U.S. Adds 290,000 Jobs in April; Rate Rises to 9.9%  —  The American economy added an unexpectedly strong 290,000 jobs in April, while the unemployment rate rose to 9.9 percent, the government said Friday.  —  Analysts had expected a gain of about 190,000 in the month.

Obama's Court pick is imminent — POTUS to seek line-item veto — Britain sorting out ‘hung parliament’ — Did Dow tank on ‘fat finger error’?  — Palin + Facebook = Yahtzee  —  DRIVING NEXT WEEK — Look for President Obama to name his Supreme Court pick Monday, and look …

Unwashed Masses 1, Fed 0: Sanders Scores  —  The effort to audit the Fed got a big boost last night when Senator Bernie Sanders reached an agreement with Chris Dodd, the chair of the banking committee.  Under the deal, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) would undertake a full audit …

My Interview With Jo-Vanni Roman  —  Around 1am this morning I got tipped by one of the guys at Unzipped that Jo-Vanni Roman was finally ready to speak with me.  Five minutes later I had him on the phone from Fort Lauderdale, but not before I alerted Father Tony to be ready to rush over to him immediately for a video interview.

Policy Makers Seek to Calm Markets as Slide Continues  —  PARIS — Stocks slid again Friday in Europe after sharp falls in Asia, as policy makers around the globe sought to calm nervous investors who fear that Greece's debt crisis will spread within Europe and beyond.

Brown ‘respects’ Clegg-Tory talks  —  Gordon Brown has said he “respects” the right of the Lib Dems to talk to the Tories about forming a government.  —  But he said he was still PM and, if talks failed, would open negotiations with the Lib Dems, after the election resulted in a hung parliament.

Al Franken takes over the U.S. Senate floor to explain a newspaper cartoon to the waiting nation  —  All we can say is thank goodness Minnesota's newest Democratic U.S. senator, Al Franken, was on duty Thursday.  —  We were poring through one of America's most glorious man-caused treasures …

Prominent GOP pollster: Times Square bomb scare gives Republicans an “opportunity”  —  Whit Ayres is a prominent Republican pollster who has co-founded something called “Resurgent Republic,” which bills itself as a message testing outfit for GOP lawmakers — part of an effort by Republicans …

The Surge of Ideas  —  COINdinistas and Change in the U.S. Army in 2006 … Good evening to you all.  Thanks for that warm welcome.  And thanks, Arthur, for that very kind introduction.  —  Earlier today, as I was talking with my wife about tonight's speech, she reminded me of a story …

For Airport Security, Size Matters  —  Cops: New high-tech screener triggered fight over manhood insult  —  A Transportation Security Administration screener is facing an assault rap after he allegedly beat a co-worker who joked about the size of the man's genitalia after he walked through a security scanner.

Secret holds are not the problem (but the Democrats would like to make them the problem)  —  I've never been able to get a straight answer on why, exactly, senators should be able to place anonymous holds on nominees.  I can see the arguments for holds themselves: They allow senators …

AN INANE LOOK AT THE NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER.... Yesterday was the official “National Day of Prayer,” held annually on the first Thursday in May by congressional decree.  The “holiday,” such as it is, was a little more noticeable this year than most because of a recent federal court ruling …

High-Speed Trading Glitch Costs Investors Billions  —  The glitch that sent markets tumbling Thursday was years in the making, driven by the rise of computers that transformed stock trading more in the last 20 years than in the previous 200.  —  The old system of floor traders matching buyers …

Poll: Half of ‘Birthers’ Call It ‘Suspicion’  —  Obama's Birthplace Has Been Subject of Controversy Since Election  —  Fourteen percent of Americans say without prompting that they think Barack Obama was born in another country, rising to one in five when those with no opinion are offered that as a possibility.

Regulator Deferred to Oil Industry on Offshore Rig Safety  —  WASHINGTON — Federal regulators warned offshore rig operators more than a decade ago that they needed to install backup systems to control the giant undersea valves known as blowout preventers, used to cut off the flow of oil from a well in an emergency.

The ‘Woodstock’ of Tea Parties planned for 9/11 anniversary.  —  Last year, the Tea Party movement gathered in Washington, DC for a widely publicized rally on Sept. 12.  Fox News host Glenn Beck, the brains behind the march, implored people to attend by saying that they “may be the only thing that stands between freedom and slavery.”

Bill Targets Citizenship of Terrorists' Allies  —  WASHINGTON — Proposed legislation that would allow the government to revoke American citizenship from people suspected of allying themselves with terrorists set off a legal and political debate Thursday that scrambled some of the usual partisan lines on civil-liberties issues.