Did March provide another month of blowout hiring? Was pay growth healthy?

When the government issues its monthly jobs report Friday, those two questions will be the most closely watched barometers.

Economists have forecast that employers added a solid 185,000 jobs in March and that the unemployment rate dipped from 4.1 percent to a fresh 17-year low of 4 percent, according to data provider FactSet.

The government will issue the jobs report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time.

In February, employers added a blockbuster 313,000 jobs, the largest monthly gain in 18 months. Over the past six months, the average monthly gain has been 205,000, up from an average of 176,000 in the previous six months. Hiring at that pace could help nudge the unemployment rate below 4 percent in the coming months.

Hiring defies expectations

The surging pace of hiring has defied expectations that the low unemployment rate meant employers would struggle to fill positions, which, in turn, would restrain job growth. Job gains had slowed for most of 2017. But hiring accelerated starting in October, an unusual boost for an economy already in its ninth year of recovery.

In fact, the recovery from the 2008-2009 Great Recession has become the second-longest expansion since the 1850s, when economists began tracking recessions and recoveries. Still, the expansion has been puzzlingly slow, with economic growth averaging just 2.2 percent a year, about a percentage point below the historical average. But its durability has been broadly beneficial.

For example, a rising number of working-age Americans have begun looking for a job and finding one, reversing a trend from the first few years after the recession when many of the unemployed grew discouraged and stopped looking for work.

The proportion of adults in their prime working years, defined as ages 25 to 54, who are either working or looking for work jumped to 82.2 percent in February, up one-half of 1 percentage point from a year earlier. That’s still below the pre-recession level, which suggests that steady economic growth could continue to pull more job-seekers off the sidelines.

Will wages rise, too?

An increasing need to compete for workers may also finally be lifting wages in some sectors. Average hourly earnings rose 2.9 percent in January compared with 12 months earlier, the sharpest such increase in eight years. That unexpected surge triggered a plunge in financial markets, with investors fearing that accelerating wage growth might lead the Federal Reserve to step up its pace of interest rate hikes to control inflation.

But pay growth slipped in February to a year-over-year pace of 2.6 percent, suggesting that employers are still avoiding giving broad pay raises to their workers. The influx of new workers, which gives employers more hiring options than a 4.1 percent unemployment rate might otherwise suggest, may also be holding back wage growth.

Though the economy likely slowed in the first three months of this year, the healthy pace of hiring indicates that employers anticipate solid customer demand for the rest of the year. Macroeconomic Advisers, a consulting firm, forecasts that the economy grew at just a 1.4 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter — less than half the 2.9 percent annual pace of the October-December quarter.

But the firm expects growth to rebound to a decent 3.1 percent annual pace in the current April-June quarter.

Other reports indicate that growing optimism among businesses and consumers should help propel the economy in the months ahead.

Businesses have stepped up their spending on manufactured goods, helping lift factory output.

And last month, factories expanded at a healthy pace after having grown in February at the fastest rate since 2004, according to a private survey. Government data showed that orders for long-lasting factory goods, including industrial machinery, metals and autos, surged in February.

Americans have spent less at retail chains in the past two months, after shopping at a healthy pace during the winter holiday season. With consumer confidence near the highest point in two decades, however, consumer spending is likely to rebound in the coming months.

This story was written by the Associated Press.
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The Trump administration says China is responsible for a trade war with the United States because of its long-term unfair practices. A senior White House economic adviser said Thursday no measures have been enacted, but the situation cannot continue. U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States and China will have a “fantastic relationship” once they straighten out their trade issues. But analysts warn that raising tariffs is not good for the global economy. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Police seeking to quell simmering anger over their shooting of a mentally disturbed black man on a New York City street released a montage of security videos Thursday that showed him minutes earlier thrusting a metal object that looked like a gun into the faces of several people, including a woman holding the hand of her child.

A final video snippet showed the man raising the object in a two-handed shooting stance as police arrived, the edited video frozen just before officers unleashed 10 shots that left 34-year-old Saheed Vassell dead, his weapon turning out to be nothing more than an L-shaped section of pipe.

The shooting in Brooklyn on Wednesday evening prompted protests among many who felt police should have known that Vassell, a fixture in the Crown Heights neighborhood, had emotional problems.

Callers perceived a threat

But Mayor Bill De Blasio didn’t lay blame on the officers, who were not from the local precinct and were passing through at the time. They had no information, the mayor said, that the person they were confronting was mentally ill.

“It’s a tragedy because a man with a profound mental health problem … was doing something that people perceived to be a threat to the safety of others,” de Blasio said at a news conference shortly before the images and a partial transcript of 911 calls were released.

“What we have seen from the images that are publicly available, people in the community thought he had a weapon and was aiming it at residents,” the mayor said. “That’s the kind of calls, multiple calls, that NYPD received.

According to the transcripts, one caller to 911 reported that Vassell “looks like he’s crazy but he’s pointing something at people that looks like a gun.”

“Where is the gun?” a dispatcher asked one caller. “His hand,” the caller replied.

In police radio traffic posted online, dispatchers directing officers to the scene said 911 callers were reporting only that a person was pointing a gun at people. After the shooting, the officers can be heard frantically calling for dispatchers to send an ambulance.

The release of the edited material on the New York Police Department’s Twitter account — the full videos and transcripts weren’t immediately provided — was meant to back up claims by the police department that the four plainclothes and two uniformed officers who responded had a legitimate reason to believe they needed to move swiftly to stop a deadly threat.

The material released by the department didn’t answer questions about whether the officers had identified themselves or ordered the victim to drop the object before they opened fire.

​’Train them to protect life’

Vassell’s father, Eric, told reporters that his son had been hospitalized several times for psychiatric problems, some involving encounters with the police, but that he was polite and kind.

“Police had a choice. They always have a choice. They should not train them to kill. They should train them to protect life, to save life,” Eric Vassell said in an interview with WABC-TV.

A tense crowd gathered after the shooting, with some people shouting at officers and decrying the killing as another example of an unarmed black man dying at the hands of police officers who overreacted.

On Thursday, Ruta Deshong, who owns a reggae record shop on the same block where Vassell lived, said she had known him since he was a young boy and that the police who normally patrol the neighborhood knew him well.

“If they had said, ‘Drop your weapon,’ he would have,” Deshong said. “The officers in the neighborhood know him. He’s all around the place. They know he’s not trouble.”

A family friend, Berrest Biggs, said he learned of the shooting through social media.

“I said, ‘Is that Saheed?’” Biggs said. “He was like a child. … This kid didn’t bother nobody.”

Attorney general to investigate

New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, announced that he would investigate the shooting.

Under an executive order issued by the governor in 2015, the attorney general has the power to act as a special prosecutor in cases involving police killings of unarmed people.

Schneiderman’s spokeswoman, Amy Spitalnick, promised “an independent, comprehensive and fair investigation.”

The shooting comes after the police killing of an unarmed black man on March 18 in Sacramento, California, sparked two weeks of protests and calls for police reform. Stephon Clark, 22, was shot by officers responding to a report of someone breaking car windows. Police said they thought he had a gun, but he was carrying only a cellphone.

This story was written by the Associated Press
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The trade dispute rumbling between China and the U.S. has raised the possibility consumers in Beijing may end up paying higher prices for American beef, liquor and tobacco if Beijing goes ahead with hikes on tariffs for such products.

Below are thoughts shared with The Associated Press by a few Beijing residents.

The investor

Yang Shumei, 29, a freelance worker from southwestern China’s Guangxi province: “I think this [the threat of a trade war] does influence my life and other areas to a certain extent. I invest in stock markets, and shares have fallen sharply as the risk is high.”

The optimist

Feng Weifeng, 36, a salesman from Beijing: “I believe imposing extra tariffs from both sides is just a temporary measure and a win-win situation is the trend.”

The price-sensitive buyer 

Wang Xiaoyu, 20, student from Beijing, Higher prices “Will definitely influence my decisions. For daily necessities, mobile phones or electrical products, I am more likely to choose domestic brands or choose products with prices the same as those of U.S.-made products before the price hike.”

The anti-tariffs student

Liu Boshu, 18, a student from central China’s Zhengzhou, in Henan province: “Actually I’m against the measures from either side. Because trade barriers like this will harm both countries in the long term.”

 
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For thousands of years, the lives of the Yup’ik people of Alaska centered around the “qasgiq,” a communal house where men lived and worked, where community celebrations were held, and most importantly, where leaders and elders passed on knowledge, skills and life lessons to Yup’ik youth.

“Our ancestors and grandfathers were like psychologists,” said Billy Charles, a fisherman and former mayor of the southwestern town of Emmonak, one of the last settlements along the Yukon River before it empties into the Bering Sea. “They had a system of early childhood development in place, and with every teaching, they’d say, ‘It may not apply to you now, but later on in life, when you meet the challenge, you’ll know what to do.’”

Today, Charles is a researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Center for Alaska Native Health Research (CANHR), working to prevent health disparities, particularly substance abuse and suicide, in indigenous communities.

Statistics demonstrate that Alaska Native (AN) youth are at greater risk for drug and alcohol abuse than any other population group in the state. In 2015, more children died from suicide than any other cause.

The reasons are rooted in the historic trauma of colonization — first by Russia in the 18th century, then by the U.S. government after it purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. As with Native-American children in the lower 48 states, the government removed AN children from their families and placed them in missionary and boarding schools. There, children were forced to give up their language, culture and religious practices.

Today, ANs face an array of stressors: poverty, substandard housing, underemployment, alcohol and substance abuse, violence and mental illness. Geography is also a factor, said Evon Peter, a Neetsaii Gwich’in and Koyukon Native from Arctic Village in northeastern Alaska who is currently vice chancellor for rural, community and Native education at UAF.

“Most of our villages are not accessible by road, so they are extremely remote,” Peter said. “For me to travel from Fairbanks to some of our villages, it’s two days of travel and at least three different plane rides, sometimes costing as much as $2,000. So, there are substantial challenges and costs just to get work or have access to medical or behavioral health care.”

Climate change poses additional stressors on communities, said Stacy Rasmus, CANHR’s interim director.

“Alaska Native people are still very subsistence-based, very dependent on land-based food,” she said. “Whaling communities are finding it increasingly treacherous to navigate the ice, and entire villages are having to move because they are eroding into the ocean.”

But not all Native Alaskans are vulnerable to addiction or suicide, she stressed. Previous research has shown that Natives who are more connected to their traditional culture and language are less likely to take their own lives.

Rasmus and Charles have developed a cultural-based training and teaching manual called the Qungasvik, the Yup’ik word for “toolbox,” named after the carved wooden boxes Yup’ik men once used to store tools and tobacco and designed to help youth build resiliency.

The manual, available online, contains 36 activities based on traditional Yup’ik practices. One of them involves recreating the qasdig to provide youth an opportunity to connect with elders, learn about their heritage and history, develop life skills and participate in community life.

“Our elders instruct us that just as the musk ox surround their young to protect them from harm, we must gather together, form a circle and link hands around our youth,” said the narrator in a video produced as part of the Qungasvik. “The point is to communicate to children that they are appreciated, valuable members of the community and have much to live for.”

This week, tribal organizations and mental health practitioners from across Alaska are meeting with UAF researchers for the first in what is hoped to be an annual event: The Statewide Gathering to Celebrate and Support Community Strengths, hosted by UAF’s Alaska Native Collaborative Hub for Research on Resilience (ANCHRR).

The event was expected to draw more than 100 people from across Alaska and provide a venue for sharing success stories and collaborating on how best to promote well-being in participants’ respective communities.

The ANCHRR hub was established in 2017 with a $4.25 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to help find a fresh approach to suicide, focusing on community strength and resilience.
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Fifty years ago this week, civil rights icon and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. On this week’s edition of VOA’s Plugged In with Greta Van Susteren, guests remembered King’s legacy and impact on today’s society. Robert Raffaele has more.
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The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday asked courts to denaturalize two Bosnian Muslims who have been convicted in their native country of carrying out an execution-style massacre of Croatian villagers during the Balkan wars.

Edin Dzeko, 46, and Sammy Rasema Yetisen, 45, both alleged former members of an elite Bosnian military unit responsible for carrying out the 1993 attack that killed 22 civilians, are accused of hiding their crimes on their refugee, permanent resident and citizenship applications.

Yetisen came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1996 and became a citizen in 2002. Dzeko was admitted as a refugee in 2001 and naturalized in 2006.

The pair’s involvement in the “Trusina massacre” came to light in 2011 when the U.S. extradited them to Bosnia to stand trial for war crimes. 

A court in Bosnia later found that Dzeko and Yetisen were part of a special forces unit that participated “in a well-prepared and planned attack” on the village of Trusina, executing six unarmed prisoners of war and civilians, according to the complaint. Yetisen later shot each of the six again to make sure they were dead.

“In addition to his participation in the firing squad, Dzeko also killed a crippled elderly man, and then shot the man’s wife in the back, killing her because she would not stop crying,” the Justice Department statement said.

Yetisen was convicted of war crimes in 2012 and sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison. She returned to Oregon, where she currently lives, after serving her prison term.

Dzeko was convicted and sentenced in 2014. He is serving his sentence in Bosnia.

“War criminals will find no safe haven or shelter within the United States,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. “We will be steadfast as we investigate and prosecute human rights violators, torturers and war criminals. This is especially true for those who fraudulently obtain U.S. citizenship.”

Last month, a Bosnian Serb living in North Carolina was sentenced to 18 months in prison for lying about his military service and involvement in war crimes on his permanent resident application. 
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