Sky News — The number of people out of work will continue to rise until the summer of 2010 before peaking at 2.8 million, a leading business group has forecast. more info

Scotsman.com — BBC Scotland waved farewell to its popular weather presenter yesterday, as Heather Reid delivered her final forecast after more than a decade. more info

Reuters — NASHVILLE (Billboard) - A year ago, many were predicting a downturn -- if not disaster -- for the music touring industry in 2009 based on a gloomy economic forecast, particularly in North America. more info

Sky News — The winter freeze is set to tighten its grip over the next few days with snow forecast for London and many other parts of the country. more info

L.A. Times - News — As banks recover and repay some of the bailout money, the government is looking to use those billions for federal jobs programs. The federal government project... more info

L.A. Times - News — The Defense secretary says only some troops will leave in July 2011 and that he's confident of making progress against the Taliban by then. Defense Secretary R... more info

Guardian Music — There's more than one way to reach the ski runs. Rupert Mellor tours Iceland's remote Westfjords by yacht to try some hard core ski-hiking . . . and basic crochetAs the Aurora lurched through the darkness in rising winds and waves, I wriggled into he... more info

L.A. Times - News — That's 30.7% down from the same month last year. Analysts had recently forecast a 1.7% rise in housing starts. Builders curtailed construction of new homes sha... more info

The Playlist — You really don't need to see every critically-acclaimed movie of the year in order to forecast the Oscars. If you follow blogs and critics enough, you can set your watch to what will be under consideration, what will be "in the Oscar bubble." They ... more info

The Playlist — Dunno about you, but the day we put out asinine predictions like this (and we're not even "Oscar bloggers," obviously) we're getting completely out of the game. Obviously senility has set in here. Shouldn't he have to turn in his writing credentials ... more info