he said he s created. the labor department counts 522,000 jobs. the adp jobs report is a private sector tally, and it shows 1.2 million jobs since january. two problems with that figure, adp is an estimate and uses a much smaller sample. he s counting all the jobs. january 20th is when he came into office. u.s. auto sales fell for the fifth straight month. car sales are slowing after seven years of increases and automakers are trimming production and jobs now to save money. for example, gm has cut about a thousand jobs since november. the president often talks about american automakers adding production and how important this is to manufacturing pace in this country, after seven years, maybe starting to see the sales peak. we ll closely watch that. all right.
400,000 since april. that is too high. economists say to make a dent in the unemployment rate. federal authorities have charged a young massachusetts physics grad in a terror plot. agents say rezwan ferdaus planned to use remote control airlines to hit the u.s. capitol and the pentagon. they would have been filled with a plastic explosive. the fbi says that they arrested him, he s an american citizen, after a lengthy undercover operation. john mccain leading a delegation of republican senators on a trip to libya today. the group has been meeting with libya s national transition council, the rebel leaders that drove moammar gadhafi from power. a spokesman says the council knows gadhafi s general location. senator mccain talked to cnn from tripoli. i think that the people of libya, the ones that i ve talked to, would like to catch him alive. they would like to see him on trial for the horrendous crimes that he has committed. every few days they come across another grave.
united states. they look at how they mitigate this, whether or not they retaliate. the idea is to see whether or not we re ready if something like that occurs. jeanne, thank you. reporter: you bet. top stories for you now. first-time claims for jobless benefits slipped sharply last week. the labor department counts 440,000. the number of continuing unemployment claims also took a noticeable dip. south africans celebrating nelson mandela, 20 years ago today he walked out of prison setting off events that ended white minority rule in south africa and his election as president. mandela, a frail 91 now, has largely retired from public life. endeavour astronauts step out to hook up a new module on the space station. they will also install a bay window on the space station to give the crew a panoramic view of earth. airports are ready for business, but some airlines aren t flying today.