Democracy Now!

Mitt Romney beat Newt Gingrich by 14 percent last night in the Florida primary, but he has yet to win a majority of votes in any state contest so far, and Gingrich has vowed to continue his fight. The Florida vote was the first contest of the year where only registered Republicans could participate, with independents and crossover Democrats restricted from casting ballots in the primary. "The Florida primary is a very big one for Mitt Romney," says David Bernstein, political writer for the Boston Phoenix who has covered Romney for years. "They knew that he was not likely to win a lot of states in the South, some of the conservative Midwest, so Florida was really the one place where they thought they had to win. And with Florida, they feel like the rest of the states really add up in their favor from this point." [includes rush transcript]

This weekend the top documentary prize at the Sundance Film Festival went to "The House I Live In," which questions why the United States has spent more than $1 trillion on drug arrests in the past 40 years, and yet drugs are cheaper, purer and more available today than ever. The film examines the economic, as well as the moral and practical, failures of the so-called "war on drugs" and calls on the United States to approach drug abuse not as a "war," but as a matter of public health. We need "a very changed dialogue in this country that understands drugs as a public health concern and not a criminal justice concern," says the film’s director, Eugene Jarecki. "That means the system has to say, 'We were wrong.'" We also speak with Nannie Jeter, who helped raise Jarecki as her own son succumbed to drug addiction and is highlighted in the film. We air clips from the film, featuring Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow"; Canadian physician and bestselling author, Gabor Maté; and David Simon, creator of "The Wire." [includes rush transcript]

As homeowners across the nation struggle to keep up with mortgage payments—and in the worse cases face foreclosure—a new investigation reveals that taxpayer-owned mortgage giant, Freddie Mac, made multi-billion-dollar investments that profited if borrowers stayed stuck in high-interest mortgages. Freddie Mac began increasing these investments dramatically in late 2010, at the same time it was making it harder for homeowners to get out of such mortgages. Several U.S. lawmakers and prominent economists are now calling for Congress and the White House to end this financial conflict of interest. This comes just one week after President Obama promised "no more red tape" for homeowners looking to refinance. We speak with Jesse Eisinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning senior reporter at ProPublica, who co-authored the investigative report with NPR news. [includes rush transcript]

Street battles are raging at the gates of the Syrian capital of Damascus, and activists say at least 62 people were killed nationwide on Sunday. This comes as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on the Syrian leadership, particularly President Bashar al-Assad, to end the violence against the demonstrators immediately, and plans to take up a draft resolution this week calling on him to step down and transfer power. "They are just watching the bloodshed in Syria and keep talking and talking without doing anything," says Razan Zaitouneh, a lawyer and human rights activist, who joins us from Damascus. We also speak with Karam Nachar, a U.S.-based cyber-activist who is working with Syrian protesters via social media platforms. [includes rush transcript]