President Obama outlined a new plan today to aid the unemployed -- toprovide more education and training while at the same time allowing them to keep their unemployment benefits. The Labor Department reported that the pace of job layoffs slowed in April as compared to the past 6 months----only 539,000 as compared to 663,000 layoffs reported in March. Despite these numbers the unemployment rate still rose to 8.9%...the highest it has been since 1983. Many businesses, obviously,are still not hiring --given the state of the economy. White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairwoman Christina Romer has this to say about the April job report: "it is at best, a little bit of a silver lining, kind of a glimmer of hope. It wasn't as bad as expected, it is showing that job losses are perhaps moderating." --Major Garrett reports--

Today theWhite Househas released one photo.. of the low level flyover of New York Citythatfrightened manyNewYorkers. The Director of the White House Military Office has resigned over the incident..Louis Caldera apologized.. and now is stepping down. The officewantedthe photo of the Presidents plane for promotional purposes---Wendell Goler has that story.

CIA records show that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was one of the first individuals to be briefed on the harsh interrogation techniques used on terror suspects---Pelosi told reporters last month that she had been briefed in authorized techniques, but not informed that waterboarding had already been used on one detainee. There is controversy on whether or not Pelosi was aware of the waterboarding. She still insists that she was not told that waterboarding HAD taken place. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) said "I think that nobody wants to take any accountability for it. Is it fair to go after people in the CIA or the Justice Department when Congress was briefed on this program and knew it was going on? That doesn't seem very fair to me. If there is going to be any accountability, (Congress) is where it needs to start." Jim Angle has this developing story----

President Obama is scheduled to give the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame on May 17thand is supposed to receive an honorary degree, but not everyone is welcoming the President with open arms....more than65,000 people have signed an onlinepetition in protest and now one of the Vatican's highest ranked clerics is speaking out against Obama's address. "The proposed granting of an honorary doctorate at Notre Dame University to our president, who is aggressively advancing an anti-life anti-family agenda, is rightly the source of the greatest scandal, said Archbishop Raymond Burke. President Obama won 54% of the Catholic vote in the presidential election and in a Quinnipiacpoll last month57% of Catholics said they approve of the job Obama is doing...Burke noted the support and said that a majority of Catholics freely chose leadership that is now implementing decisions that conflict withtenets of their faith...Molly Hennenberg reports. These stories and more including the all*star panel--Fred Barnes, Charles Krauthammer, and Juan Williams--AND THE FRIDAY LIGHTNING ROUND. Happy Friday and have a great weekend! Thanks for watching---