Unfavorable ratings of China have ticked above a majority in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. That’s not the heartiest welcome for Xi Jinping, the country’s current vice president — and perhaps future president — ahead of his meeting with President Obama on Tuesday.

In the new survey, 52 percent say they view China unfavorably, with 37 percent holding favorable views. Just over a year ago — around the time of the last official Chinese visit — there was a more even divide: 42 percent favorable and 49 percent unfavorable. Now, as before, strongly unfavorable views outnumber strongly favorable ones by about 3 to 1.

The Post-ABC poll last year pinpointed the economic anxiety that drove opinions of one of the world’s few economic and military super powers. By better than 2 to 1, people described China as an economic threat rather an opportunity for new markets and investments.

Rick Santorum has surged to match Mitt Romney among Republican voters nationally, according to a poll released Monday by the Pew Research Center, conducted after Santorum’s sweep of last week’s contests in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota. Santorum and Romney win 30 and 28 percent support, respectively; Gingrich wins 17 percent and Paul wins 12. Santorum holds double-digit leads among conservative voters, white evangelical Protestants and tea party voters.

Core Republican groups are increasingly skeptical of Romney’s conservative credentials, especially those who agree with the tea party movement. Among this group, over two in three now say Romney isn’t a strong conservative, up dramatically from about four in 10 who said this in last November. Half of all Republican-leaning voters doubt Romney’s conservative bona fides, up from one third in the fall.

With the Valentine’s Day welcome — or unwelcome — focus on romance and love, here’s some detail on lovelorn — or happily unattached — adults who are single and have never married.

More than 1.3 million adults in the Washington region have never married.

This Valentine’s Day greets 61 million U.S. adults, among them the more than 1.3 million in the Washington region, who are single and have never married, according to Scarborough Research, a provider of syndicated market research information. Never-married adults compose more than one in four adults in both the United States (26 percent) and the Washington region (28 percent).

Those who have never married are increasingly older.

While a majority of never-married adults are under 30, their share of the broader population has declined. In the new data, the share of young adults in the never-married population is now 53 percent of U.S. adults and half (50 percent) in Washington, both down significantly from 2005.

Meanwhile, singles between 40 and 54 who have never married compose about one in five never-married adults both in the United States (19 percent) and in Washington (21 percent), and the share who are 55 and older has been rising, from 8 percent of Washington area never-married singles in 2005 to 12 percent in 2011.

State and federal officials announced a $26 billion settlement penalizing banks for their role in the housing crisis, something that’s likely to cheer many Americans. Most see banks as at least partly responsible for the nation’s housing woes, but polls show they are far from the only culprits.

In a late 2010 Washington Post poll, more than four in 10 (45 percent) said they blame mortgage lenders for high foreclosure rates and people’s problems paying their monthly bills. About a quarter (26 percent) placed the blame on home owners, while one in five volunteered that both were equally to blame. A poll last year by the National Journal and Allstate found a similar result, with over half the public blaming banks and about one in three blaming home owners.

See the full question wording here.

The Obama administration says it is not considering invading Syria or arming its rebels to remove President Bashar al-Assad from power. (Associated Press) Syrians continue to be bombarded by President Bashar al- Assad’s government. The leader shows little sign of giving up power after facing international sanctions and efforts by his neighbors to push the nation towards a democratic government.

While harping on the need for Assad to stop the violence, President Obama is throwing cold water on prospects of a Libya-like military intervention. Obama’s reluctance to use force jibes with the philosophy of most Americans, who see spreading democracy as a good thing in general, but are much more ambivalent toward using the military to topple dictators.

Obama learned this lesson first-hand leading the effort to remove Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi. Just before Obama announced the enforcement of a no-fly zone last March, Americans split about evenly on whether this was a good idea, 49 supporting and 45 percent opposing in a Washington Post-ABC News poll. The public was somewhat more supportive of the U.S. acting as a participant in a no-fly zone.