The U.S. unemployment rate rose to a five-year high of 6.1% in August, “heightening the risk that the economic slowdown will worsen.” “Payrolls fell by 84,000 in August, and revisions added another 58,000 to job losses for the prior two months,” while “the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits jumped by 15,000 last week.”
According to Army officials, “suicides among active-duty soldiers this year are on pace to exceed both last year’s all-time record and, for the first time since the Vietnam War, the rate among the general U.S. population.”
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) will brief Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) on foreign policy in preparation for the vice presidential debate on Oct. 2, along with other conservative experts. Lieberman has already “helped introduce Palin to officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel lobby,” on Tuesday.
Pentagon leaders have “recommended to President Bush that the United States make no further troop reductions in Iraq this year.” The plan “calls for extending a pause in drawdowns until late January or early February” when up to 7,500 troops will be redeployed to Afghanistan.
On the trail: Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) will meet with voters in Cedarburg, WI, before holding a rally in Sterling Heights, MI. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) will be meeting with voters in Duryea, PA.
In August, high energy and food prices led consumers to shop at retail stores in high numbers, “leaving department stores and other sectors struggling.” “Demand for necessities helped chains such as retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. perform above expectations.”
Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) “has earned more than $75,000 in rental income from a villa he has owned in the Dominican Republic since 1988, but never reported it on his federal or state tax returns.” Rangel will “most likely file amendments to his tax returns for the years in question,” pay back taxes in New York City and state but “will probably have no federal tax liability.”
The EPA announced new emissions standards for motors that run “pleasure boats, lawn mowers and weed trimmers,” to go into effect in 2011. The Administration said the standards would “yield annual emission reductions of 600,000 tons of hydrocarbons, 130,000 tons of nitrogen oxide,…and 1.5 million tons of carbon monoxide.”
“Aid to poor nations has slumped even as higher food and energy prices and slowing global economic growth have made such assistance more urgent,” the UN reported. Aid dropped 8.4 percent last year, and though the Group of 8 nations in 2005 pledged $25 billion to Africa by 2010, “just $4 billion has actually been delivered.”
And finally: MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell was almost buried by balloons on the floor of the RNC last night. Host Keith Olbermann advised her to “flee,” and ended her segment saying she had been “reporting from the political equivalent of a Chuck E. Cheese, apparently.”
Sign up here to receive our daily e-newsletter, The Progress Report.
Previous in TP Politics
By clicking and submitting a comment I acknowledge the ThinkProgress Privacy Policy and agree to the ThinkProgress Terms of Use. I understand that my comments are also being governed by Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policies as applicable, which can be found here.