US job creation strong in April

3 May 2013 Last updated at 13:43 ET

US employment rose more than expected in April.

The latest US non-farm payrolls show that 165,000 jobs were created last month. Economists had been predicting a figure closer to 145,000.

The unemployment rate is now at its lowest level in four years, at 7.5%.

The strong increase in the jobs figures provided a boost to the markets. In New York, the Dow Jones index jumped above the 15,000 level for the first time in history before slipping back slightly.

The drop in the unemployment rate reflected an increase in employment, rather than people leaving the workforce.

The US Labor Department also revised its figures for March and February upwards.

The February number was revised up to 332,000, the best monthly gain since May 2010.

March non-farm payrolls were revised upwards by 50,000 to 138,000.

Giving the Obama administration's view of the figures, Alan Krueger, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said: "It is critical that we remain focused on pursuing policies to speed job creation and expand the middle class, as we continue to dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the severe recession that began in December 2007."

Joe Manimbo, market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions, said the numbers were "surprisingly positive".

"This shows the job market and the economy in general appear to be more resilient than investors had feared," he added.

'Uneven' labour market

But some analysts felt the details behind the headline numbers still pointed to a economy that continues to struggle. Construction employment fell and the payrolls in the manufacturing sector remained flat.

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Economist Beth Ann Bovino says the Federal Reserve will focus on the jobs market until it saw a "substantial improvement"

Tom Porcelli, US economist at RBC Capital Markets, saw a more mixed picture in the figures.

"A couple of things drive this home, namely average weekly earnings are down and aggregate hours. Those are more forward looking metrics and how it will unfold in the fourth quarter that is not encouraging," he said.

"This report confirms that the labour market backdrop remains very much uneven."

The Dow Jones closed 0.96% or 142.38 points higher at 14,973.96. The S&P 500 closed up 1.05%, or 16.83 points, at 1,614.42.

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NRA chief rallies for 'culture war'

3 May 2013 Last updated at 16:44 ET

The incoming president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) has told attendees of its conference they are freedom fighters in a "culture war".

James Porter, who takes over the top job on Monday, issued the rallying cry at the NRA's annual meeting in Texas.

Tens of thousands of people are expected at the gun rights group's event, which comes weeks after the NRA helped stop a firearms control bill.

Gun control groups plan counter-demonstrations in Houston.

"This is not a battle about gun rights,'' Mr Porter told attendees on Friday, saying it was "a culture war".

"[You] here in this room are the fighters for freedom," the Alabama lawyer added. "We are the protectors."

'Anti-gun elitists'

About 70,000 people were expected to attend the conference in Houston, to browse new products from weapons manufacturers and hunting outfitters, and sign up for hunting excursions around the world.

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NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre: "We believe liberty is a blessing"

On the stage at the George Brown Convention Center, the NRA's chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, told the crowd that politicians and the media had repeatedly lied about the organisation.

"NRA members have stared those anti-gun elitists straight in the eye, and we've stared them down," Mr LaPierre told the cheering crowd.

Texas Governor Rick Perry also took to the podium, thanking Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz for "fighting back against the anti-gun lobby in their latest attempt to undercut the [US Constitution's] second amendment", a reference to the failed firearms control bill.

Last month the background checks proposal fell six votes short of the 60 needed to advance in the Senate. It had support from almost all the chamber's Democrats and President Barack Obama, but faced near unanimous Republican opposition.

High-profile gun rights activists including former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal also spoke at the convention.

'Business cloaked as politics'

And the conference will host a demonstration called Stand and Fight, organised by conservative commentator Glenn Beck.

Military veterans who disagree with the NRA are planning a counter-demonstration called Occupy the NRA, and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense were due to rally.

Texas state lawmaker Garnet Coleman, a Democrat whose district is hosting the conference, said he did not plan to attend.

"Clearly, the sales and promotion of firearms is big business," he said. "This is business with politics as the cloak."

Opinion polls have repeatedly shown more than 80% of Americans support a wider system of background checks to keep people with criminal histories from purchasing guns.

The US gun debate was re-energised by a December shooting that left 20 children dead at a primary school Newtown, Connecticut.

In the massacre's wake, some states including New York, Colorado and Connecticut passed gun control legislation, but firearms laws were loosened in South Dakota, Wyoming and Arkansas.

Following the Newtown shootings, the NRA called for armed guards in US schools.

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Reese Witherspoon pleads no contest

3 May 2013 Last updated at 18:47 ET

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Georgia State Patrol released footage showing the arrest of Reese Witherspoon

Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon has pleaded no contest to a disorderly conduct charge and paid a $100 (£64) fine after her arrest last month.

She was detained while arguing with a policeman who was giving her talent agent husband a sobriety test in Atlanta, Georgia.

While berating the officer, Witherspoon said: "Do you know my name?"

Her spouse, Jim Toth, pleaded guilty to drunk driving and was fined $600 with 40 hours of community service.

Entertainment correspondents say the episode will have surprised fans of the actress, who has cultivated a squeaky clean image.

'False' pregnancy claim

A municipal court solicitor said in a statement on Friday the case had been resolved.

In a dashboard camera video of the arrest, Witherspoon can be seen accusing the police officer of harassment.

"You're about to find out who I am," the actress said in the clip, which was released by authorities on Friday.

Witherspoon conceded during an interview with ABC's Good Morning America on Thursday that she had said "all kinds of crazy things" during the exchange with the police, including falsely suggesting she was pregnant.

She said she had drunk "one too many" glasses of wine.

Witherspoon and her husband were reportedly pulled over after their car was spotted swerving across its lane.

Officers breathalysed Mr Toth - the driver - who was described in a police report as dishevelled and smelling of alcohol.

During the test, Witherspoon refused to heed the officer's request to stay in the car, saying she was a "US citizen" and had a right to "stand on American ground".

Witherspoon said during her ABC interview that the incident had taught her a lesson.

"When a police officer tells you to stay in the car, you stay in the car," she said. "I learned that for sure. I learned a lot."

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To Kill A Mockingbird author sues

3 May 2013 Last updated at 21:49 ET

The author of To Kill A Mockingbird has sued a literary agent she says tricked her into assigning him the copyright on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book.

Harper Lee, 87, says Samuel Pinkus took advantage of her failing hearing and eyesight to transfer the rights and has failed to respond to licence requests.

To Kill A Mockingbird was published in 1960 and is considered a classic. It has sold more than 30 million copies.

Lee is rarely seen in public and declines almost all interview requests.

The novel is the only published book by the author, who lives in Monroeville, Alabama.

'Irrevocable' interest

In the lawsuit, Lee alleges that when her long-time literary agent, Eugene Winick, became ill in 2002, his son-in-law, Mr Pinkus, switched several of Mr Winick's clients to his own company.

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Take a tour of Monroeville, Alabama, which inspired Harper Lee's classic novel

Mr Pinkus is alleged to have transferred the rights to secure himself "irrevocable" interest in the income derived from Lee's book.

He also sought to avoid paying legal obligations he owed to his father-in-law's company for royalties, according to the lawsuit.

It is further alleged that Mr Pinkus failed to respond to offers on e-book rights and a request for assistance related to the book's 50th anniversary.

The lawsuit bids the court to assign any rights in the book owned by Mr Pinkus to Lee and asks that she be returned any commission he took from 2007 onwards.

Mr Pinkus did not immediately respond to an email from Reuters news agency seeking comment.

Set in Depression-era, small-town Alabama, To Kill A Mockingbird tells the story of a lawyer who defends a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman.

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Burial wrangle for Boston suspect

4 May 2013 Last updated at 04:44 ET

The search is on for a cemetery to bury Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev as protesters picket the funeral home holding his body.

The director of the funeral home in Worcester, Massachusetts, likened the task to burying notorious mass murderers from recent US history.

Peter Stefan revealed Tsarnaev's death certificate, showing gunshots and blunt trauma as the causes of death.

Tsarnaev's surviving brother Dzhokhar is under arrest for the bombing.

The brothers are accused of planting two bombs near the finishing-line of the Boston Marathon on 15 April. Three people were killed and more than 260 injured in an attack which shocked America.

They are also suspected of later shooting dead one policeman and injuring another.

Dzhokhar, 19, was shot and injured during the police manhunt and remains in a prison hospital. He faces a possible death sentence if convicted.

Three of his college friends have been arrested on suspicion of obstructing police inquiries after the bomb attack.

'Bundy, McVeigh'

Relatives of ex-boxer Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, have been making arrangements to bury his body.

Mr Stefan received the body after it was released by the Massachusetts state medical examiner on Thursday.

Protesters had picketed a North Attleborough funeral home to which it was brought initially, after which Mr Stefan's business received it, in the face of a new demonstration.

"Everyone deserves a burial," Mr Stefan told Reuters news agency by telephone.

"It doesn't matter who it is. I can't pick and choose."

Speaking to AP news agency, Mr Stefan said: "My problem here is trying to find a gravesite. A lot of people don't want to do it. They don't want to be involved with this."

Arguing that everyone deserved a dignified burial, he added: "I keep bringing up the point of Lee Harvey Oswald, Timothy McVeigh or Ted Bundy. Somebody had to do those, too."

Wife declines

According to the death certificate, Tamerlan Tsarnaev died at 01:35 on 19 April from "gunshot wounds of torso and extremities" as well as blunt trauma to the head and torso.

After being hit in a shoot-out with police, he was reportedly run over on the ground by his younger brother as he escaped from the scene in a car.

No motive has yet been established for the bombing.

The family are ethnic Chechen Muslims from Russia who had been living in the US for about a decade, and Tamerlan was drawn to radical Islam.

His wife, Katherine Russell, declined to pick up his body from the medical examiner's office, allowing his relatives to claim the remains instead and arrange for a funeral.

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Solar plane lands in Phoenix

4 May 2013 Last updated at 08:17 ET

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Watch the solar plane touch down in the dark in Phoenix, Arizona

A plane powered only by the Sun has completed the first leg of a journey that aims to cross the US.

Solar Impulse, as the vehicle is known, took off at dawn from San Francisco, California, on Friday and landed in Phoenix, Arizona, some 18 hours later.

The craft will stop over in Dallas, St Louis, Washington DC and New York in the coming weeks.

The plane has the same wingspan as an Airbus A340 but it weighs just 1.6 tonnes.

It has already made a day-and-night flight lasting more than 26 hours, and the team aims to eventually circumnavigate the globe in 2015.

The plane took off from Moffett Field on the edge of San Francisco Bay at 06:12 local time (13:12 GMT) on Friday, and landed at Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport at 00:30 local time (07:30 GMT) on Saturday.

This meant Solar Impulse spent several hours flying in darkness, relying solely on the energy stored in an array of lithium-ion batteries to drive its propellers.

In daylight hours, these are charged by nearly 12,000 solar cells that cover the craft's wings and stabiliser.

Continue reading the main story

• Wingspan - 63m (208ft)
• Weight - 1,600kg (3,500lb)
• Covered with 11,628 solar cells
• Carries 400kg (900lb) of lithium-ion batteries
• Maximum cruising altitude of 8,500m (28,000ft)

The HB-SIA craft was piloted by Bertrand Piccard, a co-founder of the effort, who is perhaps best known for being the first person to circumnavigate the globe in a hot-air balloon, in 1999.

The trans-America bid is the first attempt of its kind with a zero-fuel aircraft.

Together with co-founder and entrepreneur Andre Borschberg, the pair of Swiss pilots have racked up a number of world records and milestones in recent years.

The first night flight of a solar-powered craft in 2010 was followed by a first international flight in 2011, and first inter-continental flight in 2012.

The two will share the job of flying the plane between each of the stops of the tour.

"We've been preparing for this flight since last summer, so we are all very excited," Mr Borschberg told BBC News.

The current aircraft HB-SIA is effectively the prototype for the craft that will eventually be used for transoceanic flights and the round-the-world trip. The HB-SIB should be completed by the end of 2013.

"You should see this like being in 1915 when the pioneers were trying to do these first cross-country flights - still unable to cross the ocean, but an important step for the development of aviation," Mr Borschberg said.

The launch on Friday served as the start of the pair's Clean Generation Initiative, an effort to encourage policy-makers and businesses to develop and adopt sustainable energy technologies.

"We want to show that with clean technologies, a passionate team and a far-reaching pioneering vision, one can achieve the impossible," Dr Piccard said at the announcement of the mission in March.

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Seven Nato troops die in Afghanistan

4 May 2013 Last updated at 17:56 ET

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Isaf spokesman Brigadier General Günter Katz: "Every soldier who dies here... is one too many"

Seven soldiers serving with Nato's force in Afghanistan have been killed in two attacks, the alliance says.

An Afghan soldier turned his weapon on coalition troops in the western Farah province, reports said, killing two in the latest so-called insider attack.

Earlier, a roadside bomb killed five US soldiers in the southern Kandahar province.

The deaths came after three British troops were killed by a roadside bomb this week in southern Helmand province.

The Taliban launched its annual spring offensive last Sunday, saying it would target foreign military bases and diplomatic areas.

Some 100,000 soldiers are still serving with Isaf, but they are due to be withdrawn by the end of next year.

Nato is in the process of handing security operations to Afghan forces, and some areas have already been transferred.

'We stay committed'

The US-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) released a statement saying: "Two International Security Assistance Force service members were killed when an Afghan National Army soldier turned his weapon against Isaf service members in western Afghanistan today."

It did not disclose the nationalities of the victims, but unnamed American officials later said the victims were US soldiers, AP reported.

As the number of Nato troops killed by their Afghan counterparts continues to rise, analysts wonder how the breakdown of this relationship will have an impact on the scheduled departure of international forces from Afghanistan.

After the earlier roadside bomb in Kandahar, Isaf spokesman Brig Gen Gunter Katz said it had been a "difficult week" for the coalition, but added that the deaths would not change its commitment to the task in Afghanistan.

"Every soldier who dies here in Afghanistan is one too many," he said. "But again, this will not have an effect on our overall campaign. We stay committed and will stay committed in this country to support the Afghans also in the future."

Faisal Javi, a spokesman for Kandahar's governor, said the roadside bomb exploded in Mewand district, which has a strong Taliban presence, but he said the group had not yet claimed responsibility for planting the device.

Saturday's deaths bring the toll for coalition troops in 2013 to 49, including 37 Americans.

Most Nato troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014 - when all combat operations are due to finish - although a small number will remain in support roles.

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Historian sorry for 'gay' remark

4 May 2013 Last updated at 18:02 ET

Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson has apologised for saying the economist John Maynard Keynes did not care about society's future because he was gay and had no children.

Prof Ferguson, born in Scotland, made the comments at a conference in California on Thursday.

Mr Keynes was an influential British economist who died in 1946.

Prof Ferguson has now apologised "unreservedly" for what he called "stupid" and "insensitive" remarks.

He was asked to comment on Mr Keynes's famous observation of "in the long run we are all dead".

In unscripted remarks during a question and answer session, the high-profile historian and writer said Mr Keynes was indifferent to the long run because he had no children, and that he had no children because he was gay.

'Detest prejudice'

But in a statement posted on his website, he said it was obvious that people who do not have children also care about future generations. The historian also insisted he was not homophobic.

"My disagreements with Keynes's economic philosophy have never had anything to do with his sexual orientation," he wrote.

"It is simply false to suggest, as I did, that his approach to economic policy was inspired by any aspect of his personal life. As those who know me and my work are well aware, I detest all prejudice, sexual or otherwise."

In 1926, Mr Keynes married Lydia Lopokova, a Russian ballerina, and Prof Ferguson also said he had forgotten that she had miscarried.

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Southern California wildfire eases

4 May 2013 Last updated at 22:47 ET

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Footage shows firefighters making the most of falling temperatures, as the BBC's Peter Bowes reports

A wildfire threatening thousands of homes in southern California is being contained because of cool air blowing in from the Pacific, firefighters say.

They say hot, dry winds have now been replaced by the normal flow of damper air, reducing fire activity.

"The fire isn't really running and gunning," said Ventura County Fire Department spokesman Tom Kruschke.

Thousands of firefighters have been battling the blaze in the Santa Monica Mountains north-west of Los Angeles.

The fire was 56% per cent surrounded on Saturday, officials said. No injuries have been reported.

Dubbed the Springs Fire, it has damaged just 15 properties but thousands of others are at risk.

'Pretty close'

After breaking out on Thursday, the fire quickly swept through the Camarillo Springs area on Friday and early on Saturday.

It forced the closure of a section of the Pacific Coast Highway and threatened a naval facility.

But later on Saturday humidity levels rose. Despite the favourable conditions, evacuation orders remained in place for residences in several areas.

Local people were grateful so many homes had escaped the blaze.

"It came pretty close," Shayne Poindexter was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency. "All of these houses - these firemen did a tremendous job. Very, very thankful for them."

Properties in the Springs area were well prepared for the fire after years of planning. Homes were built with sprinkler systems and fireproof exteriors from the roofs to the foundations.

Residents are required to clear brush and other combustible materials to within 100ft (30m) of the dwellings and local roads were built wide enough to accommodate emergency vehicles.

It is more usual for such wildfires to flare up in September or October, after the summer has dried out hillside vegetation, but the region saw a severe drought during the past year.

Fire crews have tackled more than 680 wildfires in California so far this year, some 200 more than average for the period.

Other fires have been burning this week in Riverside County, in the hills above Glendale and in Tehama County, northern California.

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Women die in US stretch limo blaze

5 May 2013 Last updated at 09:16 ET

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The limousine was travelling on the San Mateo bridge in San Francisco when smoke started to escape from the back

Five women died and four were injured when a stretch limo caught fire on a major bridge in the San Francisco area on Saturday night.

Only the male driver escaped unhurt during the incident on the San Mateo bridge, 20 miles (32km) south-east of the city, a US police spokesman said.

The victims, said to be in their 30s, were trapped as fire engulfed the back of the car, which had stopped.

Amateur video footage showed the white car ablaze in the darkness.

No other vehicle appears to have been involved in the incident and police are still trying to determine the cause.

Severe burns

The fire was reported around 22:00 on Saturday (05:00 GMT Sunday) on the bridge which connects San Mateo and Alemada counties at Foster City.

When smoke began to pour from back of the limo, the driver quickly pulled over but fire spread rapidly.

Four women managed to get out but one had severe burns while the others suffered minor injuries including smoke inhalation, according to local broadcaster KTVU. They were taken to local hospitals.

The westbound lanes of the bridge were closed as police investigated, but one lane of traffic re-opened early on Sunday.

Details of the victims were not released as the authorities sought to notify their families.

"We have no idea right now where they were going or where they were coming from," California Highway Patrol officer Amelia Jack told KGO-TV.

Stretch limousines, usually designed to carry groups of six adults or more, are typically hired for celebrations such as school proms or pre-wedding parties.

Tens of thousands are in use around the world, with 11,000 in the UK alone just a few years ago, according to the British Department for Transport.

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