Associated Press

Job gains have averaged 241,000 a month this year

(WASHINGTON) — U.S. employers added 321,000 jobs in November, the biggest burst of hiring in nearly three years and the latest sign that the United States is outperforming other economies throughout the developed world.

The Labor Department also said Friday that 44,000 more jobs were added in September and October combined than the government had previously estimated. Job gains have averaged 241,000 a month this year, putting 2014 on track to be the strongest year for hiring since 1999.

The unemployment rate remained at a six-year low of 5.8 percent last month.

The robust job gains come after the economy expanded from April through September at its fastest pace in 11 years. The additional jobs should help boost growth in coming months.

Still, the healthy hiring levels have yet to boost most Americans’ paychecks significantly.

The improving U.S. job market contrasts with weakness elsewhere around the globe. Growth among the 18 European nations in the euro alliance is barely positive, and the eurozone’s unemployment rate is 11.5 percent. Japan is in recession.

China’s growth has slowed as it seeks to rein in excessive lending tied to real estate development. Other large developing countries, including Russia and Brazil, are also straining to grow.

Most economists say the United States will likely continue to strengthen despite the sluggishness overseas. The U.S. economy is much less dependent on exports than are Germany, China and Japan. U.S. growth is fueled more by its large domestic market and free-spending consumers, who account for about 70 percent of the economy.

That trend helps support the steady U.S. job growth. Most of the industries that have enjoyed the strongest job gains depend on the U.S. market rather than on overseas demand. Retailers, restaurants and hotels, and education and health care, for example, have been among the most consistent sources of healthy hiring since the recession officially ended in 2009.

Manufacturing, which is more exposed to overseas ups and downs, has added jobs for most of the recovery but in smaller numbers. That is a likely reason why pay growth has been tepid since the recession ended. Companies and industries that are more exposed to international competition typically pay higher salaries.

Temporary hiring for the winter holidays may be providing a boost, though it isn’t clear how much occurred last month and how much in December. Shipping companies have announced ambitious plans: UPS has said it expects to add up to 95,000 seasonal workers, up from 85,000 last year. FedEx plans to hire 50,000, up from 40,000.

The National Retail Federation estimates that seasonal retail hiring could grow about 4 percent to as high as 800,000.

Most recent figures on the economy have been encouraging. Americans are buying more cars, which will likely keep factories busy in coming months. Auto sales last month rose to their second-fastest pace this year. Car sales are on track to rise 6 percent this year from 2013.

And a survey by the Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing managers, showed that services firms expanded at nearly the fastest pace in eight years last month. Retailers, hotels, construction firms and other service companies added jobs, the survey found, though more slowly than in October.

The ISM’s separate survey of manufacturing firms showed that factories are expanding at a brisk pace. New orders and order backlogs rose, pointing to steady growth in coming months.

There have been some signs of moderating growth. Consumer spending rose only modestly in October. And businesses ordered fewer big-ticket manufactured goods that month, excluding the volatile aircraft category. That indicates that companies are holding back on investment.

As a result, most economists have forecast that the economy will slow in the final three months of the year to an annual pace of 2.5 percent. That would be down from a 4.3 percent pace from April to September, the fastest six-month pace since 2003.

The drummer has pleaded not guilty to charges of threatening to kill

(WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND) — New Zealand prosecutors for the first time publicly outlined their case against AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd, saying Friday that he called a man who had worked for him for three years and threatened to kill him and his daughter.

The details were in a brief one-page “summary of facts” released by prosecutors.

They have charged the 60-year-old drummer with threatening to kill, which comes with a maximum prison sentence of seven years, as well as possessing methamphetamine and marijuana. He has pleaded not guilty and faces a judge-only trial next year.

Prosecutors said that on Sept. 26, Rudd first called a business associate and talked about “what he wanted done” to the man, before calling the man and making the threats. Prosecutors said the manworked for Rudd under a contract arrangement.

According to prosecutors, Rudd told police he didn’t make the alleged phone calls and had not threatened to kill anyone.

Prosecutors said police on Nov. 6 searched Rudd’s home in the small city of Tauranga and found 130 grams (4.6 ounces) of marijuana and 0.7 grams (0.02 ounces) of methamphetamine. They said Rudd did acknowledge possessing a small amount of marijuana.

Rudd’s lawyer Paul Mabey could not be immediately reached for comment Friday.

The release of the document came a day after Rudd was detained by police after getting into a scuffle with a witness in his case. Mabey said it was a “chance meeting” between the pair in Tauranga that developed into a scuffle.

Rudd was later released on bail without further charges, although a judge did impose an additional bail condition that he not consume illegal drugs.

Rudd’s future with the popular Australian band remains uncertain. The band this week released its new album, “Rock or Bust.”

Government forecasters said Typhoon Hagupit was packing sustained winds of 127 miles per hour

(MANILA, Philippines) — Villagers in the central Philippines fled coastal homes and sparked panic-buying in grocery stores and gas stations as an approaching powerful storm brought back nightmares of last year’s deadly onslaught from Typhoon Haiyan.

Government forecasters said Typhoon Hagupit was packing sustained winds of 205 kilometers (127 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 240 kph (149 mph) over the Pacific, about 700 kilometers (435 miles) off the country’s eastern coast. It may hit Eastern Samar province on Saturday and barrel inland along the same route where Haiyan leveled villages and left more than 7,300 dead and missing in November last year.

Haiyan survivor Emily Sagales said many of her still-edgy neighbors in central Tacloban city, which was ravaged by Haiyan, packed their clothes and fled to a sports stadium and safer homes of relatives. Long lines formed at grocery stores and gas stations as residents stocked up on basic goods, she said.

“The trauma has returned,” the 23-year-old Sagales said. In the wake of last year’s typhoon, which killed her mother-in-law and washed away her home, she gave birth to her first child, a baby girl, in a crowded makeshift clinic filled with the injured and the dying near the Tacloban airport.

“It’s worse now because I didn’t have a baby to worry about last year,” she said.

Haiyan demolished about 1 million houses and displaced about 4 million people in the central Philippines. Hundreds of residents still living in tents in Tacloban have been prioritized in an ongoing evacuation.

Hotels in Tacloban, a city of more than 200,000 people still struggling to recover from last year’s massive damage, were running out of rooms as wealthier families booked ahead for the weekend.

“The sun is still shining but people are obviously scared. Almost all of our rooms have been booked,” said Roan Florendo of the hilltop Leyte Park hotel, which lies near San Pedro Bay in Tacloban.

The government put the military on full alert, workers opened evacuation centers and transported food packs, medicines and body bags to far-flung villages, which could be cut off by heavy rains.

In Manila, President Benigno Aquino III on Thursday led an emergency meeting of disaster-response agencies and ordered steps to prevent panic-buying and hoarding of goods.

Aquino checked on the readiness of Philippine air force aircraft, hospitals and police contingency plans to deal with possible looting similar to what happened in Tacloban after Haiyan crippled the city’s police force.

“I think we’ve been challenged worse by Yolanda,” Aquino told officials, referring to Haiyan’s local name. But during the nationally televised meeting, he was told that Hagupit — Tagalog for “smash” — has further strengthened.

Initially, forecasters said there was a chance the typhoon could veer north away from the Philippines in the direction of Japan. Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo, however, told Aquino on Thursday it was almost certain the typhoon would slam into the country’s eastern coast.

Some towns in the typhoon’s predicted path said they will shut schools on Friday. Inter-island ferries and some commercial flights were canceled.

The government also decided to move the venue of a meeting next week of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which was to be attended by hundreds of diplomats from 21 member economies, from Albay province, which could be lashed by the typhoon, to the capital, Manila, which forecasters say will likely be spared.

Militants attacked a checkpoint killing ten police officers

GROZNY, Russia — A gun battle broke out early Thursday in the capital of Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, leaving at least ten traffic police officers and nine gunmen dead, authorities said. The fighting punctured the patina of stability ensured by years of heavy-handed rule by a Kremlin-appointed leader.

The violence erupted hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin began his annual state of the nation address in Moscow. In his address, Putin said he was confident that local Chechen forces were capable of dealing with the “rebels,” who he suggested were receiving support from abroad.

Security officials said militants traveling in three cars entered the republic’s capital, Grozny, at 1 a.m. local time, killing ten traffic police at a checkpoint. The Moscow-based National Anti-Terrorist Committee, a federal agency, said the militants then occupied the multi-story Press House in central Grozny, which was later destroyed by fire, killing nine gunmen.

The Anti-Terrorist Committee said more gunmen had been found in a nearby school and an operation was underway to “liquidate” them. No students or teachers were in the school when it was seized by the militants, RIA Novosti quoted vice principal Islam Dzhabrailov as saying.

The mood was tense in Grozny on Thursday with heavy-caliber gunfire heard in the background and the area around the Press House and the school building cordoned off.

Although unrest is common across the North Caucasus, forceful security measures adopted by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov have spared Grozny significant violence for several years. In October, however, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a concert hall in Grozny, killing five policemen and wounding 12 others as the city celebrated Kadyrov’s birthday.

The relative calm has allowed Putin to claim success in subduing an Islamic insurgency in Chechnya after years of war.

Dmitry Trenin, who heads the Carnegie Moscow Center, wrote in a Twitter post that “the night attack in Grozny looks senseless, except as an attempt to embarrass Putin hours before his annual address to parliament.” Putin already was under pressure to reassure Russians as fears grow over soaring inflation and a plummeting ruble.

Kadyrov, who flew to Moscow on Thursday morning, was among the Russian federal and regional officials listening to Putin’s address in a Kremlin hall.

An Associated Press reporter saw the publishing house in flames and heard the sound of gunfire before dawn, several hours after the unrest erupted. The AP reporter also saw the body of someone in civilian clothing in the street near the building as fighting continued, but it was not clear how and when the person had been killed.

The Anti-Terrorist Committee announced that it had imposed a counterterrorism regime on the center of Grozny. This officially allows heightened security measures to be enforced, and typically indicates the imminent use of heavy force.

Life News, a news outlet believed to have links to Russian security services, cited law enforcement officials as saying about 15 people seized three cars late Wednesday in the village of Shalazhi and drove to Grozny, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) away.

Kadyrov said on his Instagram account, which he uses to issue public statements, that the traffic police officers were shot dead as they attempted to stop the cars carrying the gunmen.

Kadyrov said the situation was calm and that all essential public services were operating, but he urged Grozny residents to be cautious.

“I ask residents in areas where (security) operations are being carried out to abide by safety measures, and not to go out onto the streets without cause or to go near their windows,” he wrote. “All the talk about the city being under the control of the military is absolutely false.”

In a message posted several hours later, Kadyrov said that six militants were killed in the standoff at the publishing house.

“Not one bandit managed to get out. I directly ran the operation myself,” he wrote.

Kadyrov posted a picture showing the lower half of an apparently dead gunman lying beside a rifle, but it was not immediately clear if it showed one of the presumed attackers.

The Kavkaz Center website, a mouthpiece for Islamic militant groups operating in Russia’s North Caucasus, carried a link to a video message by an individual claiming responsibility for the attacks. The man in the video claimed to be operating under orders from Chechen Islamist leader Aslan Byutukayev, known to his followers as Emir Khamzat.

The video could not immediately be verified.

A few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chechnya was plunged into a full-scale war when separatist rebels pursued independence for the republic. The violence was largely confined to that small republic, but rebels ventured into other parts of Russia.

A fragile peace settlement was reached with Moscow until 1999, when an insurgency movement increasingly inspired by radical Islamist ideas reignited the conflict. A military crackdown succeeded by years of aggressive rule by Kadyrov has quietened the region, pushing unrest to neighboring provinces.

Kadyrov has been widely denounced for human rights abuses, including allegations of killing opponents. He has also imposed some Islamic restrictions on the region, including mandatory public headscarves for women.