President Obama says the new jobs report "is actually better than expected."

Gordon Brown has told the Iraq inquiry the war had been "right" - and troops had all the equipment they needed. The PM also insisted he had not been kept in the dark by Tony Blair despite not being aware of some developments. His own intelligence briefings had convinced him that Iraq was a threat that "had to be dealt with", he said. But the main issue for him was that Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions - and that "rogue states" could not be allowed to flout international law.

The Transportation Security Administration is spreading airport body-scanner technology across the country.

A TSA official said Friday that units will be fielded next week in Chicago, and in the coming months at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; San Jose, Calif.; Columbus, Ohio; San Diego; Charlotte, N.C.; Cincinnati; Los Angeles; Oakland, Calif.; and Kansas City.

British dog owners may be forced to microchip their pets and take out insurance, part of a proposed crackdown on the country's dangerous canines.

Postmen are delighted, but civil libertarians grumble that Britain's sprawling surveillance state now wants to track the nation's estimated 8 million dogs. Others complain that the insurance plan would impose a financial penalty on innocent pet owners while criminals who own violent animals will simply shirk the law.

Dutch religious leaders have ordered an inquiry into alleged sexual abuses of children by Roman Catholic priests. Earlier, the Vatican defended its response to allegations of child sex abuse against Catholic clergy, saying it reacted rapidly and decisively. In the latest revelations, an Austrian monastery head offered to resign for abusing a boy more than 40 years ago.

Seven people have been arrested in the Irish Republic over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist for depicting the Prophet Muhammad, police say. The four men and three women are all Muslim, according to media reports, though a police statement did not confirm this. Cartoonist Lars Vilks had depicted the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog in the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper. Islamic militants put a $100,000 (£67,000) bounty on his head.