breaking news

CNN is reporting that an arrest has been made in the bombing of Monday's Boston Marathon. The suspect was identified via numerous videotapes. No further details are available yet, but a nation is anxiously waiting to see who could cause such a horrible act of carnage and for what reason.

UPDATE (2:40pm edt)

Now they are saying no arrest has been made and Boston Police just sent out this tweet

Despite reports to the contrary there has not been an arrest in the Marathon attack.

— Boston Police Dept. (@Boston_Police) April 17, 2013

Sounds like another day of "no one knowing".

Yesterday NewsCorp unveiled their new subscription based iPhone app. This was apparently huge news for the people at FOX:

But at 11:00 AM Eastern Time, while MSNBC and CNN ran breaking news alerts and reported live from Cairo, Fox and Fox Business reported live from the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan to bring viewers the unveiling ceremony for News Corp latest product, an iPad newspaper called “The Daily.” Fox News aired a full half hour of the promotional event, featuring NewsCorp chairman Rupert Murdoch giving a hard sell of his latest media foray.

After all, nothing else was going on at that time yesterday. The people in Egypt were all out singing Kum By Yah, while the people in this country basked in summer like weather and Australia had clear skies and no wind.

In other NewsCorp news, the continued new media failure of Rupert’s company hit a new high as they look to offload MySpace.

Just got this breaking news alert from the Washington Post:

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, fell ill at the witness table during a Senate hearing Tuesday and had to be escorted from the room.

Petraeus was listening to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) express concern about the direction of the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan when he appeared to faint. Aides immediately rushed to help him, and he was led out of the hearing room.

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said, he 'appears to be doing very well.'

Hopefully he is doing well, but I would be amiss if I didn't point out the irony that he fainted while listening to John McCain speak. That is priceless.

There is some mixed news on the jobs front. In April there were 290,000 new jobs created, but unemployment also jumped to 9.9%:

More confident employers stepped up job creation in April, expanding payrolls by 290,000, the most in four years. The jobless rate rose to 9.9 percent as people streamed back into the market looking for work.

The hiring of 66,000 temporary government workers to conduct the census helped overall payroll growth last month. However, private employers - the backbone of the economy - boosted jobs, too. They added a surprisingly strong 231,000 positions last month, also the most since March 2006, the Labor Department reported Friday.

I like how the WaPo is trying to put a nail in a right wing talking point from the get go. They acknowledge the temporary government workers for the census, but also point out that private employers also added the most jobs in 4 years.

But here is what really gets me:

The reports came ahead of the Labor Department's monthly jobs figures, scheduled for release Friday. The April data are expected to show a gain of 187,000 jobs, compared to an increase of 162,000 jobs in March, with the unemployment rate holding at 9.7%.

So we added over 100,000 more jobs than the economists were predicting. I wonder how that will play with Fox News, who put out a breaking news alert yesterday saying the jobs report won’t meet expectations? Sounds like they got that one totally wrong, which isn’t all that uncommon for Fox.

Just now getting breaking news about excerpts of the SOTU address tonight. One of the things President Obama is going to seek is a repeal of the horrible DADT policy.

(Sorry for the lack of posting today. I pulled an all nighter last night moving C&L to their new home)

A very grim assessment from the prime minister of Haiti:

Hundreds of thousands of people have died in Haiti's earthquake, the prime minister told CNN Wednesday.

Haitian authorities said the powerful quake destroyed most of the capital city of Port-au-Prince.

A top envoy called it a "major catastrophe."

Haiti's first lady, Elisabeth Debrosse Delatour, reported that "most of Port-au-Prince is destroyed" and that many government buildings had collapsed, Haiti's ambassador to the United States, Raymond Joseph, told CNN Wednesday morning. Delatour said President René Préval was all right, Joseph reported.

Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, is in total ruins. Here’s a video from CNN:

UPDATE:

Just got this really grim breaking news alert:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) Leading Haitian senator: Deaths may reach 500,000 based on destruction, but no firm figures.

This segment from Morning Meeting is an absolute must watch. Betsy McCaughey can only bring herself to tout bogus points on health care reform and try to avoid actual answers, which gets Dylan Ratigan going. I really thought someone would walk off set during this.

I just noticed this article via AmericaBlog:

Some Democrats, led by Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), are pushing for an official censure of Wilson, with a floor vote on the resolution coming as early as Tuesday.

And the Politico has it wrong. James Clyburn is not asking for censure of Wilson. Instead he is one of the Democrats asking for the much less severe punishment of a “resolution of disapproval” (for more on that check out Greg Sargent’s post). Here is a video of James Clyburn appearing on Hardball last week to discuss his desires in handling Wilson: