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She's a Florida girl who's comfortable in a bikini, and now 19-year-old model Kate Upton is on the cover of the 2012 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. She wears a tiny red-and-brown, sparkle-covered string bikini with a view of the waters of Australia behind her as she poses for the magazine cover, which was unveiled on TV Monday night on "Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS. "That was one of the first photos from the first shoot," she said in a telephone interview before the big reveal.

A wanted man kidnapped his estranged girlfriend at gunpoint along with her 1-year-old she was pushing in a stroller, Cleveland police said Sunday, and all three were found shot to death hours later. Police said the couple had dated for about two months and that the woman, Latasha Jackson, 19, was trying to end the relationship. Jackson and daughter Chaniya Wynn were walking with Jackson's 14-year-old brother around noon Saturday when they encountered the man, Thomas Lorde.

Rick Santorum on Sunday condemned what he called President Barack Obama's world view that "elevates the Earth above man," discouraging increased use of natural resources. The GOP presidential candidate also slammed Obama's health care overhaul for requiring insurers to pay for prenatal tests that, Santorum said, will encourage more abortions. A day after telling an Ohio audience that Obama's agenda is based on "some phony theology, not a theology based on the Bible," Santorum said he wasn't criticizing the president's Christianity.

Mitt Romney is taking an antiunion stance in Michigan, attacking Rick Santorum for his "unapologetic defense of big labor" as part of a new attempt to paint his rival as beholden to a powerful Democratic ally. Romney is seizing on votes Santorum took in the Senate against national right-to-work legislation and in support of the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires government contractors to pay the prevailing wage. Both votes reflected the positions of organized labor. "I've taken on union bosses before, and I'm happy to take them on again because I happen to believe that you can protect the interests of American taxpayers, and you can protect a great industry like automobiles without having to give in to the UAW [United Auto Workers]

The latest Republican to surge in polls, Rick Santorum is trying to turn his newfound strength into something lasting. Curious Republicans now pack his rallies. Supporters have funneled nearly $4 million to his formerly empty campaign account over the past seven days. And his staff is plotting an aggressive strategy to challenge Mitt Romney in Romney's native Michigan and beyond. But things don't look so strong just beneath the surface. Santorum is underfunded and outmanned.

Prosecutors are disclosing the first details of what they believe happened to a Montana School teacher who was allegedly choked to death and buried, reporting she was the victim of a crack-fueled and seemingly random abduction. An affidavit filed Friday by Richland County prosecutor Mike Weber is based largely on the alleged confession of Michael Spell, a suspect in the case who told FBI investigators that he felt guilty when he saw "missing" posters for 43-year-old Sherry Arnold after helping bury her body on a farmstead outside of Williston, N.D., about 45 miles from where she was abducted.

Whitney Houston was underwater and apparently unconscious when she was pulled from a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub, and she had prescription drugs in her room, authorities said Monday. Two days after her death, Houston's body was taken to a small, Los Angeles-area airport and flown to New Jersey, where her family was making arrangements for a funeral at the end of the week. An autopsy was done Sunday, and authorities said there were no indications of foul play and no obvious signs of trauma on Houston's body.

Linsanity lives. Forget the off night that had NBA fans worldwide wondering if the Jeremy Lin story was too good to be true. It's still plenty good, all right. The Harvard sensation was back at his whirling ways Sunday, and the stage couldn't have been better — against the defending champions on national TV. Lin was Lin, and that was good enough for the New York Knicks to win. Hours after the opening of "Saturday Night Live" spoofed the Lin phenomenon, the point guard had 28 points and a career-high 14 assists to carry the Knicks to a 104-97 victory that ended the Dallas Mavericks' six-game winning streak.

Three weeks before Josh Powell killed himself and kids in a violent inferno, Utah authorities disclosed to social workers for the first time that his computer once contained some 400 images of cartoon sex and incest. Investigators had initially told Washington state officials that there were only a half-dozen images, seized in 2009, but the social worker tasked with keeping the kids safe sent off a note to a psychologist saying "it is now clear there are many more images than initially indicated.

Taking a pass on reining in government growth, President Barack Obama unveiled a record $3.8 trillion election-year budget plan Monday, calling for stimulus-style spending on roads and schools and tax hikes on the wealthy to help pay the costs. The ideas landed with a thud on Capitol Hill. Though the Pentagon and a number of Cabinet agencies would get squeezed, Obama would leave the spiraling growth of health care programs for the elderly and the poor largely unchecked. The plan claims $4 trillion in deficit savings over the coming decade, but most of it would be through tax increases Republicans oppose, lower war costs already in motion and budget cuts enacted last year in a debt pact with GOP lawmakers.

Whitney Houston was laid to rest Sunday at a brief private ceremony in New Jersey, the end of a weekend that saw the pop star's family and friends gather at a star-studded funeral to mourn her loss while celebrating her career. Fans and onlookers gathered in several places along the route the motorcade took from the Newark funeral home to the cemetery about 20 miles away in Westfield, where Houston was buried next to her father, who died in 2003. The 48-year-old singer died Feb. 11 in California, hours before she was to attend a pre-Grammy Awards party.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine switched his endorsement from Mitt Romney to Rick Santorum on Friday in a defection he said was driven by his belief the former Pennsylvania senator can win the Republican presidential race. DeWine, a former senator who led John McCain's Ohio presidential campaign in 2008, made the announcement in the company of Santorum at the Statehouse. He said he once felt Santorum could not overcome Romney's financial advantage but has decided he was wrong.

It's classic parent-teenager strife, revamped for the Internet age: A 15-year-old takes to Facebook to curse her parents and complain about chores and the pressures of youth. Her disgusted father videotapes and posts a lengthy rebuttal punctuated by nine gunshots as he empties his pistol into her laptop. The bizarre tech-xecution has garnered more than 26 million views on YouTube and tens of thousands more on Facebook, touching a nerve with others tired of their kids' attitudes but also drawing backlash from parents who have kept such desires in check, people who believe the father is the one being childish.

Three skiers were killed Sunday when an avalanche swept them about a quarter-mile down an out-of-bounds canyon at a popular resort, but a fourth skier caught up in the slide was saved by a safety device, authorities said. The four were among three groups of skiers — about a dozen people in all — making their way through a foot and a half of fresh snow on the back side of Stevens Pass when the avalanche hit. Stevens Pass is in the Cascade Mountains, about 80 miles northeast of Seattle.