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Obama delivers remarks in Brussels Belgium

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says 175,000 workers were added to nonfarm payrolls in December, well above Wall Street’s consensus estimate of 149,000. 162,000 of those hires were to private payrolls, above expectations for a 145,000 rise in the ranks of private-sector workers. The unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to 6.7% from 6.6%. Labor force participation was unchanged at 63.0%. 610,000 were unable to work due to inclement weather in February, above the historical February average of 317,000.

The winners have accepted their statuettes at the 86th Annual Academy Awards show at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. This is the complete list of Oscar award winners:

Enjoy Classic Duck Dynasty

U.S. consumer prices barely rose last month as a sharp increase in energy costs was offset by cheaper clothing, cars and air fares. The figures indicate inflation remains mild. The Labor Department said Thursday that the consumer price index rose just 0.1 percent in January, down from a 0.2 percent gain in December. Prices have risen 1.6 percent in the past 12 months. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices also rose just 0.1 percent last month and 1.6 percent in the past year. The year-over-year increase in core prices was the smallest in seven months. The "mild...

Democracy is starting to get me down. Oh, I know what you're thinking: I write regularly about American politics, and democracy is only just starting to get me down? Okay, good point. Maybe I should say that democracy is starting to get me down even more than it usually does. And why is that? Because it's beginning to dawn on me that Jeb Bush is probably going to be the Republican Party's nominee for president in 2016. Consider: With the ongoing implosion of Chris Christie's political career, the GOP establishment has lost its best hope for a candidate who could...

Geneva (AFP) - Last year tied for the sixth-hottest on record, confirming that Earth's climate system is in the grip of warming that will affect generations to come, the UN's weather agency said Wednesday. "This is confirmation of the trend of global warming of the planet," World Meteorological Organization (WMO) chief Michel Jarraud told AFP. Last year equalled 2007 as the sixth-warmest year since reliable records began in 1850, with a global land and ocean surface temperature that was 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1961-1990 average, the WMO said in a statement. Last year equalled 2007 as...

In a recent interview, 57-year-old Phil Griffin, president of MSNBC, said that the network “has never had an ideology.” The former NBC researcher, who prefers jogging suits to business suits and is beset with constant nervous twitching, insisted that the network stays “true to the facts.” Griffin maintained that if a Democrat has problems, MSNBC anchors are not going to bail them out. He claimed, “If you’re a Democrat in trouble, we’re not a place where we’re going to rehabilitate you. You’re not going to get a free ride if you did wrong.”

The iconic Doomsday Clock remains poised at five minutes until midnight, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced today (Jan. 14). The clock is no doomsday device — rather, it's a visual metaphor for the danger of a "civilization-threatening technological catastrophe." Every year, the board analyzes international threats, particularly nuclear arsenals and climate change, and decides where the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock should rest. The closer it is to midnight, the closer the world is to doom. "As always, new technologies hold the promise of doing great good, supplying new sources of clean...

The next time you hear someone dispute that human activity is destabilizing our climate, remember this pie chart. It represents geochemist James Lawrence Powell's review of 2,258 peer-reviewed scientific articles about climate change, written by 9,136 authors, published between Nov. 12, 2012 and December 31, 2013. Of all those hundreds of papers and thousands of researchers, Powell found one article, authored by a single scientist, that attributed climate change to something other than human actions: "The Role of Solar Activity in Global Warming," by S.V. Avakyan, appearing in the Herald of the Russian Academy of Science, Vol. 83, No. 3....

The record cold spell that has half the country in the deep freeze could cost the U.S. economy up to $5 billion. That's because millions of Americans haven't been able to drive to work, fly or take a train to business meetings or vacations, go to the shopping mall or take the kids out for a movie and a meal. And they may also have to pay more just to keep warm.

BEIJING — The Obama administration's push to help clean up China is emerging as a bright spot in a relationship rife with economic and strategic tensions. The failure of the world's two largest economies to agree on tough carbon emissions limits four years ago doomed substantial progress on climate change and left each side blaming the other. Since the Copenhagen talks, however, the U.S. and China have ramped up their environmental cooperation as repeated outbreaks of thick, acrid smog have virtually shut down major Chinese cities and cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars a year. “For a period...

Just hours earlier, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby issued a 53-page ruling saying Utah's law passed by voters in 2004 violates gay and lesbian couples' rights to due process and equal protection under the 14th Amendment. Shelby said the state failed to show that allowing same-sex marriages would affect opposite-sex marriages in any way. "In the absence of such evidence, the State's unsupported fears and speculations are insufficient to justify the State's refusal to dignify the family relationships of its gay and lesbian citizens," Shelby wrote.

WASHINGTON -- As an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws stalls in the Republican House, most Americans support a cornerstone of the proposed changes -- a path to citizenship for immigrants in the United States illegally, according to new polling released Monday. Support for the citizenship route has held steady at 63% throughout 2013 -- rising slightly among Republicans and dipping among political independents, according to the report from the Public Religion Research Institute. [Updated, 4:25 p.m. PST Nov. 25: Information from a Brookings Religion, Values and Immigration Reform Survey was also incuded.] Earlier this year, the Senate approved a...

President Barack Obama repeated on Monday that he will not take executive actions to halt deportations of undocumented immigrants, saying that such unilateral action would "violate our laws." "We are a nation of laws – that’s part of our tradition."

Don't let their sweet smiles fool you; this is a fearsome foursome of trained killers. This cheery selfie shows the first group of women to complete the Marine Corps' infantry combat training, a grueling 59-day course that preps Marines for war. Fifteen women began the training at Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Sept. 24, but only Harlee (Rambo) Bradford, who snapped the pic, and her grinning crew made it through, CNN reported.    

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: In an ideal world there would have been a lot more testing. We did not have the luxury of that with a law that said it's go time on October 1st and frankly a political atmosphere where the majority party at least in the House was determined to stop this any way they possibly could including shutting down the United States government. So it was not an ideal atmosphere.

There's a big story getting passed around in military circles and beyond from The New York Post that President Obama wants the Marines to start wearing 'girly' caps... As a Marine veteran who knows how these changes actually happen, I can tell you the story is 100% B.S. The bottom line: The President doesn't involve himself in what troops happen to be wearing... "The President in no way, shape, or form directed the Marine Corps to change our uniform cover," said Capt. Maureen Krebs, a spokesperson for the Marine Corps. "We're looking for a new cover for our female Marines...

The National Park Service director will blame terrorism for having to shut down most of the National Mall during the government shutdown, saying that was the only way to protect the memorials with limited staff “in a post-9/11 world.” In testimony submitted to Congress, Director Jonathan B. Jarvis said he’s only been able to keep a dozen of the normal 300 employees charged with cleaning and caring for the capital region’s memorials during the shutdown, and without the rest of his staff he cannot guarantee the safety of the property.

I posted this last night on the thread that discussed the NBC report, but it needs to be seen by some of our talking heads who lurk on here and later report things without looking at the details... So it has it's own thread. Go to the complete poll PDF on the WSJ web page on page 16 it has the demographics of the poll. 43% of Respondents are Democrats and 32% were Republicans. 44% voted for Obama vs 35% for Romney. And 5% did not know who the voted for? That right there should instantly put this poll in...