politics now dirty from a fraud trial. he walks free and is now seeking redemption. i don t think god is through with me. i really believe he thinks there s still some good things i can do. this morning what s next for john edwards. graduation scare. a bear on the loose in bakersfield. this 120-pound bear startling students and stopping the ceremony. plus we have a champion of the 2012 national spelling bee. queen bee. spelling ace. 14-year-old girl from san diego capturing the national title with the word guetapens. what does it mean? i m not going to tell you right now. newsroom starts right now. good morning. happy friday to you. let s get straight to the jobs report. not such great news because it is shaping up to be another brutal day on wall street. stock futures point to a huge negative open after disappointing news on the job market. just 69,000 jobs were created last month missing expectations of more than twice that number. the unemployment rate, well,
last quarter. let s break it all down with stuart varney of the fox business network. let s tackle these weekly claims numbers first. reporter: may i suggest the real headline is that 1.9% economic growth rate for the overall economy. what this means with the unemployment claims number. for the third summer in a row the economy is weakening. we went from 3% to 2% and now we are in the 1% range. that is a clearly weakening economy. that s very bad news for the president s reelection campaign. now look at the jobs picture. that s equally worrying for the president. we have a spike in people claiming unemployment benefits. layoffs in the month of may, private sector job creation also
prison where he s been held since 2009. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. not only the null better one issue for most americans, but also the issue that will win the white house in november. the latest jobs report is not nearly what the obama administration was hoping for. it s given the republicans fresh ammunition. we re covering all the angles, beginning with our white house correspondent dan lothian. what s the reaction over there to the latest jobs numbers? reporter: well, aides and the president himself point out when you compare the situation did now to the depth of the recession, progress is being made, but they also note the obvious that there s still a lot of people out of work, still a lot of work to be done. on that point, republicans agree with the president, but they believe it s time for someone else to try to fix the problem. in a good news/bad news scenario, president obama offered americans the good news first. our economy created 130,0
getting better. reporter: so if retail sales are sluggish if not spending, does that mean the jobs picture is getting bleaker? we ll get an answer with april unemployment figures, important because the president has had a string of several good months. ed, thanks. stocks were down today, dow lost 62. s&p 500 dropped 11. nasdaq was off 36 points. mortgage giant freddie mac is asking for $19 million in additional federal aid after posting a first quarter loss. it s the smallest the company has ever made. taxpayers have spent $170 billion bailing out government controlled freddie mac and sister corporation fannie mae just since 2008. here is a prosecutor, now a swing state governor. he could be a vice president. we ll meet him later. up next a tug of war between
unfolding diplomatic crisis. and why do women only make 77 cents on the dollar compared to men? i m wolf blitzer, you re in the situation room. tomorrow marks one year since the u.s. mission that killed osama bin laden and today the terror leader s name is popping up out there on the campaign trail. the romney and obama campaigns are each trying to paint their candidate as the toughest, but for team romney, it s a built of an uphill battle right now. our national political correspondent jim acosta is watching all this unfold. what s going on in this fight? for months, mitt romney has been on offensive. he in this debate over the killing of osama bin laden, romney has been on defense, just the way the president wants it. as mitt romney was shaking hands in new hampshire, he was asked the question, he had given the same order to kill osama bin laden. even jimmy carter would have given that order. cnn breaking news. tonight i can report to the american people a