chairman maloney cannot be here today due to her husband's tragic accident over the weekend. i am sure the committee members will join me and my staff in expressing our deepest sympathies. our thoughts and prayers are with her during these very difficult days. i ask unanimous consent to keep the record open so that chairman maloney may include remarks for the record when she resumed her duties. without objection, so ordered. despite 7.2 million jobs lost in the current recession and 9.8% national unemployment, job losses of moderated since january. as today's numbers show, it will be a long road to recovery but we are finally seeing selected signs of recovery. after the first quarter of 2009 when the gross domestic product fell by 6.4% second quarter numbers reveal that gdp fell by 0.7%. additionally, the institute for supply management's monthly index shows an expansion in the may thatching sector for the second consecutive month. -- manufacturing sector for the second consecutive month. after contracting from february 2008 to july of 2009. finally, yesterday, i participated

and to talk about the negotiations and state of relations, we turn to: suzanne maloney, a senior fellow at the saban center for middle east policy at the brookings institution. she served on the policy planning staff at the state department from 2005 to 2007; and james dobbins, director of the 'international security and defense policy center' at the rand corporation. he's held top state department and white house posts under four presidents. a constructive beginning, but hard work lies ahead. does this sound like a successful start out of negotiations? >> i think it's both a successful start and it is exactly the right tone for the obama administration to be adopting at this point in what is going to be very early and long process and one that is likely to be quite difficult. but really going into these talks today i think expectations were very low as a result of the tensions that had been raised over the past week or so after the revelation of this facility in qum and the iranian response which involves some sabre rattling. so as far as i know, no one at the state department went int

. >> reporter: the prosecuting attorney john maloney summed up the state's case with a simple definition of a plea agreement. >> a plea agreement is a meeting of the minds between the defense counsel and the state's attorney. there was no such thing in this case. >> reporter: that's what the first judge testified to last week and today's judge agreed. as with oth hearings on this matter d.c. police were in the courtroom in force. >> we don't forget. we can't forget. we'll never forget. that's why we're all here. >> reporter: ironically, the convicted man will be eligible for parole soon and the victim's father says he's ready to accept that strickland m be paroled though it may not be his desired outcome. >> if the law had dictated today that he would be set free, i would have to live with that. >> reporter: now, prince george's county state's attorney glen ivy says this points to the problem that some prosecutors have with the reconsideration la here in maryland. that's a matter for the legislature. live in upper marlboro, back to you in the studio. >> thank you, derrick. >>> swine flu

i ask unanimous consent to keep the hearing record open so that chairman maloney may include remarkscord when she returns. without objection, so ordered. despite the 7.2 million jobs lost in the recession and 9.8% unemployment, job losses have moderated since january. as today's numbers show, it will be a long road to recovery, but we are finally seeing signs of recovery. after the first quarter of 2009 wendy real gdp -- when the gdp fell by 4.6% , second quarter numbers reveal that gdp fell by 0.7%. the institute for a supply at management's monthly index shows an expansion in the manufacturing sector but the second consecutive month, after contracting from the very 2008 to july 2009. -- from february 2008 to july 2009. i participated in a hearing yesterday looking at the progress in getting our projects funded with the pro-american recovery and reinvestment act. secretary hood presented evidence of the benefits created by the stimulus, but in terms of improved infrastructure and economic recovery. the transportation portion created 122,000 jobs already. i want to highlight a few th