “I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.” That wasn’t all: Santorum said Obama “thinks he’s smarter than you.” He went on to say that he cares about the rich, the poor, and 100 percent of America. Take that, Mitt. It was an all-star evening for Santorum as he locked up Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado. Romney, who struggled in all three contests, downplayed the importance of the Missouri caucus, saying Tuesday morning that it is “strictly a beauty contest.” Speaking from his campaign headquarters in Denver as Colorado's results came in, Romney stressed his experience in the private sector and said the Republican party will unite in November to defeat President Obama. 

CNN reports the Pentagon has begun a review of what military options the U.S. has in the event President Obama decides to intervene in Syria. U.S. policy, the sources say, still remains focused on nonmilitary options. Syrian leaders received a visit from Russia’s foreign minister Tuesday as other nations continued to distance themselves from the country. Syria has been racked by internal conflict for the past 11 months as a popular revolt has sought to overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The Arab League and the United States, among other nations, have put forward plans for a peaceful resolution to the crisis, asking Assad to relinquish some of his executive powers. After his meeting with the president, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said his country also supported a bloodless resolution and that Assad had indicated that "he is fully committed to an end to violence, no matter its source.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that the White House plans to address a new Department of Health and Human Services policy that requires some religious organizations like hospitals and universities to cover birth control through their employees’ insurance. The policy has caused an uproar among conservative Catholics who follow the church’s teaching against any form of artificial contraception. Carney did not indicate that the policy would be changed but said Obama wanted to reach out to religious groups to make clear that he was concerned about their opinions.

Responding to a New York Times report that White House officials were preparing to cut the U.S. diplomatic staff in Iraq by as much as 50 percent, a State Department spokesman insisted they were only considering whether the U.S. Embassy was “right-sized” following the final departure of U.S. troops. The State Department said it was “examining the numbers” of its $750 million embassy and figuring out the best way to downsize the large presence of Iraqi contractors—roughly 16,000—and source more goods and services to the local economy. “We’re trying to do our best to save the American taxpayer money in the way we support our diplomatic personnel,” a department spokesman told NBC News on Tuesday. In a statement referenced in the New York Times report, embassy spokesman Michael McClellan said the 2,000 diplomats were also “subject to adjustment as appropriate.”

Pakistani intelligence officials say U.S. drones killed eight people in the country’s tribal region bordering Afghanistan, the Associated Press reports. The drone-fired missiles apparently hit a house on Wednesday in the area, according to officials who spoke on anonymity. It’s not yet clear whether any civilians were killed in the attack, though the region is reportedly run by a militant commander who has targeted foreign troops in Afghanistan. The latest drone strike comes several weeks after another attack killed a top al Qaeda director near the border of North Waziristan. The U.S. has not yet confirmed Wednesday’s attacks.

Prosecutors have decided not to press charges against Greg Kelly, several weeks after the son of NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly was accused of sexually raping a woman. The Manhattan district attorney's office concluded that "the facts established during our investigation do not fit the definition of sexual assault crimes.'' Kelly, a news anchor for Good Day New York, had been accused of sexually assaulting a 28-year-old paralegal back in October, who said she was intoxicated when it happened. The woman went to police two weeks ago claiming she met Kelly on the street in Manhattan and had drinks with him before they went back to her office at a law firm where she allegedly works. She also claimed she had to abort a pregnancy after their encounter.

Things have been rocky at Yahoo lately. The Internet giant is expected to announce the departure of not one but four board members. Chairman Roy Bostock will be stepping down as well as Vyomesh Joshi, Gary Wilson, and Arthur Kern. This comes on the heels of the company’s cofounder and board member Jerry Yang unexpectedly resigning in January. The company will be adding two new directors. Fred Amoroso, former CEO of Rovi, and Maynard Webb, former COO of eBay, will be joining the board. The company is expected to add three more board members, but their names haven’t been released. Yahoo also hasn’t named a new chairman.

Daniel Radcliffe is apparently determined to make himself out to be a bad boy as he promotes his new film, The Woman in Black. In a recent interview with the Daily Mirror, Radcliffe admitted he’s had sex with groupies, though he added he preferred sleeping with girls he knew to one-night stands. “I mean, that has happened,” Radcliffe said about fooling around with fans. “But generally speaking I’ve known the person. Apart from a few times when I was drinking.” Which reminds us that the Harry Potter star recently admitted to being drunk on the set of the franchise. Boozing habits aside, Radcliffe told The Guardian he’s “miffed” that the series’ final installment didn’t get any Oscar nods.

Karen Handel, an executive at the Susan G. Komen Foundation, resigned on Tuesday. Handel, a former Republican candidate for governor of Georgia, had been suspected as the root of the breast-cancer charity’s controversial decision last week to pull funding from Planned Parenthood—and attracted attention after she retweeted a comment that it was “just like a pro-abortion group to turn a cancer orgs decision into a political bomb to throw. Cry me a freaking river.” In her resignation letter, Handel said she “fully acknowledged” her role in the decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, saying that the decision had been part of a “thoughtful and thoroughly reviewed decision” and that cutting the funding to Planned Parenthood would “have indeed enabled Komen to deliver even greater community impact.”

The man who alerted police of a smoking vehicle in Times Square and ended up thwarting a potential terrorist attack announced Tuesday that he is running for Congress. Duane Jackson was selling knockoff handbags in Times Square on May 1, 2010, when he and another vendor spotted an idle SUV, abandoned in a no-parking zone, starting to smoke and police found inside the car a potentially powerful propane-and-gasoline bomb. Police later arrested Faisal Shahzad for the attempted terrorist attack, and Jackson even got a call from President Obama, something Jackson called “an epiphany.” Jackson, married with two children, is running in his native district in a district north of New York City, challenging Republican Nan Hayworth. A Navy veteran, Jackson said he also has 15 years experience in city planning and housing, including posts in New York City’s education and housing departments.

Iran has banned toy versions of the Simpsons for the baffling reason that they … are dolls of adults? “Imports of all kinds of dolls that display full adult figures are banned because they promote Western culture,” said Mohammad Hossein Farjoo, speaking for country’s Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults. The agency allows Spider-Man and Superman toys to be sold because they “help oppressed people and they have a positive stance.” But not Barbies, which Iran has called the “Trojan horse” of Western values, and recently provoked a toy-store-closing rampage.

Newt Gingrich denounced Barack Obama’s requirement that Catholic organizations provide contraception—claiming that the president had declared war on the Catholic Church. The former speaker also slammed his competitor Mitt Romney, arguing that while he’s publicly taken issue with Obama’s actions, the former Massachusetts governor actually enacted a similar policy while in office, demanding that Catholic hospitals distribute abortion pills. The Associated Press notes that in 2005, Governor Romney did, in fact, require all hospitals in his state—Catholic ones included—to provide emergency contraception to rape victims.

NBC News is calling Minnesota's Republican caucus for Rick Santorum. The candidate has left Ron Paul and Mitt Romney in his dust as he scoops up the lion's share in the precincts reporting. It was a crucial night for Santorum, as he vied with the other candidates to be the strongest “anti-Mitt" in a state Romney won with 41.4 percent of the vote in 2008. Santorum was still pressing the flesh in Minnesota on Tuesday, telling Republicans, “I feel great that Minnesota is going to change the direction of this race tonight.” With 25.3 percent of precincts reporting, Santorum led with 44.1 percent of the vote, besting Paul at 26.8 percent and Romney in third at 17.3 percent. 

After failing to meet yet another EU deadline yesterday, Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos is continuing to negotiate the terms of an austerity package—and now he has a strike on his hands, too. Union workers across the nation shut down major ports and public transportation, and riot police have taken up positions outside Parliament. Euro-zone officials say Greece must agree to the bailout package and its associated austerity plan—and the euro zone, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund must approve it—by Feb. 15 or Greece will default by mid-March. Greece has to cut €600 million this year, part of a total austerity package of €3.3 billion. They also have to cut the minimum wage by as much as 20 percent. European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes, meanwhile, told a Dutch newspaper that it wouldn't be that big a deal if Greece left the euro.

Prince William and Kate Middleton will participate in Britain’s celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. They’ll lay a wreath at Dickens’ grave in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey and visit the Charles Dickens Museum, where The X-Files’ Gillian Anderson will give a reading. Anderson played Miss Havisham in the BBC’s recent Great Expectations. Ralph Fiennes, who plays Magwitch in a new adaptation of Great Expectations, will read from Bleak House. Mark Dickens, Charles’s great-great-grandson, will also read.

Mitt Romney isn’t going to give Rick Santorum the chance to surge again. His top aides and Tim Pawlenty—working on Romney’s behalf—launched a string of attacks on Santorum ahead of today’s Republican primaries in Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri, calling him a “champion of earmarks.” Romney’s campaign also brought back Santorum’s 2008 endorsement of him, when he said conservatives should vote for Romney. The tactic is a treatment the Romney campaign had previously reserved for Newt Gingrich, and Santorum reacted by accusing Romney of throwing “the kitchen sink” at him. Today’s primaries are nonbinding, though they would give the winner some momentum. Recent data from Public Policy Polling shows Santorum in the lead in Missouri and Minnesota, but a large percentage of voters say they could still change their mind. 

The gloves are off as President Obama signaled to top aides that they should encourage Democratic donors to donate to Priorities USA Action, the party’s leading super PAC. Whether the campaign should encourage contributions to the PAC has been hotly debated in Democratic circles. These latest signals from the White House reverse Obama’s previous position on super PACs, which can take unlimited contributions. But it’s a decision the president likely felt pressured to make by the aggressive fundraising of similar Republican groups. “We’re not going to fight this with one hand tied behind our back,” said Jim Messina, manager for Obama’s reelection campaign. In other news, fundraisers for the incumbent’s campaign began selling designer tote bags emblazoned with the president’s name.

This story could not get any worse. Police now say that Charles and Braden Powell, the two young boys who were killed when their father intentionally set off an explosion in his house, were killed by "chops to the neck" and carbon-monoxide poisoning. The weapon used was either a hatchet or small ax. The boys reportedly had recently just begun to talk about the night their mother went missing, their grandparents’ attorney said on Monday. “The oldest boy talked about that they went camping and that Mommy was in the trunk. Mom and Dad got out of the car and Mom disappeared,” Steve Downing told the Associated Press. Susan Powell has been missing since 2009.

Having a congressman in your neighborhood may make property values go up. More than $300 million in taxpayer money has gone to projects within two miles of property owned by 33 members of Congress, according to a Washington Post investigation. In Tuscaloosa, Ala., $100 million went to projects near a senator’s offices. Nearly $500,000 went to a bike lane near a Michigan representative’s residence. The earmarks are legal under congressional ethics rules, and last week the Senate struck down a bill that would have outlawed earmarks. Lawmakers defended the earmarks by saying their constituents benefited from the projects.

Maybe they can put that money into a super PAC instead. Obama’s 2012 campaign is returning more than $200,000 from two American brothers of a Mexican casino magnate on the run from drug and fraud charges. Juan Jose Rojas Cardona, known as Pepe, was linked to violence and corruption—including the assassination of a business rival—in Mexico after he jumped bail in Iowa in 1994. When The New York Times asked about the Cardona brothers, the Obama campaign said it was unaware of the fugitive brother and then refunded the donations. In January of last year, one of the Cardona brothers asked the Iowa Democratic Party chairman to seek a pardon from the governor.

The woman who became known as the “Obama girl” for a YouTube video where she proclaimed “I’ve got a crush … on Obama” says she is undecided on whom she will vote for in 2012 presidential election. “I’m still keeping my eyes and ears open,” said Amber Lee Ettinger, 29. While Ettinger is quick to say she “certainly doesn’t dislike Obama,” she says she wants “what everybody in this country wants. I want this country to be better. I want everybody to have jobs and for gas prices to go down.” Ettinger rose to fame in 2008 with the provocative “Obama girl” video, which the president said in 2007 had upset his daughters. While Ettinger said at the time she didn’t take the president’s comments personally, she says now that it hurts that Obama never thanked her for the video.

Mitt Romney may be the GOP frontrunner, but Rick Santorum is all set to have a great night in Tuesday’s primaries. A new poll by Public Policy Polling shows Santorum with a large lead over Romney in Missouri (45 to 32 percent) and a significant lead in Minnesota (33 to 24 percent). Santorum trails only in one of Tuesday night’s three states, Colorado, where Romney leads by 10 percent. “Rick Santorum has the potential to firmly establish himself as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney today,” said Dean Debnam, the president of the polling group.

Los Angeles school officials have decided to replace the entire staff of Miramonte Elementary School, where two teachers have been arrested on suspicion of abusing children. Officials say the staff could be returned to the school eventually, but for now their positions will be filled by teachers on a rehiring list. The old staff will be moved to a nearby campus that is under construction and continue to be paid. Meanwhile, parents protested outside the school, accusing the staff of covering up the abuse. One teacher, Mark Berndt, is charged with 23 felony counts for allegedly blindfolding, gagging, and spoon-feeding semen to students. Photos he was having developed brought the case to police attention. After his arrest, two families reported that another teacher, Martin Bernard Springer, had molested their children, and he was arrested as well.

The Amanda Knox case isn’t quite over. Lawyers for the 24-year-old former University of Washington student asked an Italian court to overturn Knox’s conviction for slander, handed down in late 2011. Knox was given the lesser charge when her 2009 conviction for the murder of her roommate was overturned and the murder remained unsolved. The court did not announce a timetable for hearing the appeal.

President Obama is taking heat from liberals for giving the go-ahead for Democratic-affiliated super PACs to get up and armed. On Tuesday, members of the administration tried to explain the decision to reporters, repeatedly raising the specter of a weekend Koch brothers conference at which big-shot donors pledged $100 million to defeat Obama. Obama advisers fear that number could grow to half a billion dollars for Republican attack ads. “We recognize the political reality under the law we’re living in right now, and we need to be realistic about that,” one official said. Obama still opposes the Supreme Court decision that gave birth to super PACs, and supports legislation to reform campaign finance, but his advisers made clear that they would have to play hardball to contend in November.

Claude Lanzmann, the director of the famed Holocaust documentary Shoah, was detained at Israel’s Ben-Gurion airport Tuesday after he allegedly tried to hug and kiss an airport security agent who was questioning him. The incident reportedly happened after the 86-year-old filmmaker was subjected to Ben-Gurion’s routine questioning, some of the most rigorous in the world. Lanzmann was later allowed to board his flight to Paris.

U.S. authorities are investigating whether News Corp. employees violated a law that bans bribes to foreign officials, sources told Reuters on Tuesday. A U.S. official said if any law-enforcement action is taken against Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, it will most likely be under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) since there has been little evidence of hacking inside the U.S. If anyone is found to have violated FCPA, News Corp. could be fined up to $2 million and barred from U.S. government contracts, and any one person suspected of violating the law could be fined up to $100,000. Executives could be liable if they knew about the bribes but failed to stop them. The investigation includes an FBI criminal inquiry.

Though Syria’s government has put up a wall of denial, Syrian activists report that the city of Homs is still in the grip of a brutal crackdown. CNN reports stories of children shot in public, snipers roaming the street, and even a field clinic set up by opposition forces bombed. “The doctors died, the patients died,” an anonymous protester told CNN. “We are getting killed every moment,” another said. Diplomats are still mired in stalemate: Russia’s foreign minister arrived in Damascus today to a warm welcome from President Bashar al-Assad’s supporters. The Arab League, though, has expelled Syrian ambassadors.

The Republican underdogs may be gaining ground on Mitt Romney. Support for the former Massachusetts governor dipped to 29 percent this week while Ron Paul's fan base grew by 5 percentage points, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. Paul is now in second place among the candidates vying for the GOP presidential nomination, ahead of Newt Gingrich, who went from 20 to 19 percent, and Rick Santorum, whose support jumped 5 points to 18 percent. Meanwhile, President Obama's support is on the rise, up to 48 percent from 47 in January. However, his disapproval rating has remained at 49 percent since last month. 

The last known World War I veteran died in her sleep in King’s Lynn, a town in eastern England just north of London. Florence Green, who was approaching her 111th birthday this month, was a mess steward at Royal Air Force bases in Marham and Narborough. Green joined the Women’s Royal Air Force in 1918 at the age of 17. She married at age 19 and spent most of her life working at a hotel in her hometown. The last living combat veteran of World War I died at age 110 in May 2011.