Weekly Review

An American cattleman.

The U.S. Department of Labor announced that employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the first increase in more than two years. “We are beginning to turn the corner,” said President Barack Obama, despite the fact that nearly one third of the jobs were temporary hires by the U.S. government for the 2010 Census. The ADP Employer Services report, which does not include government jobs, found that the private sector lost 23,000 jobs in March. “The economic recovery,” said Macroeconomic Advisers Chairman Joel Prakken, “has not been long enough or strong enough along the way yet to produce the kind of rapid employment that people are hoping for.” TimeNew York TimesWashington PostObama filled out his Census form, checking the box that reads “Black, African Am., or Negro,” and, in a speech delivered in front of an F-18 Green Hornet that will run in part on biofuel, he announced his plan to allow drilling off the north coast of Alaska, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida.PoliticoNew York TimesScientists found that they could change a person’s moral judgments by applying magnetic pulses to his brain. BBCNine teenagers were charged with crimes including statutory rape, stalking, and harassment in relation to the suicide of fifteen-year-old Phoebe Prince, a pretty Irish freshman at Massachusetts’ South Hadley High School. In January, Prince, who briefly dated a popular senior on the football team, hanged herself with her scarf after months of being bullied by her ex and a gaggle of mean girls; several hours after Prince died, one of the accused posted “accomplished” to Prince’s Facebook page. “What a rotten little town we have,” said local resident Donna Tower.Boston HeraldNew York Times

Three suicide car bombs exploded in quick succession near foreign embassies in Baghdad, killing at least 41 people, injuring hundreds, tossing sections of 12-foot-tall walls down the street, blasting birds out of the air, and leaving human bones scattered about. New York TimesFollowing allegations that American soldiers in Afghanistan had “dug bullets out of their victimsâ?? bodies” and then “washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened,” military officials in Kabul admitted that three Afghan women (two of them pregnant) had been killed in a nighttime raid. New York TimesDuring his Good Friday service (which Pope Benedict XVI attended), Reverend Raniero Cantalamessaher compared recent sex-abuse allegations against the Catholic Church with the “collective violence” visited upon the Jews, and the Archbishop of Portland, John Vlazy, canceled his subscription to the “Oregonian” newspaper and exhorted other priests to do the same. “The editors,” wrote Vlazy, “chose this most holy time of the year, during our church’s Year of the Priest, to connect the practice of celibacy among our clergy with the problem of child sexual abuse, when everyone knows that most abusers by far are married persons!” Talking Points MemoOregonianA company was granted the right to brew a light ale named after the town of Fucking, Austria, called “Fucking Hell.”SpiegelKFC prepared to launch the “Double Down,” a breadless sandwich of bacon and cheese between two pieces of fried chicken, The Consumeristand Chinese officials were trying to rid Hunan Province of toxic artificial green peas that after being boiled for 20 minutes will not soften but will turn the water green.China DailyEugene Allen, who served eight presidents as the White House butler, died.Talking Points Memo

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that federal agents had eavesdropped illegally on an Islamic charity under the Bush Administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping.San Francisco ChronicleTimers that automatically switch off bathroom lights were installed in British government buildings to prevent civil servants from spending more than ten minutes in the bathroom. AnanovaA Florida woman crashed her car while shaving her pubic hair. “She said she was meeting her boyfriend in Key West,” said the patrol trooper who arrived at the scene, “and wanted to be ready for the visit.” ABC NewsA British woman said her multiple sclerosis was cured after she was stung 1,500 times by bees, a 51-year-old woman arrested for robbing two banks said that she had committed the crimes because bank robbery was on her “bucket list,” and a Cleveland man running from police scaled a 30-foot barbed-wire fence and landed inside a prison yard. “They’re not always this easy to catch,” said a police spokesman. AnanovaDaytona Beach News JournalAOL NewsA British psychiatrist found that boys whose mothers use nannies to help raise them are more likely to have affairs later in life, and scientists said that women from healthy countries prefer feminine-looking men.Time MagazineWall Street JournalDoctors at a Beijing clinic were trying to explain why a male dairy farmer had grown very large breasts. “It seems to be fatty tissue,” said Gaoyong Hong, director of the Jinan Chest Hospital. “The best we can suggest is that it is the biggest case of man-boobs ever.”Ananova