Unemployment report portrays stagnant job market
Posted in Health, News, economy, what on August 6th, 2010 by admin – Comments Off
The employment picture in the U.S. remained bleak last month as the nation’s payrolls fell for a second straight month, with private-sector businesses adding a disappointingly scant number of new jobs. The jobless rate held steady at 9.5% in July, the government said Friday.
The Labor Department said that private employers added just 71,000 new net jobs in July. Meanwhile, the federal government laid off 143,000 temporary census workers, and with budget-strapped local governments also cutting back, the total number of American jobs last month fell by 131,000 from June.
What’s more, Labor statisticians revised down the job figures for June, saying that total payroll jobs fell by 221,000 that month instead of 125,000 previously estimated.
BP says mud pumped into well in Gulf is holding down the oil; feds say most of oil is gone
Posted in Health, News, Politics, economy, what on August 4th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffNEW ORLEANS (AP) — BP claimed a key milestone Wednesday in the effort to plug its blown-out well as a government report said much of the spilled oil is gone, heartening officials who have taken heat during the tricky cleanup but leaving some Gulf Coast residents still skeptical.
BP PLC reported that mud forced down the well overnight was pushing the crude back down to its source for the first time since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded off Louisiana on April 20, killing 11 workers.
And a federal report being released Wednesday indicated that only about a quarter of the spilled oil remains in the Gulf, with the rest having been contained, cleaned up or otherwise disappeared.
Death toll in Pakistan floods tops 800
Posted in Islam, News, Politics on July 31st, 2010 by admin – Comments Off
As the death toll from this week’s flash floods rose to at least 800 Saturday, authorities tried desperately to rescue thousands of stranded villagers from rooftops and deliver emergency relief to stricken areas.
The country’s hardest-hit region was the northwest province of Khyber-Pakhtunkwha, where provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said at least 800 people had died in flooding caused by record-breaking monsoon rains. Hussain said that although the threat of further flooding had subsided in many areas in the northwest, authorities were struggling to provide relief to thousands of victims, many of whom were in dire need of food, drinking water and medicine.
“All of the government’s attention should be directed at combating this calamity,” Hussain said.
California Republicans shunning one traditional path to victory: the environment
Posted in News, Politics, Science, Tech, economy, what on July 29th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffFor decades, Republicans who won statewide office in California found success, at least in part, by showing sensitivity to voters’ commitment to protecting the environment. But with state unemployment hovering at more than 12%, the two GOP candidates at the top of the ticket this year are betting that voters’ concerns about jobs and economic uncertainty will trump any desire for environmental crusades.
Republican Senate nominee Carly Fiorina has spent months charging Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer with driving an extreme environmental agenda instead of tending to jobs. She has been sharply critical of national and state climate change legislation — deriding Boxer’s concern as being about “the weather” — and has argued that the state should expand oil drilling off its shores.
Gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman has been more equivocal than Fiorina, but she also has cast the state’s landmark climate change measure as one that kills jobs. She favors delaying its execution for a year to allow further study of its effect.
Germans bask in a sunny streak
Posted in Celeb, Entertainment, Health, News, Politics, economy, what on July 26th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffGermans are in a really good mood this summer.
An extraordinary run of luck has given them an uncharacteristically optimistic outlook for a change and replaced the usual angst-ridden gloom and doom.
A stylish performance by their team at the World Cup soccer tournament, a rare win at the popular Eurovision song contest, better-than-expected economic growth and lower-than-expected unemployment are fuelling a remarkable “era of good feeling.”
What labor may like best about Brown: He’s not Whitman
Posted in Education, Health, News, Politics, Science, economy, what on July 26th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffThe television ads seize on the millions of dollars organized labor is spending to help elect Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown, warning that if he’s victorious, he would be “their governor.”
Labor leaders watching the spots, which are funded by billionaire GOP nominee Meg Whitman, should be so lucky.
Unions are indeed reaching deep into their pockets to help Brown, whose campaign needs the cash to compete with Whitman’s personal fortune. But how much return they will get on their investment under a Brown governorship is unclear.
50 killed in Iraq attacks aimed at anti-Al Qaeda fighters
Posted in Crime, Islam, News, Politics on July 19th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffAt least 50 people were killed Sunday in attacks west of Baghdad, including a double suicide bombing against Sunni Arab paramilitary members waiting to receive their paychecks outside a military base.
The choice of victims, most of whom switched sides to take part in the U.S.-backed Awakening movement that took a stand against the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq, highlighted Iraq’s precarious security situation as the country nears its fifth month with caretaker leadership.
Iran merchants and tax collectors end standoff
Posted in Islam, News, Politics, Tech, economy, what on July 18th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffA standoff between Iranian merchants and tax collectors ended Saturday as the two sides reached a compromise in a weeks-long on-and-off strike that had cast a spotlight on the economic troubles of a nation now facing tightened sanctions.
For weeks, Tehran’s normally bustling Grand Bazaar had been eerily quiet and palpably tense as security forces stalked its dim galleries, the stalls of gold, jewelry, shoes and clothing that were shuttered under the pretense of painting their storefronts.
Heirs of the wealthy escape estate tax
Posted in News, Politics, economy, what on July 16th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffIf you’re rich, 2010 is a great year to die.
This is the year that Congress has allowed the estate tax to lapse, allowing heirs to receive their windfalls without Uncle Sam taking a cut for the first time in nearly 100 years.
A reminder came this week with the passing of billionaire New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.
Iranian nuclear scientist turns up in D.C.
Posted in Islam, News, Video on July 13th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffAn Iranian nuclear scientist who Tehran claims was kidnapped by the United States has sought refuge at the Pakistani Embassy’s Iranian interests section in Washington and is seeking to return home to Iran, Pakistani authorities said Tuesday.
Shahram Amiri, a onetime researcher at Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization who disappeared during a trip to Saudi Arabia last year, appeared at the Iranian interests section office at 6:30 p.m. Monday, said Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit.
Iranian state television said Amiri has already been in touch with Iranian media in New York and quoted him as saying he had been held by armed men and under extreme psychological pressure for 14 months and called for his immediate return home.
