If a bleary-eyed President Barack Obama, tired after a whirlwind 8-day tour of Europe with a stop in Iraq, accidentally wandered a few blocks away from the White House he might be surprised to see his wife Michelle all dressed up in a red and black outfit complete with pearls.

It’s not his real wife, but just a wax likeness unveiled this week at Madame Tussauds museum.  The wax Michelle Obama and a figure of the president are popular photo opportunities for tourists who take their photos making silly poses with the wax first couple.

Obama might have time for a quick trip to the Wax Museum today, because he has nothing on his public schedule after returning to the White House from his first international tour at around 3 a.m. this morning. Even Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has been given a reprieve from the daily public grilling.

Obama had a busy trip to Europe where he got a rapturous welcome in cities from London to Prague to Istanbul to Baghdad. His goal was to signal to the world a new U.S. approach that breaks with the “go it alone” style of President George W. Bush.

Since his last scheduled stop was in Turkey, he took a side trip and flew a couple hours to Baghdad where he met with U.S. troops and Iraqi leaders — urging Iraqis to take responsibility for their country so U.S. troops could leave.

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Photo credit: REUTERS/Larry Downing (Tourist poses with wax figures of the Obamas at Madame Tussauds wax museum this week)

After calling for Middle East peace and saying he believed in a dialogue with Islam, President Barack Obama ended his first international tour with a surprise trip to Iraq.

Obama took off from Istanbul and, instead of heading home to Washington, traveled to Iraq for a quick visit. He was due to meet U.S. commanders and troops and will speak to Iraqi leaders by telephone. Poor weather in the area caused him to scratch plans to take a helicopter to meet Iraqi leaders in person.

The White House said Obama — who won strong support during the presidential campaign for vowing to wind down the unpopular war in Iraq — would tell Iraqi leaders that there are political solutions to their challenges.

After his foray into foreign policy, Obama will be returning to Washington to deal with the recession at home. But he should be coming home in good spirits — recent polls show Americans are more optimistic about the economy and the direction of their country since Obama took office.

The latest New York Times/CBS News poll showed two-thirds of those surveyed approved of Obama’s overall job performance. Thirty-nine percent said they felt the country was going in the right direction — the highest since Feb. 2005 at the beginning of former President George W. Bush’s first term.

The big question: Did Obama have time to watch the men’s NCAA title basketball game on Monday night? If he didn’t see it live, maybe he’ll see a recording on Air Force One on his way back home. He’ll be sure to be happy to discover that his prediction was right. The North Carolina Tar Heels did indeed go all the way to win the title in a 89-72 rout of Michigan State.

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Photo credits: REUTERS/Umit Bektas (Obama waves as he boards Air Force One in Turkey) ; REUTERS/Rebecca Cook (University of North Carolina Tar Heels’ Dany Green holds up NCAA championship trophy)

Can this be France? What happened to the days when cross-Atlantic gauntlets were thrown down and French fries turned into Freedom fries?

President Barack Obama was welcomed like a rock star in a land notorious for its air-sniffing disdain of almost everything American. 

Although first lady Michelle Obama is almost overshadowing her husband in media coverage about their European jaunt, with many comparisons to Jackie Kennedy who wowed them all overseas.

Aside from atmospherics, some news was made. France agreed to take a Guantanamo Bay detainee and Obama warned that “appropriate steps” will be taken if North Korea goes ahead with a  threatened missile test.

North Korea special envoy Stephen Bosworth speaks at the Foreign Press Center at 11 a.m.

Another dose of bad news for the U.S. economy which lost another 663,000 jobs in March, when the unemployment rate rose to 8.5 percent, the highest since 1983.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Pool (Obama embraced by wellwisher in Strasbourg)

President Barack Obama gave the Queen an iPod filled with show tunes and pictures from her visit to America. Now watch for those tell-tale ear buds under Her Majesty’s crown.

“I think it was a fun gift for the Queen,”  White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told ABC’s “Good Morning America” from London where Obama is attending the G20 summit. ”I think it was a real treat to call back and tell his kids that he’d met the Queen.”

Obama apparently came away with warm feelings for the British royals after his private meeting at Buckingham Palace. “The president remarked to me this morning that her sensibilities sort of reminded him a bit of his grandmother, only with a much bigger house,” Gibbs told NBC’s “Today.”

While salvaging the world economy is on the plate at G20, closer to home there’s more bad news on unemployment as U.S. jobless claims unexpectedly rose to a 26-year high last week.

A record 32.2 million people — one in every 10 Americans — received food stamps at latest count, the government said.

Congress moving toward passing slimmed-down versions of Obama’s $3.55 trillion 2010 budget plan.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Pool (Obama and the Queen)

President Barack Obama gets a bit of a reprieve from the Secret Service shield on the presidential use of Internet technologies and will answer questions submitted online from the public at 11:30 a.m. today.

The White House Web site has been taking questions in categories that include education, home ownership and jobs.

Activists for legalizing marijuana managed to flood the financial stability category with queries such as: “Has the administration given any thought to legalizing marijuana, as a cash crop to fuel the economy?” Let’s see if that one gets picked for a presidential response.

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is yet again at a congressional hearing. Wonder if he’s getting comfortable in that witness chair and at deflecting those probing questions from lawmakers (helpful hint: AIG bonuses bad).

Today’s testimony is before a House Financial Services Committee hearing on financial regulation reform and Geithner is expected to offer up some ideas.

While the Treasury honcho faces a storm of questions on the Hill, there’s real weather happening in the upper Midwest.

The Red River Valley region of North Dakota has been dealing with serious flooding from heavy rains.

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Photo credit: Reuters/stringer (Marijuana plants at greenhouse in Mexico’s Baja California)

The economy is expected to dominate President Barack Obama’s news conference at 8 p.m. But perhaps the power of his prime time presence can be judged by his ability to change the TV line-up –  the popular “American Idol” has been moved to Wednesday.

NBC’s “Today” show asked White House spokesman Robert Gibbs whether Obama wanted to risk angering the show’s 31 million viewers and, more scary, judge Simon Cowell.

“No I think taking on Simon along with the economy might be one too many things to take on,” Gibbs said with a laugh. 

“But I think it’s important that the president talk to the American people about our economic recovery and we’ll just build up the suspense for American Idol,” he said.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke go to Capitol Hill in the morning to appear before a House Financial Services hearing on “Oversight of the Federal Government’s Intervention at American International Group (AIG).”

Predict more talk about corporate bonuses, since it seems AIG can’t be mentioned without someone yelling about the bonuses it paid employees while taking a government handout.

And after 23 years of dating, late-night television host David Letterman married his girlfriend.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Obama and Geithner)

Take note politicians. Michael Phelps might have some pointers for you.

He won eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, but swimmer Phelps sounded more like a politician than an athlete in a morning TV interview today — repeatedly admitting he had made mistakes but sidestepping any direct admission that he had smoked marijuana.

In an interview on NBC’s “Today” show Phelps, who was banned from swimming for three months after a picture was published of of him smoking a “bong” pipe at a party last November, said he had made a “bad mistake”, a “stupid mistake” and showed “bad judgement.”

Asked directly if he had been smoking pot Phelps just said: “It was a bad mistake. I mean, we all know what, you know, what you and I are talking about. It’s a stupid mistake. You know, bad judgment. And it’s something that, you know, I have to, and I want to teach other people not to make that mistake.”

Michelle Obama also headlined one of the morning talk shows, giving her first network television interview as first lady to ABC’s “Good Morning America” from Ft. Bragg, N.C.

She said it hurt to see so many military families have to rely on food stamps to get by and said she hoped to gather information and bring it back to the administration in order to draw attention to the problem and try to find a way to make things better.

The first lady also voiced optimism in the economy, saying her husband was the best person for the job because he is ”a focused, clear-thinking, rational man, and that’s what we need right now.”

President Barack Obama will be focusing on the economy again today, meeting with the head of his economic recovery advisory board — former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

He may be helped in his efforts to assure Americans about the economy as the stock markets appeared headed for a fourth straight day of gains amid increased investor optimism about the stability of banks.

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Photo credits:  Reuters/Jason Lee (Phelps in interview during filming for commercial in Beijing in January); Reuters/Ellen Ozier (Michelle Obama greets military families at Ft. Bragg)

The White House puts its focus back on the economy today, with a day-long conference to talk about how the money from the economic stimulus package is being spent.

President Barack Obama is due to speak at the “Recovery Act Implementation Conference” at 11:00 EDT (1500 GMT). He is expected to talk about the need to make sure all the money spent as part of the stimulus is transparent and used efficiently. Later in the day he will speak and take questios at a business roundtable.

The timing is perfect: a Reuters survey showed U.S. unemployment will approach 10 percent as the country endures its worst recession since World War Two.

Obama will also have to tread into diplomatic waters this afternoong as he meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. One topic of conversation is the recent confrontation between Chinese and U.S. naval vessels in the South China Sea.

The two are also expected to talk about the global economic crisis, including the touchy topic of the value of the Chinese yuan against the dollar.

Victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi schme, which drew in as much as $65 billion, will have a chance to speak in court today as the 70-year-old former Nasdaq stock market chairman is expected to plead guilty to a massive fraud.

Madoff arrived early at the Manhattan federal courthouse, looking grim as he was escorted past a horde of photographers and TV crews. The plea headring is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT).

In Baghdad, the Iraqi reporter who hurled his shoes at former President George W. Bush was sentenced to three years in prison. A lawyer for Muntazer al-Zaidi, who earned instant worldwide fame when he threw his shoes at the U.S. leader and called him a dog at a news conference, criticized the verdict as being too harsh.

The shoe throwing was called a “barbaric act” by the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maslik, who was standing next to bush at the news conference and tried to block the second shoe from hitting Bush.

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-Photo credits: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton (Madoff enters federal court house on Thursday;REUTERS/Saba Al-Bazee (Monument of a shoe built for al-Zaidi in Tirkrit, Iraq)

Topic of the day for the White House: education.

President Barack Obama is unveiling his plans to reform the U.S. education system, which has one of the worst high school dropout rates in the industrialized world.

But while Obama’s education reform plans drew applause on the campaign trail, he might face tough competition for airtime as he is talking at 0945 EDT — roughly the same time as U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke speaks about financial reform.

In his speech to the Council of Foreign Relations, Bernanke said governments needed to take forceful and sometimes coordinated action to heal markets and said sustainable economic recovery was out of reach until the financial system is stabilized.

In a visit to Brussels on Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden warned NATO allies of a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and appealed for help in tackling the problem. Biden said his visit to Europe was aimed at listening  to U.S. allies, who sometimes bristled at calls by the former Bush administration to deploy more troops to Afghanistan.

On Capitol Hill, the Senate is due to vote on the stalled $410 billion spending bill that will keep government operations funded through the end of this fiscal year.

Lawmakers will also hold hearings related to border issues: one on the Secure Border Initiative and another on how the government is responding to violence on the border with Mexico.

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- Photo credit   REUTERS/Larry Downing (Obama and first lady Michelle Obama visit school in Washington last month) ; REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (Bernanke testifies on Capitol Hill last month)

President Obama takes on healthcare reform at a 1:00 p.m. White House forum today, hoping to design an overhaul of a costly and inefficient system he believes is threatening the economy. About 120 participants from industry and government will gather to discuss potential fixes to the $2.5 trillion system.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Brussels, said it was time for NATO to make a new start with Russia after formal ties were suspended when Moscow sent troops into Georgia last summer.

The House is expected to approve a bill that would allow bankruptcy judges to slash mortgage payments for homeowners as a last resort.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testifies for a second day on the budget at 10:00.

Actor Brad Pitt is in town to tout post-Katrina rebuilding efforts in New Orleans. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the lucky lady who gets the photo-op at 3:30.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Issei Kato (A mustachioed Pitt at the Japan premiere of his movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” in Tokyo, Jan. 29)

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