1010 WINS reports that the First Lady will soon be available on store shelves. I wonder if they’ll make an action figure for Bo–the family dog?

President Barack Obama earned nearly $2.7 million last year and paid some $855,253 in federal taxes, according to the president’s 2008 tax returns, which were released by the White House on Wednesday. The president and first lady also chose CARE and the United Negro College Fund among the 37 charities that got a cut of the $172,050 they paid in donations. The previous year, the Obamas gave $240,370 to 33 charities, including $35,000 to CARE, and $50,000, twice as much, to the United Negro College Fund. As for Vice President Joseph Biden and his wife, they reported an adjusted gross income of $269,256, and an after-tax income of $183,315. They paid $46,952 in federal income taxes, and donated $1,885 to charities.

This Mother’s Day, ESSENCE magazine will feature the Mobama issue. Adorning the cover of the May edition will be First Lady Michelle Obama and First Grandmother Marian Robinson, who not only provide the African-American women’s periodical with a major-league coup but the public with a bona fide look at what Mother’s Day is all about. Speaking to the magazine from the first lady’s East Wing office, the mother-daughter duo spoke about life in the presidential mansion and why glowing role models are so important.  “Michelle has always been Michelle,” said the 71-year-old Robinson. “And she has always accomplished whatever it was she set out to accomplish. I have always looked up to Michelle because she has been able to do things that I couldn’t do emotionally, psychologically or physically. I think she is amazing.” Mrs. Obama was just as laudatory of her mom: “She made me who I am,” said Michelle Obama, who has two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7. The first lady also discussed her responsibility to provide motherly advice to the world. “We have to talk about flex hours and exercise and nutrition and health and what that means. And we have to talk about values and our relationship with men,” she says. “All of those are part of the conversation that I think we need to have, not just in this country but around the world.” The Obama mamas might even pen a parenting book in the future, Michelle Obama said.

First Lady Michelle Obama, dogged by the right wing during the presidential campaign trail as an angry, America-hating militant, will accompany her husband today on his first trip to represent the United States in Europe. During the eight-day, five-nation trip, she will be scrutinized for everything from the way she dresses to the way she presents herself before foreign potentates. “Her every ensemble will be front page news and endlessly interpreted and decoded,” said Patricia McDonald, a London-based editor for the Michelle Obama fashion blog, www.Mrs-O.org. “Will she break out a new wardrobe, or in deference to the economy, recycle her greatest hits?” In recent months, she has graced the cover of countless magazines, garbed in beautiful clothes and flashing a radiant smile – a far cry from the machine-gun-wielding, scowling, fatigue-wearing woman on the cover of The New Yorker several months ago. In fact, she is now widely accepted as the epitome of American elegance. “I believe in this nation. And I believe in my husband,” she said in a recent interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

First Lady Michelle Obama has enlisted some serious star power to talk with girls from D.C. area schools Thursday about bringing their dreams to fruition through fruitful and meaningful careers. To mark Women’s History Month, Mrs. O. chose 21 prominent figures, ranging from astronauts to opera singers. Full story.

Student Stopped From Wearing an Obama Mask
An Oregon principal stopped a fifth-grader from wearing an Obama mask during a talent show performance, fearing the portrayal might be offensive. The 11-year-old, Dru Lechert-Kelly, had planned on dressing up as President Obama and dancing to a rap song called, “I Can Do Whatever I Like,” similar to a parody on YouTube. The performance ended with Dru doing a split. Read on.
 
 
Does Michelle Obama’s rich dark skin affect the way America sees her?
Dark-skinned crush? America has fallen for Michelle Obama. Fashionistas love her style. Ivy-leaguers love her class. Moms love her priorities. Even White guys are crushing on her. The First Lady is everywhere: Vogue, O, this week’s New York Magazine. Like her husband, Michelle is a canvas onto which people can paint whatever they like, a mirror in which anyone can glimpse something of themselves. What do I see? Not those famous arms. I see dark skin. More here.

Michelle Obama is on Her Game
While the president has been keeping the East Room abuzz and wrangling with Congress over spending bills – the self-proclaimed “Mommy-in-Chief” has been just as busy settling into the White House and staking her claim as an advocate for military families.  Read more.
Cheney Blasts Obama

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who along with his former boss have been the subject of investigation rumors for the run-up to the war in Iraq, blasted the new commander in chief Sunday, saying that President Barack Obama is making America more vulnerable to terrorism and future war. Read the rest.

First Lady Michelle Obama’s meteoric rise as one of the nation’s top fashion icons continues this month as she graces the cover of People magazine, adorned in a creation from African-American designer Tracy Reese. This lacy, little number in a “dried azalea” shade has been named a “Guipure Lace Kimono Dress,” and is just what Reese needs to catapult her career to another level altogether. Michelle Obama has been blasted by African-American designers, who have decried her failure to sport their clothes, in favor of more well-known White stylists. BAA co-founder Amnau Eele, for example, ignited a brouhaha when she asked, pointedly, why Mrs. Obama wasn’t wearing the wares of such Black designers as Kevan Hall, b. michael, and Stephen Burrows instead. At any rate, one might expect that the Guipure Lace Kimono Dress won’t last long on the rack after this cover is revealed today. It retails for $395 and is available at Tracy Reese boutique in New York City, 641 Hudson Street or at www.tracyreese.com .

Four Indicted in Bizarre Klan Ritual Killing
A Louisiana DA says he will “prosecute to the max” four people who were indicted Wednesday on charges that they murdered a 43-year-old Oklahoma woman following a bizarre Ku Klux Klan ritual in a Louisiana backwoods community. A St. Tammany Parish grand jury found that Raymond “Chuck” Foster, 44, shot to death Cynthia Lunch, whom he and his White supremacist group, the Sons of Dixie, recruited from Tulsa, Okla. Apparently, according to authorities, they found her on the Internet and convinced her to take a bus to Slidell, La., where she was picked up by two Klan members. They took her to a campsite near Sun. La., which is about an hour north of New Orleans, where they hooked up with several other Klan members, according to the indictment. The Dixie tribe then shaved Lynch’s head and had her undergo 24 hours of drills, including chanting and running with torches, CNN reports. When Lynch said she was homesick and ready to head back to town, the leader of the group, Raymond Foster, pushed her to the ground and shot her without warning, authorities say. Then “Foster, we believe, removed a knife from his pocket and rolled over the victim and began a process of trying to remove the bullet from her body … because he was trying to destroy evidence where law enforcement would not be able to piece these things together,” St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain Strain said. Foster’s son, Shane Foster, and another man were indicted on a count of obstruction of justice; a woman, Danielle Jones, was indicted on one count of being an accessory after the fact. Four others were charged but not indicted. If convicted, Raymond Foster faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. “Haven’t seen one like this,” said Rick Wood, a spokesman for the DA’s Office. “We’ve had a lot of high-profile cases, but not one like this. … As (district attorney) Walter Reed said, it will be to the max. They will be prosecuted to the max.”

Michelle Obama Opens Up the White House to Students
This was the White House’s first Black History Month celebration that had a student audience.
http://www.bet.com/News/NewsArticleMichelleOWelcomesDCStudentstotheWhiteHouse.htm??Referrer={0471DDF0-D0D8-48A8-9E30-ADD40CBE0269}

First Lady Michelle Obama will grace the cover of the esteemed fashion magazine Vogue next month, The Washington Post reports. When the magazine hits the stands in March, Michelle Obama will be chilling on the cover in an elegant yet simple magenta dress by Jason Wu, who designed her inaugural ball gown, according to the newspaper. The photographs were taken by renowned fashion flicker Annie Leibovitz, who also shot then-First Lady Hillary Clinton in her Vogue cover debut in December 1998. The goal at the time was to get Mrs. Clinton out of the business suit and into something a bit more fashionable, said Anna Wintour, Vogue’s longtime editor in chief. With the new first lady, Wintour says she wants to highlight her fashion-forward style.