On Friday, we learned that the official "unemployment rate" has fallen to 5.5 percent. Since an unemployment rate of 5 percent is considered to be "full employment" by many economists, many in the mainstream media took this as a sign that the U.S. economy has almost fully "recovered" since the last recession. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, some Federal Reserve officials believe that "the U.S. economy is already at full employment". But how can this possibly be? It certainly does not square with reality. Personally, I know people that have been struggling with unemployment for years and that still cannot find a decent job. And I get emails from readers all the time that are heartbroken because they are suffering through extended periods of unemployment. So what in the world is going on? How can the government be telling us that we are nearly at "full employment" when so many people can't find work? Could it be possible that the government numbers are misleading?

It is my contention that the official "unemployment rate" has become so politicized and so manipulated that it is essentially meaningless at this point. The following are 10 reasons why...

#1 Since February 2008, the size of the U.S. population has grown by 16.8 million people, but the number of full-time jobs has actually decreased by 140,000.

#2 The percentage of working age Americans that have a job right now is still about the same as it was during the depths of the last recession. Posted below is a chart that shows how the employment-population ratio has changed since the beginning of the decade. Does this look like a full-blown "employment recovery" to you?...

A Florida woman has fled with her 4-year-old son in a court battle to stop the boy's circumcision.

A judge signed an arrest warrant for Heather Hironimus after she failed to turn over the boy Tuesday and appear in court.

"I will allow her to avoid incarceration or get out of jail if she signs the consent to the procedure," said Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Dana Gillen.

Hironimus' attorney said her son is "terrified" to undergo the procedure, and she and the boy checked into a domestic violence shelter on Feb. 23 after her ex-husband won a court battle to have their son circumcised.

Dennis Nebus is not Jewish, but he testified that circumcision is "just the normal thing to do."

He decided two years ago the boy should be circumcised after he noticed he was urinating on his leg due to a condition that prevents retraction of the foreskin, which Hironimus disputes.

Nebus claims his ex-wife had filled their son with fear about circumcision, which the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends and a judge found was "very, very safe."

"My son has mentioned things to me that he's scared to have his penis cut off," Nebus testified.

A Florida parent was forced to take drastic measures when her public school refused to release her child during a dispute over standardized testing.

Jacqui Myers says another mother with a child at Winter Park's Brookshire Elementary School called her after she arrived at the school to opt her fifth-grade daughter out of standardized testing related to the Common Core national standards initiative.

"They're not giving me my child, can you help?" the mother told Myers.

Myers, the mother of a first grader, is active in a group working to opt children out of state tests and was at the school counseling parents.

She called 911 to report that the school wouldn't release the child.

The school told the mother they did not want to release the child because she was in the middle of testing. But when police arrived, the school relented and turned her over.

Myers tells the Orlando Sentinel that emails from school administrators stated that "releasing students during testing would be disruptive and not be allowed."

But after the incident, a school spokesman denied such a policy existed.

"We do not hold children if parents come to pick them up," Shari Bobinski says, according to the paper.

As the investigation into the MH17 tragedy continues in eastern Ukraine, the SU-25's chief designer has told German media that the fighter jet could not possibly have taken down the passenger plane. RT spoke to former pilots about the jet's capabilities.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. Everyone on board - 283 passengers and 15 crew members - perished in the tragedy.

A report on the official investigation published in September 2014 said the crash was a result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that struck the Boeing from the outside. However, it did not conclude what the objects were, where they came from, or who was responsible.

Kiev and some Western states have placed blame on eastern Ukraine militias and Russia. The Russian Defense Ministry shared radar data pointing to other possibilities in July - including an attack by a Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 fighter jet, which was said to have been tracking the passenger plane.

While an official international investigation into the crash has been dragging on for nine months, the debate into the cause of the tragedy has been once again reignited by recent comments from the chief designer of the SU-25.

Americans' confidence in all three branches of government is at or near record lows, according to a major survey that has measured attitudes on the subject for 40 years.

The 2014 General Social Survey finds only 23 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in the Supreme Court, 11 percent in the executive branch and 5 percent in Congress. By contrast, half have a great deal of confidence in the military.


The survey is conducted by the independent research organization NORC at the University of Chicago. Because of its long-running and comprehensive set of questions about the public, it is a highly regarded source of data about social trends. Data from the 2014 survey was released last week, and an analysis of its findings on confidence in institutions was conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the General Social Survey.

Five things to know about Americans' low confidence in the government and other institutions:

Drop In Support For Presidency Driven by Republicans

The 11 percent who say they're confident in the presidency approaches a record low measured by the same survey in 1996, when just 10 percent said they had a great deal of confidence in the executive branch. The 44 percent who now say they have hardly any confidence at all is at a record high.

Historically, and not surprisingly, the survey has found that Democrats have more confidence in the executive branch when the sitting president is a Democrat, and Republicans have more confidence when the president is a Republican. In the 2014 survey, just 3 percent of Republicans say they have a lot of confidence in the presidency, down from a record high 45 percent who said so in 2002, when overall confidence in the presidency was also at the highest point the survey has measured, at 27 percent. Then, President George W. Bush was still riding a crest of support in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

A 17-year-old northern Wisconsin girl killed her mother and stepfather and locked her three younger siblings in a room with some food before fleeing to Indiana with a 22-year-old man, sheriff's deputies said.

Ashlee A. Martinson has been charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the killings of Jennifer Ayers, 40, and Thomas Ayers, 37, whose bodies were found at their Rhinelander area home on Sunday. Martinson is also charged with three counts of false imprisonment.

Oneida County sheriff's officials said Tuesday that Thomas Ayers was fatally shot and Jennifer Ayers died of knife wounds. Investigators have not released a possible motive for the slayings.

Sheriff's deputies responding to a 911 call found three young girls and the couple's bodies in the Town of Piehl residence about 10:40 a.m. Sunday, according to the complaint. The girls were not injured, authorities said.

Investigators said the oldest girl, age 9, told them Martinson killed her parents. The girl said she was in the living room with her stepmother, Jennifer Ayers, and heard two gunshots. The stepmother ran upstairs. The girl followed and saw her fighting with Martinson, according to the complaint.

An upper house MP has drafted a bill that obliges all candidates in Russian elections to inform voters about their sanity and that they have no addictions.

The motion was prepared by Anton Belyakov, who represents the central Russian Vladimir Region in the Federation Council. The senator wants to change three federal laws that regulate basic citizens' rights, the presidential elections and the elections of the Lower House MPs. If the bill is passed all candidates in this elections would have to produce certificates from psychiatrists and medics specializing in alcoholism and drug addiction. Such tests and certificates are widespread in Russia as they are required from anyone who applies for a driving license or a gun permit.

Two police officers have been shot during a protest outside Ferguson Police Station, according to the St. Louis County Police chief, who said the men are conscious, but their injuries are "very serious."

A 32-year-old officer from Webster Groves was shot in the face and a 41-year-old from St. Louis County was shot in the shoulder, Chief Jon Belmar told journalists at a press conference. He added that both the injured were being treated at a local hospital.

"These police officers were standing there and they were shot, just because they were police officers," Belmar said.


The shooting broke out as the rally outside the police station was subsiding early on Thursday.

Police take cover after two cops were shot in front of Ferguson PD on Thursday, March 12, 2015. Pic- @LaurieSkrivan pic.twitter.com/1rTei6bZcn

— Lynden Steele (@manofsteele) March 12, 2015

A Reuters photographer at the scene said a few dozen demonstrators fled following the sound of gunfire with some screaming, "They hit a cop."

The St Louis County Police chief said at least three shots were fired during the rally. No suspects have yet been identified, he added.

A video has emerged featuring the moment the shots were fired. While it's low-resolution and not much can be seen, the sounds of gunfire are distinctly heard, as well as the groaning of a man who was hit.

French Minister of Culture Fleur Pellerin says she doesn't believe that the French language should be saved from outside influences - including English.

Pellerin told the Local that France should take into account "the world it is in" and that French is "enriched by outside influences."

"We need a dynamic approach towards the language. Of course I want to defend the French language, but not to the point of preventing any influence from outside," she noted.

"We need to be able to understand the world we are in and that our language is enriched by external influences. French has always been a language that has been enriched by words from other languages," Pellerin, who is a fluent English and German speaker, added, according to the Local.

The minister said she isn't a "fanatic" like the Academie Francaise - a paragon for those who think French is under threat - despite the younger generation and businesspeople using a lot of English words in their everyday discourse.

"English has always fascinated me because it's easy to create new words or join two words and make a new word,"she said, adding that her favorite English word is "serendipity" (a pleasant surprise, or the ability to make unexpected pleasant discoveries).

"I want French to be a living language. Today we have around 250 million French speakers and in 30 years there will be around 700 million speakers of French, mainly in central and northern Africa," Pellerin said, the Local reported.

Prosecutors dropped charges against a 17-year-old for assaulting a police officer because footage of the incident between the teenager and New York Police Department cops proved the young man was actually the assault victim.

The incident took place at Brooklyn's Puerto Rican Day Parade in June. The 17-year-old, Enrique Del Rosario, was part of a group that was recording the actions of police. Officers then grabbed the teen, slamming him against a wall and beating him, according to his lawyer, Rebecca Heinegg.

Dennis Flores, head of police watchdog El Grito de Sunset Park ‒ an advocacy group that brings attention to what Flores describes as the controversial tactics of the NYPD ‒ was one of the people who filmed the assault on Rosario.

"We witnessed Enrique filming the police throwing a woman onto a sidewalk," Flores told RT. "And for that, a police officer bashed his head in, robbed him of his camera ‒ and I say robbed him because the camera never showed up as evidence; it completely disappeared, but something that we had on video ‒ clearly, cops grabbed him, slammed him against the gate."

"A second officer, named Elvis Marizalde, swung a nightstick, missed ‒ he cracked the head of another officer with his nightstick, and then charged [Rosario] for assaulting the police," Flores continued.

"And because of that, since we formed a chain of cameras around Enrique to film this, we started getting maced, we got attacked and we were pushed back. But because there were so many of us and so many cameras watching over each other, we outnumbered those cops."