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Though the nation's unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent in February, employers actually cut payrolls by a net 63,000 jobs. The rate fell because so many people decided to stop looking for work — a new sign of weakness in the economy.

Stock prices Tuesday had their biggest one-day gain in five years. Prices jumped after the Federal Reserve decided to cut a key interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point. Fed policymakers said they remain concerned about the slowing U.S. economy and suggested that they may cut rates again.

It was one year ago when a student at Virginia Tech gunned down 32 of his classmates and instructors in a nightmarish killing spree. At the Blacksburg campus, students, administrators and residents gather to honor those who died.

President Bush has spoken and the war debate will now shift to Capitol Hill, where the president is expected to seek close to $200 billion in emergency funding. Democrats want a faster and bigger troop drawdown than Mr. Bush proposed.

President-elect Barack Obama named Nancy Killefer as his chief performance officer. Her job will be to bring modern ideas of business efficiency to the White House. Obama also spoke of his plans to revive the economy without worsening the federal budget deficit.

President Obama will tour several Western locales this weekend, including the western slope city of Grand Junction, Colo. The city is the site of an innovative program for controlling health care costs that the president wants to highlight.

Karen Pollitz, a research professor at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, says as long as those people who obtain health insurance through their workplace remain employed they should feel comfortable about their plan. She adds that there is no requirement that anyone has to change their coverage.

The winter storm disrupted work and life in the Washington, D.C., area. John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management, says closing the federal government on Monday has an opportunity cost of $100 million. Greg Teneick, spokesman for Safeway grocery stores, says his stores were busy on Thursday and Friday, but the challenge was getting them open once the snow hit.

Criminals who defraud public health care programs to the tune of billions of dollars a year are now up against sophisticated computer systems designed to catch them. But the new efforts may yield far more leads than the current team of investigators and analysts can handle.

Military widows and widowers can lose military benefits if they remarry before age 55. NPR's A Martinez talks to Military Times reporter Leo Shane III about attempts to end the remarriage penalty.