WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama renewed pressure on congressional Republicans to head off budget cuts that are due to begin on March 1, staging a White House appearance with emergency workers to illustrate jobs he said were at risk.

Obama is trying to get concessions from Congress to stall the cuts by ending tax breaks enjoyed mainly by wealthy Americans.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will make a fresh push on Tuesday to force congressional Republicans to make concessions that will head off budget cuts that appear increasingly likely to kick in starting on March 1.

Obama, just back from a three-day golf getaway in Florida, will appear at the White House at 10:45 a.m. EST (1545 GMT) with emergency responders who would lose their jobs if the cuts go into effect.

PALM CITY, Florida (Reuters) – President Barack Obama saw firsthand how golf is played at the highest level on Sunday, teeing off with Tiger Woods, the world’s No. 2 golfer who is rebuilding a once-squeaky clean image tarnished by a messy 2010 divorce.

Obama, an avid weekend golfer, and Woods, who won his 75th title last month, played together for the first time at the exclusive Floridian Yacht and Golf Club, which was surrounded by a cordon of security.

PALM CITY, Florida (Reuters) – It’s a buddies weekend of golf for President Barack Obama at a private resort along Florida’s Atlantic coast.

With his wife, Michelle, and two daughters away on a ski trip, Obama was in warmer climes at the end of a week devoted to promoting the proposals he offered in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – President Barack Obama acknowledged on Friday that he wished his father had been a bigger part of his life as he argued that stronger families are just as important as gun control in reducing crime and violence in poverty-stricken neighborhoods.

Obama returned to his old home neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago with a different take on his gun control message – that it will require an improved home environment for children to reduce the possibility that they will one day resort to violence.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – His words may or may not be long remembered, but Senator Marco Rubio’s swig lives on and on and on.

Across the Web, from Deadspin.com to The New Yorker, and on every cable news channel, the Florida senator’s sip from a small bottle of water as he delivered the official Republican response to U.S. President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday was the moment of the evening.

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama
challenged a divided Congress on Tuesday to raise the minimum
wage and make government work for “the many” in a State of the
Union speech focused on economic fairness for the middle class
as the Democrat takes a more assertive tack in his second term.

Looking to use momentum from his re-election victory last
November, Obama vowed to turn much of his attention toward
economic troubles like the 7.9 percent unemployment rate, an
issue that dogged his first four years as president.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama sketched an ambitious second-term agenda in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, challenging a divided Congress to back his proposals to create middle-class jobs and overhaul gun and immigration laws.

Obama entered the well of the House of Representatives for his address to a joint session of Congress at a time when he is again locked in a bitter battle with Republicans over taxes and spending, and this tussle cast a heavy shadow over his appearance.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will challenge a divided Congress on Tuesday to back his proposals to create jobs for the middle class and produce a smarter, not bigger, government in a State of the Union speech that will lay out his second-term agenda.

“A growing economy that creates good, middle-class jobs – that must be the North Star that guides our efforts,” Obama will say.

LEESBURG, Virginia (Reuters) – President Barack Obama told congressional Democrats on Thursday he is willing to agree to a “big deal” with Congress on spending cuts and tax reforms to end uncertainty over the U.S. budget deficit, but insisted that new revenues be part of the package.

“I am prepared, eager and anxious to do a big deal, a big package, that ends this governance by crisis where every two weeks, or every two months, or every six months, we are threatening this hard-won recovery,” Obama told House of Representatives Democrats attending a three-day retreat.