U.S. regains jobs lost in recession
U.S. regains jobs lost in recession
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy has reached a milestone: It has finally regained all the private-sector jobs it lost during the Great Recession.
Yet it took a painfully slow six years, and unemployment remains stubbornly high at 6.7 percent.
The comeback figures were contained in a government report Friday that showed a solid if unspectacular month of job growth in March.
Businesses and nonprofits shed 8.8 million jobs during the 2007-09 recession; they have since hired 8.9 million. But because the population has grown since the big downturn, the economy is still millions of jobs short of where it should be by now.
Also, government jobs are still 535,000 below the level they were at when the recession began in December 2007. That’s why the overall economy still has 422,000 fewer jobs than it did then.
As a result, most analysts were hardly celebrating the milestone.
Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, called it a “pretty meaningless benchmark economically.”
“The potential labor force is growing all the time, so the private sector should have added millions of jobs over the last six-plus years,” she said.
Heroin mix kills dozens in nation
POINT PLEASANT, N.J. (AP) — On an icy night in January, a man entered a grocery store here, walked past the displays of cake mix and paper towels, and went into the bathroom, where he injected himself with heroin.
Hours later, the man was found dead in the bathroom with a needle still in his arm, authorities said. They believe he was one of more than 80 people across the country who have died after injecting heroin laced with fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opiate.
As the number of people who use, and fatally overdose on, heroin has risen in recent years, authorities are seeing the return of an alarming development: heroin that, often unbeknownst to the user, is spiked with fentanyl.
Fentanyl is a narcotic that is typically administered to people in chronic pain, including end-stage cancer patients. It is also used as an anesthetic. It is considered 80 times more powerful than morphine and can kill by inhibiting breathing.
“The dealers push this as being a super high, which it is, but it’s also lethal,” said Ellen Unterwald, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the Temple University School of Medicine. Users typically don’t know how much fentanyl is mixed in, and she said just a small amount can be fatal because the drug is so potent.
“A very small amount can exert a very significant effect,” said Eric Strain, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and Research at Johns Hopkins University.
Paula Deen shuts embattled eatery
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Paula Deen and her younger brother, Bubba, have shut off the fish fryer and locked the doors at the Savannah seafood restaurant that served as the backdrop to a workplace discrimination lawsuit that stained the celebrity cook’s reputation.
Deen and Bubba Hiers co-owned Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House for a decade before the abrupt closure Thursday.
A spokesman for the Deen family, Jaret Kellers, issued a statement saying Hiers closed the restaurant “to explore development options for the waterfront property on which the restaurant is located.” Kellers said no specific plans have been made yet.
Orange-and-white barricades blocked the entrance to Uncle Bubba’s on Friday, and there were no signs of life outside. The Savannah Morning News reported employees collected severance checks in the parking lot Thursday.
The restaurant closed less than a year after Deen was stung by her admission in a deposition that she had used racial slurs in the past.
She was questioned by attorneys representing a former Uncle Bubba’s manager who claimed she was subjected to racial slurs and sexual innuendo by Hiers. The suit was settled last August, but not before Deen lost her Food Network show and some lucrative endorsement deals.
“I feel bad for her because I believe she and her family are good people,” said Jamie Morgan of Woodstock, Ga., who had dinner reservations at Deen’s still-bustling flagship restaurant, the Lady &Sons, and shopped at the gift shop next door.
Aside from Uncle Bubba’s, Deen’s fortunes have appeared to be improving recently. In February she announced a deal with a private investment firm that’s dedicating at least $75 million to helping her make a comeback. Soon after, Deen rolled out plans for a $20 million restaurant in the Smoky Mountains tourist hub of Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
Even before the lawsuit, Uncle Bubba’s was already on shaky financial footing. In her May 17 deposition, Deen said both Uncle Bubba’s and the Lady &Sons were funded by Paula Deen Enterprises, the overarching family business. Attorneys asked Deen if she was aware that her chief financial officer had told them Uncle Bubba’s owed Paula Deen Enterprises about $300,000.
“No, that wouldn’t surprise me,” Deen told them.
While Deen’s money kept the doors open and her fame attracted customers, she had little to do with Uncle Bubba’s daily operations. She told attorneys that she worked in the kitchen for just six weeks after the restaurant opened in 2004, before her television show and book signings diverted her attention.
Nancy Dauner of Cincinnati recalled eating at Uncle Bubba’s three years ago only because it was the lunch stop on a Paula Deen bus tour. Her tour group was herded past plenty of empty tables to a small dining room in the back, where she posed for a photo with Hiers.
“Bubba was there and he was a nice guy,” Dauner said Friday after lunch at the Lady &Sons.
During the deposition, Deen defended her brother despite the restaurant’s struggles.
“Is he perfect? No. Am I perfect? No,” Deen said. “Could somebody out there run my business better than myself? Absolutely. But it’s still my business.”