| Iowa's unemployment rate reaches 4% in December
Iowa lost 900 jobs in December, with nearly half coming from the construction industry, a signal that the national housing crisis is beginning to affect the state's economy, officials said of a new jobless report Wednesday.
Iowa's December unemployment rate climbed to 4 percent, the first time since January 2006. .
Salmond to be brought before MSPs to explain actions over Trump plan
The other three political parties are preparing to gang up on the First Minister, causing him maximum discomfort.The Tories say they will move tomorrow to have the Scottish Government's actions over the Trump plan examined by a Holyrood committee, with Mr Salmond called to give evidence. Labour and the Liberal Democrats are backing that idea.The First Minister last night welcomed the move as an opportunity to explain he had done nothing wrong.But Mr Trump is said to be increasingly annoyed at the "meddling" of politicians, warning the "malicious attacks" could scupper the project, in Aberdeenshire, once and for all. The First Minister and the Scottish Government have come under fire for holding meetings with Mr Trump's representatives just days before the US tycoon's application was "called in" by ministers.Last week, it emerged that not only Mr Salmond but also the Scottish Government's chief planner, Jim McKinnon, had met representatives of the Trump organisation.
Eight More Years?
He proceeded, instead, to take credit for developments with which he had very little to do with such as the economic growth propelled by the huge technology dot.com boom. Bragging about millions of jobs his Administration created, he neglected to note that incomes stagnated for 80% of the workers in the country and ended in 2000, under the level of 1973, adjusted for inflation. A brainy White House assistant to Mr. Clinton told me in 1997 that the only real achievement his boss could take credit for was passage of legislation allowing 12 weeks family leave, without pay. There are changes both the Clinton Administration actively championed that further entrenched corporate power over our economy and government during the decade. He pushed through Congress the NAFTA and the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements that represented the greatest surrender in our history of local, state and national sovereignty to an autocratic, secretive system of transnational governance.
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