Cheat Sheet

New figures in Friday's jobs report from the Labor Department indicate that the broadest measure of unemployment—including those unemployed who have looked for work in the last four weeks, discouraged workers, and the "underemployed" (part-time workers looking for full-time work)—has hit its highest recorded rate. More than one in six, or 17.5 percent of workers, are unemployed or underemployed, and in some hard-hit states like California, Arizona, and Michigan, the figure can get as high as 20 percent. The current figure is almost a half-percent higher than the previously recorded high of 17.1 percent in December 1982, even though the official jobless rate remains lower than its peak in the 1980s. Though this measurement isn't available for the Great Depression, it likely would have been higher than 30 percent. During this recession, there were fewer layoffs than expected—around the same number as occurred during the relatively light recession of 2001—but the hiring rate has plummeted, meaning that finding new work is extremely difficult. Most economists believe that the joblessness rate will fall next year, thanks to the work of White House and the Fed.

American and Afghan authorities are investigating a possible case of friendly fire in the Badghis province in the western part of Afghanistan, a remote area with a high concentration of Taliban. A search team was hunting for two American paratroopers who had disappeared two days earlier when they were trying to recover airdropped supplies that landed in a river. Heavy fighting broke out Friday, and eight Afghans were killed and 17 wounded, as were five American soldiers. Afghanistan’s defense ministry says the casualties likely happened during a NATO air attack. American officials would only say that an investigation was under way. Airstrikes have worsened already tense relations between NATO and the Afghan government. On Saturday, Kabul pushed back against U.N. recommendations for eliminating corruption and the influence of warlords, saying they were an infringement on Afghan national sovereignty.

As if being caught between the Phillies and the Yankees weren't enough, New Jersey now has another battle to look forward to: gay marriage. After the issue went down in defeat in Maine Tuesday, activists on both sides are eyeing the state as the next battleground in the fight over same-sex matrimony as the Democrat-majority legislature is pressured to legalize gay marriage before Republican Chris Christie—who opposes the idea—replaces Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine. New Jersey already recognizes same-sex civil unions, but activists remain unsatisfied with the separate term. Maggie Gallagher, president of prominent anti-gay marriage group the National Organization for Marriage, says, "New Jersey is at the very top of our list," (though some gay-rights advocates have indicated their focus is shifting to other issues, like the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would ban gender- or sexuality-based discrimination at work). Gallagher also said her group will back anti-gay marriage candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire, two states that recently recognized same-sex marriages. Leslie Gabel-Brett of the gay-rights organization Lambda Legal said that while Maine felt like a setback, "We now have five states where same-sex couples can marry. Six years ago, we had none."

Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP Photo

Whatever you call him, Lloyd Blankfein says he’s just a banker “doing God’s work.” The Sunday Times profiles money-making machine Goldman Sachs, and the result is maddening, inspiring, or amusing, depending on where you fall on the populist-rage scale. The newspaper says that for Blankfein, Goldman’s CEO, “the credit crunch has rekindled his innate passion for moneymaking.” Learn how the bank makes its money and how its alums end up with choice political appointments, all in their own words: "We didn’t f*** up like the other guys… So, now we’ve got a bigger and richer pot to piss in." “We don’t club baby seals. We club babies." Adds a rival, "They’re a clever gang—of thugs." Oddest factoid: Goldmanites must check their voicemail frequently for Blankfein’s “mind bullet” messages—as well as those of his wife, who is officially an executive office, but unofficially the camp counselor.

As soon as next week, and after months of negotiations, Russia and the U.S. may sign a successor to the most extensive nuclear-weapons treaty before it expires December 5. National Security Adviser Jim Jones’ trip to Moscow late last month is what has fueled the diplomatic optimism—Jones offered a package of proposals called the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, and the Russians reacted positively, if not formally. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday that the two countries “have every chance” to sign a treaty by the year’s end. Nailing down a replacement for the expiring 1991 treaty is a key first step in President Obama’s arms-control agenda, and as the December deadline loomed, analysts had feared a lapse in the complex procedures that verify both sides conformed to the rules. The new START agreement will contain modest cuts in the number of deployed warheads each side is allowed. The new ceiling will be 1,500 to 1,675 city-annihilators for each nation, down from the 1,700 to 2,200 agreed to seven years ago.

Her love don't cost a thing—but trying to market home footage of J.Lo "in a revealing lack of clothing, and in sexual situations" will. Jennifer Lopez is suing ex-husband Ojani Noa (the two were married in 1997 and divorced in 1998) for $10 million, claiming that Noa has plans for a movie (titled, creatively, How I Married Jennifer Lopez: The J.Lo and Ojani Noa Story) that would directly violate their confidentiality agreement. The lawsuit further asserts that Noa wants to sell more than 11 hours of video footage of the pop singer, some of which, she was told, is from their honeymoon and shows Lopez "in sexual situations." Lopez’s lawyer says he was told by a producer working with her ex-husband that Noa had a contract with TMZ for the video, a charge TMZ denies.

When it comes to criminal justice, the U.S. has long been the renegade of the developed world. It's the only Western nation that allows the death penalty, and until four years ago, it was one of only eight nations that executed juveniles. (The others were Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Yemen, Pakistan, Iran, China, and the Congo.) But a New York Times report sheds light on another American exception: In the entire world, just over 100 people are serving life sentences without parole for crimes they committed as minors in which nobody died—and all of them are in the United States. Even more stunning: 77 of them are in Florida, a state that enacted tough anti-crime laws in the 1990s when, the state attorney general says, juvenile crime rates soared, and the image of the teenage "super-predator" took hold. On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear from two of Florida's juvenile offenders who say their sentences amount to cruel and unusual punishment, but some state legislators are unrepentant. “Sometimes a 15-year-old has a tremendous appreciation for right and wrong,” said Republican State Representative William D. Snyder, chairman of the House’s Criminal and Civil Justice Policy Council.

Kevin Wolf / AP Photo

Is a Republican leader actually standing up to Rush Limbaugh or is another apology inevitable? Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), the only Jewish Republican member of Congress, went after the conservative radio giant in an interview with Bloomberg News for comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler, who Limbaugh said in a recent broadcast "also ruled by dictate." Said Cantor: "Do I condone the mention of Hitler in any discussion about politics? No, I don't, because obviously that is something that conjures up images that frankly are not, I think, very helpful." A spokesman for Cantor also decried a poster at an anti-health-care rally attended by Republican leaders in Washington earlier this week, which graphically compared Holocaust victims to Americans under Democrats' health-care plan. Previous Republican leaders who have criticized Limbaugh for going too far, most notably RNC Chairman Michael Steele, have apologized to the radio host within days.

While a crowd of people looked on, Abas Hussein Abdirahman was stoned to death for having confessed to adultery in Islamic court in Southern Somalia. An eyewitness told the BBC that the 33-year-old “was screaming and blood was pouring from his head during the stoning. After seven minutes he stopped moving." His pregnant girlfriend will not be killed until she gives birth. A 13-year-old girl was killed for adultery further south last year. Human-rights groups said she’d been raped. It’s been 18 years since Somalia has had a functioning government.

Kike Calvo via AP Photo

Efforts to protect Central African elephants from poachers are turning humans into an endangered species instead, the Los Angeles Times' Robyn Dixon reports. While the likable pachyderms are protected for their value in attracting tourism, local farmers in Zambia say the creatures are a constant danger, destroying crops and even killing locals by stamping their huts without warning. Villager Muyenga Katiba, 44, described one such attack in which an elephant charged at a young man and then ran over an elderly woman insider her hut, killing them both. "The boy didn't even scream," Katiba told the LA Times. "He just died quietly." Locals say they see little compensation in tourist revenue for their suffering. "When I see one of those animals, I just know it wants to kill me," said one retired railway worker who lost a house to an elephant attack.

Los Angeles police say a con man has stolen thousands of dollars in cash from traveling bands and sports teams by posing as a member of their entourage. Investigators say the man used Web sites and social media to dig up information on the whereabouts of the visiting athletes and artists and then smooth-talked his way into their hotel rooms. In August, the man convinced a hotel desk clerk to give him keys to the rooms of salsa musicians, from whom he stole $9,000. The next month, wearing a Chivas soccer jersey, he used the same scam to steal $10,000 from the soccer team. And in October, he sneaked into a locker room and made off with $26,000 in cash and jewelry from an Israeli basketball team playing the Clippers. The man may also be the “office creeper,” who absconds with laptops from office buildings. He is still at large.

Damian Dovarganes / AP Photo

Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis was sentenced by a federal judge Friday to 301 days already served and a year of probation, after Francis pleaded guilty to filing false income-tax returns and bribing jail workers. Francis, who turned his simple idea of filming drunken ladies on spring break into a soft-core empire, was also ordered to pay the IRS $250,000 in restitution. The judge accepted Francis’ deal on the grounds that an important witness withheld information from prosecutors.

The U.S. Treasury prevented Fannie Mae from selling nearly $3 billion in low-income housing tax credits Friday because it concluded the sale would be too expensive for taxpayers. Fannie had made a deal to sell about half its $5.2 billion in tax credits to Goldman Sachs and Berkshire Hathaway and had gotten the go-ahead from its federal regulator. Because Fannie doesn’t have taxable income to offset, the credits are worthless to the company, and every quarter it must write them down as they lose value. A day earlier, Fannie had announced $520 million in losses related to the credits in the third quarter, and that more were coming unless the credits were sold. But Treasury concluded that the government would lose more tax dollars than it saved if the sale went through.