"Syrian forces fired mortars and rockets Thursday in the rebellious city of Homs, the latest salvo in a weeklong assault that has killed hundreds as President Bashar Assad's regime tries to crush increasingly militarized pockets of dissent," The Associated Press reports.

Relying on reports from activists and residents in Homs, the AP and other news outlets say it appears that a brutal crackdown continues.

Al-Jazeera writes that:

"At least 29 people have reportedly been killed in ... Homs, as government forces continued a relentless assault on the central city for a sixth day. Activists said on Thursday that the bombardments centered on the neighborhoods of Bab Amr, Khalidiya and al-Bayyada."

The Guardian has even grimmer news:

"The activist group, the Local Co-ordination Committee in Syria, claims 56 people have been killed so far today. The vast majority of the victims were in Homs."

NPR.org's Ahmed Al Omran is curating news from Homs on his Twitter page.

Because Syrian authorities have tried to prevent foreign journalists from reporting inside the country, it's not possible to verify all the reports at this time.

Meanwhile, as The Guardian also says, "the U.N.'s failure to agree a resolution on Syria is 'disastrous' for the country's people, the U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon has said as President Assad's government launched its most intense bombardment so far of rebel-held areas."

The Assad regime has insisted it is targeting "terrorists." The U.N. has reported that more than 5,000 people, many of them peaceful protesters who died at the hands of army forces, have been killed in the past year.

Following up on a plan he unveiled last September to let states apply to be exempt from basic elements of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind education law, President Obama will today announce the first 10 states that have qualified for such exemptions.

The Associated Press, citing "a White House official ... who spoke on condition of anonymity because the states had not yet been announced," says the states are: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

One state, New Mexico, has been denied a waiver but is working with the administration to see if it can soon qualify, according to the wire service.

The goal of the waivers is to give states more flexibility as they seek to reach educational achievement goals set by the federal government when George W. Bush was president.

NPR's Larry Abramson reported in September, when Obama's waiver plan was announced, that:

"States that apply for and receive waivers no longer have to label schools as failing if they fall short of achievement goals. Instead, states can come up with their own plans to boost performance. They also no longer have to set aside a certain amount of federal money to deal with low performing schools. ...

"States must show that they have ways to measure student growth and get students ready for college or a career. They also have to be developing comprehensive teacher evaluations that include the use of standardized test scores."

The AP adds that while "No Child Left Behind requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014 ... Obama's action strips away that fundamental requirement for those approved for flexibility, provided they offer a viable plan instead. Under the deal, the states must show they will prepare children for college and careers, set new targets for improving achievement among all students, reward the best performing schools and focus help on the ones doing the worst."

The plan for exemptions, Larry also reported, worries some "advocates for minority and special education students" who are concerned that such students will be ignored.

Asked this afternoon if he thinks Israel will attack his nation anytime soon in a bid to destroy work Iran is doing on nuclear technology, the Persian nation's ambassador to the United Nations told NPR, "I don't think that is going to happen."

"Iran is so strong," said Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee, and "the consequences would be devastating for [Israel] and maybe for whoever helped them. ... There are wise enough people around the world to tell them not to do such a crazy thing."

The U.S., Israel and other nations have been tightening sanctions on Iran and have been warning that it needs to be more transparent about its nuclear ambitions (Iran says it is not pursuing development of nuclear weapons). Last week, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barack said that if sanctions don't work, military action against Iran must be considered.

(Related story: NPR.org's Greg Myre today runs through "5 Reasons Why Israel Might Bomb Iran, Or Not.")

Khazaee spoke with Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep. He repeated something that other Iranian officials have said in recent weeks — that they are prepared to talk with the so-called 5+1 nations (China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S.) about Iran's nuclear ambitions. And Khazaee also repeated something said in recent months, but which still hasn't happened: that Iran will respond to a letter from European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton calling for such talks.

Much more from Steve's conversation with the ambassador is due on Thursday's Morning Edition. Click here to find an NPR station that broadcasts or streams the show. After it airs, we'll add the as-broadcast version of the conversation to the top of this post.

Lawmakers in Washington state voted Wednesday to legalize gay marriage, a move that would make the state the sixth in the nation to allow same-sex couples to wed.

The Washington move came a day after California's ban on gay marriage was ruled unconstitutional.

The vote in the Washington House was 55-43. The state Senate approved the measure last week. The Democratic governor, Chris Gregoire, is expected to sign the measure into law next week. Both chambers of the state legislature are controlled by Democrats.

Washington state has had domestic partnership laws since 2007.

 

Gay couples would be allowed to wed 90 days after the governor signs the measure. But opponents of gay marriage have vowed to fight the move.

This according to The Associated Press:

If opponents gather enough signatures to take their fight to the ballot box, the law would be put on hold pending the outcome of a November election. Otherwise gay couples could wed starting in June.

The Seattle Times reports that there was never any doubt the legislation would be approved in the House, where more than 50 lawmakers backed the measures.

"The biggest hurdle was the state Senate, which has conservative Democrats opposed to the measure," the paper said.

On Tuesday, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that California's ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional. That voter-approved law is known as Proposition 8, and both its supporters and critics acknowledge the court ruling isn't the last word on the subject. An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is expected.

Gay couples can legally wed in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and Washington D.C. New Jersey lawmakers are expected to vote on gay marriage next week; Maine could see a gay-marriage proposal on the ballot in November.

In a surprise twist for one of the world's premiere national soccer teams, Fabio Capello resigned as England coach, today.

The resignation followed an hour-long meeting with top Football Association officials. The association made the news official in a press release posted on its website. The statement read in part:

"The discussions focused on The FA Board's decision to remove the England team captaincy from John Terry, and Fabio Capello's response through an Italian broadcast interview.

"In a meeting for over an hour, Fabio's resignation was accepted and he will leave the post of England Manager with immediate effect."

According to the BBC, the move comes after Capello criticized the FA's decision to strip John Terry of the captaincy in an interview with Italian TV on Monday. If you remember, in Decemeber Mark reported that Terry was facing criminal charges "for allegedly aiming a racial slur at an opponent." He's scheduled to stand trial July 9.

The BBC reports that Capello said Terry should keep "the captain's armband."

He added: "I have spoken to the [FA] chairman and I have said that in my opinion one cannot be punished until it is official and the court - a non-sport court, a civil court - had made a decision to decide if John Terry has done what he is accused of."

The AP reports that the spat began when Capello felt publicly undermined after the FA chairman made the Terry decision without consulting him. The wire service adds that move throws the national team's "preparations for the European Championship into turmoil."

The AP adds a bit of background on Capello's tenure in England:

"After a lengthy honeymoon following a perfect World Cup qualifying campaign, the aura of a once-renowned disciplinarian started to fade in South Africa in 2010.

"Capello started to feel the kind of pressure he was used to when coaching Real Madrid and AC Milan, with his decision-making coming under serious scrutiny as England was eliminated with a 4-1 loss to Germany in the second round.

"Capello clung onto his job, reviving the spirit in the England camp and starting to bring young talent into the team ahead of Euro 2012."

CNN's political commentator Roland Martin has been suspended, because of tweets sent out during the Super Bowl that organizations like GLAAD called homophobic.

NPR's David Folkenflik reports that the network was also reacting to online criticism of Martin. David filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"Roland S. Martin is a near-incessant tweeter and Sunday night during the Super Bowl proved no exception. British soccer star David beckham was shown during a television commercial hawking men's underwear — in nothing but that underwear. Martin caustically tweeted twice in response, writing to urge followers to 'smack the ish' out of any man who was 'hyped' about the ad.

"Gay rights groups said the tweets were homophobic. Martin said he was making an anti-soccer crack, but he later apologized more fully on his blog. On Wednesday, CNN released a statement calling his tweets offensive and inconsistent with the channel's values. He has been suspended from the air as a contributor indefinitely."

"Language that demeans is inconsistent with the values and culture of our organization, and is not tolerated," CNN said today in a statement according to The Washington Post. "We have been giving careful consideration to this matter, and Roland will not be appearing on our air for the time being."

On Monday, Martin issued an apology on his blog. He maintained that his tweets were made in jest and were made about soccer and not anyone's sexuality. He wrote:

"My joking about smacking someone, whether it was in response to a commercial or food they prepare for a Super Bowl party or wearing an opposing team's jersey, was stated in jest. It was not meant literally, and in no way would I ever condone someone doing such a thing.

"As I said repeatedly, I often make jokes about soccer in the U.S., and my crack about David Beckham's commercial was related to that and not to anyone's sexuality."

But as New York Magazine points out, that explanation would be "easier to believe if Martin hadn't earlier mocked a player for wearing pink and didn't have a history of defending questionable comments about homosexuality."

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation hailed CNN's move.

"CNN today took a strong stand against anti-LGBT violence and language that demeans any community," Rich Ferraro, a GLAAD spokesperson, said in a statement.

One week after pausing with about 40 feet to go, Russian scientists today announced that they have successfully drilled through two miles of ice to reach Lake Vostok — a body of water the size of New Jersey that hasn't been touched for millions of years.

The Google translation from Russian on this webpage is a little rough, but you can see that the team says the breakthrough came over the weekend.

Now, as The New York Times reports, the Russians say that an initial spurt of water that rose up from the lake has frozen in the drill hole — as expected. It's likely that water has been contaminated with some of the chemicals used during the drilling. The plan is to return next December and only then draw clean water from the lake.

As NPR's Richard Harris and others have reported, the drilling has been going on for about many years. Scientists are eager to see if anything might be living in the lake and might add to evolutionary science.

Lake Vostok is warmed by geothermal energy. According to The Associated Press, "scientists from other nations hope to follow up this discovery with similar projects. American and British teams are drilling to reach their own subglacial Antarctic lakes."

Update at 3:30 p.m. ET. The Russians Essentially Stuck A Straw Down There; If Anything's Living, It's Likely A Microbe:

"The real goal of the Russians was to pop a hole in that was kind of like a straw," says Robin Bell, a research scientist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. She spoke this afternoon to NPR's Audie Cornish.

The idea is that it will "be like they're sucking on the straw and lake water would come rushing up and none of the contaminants would go in," she said.

Next, when Spring arrives in Antarctica, the Russians have "set it up so they can get a fresh sample of lake water ... when they drill into that frozen straw." They will also "drop in strings of instruments."

As for what, if anything, is living down there: "What we're most likely to find is little microbes who've figured out how to exist in a really isolated, low energy environment," Bell said. And if microbes are down there, studying them might tell us something about the likelihood of life on the moons of other planets.

More from Audie's conversation with Bell is due on today's All Things Considered. Click here to find an NPR station that broadcasts or streams the show.

Domestic abuse cases are never easy. But one in Florida has gotten a different kind of attention, today, because of a judge's ruling that instead of bail, called for a man to treat his wife to flowers and dinner and then take her bowling.

During a bail hearing, yesterday, Joseph Bray faced Judge John "Jay" Hurley. Bray had ended up in a Broward County jail after a domestic altercation that started after Hurley's wife called him out for not wishing her a happy birthday. According to the The Sun Sentinel, the judge said "Bray pushed his wife onto their couch and put his hand on her neck. He held up his fist to hit her, but never struck her."

The judge was tasked with deciding whether to free Bray or keep him locked up. You can watch the conversation the judge had with Bray and a woman who identified herself as Hurley's wife in this video:

Judge Hurley asked the wife if she felt threatened if Bray was released. She said no, repeteadly.

The problem, she said, was "a lack of communication between the two of us. It was my birthday and he should have said something to me in the morning. I love my husband and I want to work things out."

At that point, the judge said he would release Bray on his own recognizance but he ordered him to do a few things. The AP writes:

"Hurley ordered Bray to buy a birthday card and flowers for his wife before taking her to dinner at Red Lobster and bowling afterward. Hurley ruled the couple should begin seeing a marriage counselor immediately."

The couple laughed and Hurley defended his decision to the Sun Sentinel:

"'It was a minor incident, in the court's opinion,' he said. 'The court would not normally do that if the court felt there was some violence but this is very, very minor and the court felt that that was a better resolution than other alternatives.'"

Just hours before the symbolic rekindling of the Salt Lake Olympic cauldron, officials in Utah today sought to rekindle the 2002 Olympic spirit, announcing they're considering another Olympic bid.

The disclosure at the Utah Olympic speedskating oval in suburban Kearns, comes exactly 10 years after the 2002 Winter Games began.

"Ten years ago, Utah 'Lit the Fire Within,' and today that flame still burns bright," said Gov. Gary Herbert (R). In fact, as celebrations of the 2002 anniversary begin, some Utahns are wearing their official Olympic volunteer coats again.

Herbert and Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker (D) said an exploratory committee will take three to four months to consider bidding for the 2022 Winter Games.

"There is no predetermined recommendation," Becker said. "We believe an investment of meaningful time and effort is worthwhile to make the right decision."

 

Salt Lake's biggest advantage is the existence of expensive and specialized Olympic facilities still in use as training and competition venues for athletes. Organizers would not have to build from scratch a speedskating oval, ski jump or bobsled, luge and skeleton track.

"These venues are a significant advantage in a potential bid," said Eric Heiden, the five-time Olympic gold-medalist and world record-holder in speedskating. Heiden is now an orthopedic surgeon in Utah.

Denver and Reno-Lake Tahoe are also considering 2022 Olympic bids. The United States Olympic Committee will choose one city to nominate as America's host city candidate if it decides to support a 2022 bid.

"At this point, the USOC is not considering any bids for Winter or Summer Olympic Games," says Patrick Sandusky, a spokesman for the USOC. "Our sole focus is on preparing the best team for the London [2012 Olympics] and completing the revenue sharing discussions with the [International Olympic Committee]."

The U.S. and International Olympic Committees are locked in a lingering dispute over the American share of Olympic sponsorship and television revenues. The USOC has said it will not consider another American Olympics until that dispute is resolved.

A Salt Lake City bid has distinct disadvantages, says Dick Pound, a veteran IOC member from Canada who has been part of the group's top leadership.

"I think it would be a long shot," Pound says. "There's just a view [in the IOC] that the games ought to be moved around to countries and cities that never had them before as part of broadening the franchise."

Pound also notes that the IOC considers the 2002 Olympics a great success despite a bribery scandal before the games and concerns about terrorism in the wake of the September 11th attacks. The IOC credits organizing committee CEO Mitt Romney for that success. Romney, who went on to be governor of Massachusetts, is now seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

"The real hope ought to be that Mitt Romney becomes president," Pound adds. "That would certainly add something to [a Salt Lake City bid]."

The IOC wants 2022 candidate cities named by October of 2013. That seems to leave little time to resolve the USOC's revenue-sharing dispute and then to conduct a selection process among competing American cities.

But, "the USOC is unlikely to go through an extended campaign phase as we did [in the past]," says an American Olympic official familiar with the bidding process but not authorized to discuss it publicly.

"There is more than ample time to decide and submit a bid, should we go down that route," the official says.

Denver also has an exploratory committee in place and a Denver bid would present a strong challenge to Salt Lake, says Mike Moran, a former spokesman for the USOC who now works for the Colorado Springs Sports Corporation.

"The city has a strategic plan, sound backing, a superb infrastructure and a youthful, sports-minded population that is crazy about sports," Moran says. "Reno-Tahoe has been at the game for a long time and they have what appears to be a great deal of support. But the Denver population, its airport, existing venues and sheer numbers of hotel rooms and infrastructure is something that can't be discounted."

Denver was named Olympic host city for the 1976 Winter Games but backed out of the Olympics in 1972 after voters rejected public funding. That may be a major problem for some on the IOC.

In 2002, IOC members and athletes raved about the proximity of the Salt Lake City airport to Olympic venues and how mountain and city venues were relatively close.

"There are few cities around the world that can match these geographical and other strengths," says Fraser Bullock, the chief operating and financial officer of the 2002 organizing committee. "Salt's Lake's reputation of hosting games is outstanding and inspires confidence in doing a superb job once again."

Bids may also come in from cities in Switzerland, China, Chile, Germany and other countries. The IOC will select the 2022 host city in 2015.

Recordings of an increasingly frantic social worker's 911 calls to police on Sunday are adding more detail to the horrible events leading up to a Washington State man's apparent decision to kill himself and his two young sons by turning his home into an inferno.

The unidentified caseworker had just dropped off 5-year-old Braden and 7-year-old Charlie at Josh Powell's home in Graham, Wash., she tells the 911 dispatcher, when he slammed the door in her face and locked her out.

Powell, a suspect in the 2009 disappearance of his wife Susan, could only have supervised visits with the boys. That's why the caseworker was there.

The Seattle Times has posted the 10-minutes' worth of recordings here in two parts. In the first, which lasts more than 6 minutes, the caseworker asks the Pierce County Sheriff's Department dispatcher to send police to the scene. She tells him she smelled gasoline around the home. The dispatcher says that deputies "have to respond to emergency, life-threatening situations first." She tells him she thinks that just such a situation exists. But when the dispatcher asks if Josh Powell had ever threatened to harm the boys, she concedes she does not know. That conversation ends with the dispatcher saying "the first available deputy" will contact her.

The second conversation, apparently recorded just minutes later, begins with the caseworker shouting "he exploded the house!"

"He blew up the house and the kids!" the increasingly panicked woman says.

It appears, as The Associated Press reports, that about 10 minutes went by from the time the boys were locked in the house to when it went up in flames. "Authorities later said," AP adds, that "Josh Powell spread a 5-gallon drum of gasoline around the home to ensure the fire he set burned faster." At some point, authorities believe, he also struck the boys with a hatchet.

Argentina's president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said the country would file a complaint with the United Nations about Britain's "militarization" of the South Atlantic.

This is all part of a recent escalation of the two countries' long-running dispute about the Falkland Islands. Reuters reports:

"Britain, which rejected the accusation, went to war with Argentina over the British-ruled Falkland Islands in 1982. London has refused to start talks on sovereignty with Argentina unless the roughly 3,000 islanders want them.

"'They're militarizing the South Atlantic once again,' President Cristina Fernandez said in a speech on Tuesday at the presidential palace, criticising the deployment of British destroyer HMS Dauntless in the area in the coming months.

"'If there's one thing we're going to preserve, besides our natural resources, is a region where peace prevails,' she said, adding that the Foreign Ministry would present a formal complaint to the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly."

As we've reported, with the 30th Anniversary of the war approaches, Argentina has seen a few protests. And the fact that Britain deployed Prince William to the area has only heightened tensions. Kirchner characterized his visit as the arrival of a conquistador, while Prime Minister David Cameron said Argentina had a "colonialist" aim with its blockade of the islands.

The Telegraph reports that England also rejected any further negotiations on the islands.

"We are not militarizing the South Atlantic. Our defensive posture in the Falkland Islands remains unchanged," The Telegraph quotes a Downing Street spokesman as saying. "The people of the Falklands choose to be British. Their right to self determination is a principle that's enshrined in the UN charter."

The Christian Science Monitor reports Kirchner said England's movements can only be called militarization.

"There is no other way to interpret the decision to send a destroyer, a huge and modern destroyer, to accompany the royal heir, whom we would have loved to see in civilian clothing instead of a military uniform," Kirchner said.

There was a decline last year in the already "small" number of Muslim-Americans indicted for violent terrorist plots and the rate of radicalization among that group remains "far less than many feared" after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a researcher at North Carolina's Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security reports today.

According to University of North Carolina sociology professor Charles Kurzman, who has been studying and reporting about such statistics the past three years, "20 Muslim-Americans were indicted for violent terrorist plots in 2011, down from 26 the year before, bringing the total since 9/11 to 193, or just under 20 per year."

His latest study also concludes that "the number of Muslim-Americans indicted for support of terrorism — financing, false statements, and other connections with terrorist plots and organizations, aside from violent plots — fell from 27 individuals in 2010 to 8 in 2011, bringing the total to 462 since 9/11."

Kurzman writes that:

 

"The limited scale of Muslim-American terrorism in 2011 runs counter to the fears that many Americans shared in the days and months after 9/11, that domestic Muslim-American terrorism would escalate. [A] spike in terrorism cases in 2009 renewed these concerns, as have repeated warnings from U.S. government officials about a possible surge in homegrown Islamic terrorism. The predicted surge has not materialized."

Cases increased sharply in 2009, Kurzman has previously reported, because of 17 Somali-Americans were indicted on various terrorism-related charges. In 2010 there was one indictment of a Somali-American. In 2011, there were none.

That year also brought the killing of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan, who authorities say had become a radical Muslim, is to go on trial for the killings in June.

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

— Report: Pentagon 'Beginning Review Of Syria Options.'

— Santorum's Wins: Huge? Meaningless? In Between?

— Egyptian Judge Says Foreign Groups Have Been Working There Illegally.

Among the day's other top stories:

 

— Iran Can Hit U.S. Forces Around The World, Diplomat Claims. (Reuters)

— Prop 8 Ruling Was "Landmark Day In Battle Over Gay-Marriage." (Los Angeles Times)

— "Chilling 911 Tapes" Reveal Social Worker's Pleas For Help Just Before Father Killed Himself And Sons. (The Seattle Times)

— "L.A. School Scandal: 2nd Teacher Charged, Fired By Board." (ABC News)

Foreigners who have been working for international organizations in Egypt are in the country illegally and have been engaging in "political activity," a judge in Cairo just told reporters.

As we've previously reported, Egyptian authorities are preventing some foreigners who work for such organizations — including the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood — from leaving the country. Authorities are looking into what they say is evidence that such groups have given support to opponents of the ruling military council that took control after the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak's regime early last year.

The organizations have protested, saying they are in Egypt to do such things as promote democracy, but not to aid the opposition.

 

NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports that the judge just declared that the investigation indicates that many of the non-Egyptians working for the organizations are in the country on tourist visas, which he said is illegal given the work that they do.

Al-Jazeera's Rawya Rageh, who has been tweeting from the news conference, reports that Judge Sameh Abu Zeid also "says these organizations repeatedly applied for licenses, were turned down, ignored that & worked anyway."

The groups, however, have said in the past that such applications were "pending" and that despite their best efforts they couldn't get the government to act on them.

Rageh adds that the judge said last December's "search of NGOs office[s] was 'legal,' with warrant & shouldn't be described as 'raid.' "

The U.S. has protested Egypt's move to prevent Americans who work for the organizations from leaving the country. Rageh says the judge called a letter to that effect from the U.S. ambassador to Egypt "unacceptable."

If convicted, the judge added, according to Rageh, those working for the organizations could face prison sentences of up to five years.

Update at 9:45 a.m. ET. More From Soraya.

She just filed this report for our Newscast desk:

"Judge Sameh Abu Zeid told reporters at a news conference broadcast on Egyptian State TV that the groups violated numerous Egyptian laws. He claimed they worked here on tourist visas and without permits for years and received foreign funds here illegally. Plus they failed to pay Egyptian taxes, he said.

"Abu Zeid claimed authorities have 60 seven pieces of evidence from raids on the groups' offices in December as well as several confessions, all of which have been forwarded to the prosecutor.

"At least 16 Americans are among the 43 people referred to trial so far, including the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. He and several others are being sheltered at the U.S. embassy in Cairo. At least half of the Americans charged are no longer in Egypt.

"The second judge, Ashraf Ashmawy said those referred to trial face up to 5 years in prison if convicted on one of the charges — that of operating in Egypt illegally.

"Meanwhile, Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri says his country will not back down on the investigation despite U.S. warnings that the actions threaten one point five billion dollars in U.S. aid to Egypt this year."

Update at 8:30 a.m. ET. More On What The Judges Said:

According to Soraya, Judge Ashraf Ashmawy also spoke. The judges told reporters, she says, that investigators have evidence that funding to some of the organizations increased after last year's protests began and that the money was "used to direct the political process." They also alleged that there's evidence some of the groups violated Egypt's tax laws.

Last night "belonged to Rick Santorum, who went three-for-three in Tuesday's Republican contests," as Eyder wrote on It's All Politics very early this morning.

The former Pennsylvania senator took first place in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri.

But as NPR Senior Washington Editor Ron Elving points out in a column that will be on It's All Politics later, Tuesday's caucuses and "beauty contest" (in Missouri) basically drew relatively tiny turnouts largely composed of conservatives who are very committed to Santorum and were willing to gather even if no delegates were at stake — not a cross-section of Republicans.

That's why, as Ron notes, some news outlets are using the world "meaningless" to describe Tuesday's outcomes.

Still, many of the morning-after analyses are looking at Santorum's wins as at least dealing a blow to front-runner Mitt Romney and potentially something more:

— Santorum "has dramatically resuscitated a campaign that was bordering on irrelevant," according to Politico.

— The former senator's victories are "a major boon to his previously floundering presidential campaign," says The Hill.

— Santorum "jolted the Republican presidential race Tuesday with a three-state sweep of nominating contests in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota, puncturing Mitt Romney's claim to be the unstoppable front-runner," The Wall Street Journal writes.

— "Santorum Revives Campaign," says The Washington Post's headline.

— "Another Twist For GOP As Santorum Fares Well," declares The New York Times.

Gawker captured the difficulty of figuring out what Tuesday's results mean even before the votes were in. "Tonight's Very Important Republican Races Are Also Very Unimportant," its headline read.