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• Solid job gains and a healthy decline in the unemployment rate could reverse much of the pessimism. They would suggest that recent reports of tepid job growth and other economic weakness were merely temporary. Dismal hiring, though, would inflame fears that the U.S. economy has begun to falter.
• Several factors could muddy the results. Unseasonably cold winter weather could distort January's hiring figures. Revisions to last year's job growth and U.S. population figures might further skew the data.
• Finally, a cutoff of extended unemployment benefits in December might have caused an artificial drop in January's unemployment rate. That could give a misleading snapshot of the job market's health.
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• SOCHI, Russia (AP) -- A pseudo-lesbian pop duo, a famed opera singer and a romp through Russian history await viewers as the Sochi Winter Olympics launch Friday with an opening ceremony meant to showcase to the world the ultimate achievement of Vladimir Putin's Russia.
• In a provocative choice, Russian singers Tatu will perform before the 3,000 athletes march through a stadium on the shores of the Black Sea, one of the many newly built facilities in the most expensive Olympics in history.
• The women in Tatu put on a lesbian act that is largely seen as an attention-getting gimmick. It contrasts with the very real anger over a Russian law banning gay "propaganda" aimed at minors that is being used to discriminate against gays. Some world leaders and activists have protested the law, and President Barack Obama is skipping the opening ceremony and sending a delegation that includes prominent gay athletes instead.
• The opening ceremony is Russia's chance to show itself and its post-Soviet identity to the world. It is likely to lean on Putin's version: a country with a rich and complex history emerging confidently from a rocky two decades and now capable of putting on a major international sports event.
• The ceremony will focus on Russia and Olympic ideals of sportsmanship and achievement -- not on repression of dissent, fears of terrorism or international political tensions over neighboring Ukraine.
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