First of a two-part report

What do Facebook, Groupon and biotech firm Human Genome Sciences have in common? They all rely on massive amounts of data to design their products. Terabytes and even zettabytes of information about consumers or about genetic sequences can be harnessed and crunched.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has been unofficially running for president for the better part of five years, and in that time, he has been asked about immigration over and over again. Now some of his rivals are arguing that his answers to the question have been inconsistent. And the issue blew up last week at a CNN debate on national security.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said someone who has lived peacefully in the United States for many years with a family, a community and a job should have an opportunity to become a legal permanent resident.

The congressional to-do list for the month of December is long.

The list includes things like agreeing on a way to keep the federal government funded past the middle of the month, making some routine and annual tax fixes, and deciding whether or not to continue the payroll tax holiday and extended benefits for the long-term unemployed.

Dawn Deane, a 49-year-old human resources professional from Philadelphia is particularly interested in that last item.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich surprised viewers of last week's Republican presidential debate with his take on illegal immigrants.

"If you've been here 25 years and you've got three kids and two grandkids, you've been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church, I don't think we're going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out," he said.

His GOP opponents accused Gingrich of endorsing amnesty, a policy many conservatives deem unacceptable.

To understand how important remotely piloted aircraft are to the U.S. military, consider this: the U.S. Air Force says this year it will train more drone pilots than fighter and bomber pilots combined.

And that's changing the nature of aerial warfare — and the pilots who wage it.

Steve, a lieutenant colonel, grew up wanting to be in the Air Force. And that meant one thing: wanting to be a pilot.

To him, flying is physical: the pull of gravity, the sounds inside the cockpit.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been labeled a flip-flopper. And when it comes to abortion, the former governor of Massachusetts appears to have changed his position from being in favor of abortion rights to being opposed.

But now some people are asking if Romney ever supported abortion rights at all? Backers of abortion rights don't think so.

People who want to find out more about the fate of Holocaust victims now have a new resource online.

Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate that makes blockbuster food products like Hellmann's mayonnaise and Skippy peanut butter and supplies thousands of food-service companies in 74 countries, is a Fortune Global 500 company. If it decides it wants to do something about food waste, it could keep a lot of perfectly tasty morsels out of the garbage heap.