Most Recent Posts

The Associated Press is quoting a Mexican government official as saying six people in the hospital for possible radiation exposure are suspects in this week's theft of a shipment of radioactive cobalt-60.

The unnamed official tells the AP that the suspects were arrested on Thursday and were taken to the general hospital in Pachuca for observation and testing.

The news agency quotes Hidalgo state Health Minister Pedro Luis Noble said none are in grave condition and may be released soon.

As we reported earlier this week, a white Volkswagen truck carrying the medical-grade cobalt-60 was stolen on Monday at a gas station in Mexico. On Wednesday, officials recovered the "extremely dangerous" chemical hours after finding its empty container.

As The Associated Press reports:

"The theft triggered alerts in six Mexican states and Mexico City, as well as international notifications to the U.S. and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. It raised concerns that the material could have been stolen to make a dirty bomb, a conventional explosive that disseminates radioactive material. But Mexican officials said that the thieves seemed to have targeted the cargo truck with moveable platform and crane, and likely didn't know about the dangerous cargo."

Here's something you haven't heard in years: The U.S. economy had a great week.

In recent days, government and industry reports have showed auto and new-home sales are surging, manufacturing is strengthening and the trade deficit is narrowing. And the U.S. growth rate shot to 3.6 percent in the third quarter — much better than the 2.8 percent originally reported.

Now for the best news of all: the Labor Department said Friday that employers created 203,000 jobs last month, sending the unemployment rate tumbling by three-tenths of a point to 7 percent, the lowest level since 2008.

The Labor report also showed that in November, companies created lots of full-time positions, paid their employees more and attracted discouraged workers back into the labor force.

And this was really encouraging: The job gains were spread over lots of industries, including those that pay more, such as manufacturing and construction. Manufacturers added 27,000 workers, pushing total factory employment to more than 12 million for the first time since 2009. Construction companies added 17,000 workers, a healthy number.

"The November jobs report was quite strong with jobs, wages and average hours worked all up," Stuart Hoffman, chief economist for PNC Financial Services, said in his assessment. "The jobs report is very good news for the American economy and for business profits."

Another government report on Friday, this one from the Commerce Department, showed that personal spending rose 0.3 percent in October from the previous month. Because consumer spending is a key driver of the U.S. economy, that was a positive sign too, especially given the negative disruptions caused by a government shutdown in October.

But since this was a real week, and not a dream sequence, there had to be at least one downbeat note. The Commerce Department said personal income slipped 0.1 percent in October, largely because of a decline in farm incomes.

Planet Money

The Job Market Is Still Awful, In 3 Graphs

The final draw of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil was announced Friday. The U.S. team will face Germany, Portugal, and Ghana in Group G; host Brazil will face world No. 16 Croatia in Group A. Only the top two teams of each group advance to the next round.

The draw puts the U.S., currently ranked as the world's No. 14 team, in the same group with the world's No. 2 (Germany) and No. 5 (Portugal). Ghana is ranked 24th.

The draw determines the makeup of eight groups of four teams that will play each other in the first round. Every World Cup usually has a "group of death" — an especially competitive collection of teams that can bounce a highly regarded team in the first round.

An argument could be made that the U.S. is in that group this time around. But another group that looks to be especially tough is Group D, featuring three previous champions — Italy (currently No. 7), Uruguay (No. 6), and England (No. 13) — along with Costa Rica (No. 31).

As the sun rose over South Africa on Friday, the country began to come to terms with the loss of Nelson Mandela, who President Jacob Zuma called the father of the nation.

South Africans settled on the news with a mixture of "grief and joy," New York Times correspondent Lydia Polgreen told Morning Edition. Like they had done since Mandela got sick in July, they gathered in front of his home in Johannesburg's northern suburb of Houghton to pay their respects.