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350,000 children out of school, disrupting the daily routines of thousands of families and making the city's schoolyards a flashpoint for union rights and public school reforms across the country.
• Union delegates voted overwhelmingly Tuesday night to suspend the walkout after discussing a proposed contract settlement with the nation's third largest school district. They said the contract wasn't perfect but included enough concessions -- including on new teacher evaluations, recall rights for laid-off teachers and classroom conditions -- to go back to work while they prepare to put it to a vote by more than 26,000 teachers and support staff in coming weeks.
• "I miss the kids," said Symantha Lancaster, a delegate who works in career services, based at an elementary school. "I know we're fighting for a cause (but) I want to go back."
• Parents say they are relieved the strike was over and are looking forward to finding teachers behind desks instead of on the picket lines outside schools. It meant the end of hassles trying to find alternative activities for their children, or dropping them at one of more than 140 schools the district kept open for several hours a day so they could be safe and eat breakfast and lunch.
• "I am elated. I couldn't be happier," said Erica Weiss, who had to leave work in the middle of the day to pick up her 6-year-old daughter. "I have no one else to watch her. ... I can't even imagine the people who could have possibly even lost their jobs over having to stay home with their kids because they have no alternate care. It just put everyone in a pickle."

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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Who says Mitt Romney doesn't worry much about the very poor? That he believes corporations are people, too? That his wife drives two Cadillacs?
• Romney himself, that's who. When it comes to portraying the Republican nominee as an uncaring, out-of-touch rich guy, he's his own worst enemy, offering up a bonanza for Democratic attack ads.
• Romney hit the trifecta this time by saying that 47 percent of Americans believe they are victims, think "government has a responsibility to care for them" and are unwilling to step up and support themselves.
• He may seem doomed to relearn the same loose-lips lesson over and over again in 2012. But Romney's far from the first candidate to blunder into a buzz saw of his

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