A political tip sheet for the rest of us outside the Washington Beltway, Friday, Feb. 10, 2012: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW YOU CALL THAT CONSERVATIVE: Three of the four presidential candidates addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting in Washington, each trying to establish their conservative bona fides.

Under fierce election-year fire, President Barack Obama on Friday abruptly abandoned his stand that religious organizations must pay for birth control for workers, scrambling to end a furor raging from the Catholic Church to Congress to his re-election foes.

Gabrielle Giffords, the recently retired congresswoman from Arizona who was shot in an assassination attempt 13 months ago, returned to Washington Friday for double honors. The Navy named a ship after her and she saw President Barack Obama sign the last piece of legislation she authored into law.

The nation's Roman Catholic bishops are expressing grave doubts about President Barack Obama's revamped health care rule on birth control. They say it raises serious moral concerns and lacks clear protections for certain employers, insurers and individuals.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi predicts that five large states will put Democrats in striking distance of gaining control of the House after the November elections. Pelosi said Friday in San Diego that she expects gains in California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas will leave Democrats only about a half-dozen seats short.

President Barack Obama's new budget predicts a $1.3 trillion deficit for the ongoing fiscal year but that would drop to $575 billion in 2018 if the president gets his wish to raise taxes and if policymakers can live within tight restraints on the Pentagon and other Cabinet agency budgets, the White House said Friday.

A federal court sent a message Friday that the Texas primaries shouldn't be pushed past April because of bitterly disputed voting maps and ordered the state and minority rights groups to spend the weekend back at the bargaining table. The fate of the Texas primaries, which have already been postponed once and risk being held too late to matter in the Republican presidential race, could be decided early as Tuesday by the San Antonio court.

The White House said Friday it won't recoil from raising grave human rights concerns during a getting-acquainted visit next week by China's likely future leader. China's Vice President Xi Jinping's trip would be for him to understand issues that are important to America, including the situation in Tibet, and freedom of speech and religion, said White House senior director for Asian affairs, Daniel Russel.

Social issues dominated the 2012 presidential race Friday, as President Barack Obama tried to calm a storm over religion and birth control and the Republicans vying to replace him jockeyed to outdo each other in proving their conservative fervor.

The government could lose nearly $3 billion on Energy Department loans for green energy programs — far less than the $10 billion Congress set aside for the high-risk program, according to an independent review. The White House ordered the review after criticism of a $528 million loan to Solyndra Inc.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum says he thinks it would be wrong to allow women to serve in combat. As one reason, Santorum cites "the emotions of men." The White House hopeful says there is the potential that men will not be focused on their combat mission but on what he calls a "natural instinct" to protect a woman.

Michelle Obama says her daughters' main concern about the coming presidential election is all about them. In an interview Friday in Dallas, Mrs. Obama said a child in a campaign always asks, "What happens in my life?" The first lady says she's trying to assure 10-year-old Sasha and 13-year-old Malia that they'll be fine, no matter what happens.

Mitt Romney and Ron Paul rarely even acknowledge each other in the Republican presidential race, focusing their attention and attacks on rivals Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum instead. That curious detente is being tested in Maine's caucuses this week, where Romney's reputation as a political shape shifter is going head-to-head with Paul's consistent libertarian views.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the Marine Corps on Friday to re-investigate and take appropriate action against the Marine snipers who posed with a logo resembling a notorious Nazi symbol. The top Marine officer apologized for the incident and ordered his commanders to look into the use of such symbols by snipers and reconnaissance Marines and make sure they are educated on how inappropriate such actions are.

A new ethics investigation of the House Financial Services Committee chairman's investment activities during the events leading up to and surrounding Congress' $700 billion bailout of Wall Street sets back lawmakers' election-year efforts to rebound from their record low standing with the public.

President Barack Obama is raising money for his re-election campaign from a small group of wealthy donors who each paid $35,800 to meet with him at a hotel near the White House. Friday's fundraiser at the upscale Jefferson Hotel was closed to media coverage.

Mitt Romney says he has a "severely conservative" record as he looks to win over voters who favored his rivals in recent contests. Romney tells a gathering of conservative activists in Washington that he was raised with conservative values and has governed as a conservative in Massachusetts, which he called the most liberal state in the country.

A federal appeals court's decision to delay the deportation of seven illegal immigrants until the Obama administration re-evaluates their cases could encourage thousands of other illegal immigrants to seek similar rulings and could open the door to uncomfortable questions about the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.

President Barack Obama is making a strong election-year push for an economic revival "built on American manufacturing." But he faces an uphill slog, with little consensus even within his own party on how to do it. For decades, the United States has gradually shifted from creating goods to providing services.

US Bishops: Too soon to tell if Obama's revamped birth control rule addresses core concerns ___ February 10, 2012 02:36 PM EST Copyright 2012, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

President Barack Obama signed into law Friday a final bill authored by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in an Arizona shooting rampage a year ago. Giffords took part in the signing ceremony at the White House. She resigned from Congress last month as she continues to recover from a gunshot wound to the head.

All of a sudden, abortion, contraception and gay marriage are at the center of American political discourse, with the struggling — though improving — economy pushed to the background. Social issues don't typically dominate the discussion in shaky economies.

Rick Santorum stirs his ever-growing crowds when he promises to right a country awash in "immoral debt" and to replace an administration he argues has "callousness toward life and family and faith." Of the GOP presidential hopefuls, Santorum is the most public and emphatic about his faith, drawing on his Catholicism and deeply held views on social issues as the foundation of his message.

Turkey's foreign minister said Friday he will propose new ways to pressure Syria when he meets with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday. Meeting Friday with reporters, foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu did not elaborate on what steps he would discuss with Clinton to force Syria to end its violence against civilians.

Senior campaign aides to Republican Mitt Romney will begin appearing at fundraising events for an independent political group supporting his White House run, officials said Friday. The decision comes days after President Barack Obama gave his campaign the OK to do the same.