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Weekly Jobless Claims Hits Lowest Level in 5 Decades

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week fell to its lowest level in more than 50 years, according to the latest report from the U.S. Department of Labor.  In the week ending April 25, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claimswas 189,000, a decrease of 26,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised up by 1,000 from 214,000 to 215,000. The 4-week moving average was 207,500, a decrease of 3,500 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised up by 250 from 210,750 to 211,000. The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2 percent for the week ending April 18, unchanged from the previous week’s unrevised rate. Weekly Jobless Claims Hits Lowest Level in 5 Decades – tEDmag

US Unemployment Hovers at Historically Low Levels

 The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits dipped to 245,000 last week, hovering at historically low levels, the Labor Department said Wednesday. The number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits the week of June 7 slid to 1.95 million. Weekly unemployment claims are a proxy for layoffs and mostly have stayed within a healthy band of 200,000 to 250,000 since the economy recovered from a brief but painful COVID-19 recession in 2020, which temporarily wiped out millions of jobs. US Unemployment Hovers at Historically Low Levels – tEDmag

That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind – The last time human beings headed moonward was on the Apollo 17 flight that launched Dec. 7, 1972—before any of the Artemis II crew members were born. Today’s crew will not land on the moon—they won’t even orbit the moon. But they will whip around the lunar far side, on a shakedown mission test-flying the Orion spacecraft. This is essential preparatory work for achieving NASA’s bigger lunar goals. Next year there will be another test flight in low Earth orbit during the flight of Artemis III, followed by up to two moon landings by Artemis IV and V in 2028, and annual landings thereafter. Unlike the Apollo program, Artemis aims not just for the so-called flags-and-footprints model of short, one- to three-day stays on the moon, but for a long-term presence at a long-term moon base in the south lunar pole, where deposits of ice can provide drinkable water, breathable oxygen, and oxygen-hydrogen rocket fuel. Very much like the Apollo program, Artemis finds itself in a closely watched moon race, not with the old Soviet Union this time, but with China, which has announced its intention to have astronauts on the moon by 2030. The U.S. is not going it alone this time, however. While Apollo was an entirely American enterprise, Artemis flies under the flag of 60 countries, signatories to the Artemis Accords, an international pact whose members vow to support the peaceful exploration of space and contribute money, modules, and astronauts to the Artemis cause. Artemis II Has Launched. Here’s Everything You Need to Know