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U.S. economic growth cooled in the first quarter as businesses cut back on investment and restocked shelves at a moderate pace, but stronger demand for automobiles softened the blow.

First Solar, a solar energy company that received a $1.46 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, announced today that it will layoff 2,000 workers in the United States and world-wide. The company will "indefinitely idle" four production lines in Malaysia and shutter a plant in Germany. "These actions, combined with other personnel reductions in Europe and the U.S., will reduce First Solar's global workforce by approximately 2,000 positions, about 30 percent of the total," First Solar announced today. "After a thorough analysis, it is clear the European market has deteriorated to the extent that our operations there are...

Photos taken by a French satellite show glaciers in a mountain range west of the Himalayas have grown during the last decade. The growing glaciers were found in the Karakoram range, which spans the borders between Pakistan, India and China and is home to the world's second highest peak, K2. The startling find has baffled scientists ... French scientists from the National Centre for Scientific Research and the University of Grenoble, were forced to rely on satellite images, to study the region - because much of the Karakoram range is inaccessible. They compared observations made in 1999 and 2008 and...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New claims for unemployment benefits rose last week to their highest level since January, a development that could raise fears the labor market recovery was stalling after job creation slowed in March. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 380,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week's figure was revised up to 367,000 from the previously reported 357,000. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims falling to 355,000 last week. The four-week moving average for new claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends, rose 4,250 to 368,500. The...

Employers pulled back sharply on hiring last month, a reminder that the U.S. economy may not be growing fast enough to sustain robust job growth. The unemployment rate dipped, but mostly because more Americans stopped looking for work. The Labor Department says the economy added 120,000 jobs in March, down from more than 200,000 in each of the previous three months. The unemployment rate fell to 8.2%, the lowest since January 2009. The rate dropped because fewer people searched for jobs. The official unemployment tally only includes those seeking work.

March NFP big miss at just 120K. Unemployment rate declines from 8.3% to 8.2%. [SNIP] The unemployment rate drops to 8.2% for one simple reason: the number of people not in the labor force is back to all time highs: 87,897,000.

The nation's unemployment rate dipped slightly in March, but the economy's job-creating engine slowed, raising concerns about the strength of the recovery. The Labor Department reported Friday that the economy generated 120,000 jobs last March, well below the 203,000 expected and breaking a streak of robust job reports since the beginning of the year. The unemployment rate fell to 8.2 percent from 8.3 percent in February.

WASHINGTON—U.S. job growth slowed in March, and the labor force shrank, signaling that the economy could be losing momentum.Jobs outside of agriculture grew by 120,000 last month—half the number that the economy added the prior month—the Labor Department said Friday, marking the first time since November that job growth fell below 200,000. The unemployment rate, obtained by a separate survey of U.S. households, ticked down a tenth of a percentage point to 8.2%, but the drop resulted in part from fewer Americans seeking work.Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expected a gain of 203,000 in payrolls and for the jobless...

Jobless Stats Reveal Disparities As economy Starts To Recover March 09, 2012 While the Labor Department reports a surge in private-sector hiring and the nation's unemployment rate holding steady at 8.3 percent, a closer look at the numbers paints a less flattering picture of the country's post-recession growth. The latest report for February shows lingering economic disparities among different segments of the population. And, as has been the case for decades, the unemployment rate used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not tell the whole story. Counting only those Americans who are actively looking for work, the jobless rate...

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 227,000 in February, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment rose in professional and businesses services, health care and social assistance, leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, and mining.

<p>New claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, a government report showed on Thursday, but not enough to change perceptions that the labor market was strengthening.</p>

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: According to Gallup, the unemployment rate in February: 9.1%. We're gonna get the federal unemployment number here pretty soon, and we will hear what the Obama regime is claiming the new unemployment number is. Now, unemployment compensation requests or applications went up by about 8,000. Jobless claims jumped 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 362,000 in the week ending March the 3rd. This is according to the Labor Department. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast that claims would rise by 2,000. So this was unexpected. Claims rose by 8,000. That's the government. Gallup says that their...

(RNS) Mitt Romney has trounced Rick Santorum, an ardent Catholic, among Catholic voters, but Romney's support among evangelicals has wavered thus far in the GOP presidential primary, according to a new analysis of exit poll data. Though he won evangelicals in two states, in general Romney has performed 15 percentage points better among non-evangelicals, according to an analysis released Friday (March 2) by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Exit poll data is available in seven of the 11 states that have held primary contests to date, according to the Pew Forum. More detailed religious affiliations are available...

Purchasing a tank of gasoline in the next two or three days is going to cost you more than perhaps you expected. Gasoline prices skyrocketed from $3.29 a gallon on Wednesday to $3.59 and $3.69 at most Macomb County gasoline stations on Thursday. And, some service station owners said, they predict the price will go up even higher today. “This sucks,” Brad Marchwinski of Sterling Heights bluntly said after buying gasoline for his company vehicle. “They are going to put a lot of decent people who are trying to make a living and have to use their vehicles for work...

Sounds more like 2004 Obama campaigning against 2012 Obama.

Signs Point To More Strong Jobs Growth: Expert (CBS News) There are indications the economy is getting stronger. The Labor Department said Friday 243,000 jobs were added last month, the largest gain since April of last year, and the unemployment rate fel to 8.3 percent, the lowest in three-years. The numbers, says Charles Schwab Chief Investment Strategist Liz Ann Sonders, are "pretty close to great. What was unique about this month relative to past months is there was not much you could follow (with the word 'but'). The sport has been the skeptics diving into each month's number and finding...

The U.S. economy produced another solid month of job gains in January, offering a hopeful sign for hiring in the year ahead. Employers added a net 243,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Friday. That’s higher than December, when employers added a net 200,000 jobs, and it marked the seventh straight month in which at least 100,000 jobs were created. That hasn't happened since 2005. The nation’s unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent in January from 8.5 percent in the prior month. The unemployment rate has fallen for the past five months and is now at its lowest level...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: There is some interesting data out from Zero Hedge, but I can't see it anymore. Zero Hedge, it's a website, have pointed out some confirmation about something that I've been talking about for a long time; and they have been saying it, too, as well. And that is: If you factor in the smaller workforce, the real unemployment rate would be a good bit higher than it is. There's a companion story to this, and that is in the Wall Street Journal today: "Consumer Confidence Unexpectedly Declines." You know, Obama's trying to set this scenario up where...

Two weeks ago, we observed that the number of seasonally-adjusted initial unemployment insurance claims being filed each week was still following the same trend it has since 9 April 2011, but that it was becoming increasingly volatile, suggesting that the trend is beginning to break down: Today's number also underscores the increasing level of volatility in the data - when the current trend was establishing itself, it was characterized by relatively small changes in the number of new jobless claims being filed from week to week. Today new data marks the fourth time in the last six weeks in which...

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