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Whoever had the notion to spread Defense Department contracts around the country was brilliant; the thought of losing jobs back home sure makes it hard for even deficit hawks to ax these programs.

Take the back-up jet engine for the F-35 joint strike fighter made near Speaker John Boehner's Ohio congressional district.

The Defense Department wants to kill the contract for the General Electric engine. But Boehner hasn't exactly embraced the idea.

In March, Twitter will turn five years old. The microblogging service — which now has an estimated 200 million users worldwide — has been used by heads of state, astronauts in outer space and protesters in Iran, Egypt and Tunisia trying to disseminate information after news media crackdowns in their respective countries.

Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong has retired from cycling again, and he says "Retirement 2.0" is not going to be followed by another comeback.

"Never say never," Armstrong laughed at the start of an exclusive interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, then quickly added, "Just kidding."

Two-year-old Devin Allan likes going to the fast food restaurant, Chick-fil-A, with his mom, Danielle Rose, and pretending his container of barbecue sauce is a car.

Looking at Devin, you'd have no idea his mother was addicted to prescription painkillers when she discovered she was pregnant.

"Being a drug addict, you'd think you'd be on birth control," she says. "Birth control costs money, and I had to pay for other things more important, like pills."

Three more pieces for the economic puzzle:

— There was a 14.6 percent increase in housing starts in January from December, the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development report. Still, the pace was 2.6 percent below January 2010's.