As sometimes happens in Washington, much of the news reverberating around town this morning started someplace else.
From the other side of the world, reports that North Korea has test-fired short-range missiles, including two surface-to-ship missiles, from its east coast. From Afghanistan, the Pentagon confirmed a U.S. soldier has been captured, and Taliban insurgents have claimed responsibility. What is not known now is why and how.
There is some domestic news on this getaway morning — the official U.S. Independence Day holiday starts tomorrow, one day ahead of July Fourth celebrations — and it brings some gloom to the picture: U.S. employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, more than analysts expected. That brings the U.S. unemployment rate to 9.5 percent, the highest since 1983.
Jobs are on the agenda at the White House, where President Barack Obama will meet with business leaders to talk about innovation and job creation, and then discuss the same subject at a Rose Garden event this afternoon.
The Michael Jackson saga continues on morning television, with heretofore unseen home videos of the Gloved One and his kids, a look behind the gates at Neverland and parsing of a 2002 will that gives custody of the children to Jackson’s mother, and if she is no longer living, to Motown icon Diana Ross.
