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It didn't take Mitt Romney long to come out swinging in Florida after his stinging defeat in this weekend's South Carolina primary.

At a news conference in Florida, which holds the nation's next contest on Jan. 31, Romney called former House Speaker Newt Gingrich "erratic" and said his work for government-backed mortgage firm Freddie Mac could haunt the GOP in the form of "October surprises."

The battle over Iran's nuclear program escalated Monday as the European Union announced an embargo on importing oil from Iran.

For years, Europe has been reluctant to join the United States in imposing tough sanctions on Iran. The United States years ago stopped buying Iranian oil, while European nations including France, Spain, Italy, and Greece kept up their purchases. European countries right now buy about 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Iran.

Citing the Golden Rule and saying that "all men and women in our state [should] enjoy the same privileges that are so important in my life," the last legislator needed to pass same-sex marriage legislation in Washington State announced this afternoon that she will support the measure.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, a Democrat, posted a statement about her decision here.

Hospital food, like airplane food, is the kind of institutional food we love to hate.

But the days of jello cups and puddles of grayish gravy are numbered.

A lot of people — from deep-pocketed foodies to fast-food lovers to locavores — aren't standing for barely edible hospital food anymore.

At one end of the spectrum, some hospitals are going extreme gourmet. And not just with spinach salad or whole grain rolls on the tray.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are one of professional sports' most storied franchises. But they're up for auction because much-maligned and outgoing owner Frank McCourt was forced to put the team under bankruptcy protection last summer.

Now, preliminary bids for the Dodgers are due on Monday. The team lost its luster during McCourt's ownership, but estimates for the winning bid range from $1.2 to $2 billion, dwarfing the record $845 million paid for the Chicago Cubs a couple of years ago.

Egypt's Islamists formalized their new stature on Monday as the first freely elected parliament in six decades held its inaugural session in Cairo.

The session was broadcast live on Egyptian state television and was largely spent swearing in the 508 members, most of whom belong to the Muslim Brotherhood and ultra-conservative Salafist movement.

But outside the parliament, not everyone was celebrating.

A few weeks ago, Mike Wendlinger bought himself a Christmas present — a Nook Simple Touch e-book reader. And when he did, he joined a wave of Americans who have combined to make e-readers and their more powerful bretheren, tablet computers, into genuine mass market devices.

Here's your interesting numbers story of the day: Based on The Washington Post's analysis of Internal Revenue Service records, about 98,000 federal employees — including those from the post office — owed $1.03 billion in unpaid taxes. It's a number that has been reported before but this year, while the number of delinquent employees fell, the total amount owed ballooned by $32 million or 3 percent.

Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich today made the case that those who have been collecting jobless benefits for extended periods of time should be required to enroll in job-training programs, saying that "we shouldn't give people 99 weeks to do nothing," our colleagues at WUSF in Tampa report.

John Hawkes' conversation with Melissa Block on today's All Things Considered begins as many of his conversations might: with her noting that when she told people she was coming to talk to him and rattled off his credits, she got a response that he undoubtedly gets a lot: "Ohhh, he's that guy."

Illinois Senator Mark Kirk is hospitalized in Chicago after undergoing surgery to relieve swelling on his brain; doctors discovered he'd suffered a stroke over the weekend.

Women consistently say they suffer more intense pain than men — about 20 percent more on average, even from seemingly gender-neutral ailments like sinus infections.

That's the word from a big new study that tracked reports of pain from people diagnosed with the same medical conditions. So much for the old cliche that women handle pain more easily than men. Or maybe this backs another cliche, that guys are tough and unfeeling.

The case of a U.S. marine accused of killing 24 unarmed civilians in Haditha, Iraq came to a surprising end today. Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich reached a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of three months in confinement.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

The South is cleaning up from yet another round of devastating tornadoes. The storms started first in Arkansas, then brought baseball-sized hail, heavy wind and lightning to parts of Tennessee and Mississippi. But it was Alabama that saw the worst of it. At least two people died with 100 more injured.

As NPR's Russell Lewis reports, the overnight storms hit communities still struggling to recover from a series of devastating tornadoes last year.

NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins Melissa Block from Florida to discuss Monday night's Republican presidential debate.

A former CIA officer was charged on Monday with leaking secrets to reporters — and then lying about it.

The Justice Department has accused John Kiriakou of violating the Espionage Act by outing his colleagues and passing sensitive details about counterterrorism operations to reporters for The New York Times and other media outlets.

Kiriakou, 47, of Arlington, Va., appeared in federal court in Virginia on Monday, where he was released after posting a $250,000 bond.

The Reluctant Spy

Robert Siegel talks to David Johnson, former executive director of Florida's Republican Party, about the state's political landscape — and what that means for the GOP presidential candidates.

Robert Siegel talks to NPR's Scott Horsley about the key points and policies President Obama highlighted a year ago in his appearance before Congress for the State of the Union.