Econ 101: The economy added only 74,000 new jobs in December, the smallest number in three years, but the unemployment rate fell to 6.7 percent. Analysts had expected 200,000 new jobs, the same as previous months, but bad weather may have slowed jobs in construction and transportation.

Chemical Spill: Schools and restaurants closed in Charleston, W. VA. after a chemical spill in a local river. The National Guard plans to distribute drinking water. Up to 300,000 West Virginians have been told not to drink or the water after a spill of Methanol into the Elk River. Methanol is a coal-cleaning agent produced by Freedom Industries, which makes industrial chemicals. The warning, in which people are advised to use local water only in their toilets, includes 9 counties. Stores quickly ran out of bottled water.

Not Sari: The Indian diplomat accused of lying on her nanny’s visa application was indicted in New York yesterday and left the country last night, according to her lawyer. Prosecutors said Devyani Khobragade paid her nanny far less than stated on the visa application. The indictment says that Khobragade also tried to “silence and intimidate the victim and her family and lie to Indian authorities and courts.”

The US had allowed Khobragade to be granted diplomatic status at the United Nations and then asked India to waive diplomatic immunity. India said no, and the US told Khobragade to get out after her indictment. Khobragade’s December arrest, and resulting strip search, set off protests in India as well as diplomatic retaliation.

Congre$$: Half the members of congress are millionaires according to a new analysis of financial disclosures. At least 268 of 534 members of Congress had an average net worth of $1 million or more in 2012. The median net worth for all members was just over a $1 million. The richest is Rep. Darrell Issa, (R-CA), who had a net worth between $330 million and $598 million.

The Obit Page: Amiri Baraka, a poet of the black experience who could be both angry and infuriating, has died of complications following surgery at age 79. He was a co-founder of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s and lived most of his life in Newark, NJ.  Baraka was a powerful voice who wrote beautiful poetry, but also was accused of being anti-Semitic, misogynist, homophobic, racist, and dangerously militant. He was certainly provocative. His last hurrah of controversy came after the 9/11 attacks when he wrote “Somebody Blew Up America”. An excerpt:

 Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed

 
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers 
To stay home that day

 
Why did Sharon stay away?

 

Who? Who? Who?

Threesome: French President Francois Hollande, who left the mother of his children for a journalist, is angry about reports that he’s having an affair with an actress. The weekly tabloid Closer reported that the 59-year-old Hollande routinely spends the night with prominent actress Julie Gayet in an apartment not far from the Elysee Palace. Hollande described the report as an “attack on the right to privacy,” although he didn’t deny the affair. Hollande has become a hero among portly, bald-headed men.

Hall of Shame: Only two of our readers noticed yesterday that we mistakenly described the pitcher Roger Clemens as a slugger.

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