As Mitt Romney's opponents continue to compare "Romneycare" unfavorably with "Obamacare," we decided to take another look at the plans' similarities and differences. For additional insight, we turned to John McDonough, director of Harvard's Center for Public Health Leadership.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney appears to be headed into the 2012 GOP presidential primary season as the consistent, if not overwhelming, favorite for his party's nomination.

But there remains great discomfort among a wide swath of party members over the striking similarity of the Massachusetts health care reform legislation Romney signed in 2006 as governor, and the federal health care overhaul President Obama put his signature on last year.

Noted Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami has penned a massive new novel. It's titled 1Q84, a nod to George Orwell's 1984. A young woman plunges into an alternate universe filled with love, mystery, fantasy and self discovery.

The Kinder Morgan deal will likely make the company the largest natural gas pipeline operator in North America. This comes at a time when more people in the U.S. are becoming reliant on the fuel. For more, Robert Siegel speaks with Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Associates and author of The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World.

The union representing the nation's letter carriers has hired a former Obama administration adviser as it faces proposals that could lead to layoffs of thousands of its members. Ron Bloom oversaw the administration's auto industry task force. His hiring by the National Association of Letter Carriers comes as the union is negotiating a new contract with the U.S. Postal Service, which cannot find a way to make delivering mail by hand profitable. It is losing billions of dollars and is considering drastic steps to cut costs.

A huge deal in the energy business is just the latest signal that natural gas is a hot commodity. One of the largest natural gas pipeline operators, Kinder Morgan, is buying its rival El Paso for $21 billion.

Prosecutors in New York are broadening their investigation into an SAT cheating ring at Great Neck North High School. They allege Sam Eshaghoff was paid thousands of dollars to impersonate and take the test for at least six high schoolers. Educational Testing Services, the company that makes the SAT, says this is a rare and isolated incident. But investigators and lawyers say this is the tip of the iceberg, more arrests are coming, and hard questions are being asked of ETS.

In Cuba, the leader of the island's most prominent dissident group has died. Laura Pollan was a founder of the Ladies in White, but her death at age 63 Friday after a brief illness comes at an especially difficult time for Cuba's small opposition movement.

The only officially tolerated act of public protest in Cuba occurs on Sundays, after the Ladies in White gather for mass at the Santa Rita church in Havana.

This hard handshake and sharp slap on the back:

Led to this on-field brouhaha after Sunday's NFL game between the San Francisco 49ers (the winning team) and Detroit Lions.

Quick: What's the first thing you'd grab for a day trip to Liberty Island to get an up-close look at the Statue of Liberty?