Jobless Claims Rise Again

WASHINGTON -- The number of people filing new claims for jobless benefits jumped last week after three straight declines, another sign that the pace of layoffs has not slowed.

Initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 472,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. It was the highest level in a month.

First-time jobless claims have hovered near 450,000 since the beginning of the year after falling steadily in the second half of 2009. That has raised concerns that hiring is lackluster and could slow the recovery.

Still, the four-week average for unemployment claims, which smooths volatility, dipped slightly to 463,500. That's down by 3,750 from the start of January.

In a separate Labor report, consumer prices fell for the second straight month. The 0.2 decline in the Consumer Price Index was pulled down falling energy prices -- most notably a 5.2 percent drop in gasoline prices. Declining energy bills were the main factor pulling down prices. - FOX News Story

Obama Speech Draws Fire from Both Sides

President Barack Obama’s Oval Office address on the Gulf Coast catastrophe is being greeted with a barrage of criticism from commentators and political analysts across the ideological spectrum — the most intense negative reaction to any major public appearance he has given as president.

If the goal was to change the widespread Washington storyline that Obama is not rising to the occasion for the BP debacle, it became clear within moments that the 18-minute speech was an emphatic failure — and not just among conservatives who predictably root for the president to fail.

“Junk Shot,” blared the headline at Huffington Post. Salon took a similar theme: “Just words: Oval Office speech fizzles.”

Generally sympathetic commentators Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews likewise honked with critical reviews on MSNBC. Voices on the right, not surprisingly, were even more critical.

The White House said before the speech the president’s goal was to speak more broadly to the American people and frame the oil spill in a larger context about the need for a new national energy policy. There was scant polling by Wednesday morning to measure his success.

But the withering reviews from the commenting class were so widespread that they created a new problem for a White House that already has a plateful. Common themes were that Obama did not project a sense of executive command and was too light on details about both the cleanup and the energy legislation he is pushing in the wake of the disaster.

“It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days,” said Olbermann on his show’s recap of the speech. - Politico Story

Obama Admin Changing Views on Terror?

(AP) A Virginia man said Wednesday he has been stuck in limbo in Egypt for the last six weeks, living in a cheap hotel and surviving on fast food after his name was placed on a U.S. no-fly list because of a trip to Yemen.

Yahya Wehelie, a 26-year-old Muslim who was born in Fairfax, Virginia to Somali parents, said he spent 18 months studying in Yemen and left in early May. The U.S. has been scrutinizing citizens who study in Yemen more closely since the man who tried to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas was linked to an al Qaeda offshoot in Yemen.

Special Report: The Christmas Day Terror Attack

Wehelie was returning to the U.S. with his brother Yusuf via Egypt on May 5 when Egyptian authorities stopped him from boarding his flight to New York. They told him the FBI wanted to speak with him.

He said he was then told by FBI agents in Egypt that his name was on a no-fly list because of people he met in Yemen and he could not board a U.S. airline or enter American airspace. His passport was canceled and a new one issued only for travel to the United States, which expires on Sept. 12. He does not have Somali citizenship.

Wehelie said his brother Yusuf was allowed to return home, but only after he was detained for three days by Egyptian police on suspicion of carrying weapon. He said his brother was shackled to a jail wall and interrogated by a man who claimed to work for the CIA. He was then dumped in the street outside the prison when he feigned illness.

Wehelie said he had no dealings with a terrorist organization while in Yemen and does not see himself as a particularly observant Muslim. He said he was studying information technology at the Lebanese International University in the capital San'a and only visited a mosque a handful of times. He said he had also studied a little Arabic.

"It's amazing how the U.S. government can do something like this," he told The Associated Press from his ramshackle hotel in downtown Cairo.

"I'm cool with all their fighting terrorism and all that, I'm cool with that. I like that, more power to them," he said in American-accented English, wearing baggy basketball shorts and a long white T-shirt.

"My home is America and I don't know why I can't go back there," he said, adding that he even suggested to the FBI to "put me ... in an airplane with a bunch of U.S. marshals or whatever, in handcuffs. Just get me back home."

While in Yemen, Wehelie married a Somali woman whose family had close ties to his own. She remains in Yemen and was to have joined him when he returned home.

His family said Wehelie was never physically abused but subjected to enormous psychological pressure and denied access to an American lawyer his family hired for him. - CBS News Story

Taxpayers Pick up Tab for Pelosi's new $18,736 a Month Office

San Francisco is a high-rent city. Just ask Nancy Pelosi.

The House Speaker's district office in the new federal building in San Francisco costs a whopping $18,736 a month -- the highest rental paid by any member of the House -- or, more precisely, the highest rental paid by taxpayers on behalf of a member of the House. The rental price was reported by Roll Call on Monday.

The Democratic congresswoman moved last fall from her old office in the Burton Federal Building, which she occupied for 20 years, to a "greener" space in the city's new federal building -- a move and a high price that her spokesman, Drew Hammill, says was amply justified.

Hammill cited the new building's increased security measures and the new office's larger size as reasons for the move -- and the expense. "The new office space is 3,075 square feet, nearly a third larger than the old space, which was of inadequate size," he told FoxNews.com.

"As speaker, the security needs are different," he said. "The new San Francisco Federal Building offers enhanced security features, which were a major factor in the decision to move offices." - FOX News Story

Obama Team in Full PR Mode

In advance of the president's speech to the nation this evening about the government's and BP's response to the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed that, one way or another, BP will no longer be directly responsible for processing claims from those affected by the disaster.

When asked on CBS' "The Early Show" this morning on how President Obama can prevail upon BP to expedite or streamline the process for Gulf Coast businesses and residents, Gibbs said, "The best way to prevail on BP is to take the claims process away from BP.

"The president possesses the legal authority and will use it to make this claims process independent, to take it away from BP, and to ensure that those who have been harmed economically have their claims processed quickly, efficiently, transparently, and that they're made whole again for the disaster caused by BP," Gibbs said.

"So that's going to happen?" asked anchor Harry Smith.

"That will happen," Gibbs replied. "The president will either legally compel them or come to an agreement with BP to get out of the claims process [and] give that to an independent entity, so that the people that have been damaged can get the money that they deserve quickly."

Mr. Obama is on the second day of his fourth trip to the Gulf. Yesterday he met with local businessmen in Gulfport, Miss., and toured an Alabama facility where workers clean dirty boom. On Tuesday he will visit beaches damaged by oil in Pensacola, Fla.

Acknowledging the anger and frustration among those in the region, Mr. Obama said promised yesterday that "things are going to return to normal."

Gibbs rejected a suggestion that the federal government has not been doing enough, or has superseded local and state officials in their response efforts. He also rejected criticism from Florida Senator Bill Nelson, who said last week, ""The decisions are not timely. The resources are not produced, and as a result, you have a big mess, with no command and control." - CBS News Story