here today, folks, new information on the economy on this hour, the unemployment rate in july held steady, 9.5%, that's unchanged from the month before, but adding to a disturbing trend. take a look at this chart, the chart tells everything, it shows unemployment pretty much stuck at some alarming high levels in recent months. in july, the private sector which is where you really want to see these jobs added, added thousands of new jobs but not nearly enough to start to bring the drop in overall unemployment rate to any real encouraging level. now, this comes as one of president obama's top economic advisers will leave her job early next month, we now know. cristina romer, now the second top white house economic adviser to call it quits. james rosen picks up the story for us from the white house. so what are the leading private sector analysts saying today, james, about these july jobs numbers? what's the read on them? >> reporter: well martha, good afternoon. we're hearing from a number of well, bmo capital markets calls ours an ultra slow motion recovery, high free currency economics saying disappointing jobs numbers but not yet double-dip recession territory. let's take a closer look at the labor department's data. the private sector added 71,000 jobs in july, the seventh consecutive month in which private payrolls have grown, but far below the 90,000 that analysts were expecting overall. when you factor in jobs lost in federal, state and local governments, the u.s. economy actually lost 131,000 jobs last month. now, the great recession began in december 2007, over the next two years, '08 and '09, the 3reu69 sec -- private sector lost 8 1/2 million jobs. this year it has recovered fewer than 600,000 of them and close to 15 million people are still looking for work. over just the last year, the economy has continued to grow but at an increasingly slower pace. gross domestic product climbed by 5 percent in the last quarter of 2009, by 3.7% in the first three months of 2010 and by only 2.4% from april to june. a final telling statistic here, martha, is that the advantage number of hours worked rose in july, even as the number of temp workers being hired fell. these are both signs that employers plan to squeeze the employees they already have, rather than engage in new hiring, martha. martha: we've seen reluctance an that front for -- on that front for new jobs. tell us some of the bright spots, how is the white house presenting this picture to america today? >> reporter: well, some sectors doing better than others. the manufacturing sector, for example, added 36,000 jobs in july, for a total of 183,000 jobs this year. president obama, touring a factory here in the district today, called this the most robust seven months of manufacturing growth seen in over a decade. >> we know from studying the lessons of past recessions that climbing out of any recession, much less a hole as deep as this one, takes some time. the road to recovery doesn't follow a straight line. some sectors bounce back faster than others. so what we need to do is keep pushing forward. we can't go backwards. >> reporter: and that's going to be a theme you'll hear from the the and his party as the fall mid-terms approach. we have to keep going forward on the democratic agenda, not backwards to the bush economic polices. as you noted, martha, the chair of the white house council of economic adviserrings -- advisers, dr. cristina romer, resigned today and is going to head back to u.c. berkeley to resume the teachers -- teaching of economicses there. she'll appear live on fox business network a short while from now. martha: we look forward to that. james rosen, thank you very much, james rosen in washington. there is new backlash in the scandal that involves fat cat paychecks for city officials in the town of bell, california. state attorney general jerry brown is outraged about this, knowing that california's pension system knew about these ballooning salaries for years and didn't do a thing. people living there are furious, they have been taking to the streets as they struggle to make their own ends meet. this raises even more concerns about the embattled pension system and how they're going to continue to pay all these people after they retire. trace gallagher is following this story for us from our west coast newsroom. good to see you trace >> reporter: you too, martha. the california public retirement system is known as calpers, in charge of running the pension fund and in charge of policing the pension fund. apparently they were not doing a very good job of the latter, because documents have come to light that they knew about the salaries in bell, california. remember, this is an organization that is supposed to stop these huge pay increases because those will end up being huge pensions. but four years ago, they got evidence that robert rizzo, the city manager of bell, california, was getting a 47 percent pay hike and calpers did nothing. they notified no one. here's why it's such a big deal to taxpayers. that was his annual salary, $787,000. now, look at his pension. $659,000. because it's based on the last year of your salary. he's 55 years old. which means, if he lives to be 85, the state is on the hook for some $20 million. attorney general jerry brown, who, by the way, as a democrat, is running for governor, had this to say, and i'm quoting here, a 47 percent increase in salary should have set off alarm bells. that kind of jump in pay is shocking and completely unacceptable. calpers should have told someone and the attorney general's office would have been a good place to start. the state treasurer, bill lockear, has chimed in, saying he wants an investigation of calpers and is looking now at putting new rules in place on the california public employees retirement system. i mean, the state is in financial disarray, it's a disaster here, and critics say this is part of the reason, martha, why it's in such bad shape. martha: a testament to those folks out in the streets because they've gotten attention at high levels in california because of all of this. trace, thank you very much, we'll talk to you in a bit. there is a new front in the immigration battle we need to tell you about, virginia is now dealing with a heated debate of its own. the american civil liberties union is now urging police to ignore state attorney general ken cuccinelli's opinion. we told you about this last week. he says that police have the authority when they stop somebody to check on their immigration status if they feel that it's necessary to do so in the line of duty during those stops. the aclu sent a letter to the police department saying that the opinion of the state a.g. is legally flawed and should be disregarded by those police. so far, we've heard no response from the police. and there are new developments in the effort to stop smugglers or terrorists from entering the united states. the senate has approved an extra $600 million to beef up security along the u.s.-mexico border, the funds will be used to hire 1500 new enforcement agents and further use of unmanned drones for surveillance there. some of that money will also go toward the construction of operating bases along the border. not a none deal yet. the house must approve the legislation before president obama can sign it into law, but no doubt we're learning about this subject,it latest on capitol hill. >> this is another big story you need to know about today, a dangerous change at the top of al-qaeda. the fbi is now saying that they believe that the new chief of global operations lived in the united states for many years when he was growing up, this man, whose name you probably heard if you've been following u.s. antiterrorism efforts, he has risen now to a very senior position, and it marks the first time that a leader so familiar, really, with america and the way of life here is actually the person who's in charge of planning attacks on this country and in other plays around the world. david lee miller has been looking into this today, he joins me live from the new york city newsroom. tell us more about shurkijumah. >> reporter: martha, he has been and the radar of homeland security for many, many years, but now he is draw ago great deal of attention because he's believed to be the chief of operations for al-qaeda. in other words, he's the one who is going to be providing them with the plans to attack the u.s. and other western facilities. and what's especially troubling here, as you underscore, is that he lived in the united states for many, many years, precisely, we are told, 15 years in the united states. he even had in his possession at one time a green card. he was a legal resident of the united states. that means when he had that green card he could have left and returned to the u.s. at will. he was born in saudi arabia, he is a citizen of guyana, most recently we know he lived in south florida, about one hour's drive north of miami, we know that he understands american culture very well, he speaks english, like an american, and his family, in fact, still lives north of miami. a reporter talked to his mother a short time argues and she said this boy would never do evil stuff, he is not an evil person, he loved this occurrence he's never had a problem with the u.s. but she then went on to say that he disliked the fact that there was alcohol in the u.s., that there was a problem with drugs in the u.s., and he didn't like the fact that women wore skimpy clothes. let's be clear, what drove this ideology was not fashion-based. according to the fbi, he was very much disturbed by what he perceived as unfair attacks against muslims in chechnya and bosnia, he then went on to training camps in afghanistan and elsewhere and martha, he studied the use of explosives, as well as automatic weapons. so he is indeed a very dangerous individual who understands the u.s. all too well. martha: and the people that planned the new york city subway bombings are said to have had contact with him. there's a number of reasons to have watched him over the years and now he seems to have, by process of elimination to a large part, taken over this lead role in terms of strategy, the one that chald -- khalid sheikh mohammed used to inhabit. david lee miller, thank you very much, we'll have more on this story in a little while. now this, the 911 call from the scene of a mass murder. police say that this man shot eight neem cold blood. but that rampage apparently not enough. the killer's chilling final wish in his own words. we will play it for you. >> and president obama made a political gamble with your tax dollars that the stimulus package would bring down unemployment numbers. the new numbers showing that it is not working as of yet, although they say they believe there are signs of encouragement. so what does that mean for democrats in november? allan coombs weighs in. martha: some disappointing economic news, new numbers out that shows we are far from shakeing this recession off and the jobless numbers stayed at 9 1/2% for the overall unemployment rate, more companies appear to be shying away from hiring. this is the white house's reaction, listen to the president: >> july marked the seventh straight month of job creation in the private sector. july job numbers reflect in part expected losses related to the census winding down. but the fact is we've now added private sector jobs every month this year, instead of losing them, as we did for the first seven months of last year. and that's a good sign. martha: you know allan coombs, he's our next guest, host of allan coombs radio show. allan, good to have you here today. >> hello. martha: these numbers, from everything that you're looking at, we've added jobs in this sector, everybody looks at the private sector, that's where you want to see the jobs coming new york the numbers added today were 31,000 below what most economists were expecting to see today. so he's right, they're headed in the positive direction but if we stay at this level of adding, we're never going to get out of this hole. >> you can't stay at this level, clearly there has to be movement up and there has too be on -- to be movement up to get democrats reelected. a lot of going to happen from now and 2012, everybody says look the at daily numbers, he's down, oh my god, it's early to get nervous about that kind of stuff. martha: i guess you could say that, i guess some folks have been saying we've been waiting too long already. there's a change in the deck chairs at the white house, cristina romer is out, on top of peter orszag's departure. is that a good move? >> i'm concerned about it in that cristina romer -- apparently what's been reported is she didn't feel 14e6s being heard, had access to the president, larry summers had his ear. martha: i heard she was in there every day. >> she wanted a bigger stimulus package, wanted to get more money out there faster which i think would have been a good idea. it's partly because of what the political climate, republicans keep holding him back, and had he been able to do more, a bigger stimulus package -- >> martha: so you want to be even deeper in debt? >> temporarily, absolutely. you have to spend to get it back. you need to put money into the economy fast, do a very big stimulus package and in terms of creating jobs there's only so much the white house can do unless you do a works administration project like roosevelt did. martha: there is something they can do, that's what the other side would argue and that's what many people might hope that you'd see more of this philosophy coming into the white house as they make these personnel changes, that if you cut taxes and you allow people to keep more of that they earn, you find companies in the position to start to want to hire again. i talk to a lot of small business oarns and what you hear is they're paralyzed, they don't want to do anything, they don't know how much health care is going to cost, how high the tax increases will get. >> it was tried during reagan, george w. bush, look how the economy was left during george w. bush. in terms of decifit hawk, those that want to reduce the deaf at this time, there is a price attached to lower taxes. it adds to the decifit. martha: not necessarily. those people have more money to spend, they put more into businesses, they put more into the economy and ef time they do those things they get taxed. >> but you claim that spending money increasings the decifit right away, so -- >> martha: new york city private individuals and private companies spending money, so they can put more in their pocket, the argument is. >> you're not hearing me. i feel like cristina romer. adding the stimulus money raises deficits, so does lowering taxes, it has an immediate effect on creating deficits. it's the same thing. martha: temporarily it may but a lot of folks would argue in the end it's a better way to do it. >> i'm arguing that the stimulus is a better way to do it. martha: let me ask you this. >> we were left that way by bush bay of taxes. >> if cristina romer wasn't listening and she was of the paul kru gman policy that the president has failed because -- >> i don't think we've failed in a big way. i think he could have done more faster. martha: there's a lot of people who on that side of the fence who believe that he really needs to have thrown a lot more money at the problem and that's why he's not getting better results. who do you want to see come into that job? >> i don't know. that's up to the president. i'm not a political -- i'm not an economist. i'm sure he'll -- >> martha: because i'm hearing that austin gloup may be the person they move up and he's also of that similar line of thinking. >> look, it's good to have different points of view, he certainly -- >> martha: at what point do you watch the numbers and say this isn't the right way to go? >> around october 2012. i'm being a little silly but you can't look at the number every single day, it's a marathon, not a sprint and the president can't govern worrying the daily numbers. you've got to look at the bigger picture. he is doing what he elected to do, he ran on change, he's had change. change will have a hard time dealing with change and he's doing what he feels is right regardless of the poll numbers. if he reacted to the poll numbers, you'd say he's responding to the -- responding to the polls, not doing what he needs to be doing. >> martha: we will see. i think the ultimate poll is the election. >> that's correct. martha: if he doesn't turn these numbers around, and i sympathize with him to this extent, the president has very few tools in his toolbox with the economy. >> but we don't know what's going to happen in 2012, so much can happen in a couple of years. who's he going to run against. republicans have to say people in the south, there's a george work burks, john cornyn says george w. bush's stock has gone up, if that's all they got, they're welcome to it, it would be great for democrats. martha: allan coombs, thank you very much, sir, thank you very much. virginia lawmakers demanding answers today after police say that a drunk driver caused a crash that killed a catholic nun and injured others with her. the suspect is this man, an illegal immigrant, he has two prior d.u.i. convictions who was waiting to be deported, we don't know what was taking so long and the big question, sadly, is why wasn't he. and police nab the man who left a woman helpless in her own home, but what this clever woman did that may have saved her life. >> i was using my toe as the mouse and then had with my other toe the end of my power cord, clamped in between my toe, because that was the small point, because my big toe was too big to hit individual keys. martha: police in connecticut, releasing the chilling 911 tape that was made by omar authority yorntion the man who killed eight of his coworkers at a beer distribution company. he made this call in the middle of this rampage. and he tried to explain his actions. listen. >> this is omar authorition, the shooter over here in manchester. >> yes, where are you, sir? >> i'm in the building. you probably want to know the reason why i shot this place up. it's a racist place. >> yeah, i understand that. >> they treat me bad over here, and treat all the other black employees bad over here, too. so i had to take it into my own hands and handle the problem. i wish i could have gotten more of the people. martha: just chilling. and it's such a tragedy that happened at that building. he went on, then, to kill one more person after that, himself. company officials say that authorition never filed any complaints while he worked there of anybody treating him in a racist way, and they are devastated by what happened there. we told you this story a few days back. the case of a woman who apparently used her toes to get help following a home invasion. she tapped a message on her computer with other tootsies and after the bandit tied her up, we were all scratching our heads won ring how this could have happened. we've got a big new development, now. trace gallagher, trying it out at home, seeing if this is actually possible and he joins us from the newsroom from l.a. hey trace! >> the big news is they finally have a suspect in custody. i hate to be the first one to say the toe tapper fingered this guy, but the truth is she picked him out of a police lineup, doncasius jackson andes charged with armed robbery and aggravated assault, he broke into 39-year-old amy wyndham's house, he robbed her, pistol whipped honor and tied her hands to the bed post of her bed and she stayed like that for the next five hours, then her alarm clock went off and he put his feet over her head and she turned off the alarm clock and thought i'm pretty good at my feet so, she saw her computer at the fo