News Day

Officially, unemployment fell slightly in May, to a seasonally adjusted 9.7 percent. The total unemployment figure, including those who are marginally attached to the workforce, discouraged workers, and those working part-time because they cannot find full-time work – seasonally adjusted at 16.6 percent.

I’m a fan of MPR’s “Five by 8″ – five stories highlighted by 8 a.m. by Bob Collins in his NewsCut blog. They range from the deadly serious (competing video accounts of Israel’s attack on the Gaza flotilla) to the whimsical (robots creating robots) to the silly (do dogs prefer HDTV?) A little later than 8 a.m., my picks for the stories of the day include Twin Cities school news and lay-offs, Gaza news coverage, attacks on peace talks in Afghanistan, and BP’s ongoing failures as the oil slick nears Florida beaches.

Operation Top Kill has failed to stop the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. The Los Angeles Times quotes BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles: “After three full days, we have been unable to overcome the flow from the well, so we now believe it is time to move on to another option . . .

What were they thinking? A misguided U.S. Wireless billboard campaign folded after a few hours of intense Facebook-organized protests yesterday.