Jobless To Take Big Sequester Hit

NBC NEWS
The 11.7 million Americans still unemployed are finding their wallets getting even lighter as the sequester federal spending cuts kick in. While the mandated decreases have been slow to trickle into the real economy, the unemployed are feeling the first big jolt.
     As of July 1, the average weekly benefit of $289 will fall by $43 a week, adding pressure at a time when the labor market is trying to find its bearings but has yet to generate the kind of employment that would indicate a strong recovery.
     Sharon MacGregor, a 43-year-old graphic designer by trade, lost her job about a year ago when the medical education company she worked for went under. Since then, she's struggled to find work and now has to contend with less unemployment compensation.
     "It's horrible, I never thought it would be like this when I got let go," she said. "I've been laid off before and found a job in a couple of months. I thought I'd be fine."
     MacGregor joins the ranks of 120,100 unemployment insurance recipients in New Jersey who will see their average compensation drop 22.2 percent, according to the National Employment Law Project.
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29 School Kids Killed In Nigeria

ASSOCIATED PRESS
AIslamic militants attacked a boarding school in northeast Nigeria before dawn Saturday, killing 29 students and one teacher. Some of the pupils were burned alive in the latest school attack blamed on a radical terror group, survivors said. Parents screamed in anguish as they tried to identify the charred and gunshot victims.
     Farmer Malam Abdullahi found the bodies of two of his sons, a 10-year-old shot in the back as he apparently tried to run away, and a 12-year-old shot in the chest.
     "That's it, I'm taking my other boys out of school," he told The Associated Press as he wept over the two corpses. He said he had three younger children in a nearby school. "It's not safe," he said. "The gunmen are attacking schools and there is no protection for students despite all the soldiers."
     Survivors at the Potiskum General Hospital and its mortuary said gunmen attacked Government Secondary School in Mamudo village, 3 miles from Potiskum town at about 3 a.m. Saturday.
     The gunmen are believed to be from the Boko Haram sect whose name means "Western education is sacrilege."
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