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The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the economy added 236,000 jobs last month, beating analyst expectations. The unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent, its lowest point in four years. 

While construction, healthcare, tourism and retail were all pockets of strength, government hiring lagged behind.

"But not as a result of the sequester," says Julia Coronado, chief economist with investment bank BNP Paribas. "It was all on the state and local side."

In the coming months, analysts will continue to watch for the effects of the mandatory across-the-board federal spending cuts, which kicked in March 1.

Coronado says that while February's report showed a healthy gain in jobs, it also revealed a drop in labor force participation.

"In particular, young people gave up the search [for jobs] -- that's not the way we want to make progress.”

To hear more about the U.S. job market and the Labor Department's latest report, click on the audio player above.

Girl Scouts and Wiffle Ball players may be happy about the Transportation Security Administration's big announcement this week that, starting in late April, passengers will be allowed to carry small pocket knives and certain sports equipment on to planes, after those objects were banned in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. But flight attendants are decidedly unhappy about the announcement. 

“It’s a bad idea,” says Veda Shook, President of the Association of Flight Attendants. She says under the new rules, which would allow knives less than 2.36 inches long and a half inch wide, a passenger could still “do some serious damage.” Shook, who is a flight attendant for Alaska Airlines, also questions the need for the rule change. “It's not like there's this outcry to bring knives on board,” she says. 

The TSA declined an interview, but issued a statement saying the new rules will allow them to "better focus their efforts on finding higher threat items such as explosives."

That logic makes sense to Doug Laird, an airport security consultant and former director of security for Northwest Airlines. 

“You can’t protect against everything,” Laird says. “I would much rather see the TSA trying to find the components of IED's than worrying about looking for a Swiss Army Knife.”

Still, flight attendants are taking their case to Capitol Hill, and have the support of federal air marshal and law enforcement groups. 

As for the Wiffle Ball bats, Flight Attendant Association president Shook says she isn’t concerned with bringing them back in to the plane cabin -- unless, she jokes, she had to “actually hit a Wiffle Ball with one.” But Shook objects to lumping a lightweight plastic bat into the same category as something she worries could be used as a weapon against flight attendants and passengers. 

“It’s a distraction,” Shook says, “intended to take our eye off the blades that are coming back on board.”

See the TSA's new guidelines in the slides below (via TSA):

On a recent chilly afternoon in New York, a healthy crowd is strolling along The High Line in Chelsea, a park built on an old elevated rail line. 

“It’s just such a nice walk,” says tourist Helen Crestwell. “I love all the artwork, what they’ve done with the gardens.”

The High Line is dotted with sculptures and murals, which echo Chelsea’s vibrant art gallery scene at street level. Those galleries helped transform Chelsea, on Manhattan’s west side, into a desirable neighborhood.

“In the mid 90s, the galleries started to flee Soho as rents approached $50 a square foot, says Stuart Siegel of commercial real estate firm CBRE. “Chelsea was basically a seedy warehouse area.”

Seedy but affordable. Since then though, Siegel says rents have gone up 10-fold and many galleries are now being pushed out. Galleries like Schroeder Romero, which just closed its doors. Owner Sara Jo Romero remembers the feeling of unity among gallery owners when she opened the gallery with Lisa Schroeder in 2006.

“We all thought it would be wonderful to all kind of band together and be on one block together,” Romero says.

It was wonderful. And when the High Line opened in 2009, the galleries thought it would be a boon, says Lisa Schroeder.

“We were really excited. The whole neighborhood started to change because of The High Line, and we thought we were going to be part of that revitalization,” she recalls. “It turned out that didn’t happen for a lot of us middle-tier galleries. We just became priced out."

Their rent doubled, and it didn’t help that galleries found themselves competing for space with New York’s booming tech scene. Stuart Seigel says that really took off after Google bought a building in Chelsea two years ago.

“The Google effect has had an enormous impact on the market in Chelsea. There are thousands of companies that want to be near Google,” he says.

As for the art scene, some galleries are migrating again -- this time to Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Updated (10:10am EST): The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the U.S. economy added 236,000 jobs in February, and the unemployment rate declined to 7.7 percent. Job gains were broad-based: in construction, retail, health care, professional services, and hospitality. Government shed another 10,000 jobs, primarily at the state and local level.”

Economists expect a status-quo jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning -- 150,000 to 175,000 jobs added in February, depending on which economist you check with, and unemployment sticking around 7.9 percent. That would be, more or less, the same slow, steady labor-market pulse we’ve seen for months. Any underperformance in February will probably be due to weather -- a powerful winter storm that hit the Northeast and might have delayed hiring -- rather than the result of government fiscal policy.

But what about the sequester, budget cuts, hundreds of thousands of layoffs and furloughs at government agencies and private contractors?

We’re not seeing employers dampen their hiring yet. But the job cuts will come, says John Canally, economic strategist at LPL Financial in Boston.

“750,000 [job losses] if the full extent of the sequester remains in place throughout the whole year,” says Canally, citing recent figures from the Congressional Budget Office. “That’s a pretty big number -- when you’re only creating 150,000 to 200,000 jobs per month, and you’re going to give back 60,000 or 70,000 [per month] of those because of the sequester -- that’s a big deal.”

And Canally says there’ll be leakage from people’s paychecks -- both direct government workers and those indirectly dependent on government contracts -- at everything from aerospace and defense companies, to hospitals, schools, and national parks.

“So if civilian and non-civilian employees are furloughed -- which means basically being told not to show up to work a couple days per month -- that might reduce hours," says Canally. "You might see more part-time work instead of full-time work.”

Weep for the well-paid government bureaucrat?

“I think the notion that it’s mid-wage professional government workers is one of the real misconceptions,” says Steve Bell of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. He predicts that a lot of the jobs lost will be at private contractors -- some guy named ‘Joe,’ he says, whose construction firm is fixing a state courthouse roof, or whose tool-and-die shop makes parts for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet.

“And Joe’s either going to let people go -- mechanics and sheet-metal people -- or he’s going to not hire people he otherwise would hire,” says Bell.

Assuming Congress doesn’t revise or cancel the sequester budget cuts, we can expect to see these job losses start to show up in the employment numbers over the next several months.

Economists expect a status-quo jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning -- 150,000 to 175,000 jobs added in February, depending on which economist you check with, and unemployment sticking around 7.9 percent. That would be, more or less, the same slow, steady labor-market pulse we’ve seen for months. Any underperformance in February will probably be due to weather -- a powerful winter storm that hit the Northeast and might have delayed hiring -- rather than the result of government fiscal policy.

But what about the sequester, budget cuts, hundreds of thousands of layoffs and furloughs at government agencies and private contractors?

We’re not seeing employers dampen their hiring yet. But the job cuts will come, says John Canally, economic strategist at LPL Financial in Boston.

“750,000 [job losses] if the full extent of the sequester remains in place throughout the whole year,” says Canally, citing recent figures from the Congressional Budget Office. “That’s a pretty big number -- when you’re only creating 150,000 to 200,000 jobs per month, and you’re going to give back 60,000 or 70,000 [per month] of those because of the sequester -- that’s a big deal.”

And Canally says there’ll be leakage from people’s paychecks -- both direct government workers and those indirectly dependent on government contracts -- at everything from aerospace and defense companies, to hospitals, schools, and national parks.

“So if civilian and non-civilian employees are furloughed -- which means basically being told not to show up to work a couple days per month -- that might reduce hours," says Canally. "You might see more part-time work instead of full-time work.”

Weep for the well-paid government bureaucrat?

“I think the notion that it’s mid-wage professional government workers is one of the real misconceptions,” says Steve Bell of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. He predicts that a lot of the jobs lost will be at private contractors -- some guy named ‘Joe,’ he says, whose construction firm is fixing a state courthouse roof, or whose tool-and-die shop makes parts for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet.

“And Joe’s either going to let people go -- mechanics and sheet-metal people -- or he’s going to not hire people he otherwise would hire,” says Bell.

Assuming Congress doesn’t revise or cancel the sequester budget cuts, we can expect to see these job losses start to show up in the employment numbers over the next several months.

Lack of a director can leave a federal agency treading water on policy and personnel issues, and several major agencies have been leaderless for years. The Senate also needs to act before federal judgeships can be filled, and some 10 percent of those jobs are vacant.

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Lack of a director can leave a federal agency treading water on policy and personnel issues, and several major agencies have been leaderless for years. The Senate also needs to act before federal judgeships can be filled, and some 10 percent of those jobs are vacant.

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In the past 100 years, average temperatures on Earth have changed by 1.3 degrees. Previously, that large of a swing took 5,000 years. That's the word from researchers who pored over temperature data going back to the end of the last ice age.

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In the past 100 years, average temperatures on Earth have changed by 1.3 degrees. Previously, that large of a swing took 5,000 years. That's the word from researchers who pored over temperature data going back to the end of the last ice age.

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Investigating cheating spouses may not be the most conventional way to fall in love, but for private investigators Shaun Kaufman and Colleen Collins, tailing lovers gone wrong was the best thing that happened to their relationship.

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Technology isn't the only hurdle for computer-driven cars.

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Technology isn't the only hurdle for computer-driven cars.

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The Amplify tablet is specially designed for K-12 classroom interaction. While the company touts the ability to improve teaching and learning, critics have questioned News Corp.'s motives.

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The Amplify tablet is specially designed for K-12 classroom interaction. While the company touts the ability to improve teaching and learning, critics have questioned News Corp.'s motives.

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L.A. Times consumer columnist David Lazarus tackles your questions this week.

Elizabeth from Brookfield, Vt., recently had her credit card compromised. She went through the drill, got a new card in short order, but then got a letter from the card issuer saying her credit limit is being lowered to reflect her spending. But might that impact her credit score?

Lazarus says Elizabeth deserves kudos for understanding the debt-to-credit ratio. In other words, how much you are actually borrowing versus how much you can borrow (i.e. how much credit you have). "The best rule of thumb here is, if you keep that ratio to around 30 percent, give or take, with plenty of head room, creditors [will be happy]," says Lazarus.

Lazarus says if her credit limit comes down, the amount of head room she will have above her borrowing will shrink. Thus, her debt-to-credit ratio will get bigger -- and she will look like more of a risk to her creditors. He advises her to look into whether she can opt out of having her credit limit lowered, and maintain the higher credit limit.

For more advice -- including how to deal with an elderly person's big debt -- click play on the audio player above.

A group of Native Americans says the NFL's Washington Redskins should not be allowed to trademark the team name, which they say is offensive. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, part of the U.S. Patent Office, heard the case Thursday.

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When he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and other charges in 2005, Stephen Slevin had no way of knowing that initial findings about his mental state would put him on a path to spend more than 22 months of solitary confinement in a New Mexico county jail, despite never having his day in court.

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By some accounts, sticky fingers could be costing the school $250,000 a year. The dining halls at the school have just started stocking the chocolate and hazelnut spread.

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Chávez's remains will be displayed at the Museum of the Revolution, near the presidential palace.

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Organizing for Action, which was formed from the Obama for America campaign committee to promote the president's second-term agenda, now says it won't take money from corporations or PACS. Critics say they'll believe it when they see it.

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