Evening Edition

The storied spacecraft is carrying a crew of four US astronauts toward the International Space Station on a 12-day mission to re-stock the orbiting lab, where it is due to dock on Sunday.

The mission marks the end of an era in human spaceflight. The United States will soon have no spacecraft capable of taking astronauts to orbit, leaving Russia’s three-seat Soyuz capsule as the sole taxi to the ISS.

About 1 million sightseers witnessed the smooth liftoff from Kennedy Space Center. They lined causeways and beaches around the central Florida site, angling for a last glimpse of the pioneering ship that has defined the U.S. space program for the past 30 years.

“Good luck to you and your crew on this final flight of this true American icon,” shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach radioed to the crew minutes before takeoff.

After some last-minute suspense over the weather and a piece of launch-pad equipment, Atlantis and its four astronauts blasted off practically on schedule at 11:29 a.m., pierced a shroud of clouds and settled flawlessly into orbit in front of a crowd estimated at close to 1 million, the size of the throng that watched Apollo 11 shoot the moon in 1969.

It was the 135th shuttle flight since the inaugural mission in 1981.

Job creation was near-stagnant for the second month in a row, Labor Department data showed, leaving 14.1 million Americans still jobless two years after the 2008-2009 recession ended.

The data was uniformly seen as bad news for the government of President Barack Obama as Republican opponents challenge his economic record heading into the national elections next year.

The continuing crackdown on opponents of Bashar al-Assad came as the president’s regime accused US Ambassador Robert Ford, who had visited the city, of inciting violence.

The casualties included two protesters killed in a central commercial neighbourhood of Damascus, Abdel Karim Rihawi, who heads the Syrian League for Human Rights, told AFP.

Norway’s Thor Hushovd, seventh on the stage, retained the leader’s yellow jersey after the 218km ride over mainly flat terrain from Le Mans to Chateauroux.

Cavendish, who claimed his first victory of the 98th edition on Wednesday, opened his Tour de France account at Chateauroux in 2008 when he beat Spanish ace Oscar Freire and German legend Erik Zabel to the line.

Heavy rain drenched the Silverstone circuit during the early part of the session and prevented drivers from setting times.

However, the 30-year-old Brazilian, fifth fastest in the morning, clocked a time of one minute 49.967 seconds on his final lap of the session as the track began to dry.

Nonfarm payrolls rose only 18,000, the Labor Department said on Friday. It was the weakest reading since September and below even the most pessimistic forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.

The dismal report, which showed the unemployment rate climbing to a six-month high of 9.2 percent, stood in stark contrast with recent data on manufacturing and retail sales that had shown activity starting to perk up.

Tamping down expectations that Democrats and Republicans could reach agreement over the weekend, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said the two sides must overcome serious disagreements on taxes and spending cuts.

“It’s not like there’s some imminent deal about to happen,” Boehner told a news conference. “This is a Rubik’s Cube that we haven’t quite worked out yet.”

U.S. jobs growth ground to a near halt in June, frustrating hopes the economy would bounce back quickly from a slowdown and underscoring how difficult the issue will be for Obama in his bid for a second term next year.

“This is Obama’s greatest vulnerability. It’s his losing war, the economy and unemployment,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor at Princeton University.

The U.S. economy generated just 43,000 jobs in the last two months, perhaps taking the world’s largest economy skating closer to recession territory.

It was difficult to find a bright spot in the U.S. Labor Department report. Many key labor market signals deteriorated, and the jobless rate rose unexpectedly to 9.2 percent even though the work force actually shrank.

As Cameron fielded hostile questions over why he had hired the paper’s former editor Andy Coulson in 2007, despite knowing that one of his journalists had been jailed for hacking into voicemails in search of scoops, Coulson was being arrested by police on suspicion of conspiring in the illegal practice.

Cameron said he took “full responsibility” for his decision to appoint Coulson, who quit Downing Street in January when police relaunched inquiries. But the premier rebuffed criticism and strove to spread the blame for an affair that has generated public outrage against the press, politicians and police.

At first glance, last month’s ruling in the Wal-Mart case may seem far removed from lawsuits over complex mortgage investments blamed for helping to trigger the global financial crisis in 2008.

But attorneys are seizing on the Supreme Court decision as they fight to prevent pension fund investors from banding together as a class to pursue claims they were misled about bonds built from flimsy mortgages.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling, said companies are not immune from liability under a 1789 U.S. law known as the Alien Tort Statute for “heinous conduct” allegedly committed by its agents in violation of human rights norms.

Exxon Mobil said it is reviewing the decision.

Visa and MasterCard, the world’s two largest card networks, blocked donations to WikiLeaks in December. But on Thursday, WikiLeaks payments provider DataCell said it could start processing donations to Julian Assange’s group again.

An Icelandic bank called Valitor had agreed to accept payments processed by DataCell, but DataCell did not tell Valitor that those payments would include donations to WikiLeaks, one person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

In remarks in the White House Rose Garden, the president linked two of the most high profile issues facing his presidency – the weak economy and a massive budget deal to meet an Aug. 2 deadline to increase the debt limit.

“The sooner we get this done, the sooner that the markets know that the debt limit ceiling will have been raised and that we have a serious plan to deal with our debt and deficit, the sooner that we give our businesses the certainty that will need in order to make additional investments to grow and hire,” Obama said.

The 168-year-old muckraking tabloid News of the World was shut down Thursday after being engulfed by allegations its journalists paid police for information and hacked into the phone messages of celebrities, young murder victims and even the grieving families of dead soldiers. Its last publication day is Sunday.

The hacking revelations horrified both ordinary Britons and advertisers, who pulled their ads en masse. News International, the British arm of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., killed the paper in hopes of saving its 12 billion pound ($19 billion) deal to take over satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting. But the British government on Friday signaled the deal would be delayed as a result of the crisis.

The strong bipartisan vote was 336-87 and reflected lawmakers’ intent to ensure national security, preserve defense jobs across the nation and avoid deep cuts while the country is at war.

While House Republican leaders slashed billions from all other government agencies, the Defense Department is the only one that will see a double-digit increase in its budget beginning Oct. 1.

The lawsuit claims the new law will make criminals out of church workers who provide shelter to immigrants and even citizens who give their neighbors a ride to the store or to the doctor’s office.

“This law interferes with the free exercise of religion. It criminalizes acts of love and hospitality,” said Scott Douglas, executive director of Greater Birmingham Ministries.

Many in Juba waited for the big midnight moment with family and friends. Sirens blared from the convoys of international dignitaries arriving for Saturday’s formal celebration. One group danced to the soon-to-be-nation’s new national anthem.

But others were reflective – like John Kuach, who sat at a restaurant with his family Friday evening with the green, red, blue and black flag of South Sudan wrapped around his shoulders.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Daviann Mitchell put off Kim Fahey’s sentencing for code violations, but ordered him held in lieu of $75,000 bail. Mitchell said the “blatant refusal” to demolish the structures and disconnect electricity put his family, the community and first-responders at risk.

Fahey, 59, told the court he has not had enough time to tear down the buildings and he doesn’t have a crane to do it safely but that he has removed about 70 doors and windows. He also said he’s not an electrician and doesn’t know how to disconnect the power.