DALLAS In just the past few days, she's danced with cheering school kids, chatted with troops, swapped ideas with busy parents and engaged in a friendly cooking competition with stars from "Top Chef."

BOSTON Mitt Romney faulted President Barack Obama's original push to require church-affiliated employers to pay for birth control as an "assault on religion," but as Massachusetts governor, Romney was largely silent about a state law that required virtually the same contraceptive coverage.

WASHINGTON It's not like he wasn't warned.

LONGWOOD, Florida Gearing up for a tough political season ahead, Michelle Obama said Saturday she's trying to get as much done as possible before the general election campaign starts to drown out everything else.

J.R. Childress is up before the sun, bustling about in the French colonial brick house he built. He helps pack his wife's lunch, downs some eggs or cereal for breakfast, pores over online and newspaper job listings and hopes - even prays - this will be the day when his fortunes turn around.

WASHINGTON President Barack Obama is pressuring Congress to extend a payroll tax cut for the rest of the year as another deadline nears for Congress to act or see taxes go up for millions of working people.

PORTLAND, Maine Mitt Romney narrowly won Maine's Republican caucuses, state party officials announced Saturday, providing his campaign with a much-needed boost after three straight losses earlier this week. But the former Massachusetts governor won just a plurality of the Maine vote, suggesting he still has work to do to unite GOP voters behind his candidacy.

WASHINGTON Staggered by Rick Santorum's surge, Mitt Romney is trying to reset his presidential campaign by defining himself as a strict conservative.

WASHINGTON What birth control debate? A half-century after the introduction of the pill, acceptance of birth control by American women is virtually universal.

WASHINGTON A political tip sheet for the rest of us outside the Washington Beltway, Friday, Feb. 10, 2012: