There are stark words this morning from the U.N.'s top humanitarian affairs official about what she saw this week during a two-day visit to Syria. In a statement sent to reporters, Valerie Amos says, in part:
In another sign that the economic recovery is deepening, the U.S. economy added 227,000 jobs in February, according to the Labor Department, more than what many economists had expected. Meanwhile, the jobless rate of 8.3 percent remained unchanged from the prior month even as more workers entered the workforce. The news kept alive a trend helpful to President Obama re-election chances.
William Johnson, a graphic designer by trade, recalls with much bitterness the long, grinding job hunt that followed his 2007 pink slip in Milwaukee.
"There were some people I emailed or called 10 or 15 times," he says. "After a few years of that, not hearing back from people ... slowly but surely I just sort of gave up."
Up next in the Republican presidential race is Kansas, which holds its caucuses Saturday.
Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas — the 1996 GOP presidential nominee — is urging the state's Republican electorate to back Mitt Romney.
Dole, who had endorsed Romney months ago, called the former Massachusetts governor "a main street conservative" in a statement Thursday, released by the Romney campaign.
