Rick Santorum holds a small three point lead in the Michigan GOP primary according to the latest Detroit Free Press poll.

Following his triple win, last week Rick Santorum surged into a clear lead in the Michigan primary. But over the past few days Mitt Romney has managed to recover some of his lost ground. According to two new polls of the state Romney has made substantial gains on Santorum’s lead and may even be ahead.

Dayen’s news roundup from President’s Day with links to stories about GOP caucuses, Michigan and Romney, Greek agony, Syria, McCain, Paul Babeu, Juan Cole and oil prices, Modern Monetary Theory and much more.

Rick Santorum currently holds a solid lead in the upcoming Michigan primary according to four recent polls of the state. In the polls, the Santorum lead over Mitt Romney ranges from 3-10 points.

Mitt Romney, struggling to regain the lead from Rick Santorum in national polls and facing a serious deficit in the key primary state of Michigan, has doubled down on his position against the auto industry rescue, arguing that the industry should have gone through a “managed bankruptcy,” mainly to squeeze out the United Auto Workers.

The residents of Detroit may get to vote this summer on a city ballot initiative that would remove all city-based criminal penalties for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for people over 21. Voters had been denied the chance to vote on this in 2010, but last Friday in a 2-1 decision the Michigan Court of Appeals concluded the city acted inappropriately in keeping the measure off the ballot.

Rick Santorum’s surprise triple win last week in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri has proven to be an amazing shot in the arm to his campaign. His polling numbers have skyrocketed both nationally and in the upcoming primary states. Santorum is surging in Michigan, where he now holds a 15 point lead over Mitt Romney.

There’s new evidence emerging about Florida AG Pam Bondi and her ties to the foreclosure industry in Florida. These include the usual financial ties, but also the sense that the Florida AG’s office was a no-go zone for investigations against banks, servicers and the entities that pushed foreclosure fraud. They even urged other states’ AGs to go easy on foreclosure fraudsters.

According to current polling, January is shaping up to be a tough month for Mitt Romney. There are four contests in January: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida. Romney currently leads only in New Hampshire while Newt Gingrich has a double digit lead in the other three states. But the Republican primary calendar in February looks more favorable for Romney. It could be the month that Romney breaks Gingrich’s January momentum before Super Tuesday, March 6th.

As September drew to a close, residents of southwest Michigan found themselves taking in a little extra tritium, thanks to their daily habit of breathing. The tritium was courtesy of the 40-year-old Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Covert Township, which suffered its third “event” (as they are politely called) in less than two months, and was forced to vent an indeterminate amount of radioactive steam.

The reactor at Palisades was forced to scram after an accident caused an electrical arc in a transformer in the DC system that powers “indications and controls“–also known as monitoring devices, meters and safety valves.

While it is nice to see rectors shut themselves down when a vital system goes offline, remember that “turning off” a fission reactor is not like flicking a light switch. Shutting down a reactor is a process, and the faster it is done, the more strain it puts on the reactor and its safety and cooling systems. And even after fission is mitigated, a reactor core generates heat that requires a fully functional cooling system.