Friday morning headlines

Terrible jobs report: Nonfarm payrolls fell 80,000 in March, which is even worse than what the pessimistic economists had been projecting – and the biggest monthly decline in five years. Also, the unemployment rate jumped to 5.1 percent from 4.8 percent the previous month. We could have expected a weak report after a surprising spike in new jobless claims. All this, of course, raises the prospects of still more interest rate cuts, though the previous ones haven't had much of an impact. From Bloomberg:

"You can pretty much write off the next few months of consumer and labor-market data," said James O'Sullivan, a senior economist at UBS Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut, who had forecast a job decline of 75,000. "The weakness is feeding on itself. Job cuts are leading to weaker consumer spending, which will in turn lead to more job cuts."

Gas back up: The Auto Club's latest survey shows a 3.6-cent increase from last week in the average price of a gallon of regular in the L.A. area. It's now running at $3.639. By the way, gas prices are cited in the NYT/CBS News poll as the most important economic problem facing the country - ahead of jobs and the mortgage crisis.

Web may violate housing laws: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals took aim at a site called Roommates.com, which requires users to provide information about gender, sexual orientation and whether they have children. That's a possible violation of anti-discrimination laws. Federal law protecting websites "was not meant to create a lawless, no-man's land on the Internet," the court said in an 8-3 ruling. From the LAT:

"A real estate broker may not inquire as to the race of a prospective buyer, and an employer may not inquire as to the religion of a prospective employee," Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for the majority. "If such questions are unlawful when posed face-to-face by telephone, they don't magically become lawful when asked electronically online." The ruling dealt a major blow to the immunity shield that federal law has provided to nurture Internet expansion. Lawyers in the case said the trend in federal courts had been to protect websites from liability.

Fox Interactive reorganizes: That's the Bev Hills-based home of MySpace and other News Corp. online properties. The blog TechCrunch reported that the division would miss its annual revenue target of about $1 billion, coming in at around $900 million. The shortfall comes as MySpace plans to officially launch its long-awaited online advertising network that supposedly will make it easier to tailor ads to Web surfers' interests. (Reuters)

Zell talks to lenders: Tribune Co. will hold a conference call on April 17 to discuss stuff (originally, it had been slated for next week). Asset-selling and debt-servicing will be obvious topics.

Chris Rock testifies: The comedian is set to explain today how he hired private eye Anthony Pellicano to find incriminating information on model Monika Zsibrita, who accused him of fathering her child after a one-night stand at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Rock was separated from his wife at the time. Two subsequent DNA tests proved that Rock was not the father. Rock has denied any knowledge of Pellicano's alleged illegal activities. (MyFox)

Another Starbucks lawsuit: The coffee chain is accused of cheating thousands of baristas in NY State by giving a share of their tips to shift supervisors. The suit was inspired by a ruling in which a state judge in San Diego awarded $105 million to California baristas after concluding that Starbucks had improperly allowed shift supervisors to share tips. The company plans to appeal the California ruling, with CEO Howard Schultz Howard Schultz saying that "we would never condone any type of behavior that would lead anyone to conclude that we would take money from our people." (NYT)

Film school relocates: Emerson College is moving its movie and TV program to the former Tribune Studios lot in Hollywood. The property, which also houses KTLA, is part of a larger site that was sold for $125 million to Hudson Capital, a real estate investment firm. The Emerson program currently runs out of a rented space on West Alameda Avenue in Burbank. (LAT)

More protection for manufacturers: The California Supreme Court ruled that they can't be held liable for not warning about product dangers that should be already well known. The underlying suit was filed by a technician who came down with a potentially fatal lung disease while repairing an air conditioning system at a Torrance bank. He sued the manufacturer, now called Trane, for negligence and failure to provide any warning that heating a pipe containing refrigerant would produce a toxic gas. A trial court judge ruled in favor of the manufacturer and an appeals court upheld the decision. (The Recorder)