labor department. hiring did pick up in july with 163,000 jobs created, more than twice as many as june. but that wasn't enough to keep up with the growing demand, and so, the unemployment rate ticked up a tenth of a point to 8.3%. unemployment has been at 8% or higher for three and a half years. nearly 13 million americans are out of work. rebecca jarvis now on the competition for the new jobs available. >> i applied for seven different jobs just on monday alone. and i haven't heard back on any of them. >> reporter: carol hardon is ask. she lost her job as an office manager in cleveland almost two years ago. how are you getting by right now? >> i have been a widow for 10 years and i get my husband's social security. >> reporter: if you department have access-- >> i don't know where i would be. >> reporter: she's among the more than five million americans who have been out of work for at least six months.

that's more than 40% of the unemployed. hardon had a job interview last week. >> they will tell you, "boy, we had 100, 200 applicants for this job." >> reporter: you hear that during the interview. >> all the time. during the interview. >> reporter: this year the economy has added an average of 150,000 jobs a month, but that barely keeps up with population growth. economist mark zandi. >> even under the best of circumstances it's going to take three, four, five years to really get back to what you might call full unemployment. >> reporter: 23.5 million americans are either out of wo work, working fewer hours, or have given up looking for a job, the most since january. >> i sit out with my neighbors. >> reporter: carol hardon knot her last unemployment check in april. >> we used to be the land of golden opportunity. what happened to that? >> reporter: you don't believe we're that any more. >> i don't believe we're that right now. >> reporter: the economy needs to create at least 250,000 jobs a month, every month, for the

next four years to fully repair the damage from the great recession. and, scott, that is something this economy has never done before. >> pelley: rebecca, thank you very much. because more jobs were created than expected, wall street took that as a good sign. the dow closed up 217 points, closing above 13,000. with 95 days to go before the election, we wondered about the president's job creation record. so have a look. the great recession was still on when president obama took office in january of 'sub 9. that month the economy lost more than 800,000 jobs, grim days. and it continued to lose jobs for 13 more months. in march of 2010, jobs began to grow. there was another dip, but jobs have been created for 22 months in a row now. still, that growth is too modest to put a dent in the unemployment rate. jobs are the issue likely to decide the race for the white house, and we have two reports

tonight. first whitt wit with the romney campaign in las vegas. bill. >> reporter: scott, governor mitt romney came to this city with one of the worst unemployment rate in the country-- 12.1%-- and last president barack obama for today's jobs numbers. >> it's another hammer blow to the struggling middle class families of america. >> reporter: governor romney laid out a broad five-point plan to fix the economy and help the middle class through energy unless, a balanced budget, by strengthening trade, education, and small businesses. >> it will create more jobs and more takehome pay, and i know how to do that. >> reporter: but as he spoke, just down the road, unemployed nesahdans lines up at the professional institute of technology for help with resumes and interview skills. >> it's diversified. >> reporter: 64-year-old vietnam vet jim hagen lost his casino job when tourism here plummeted in 2007. he's applied for hundreds of

jobs. so far, nothing. >> it is frustrating. >> reporter: he's also disillusioned with president obama and uncertain about governor romney. >> he just seems like a corporate person who he was very successful running a corporation, but this is america. >> reporter: what are you going to do on election day? >> ( sighs ). >> well, i don't want to not vote. but, you know, it's hard to make up my mind which one i'm going to vote for. >> reporter: john wright lost his job managing a call center a year and a half ago. he favors mr. obama but hates the tone in washington. >> they don't come together and take care of people that are looking for employment. i want them just to reach across the aisle, shake hands and go, "look, america needs some help. people have elected us to help and we just need to stop the bickering and go to work and help people out." >> reporter: mr. romney brought his optimistic message to this depressed city where developments like this sit unfinished. unemployed jim hagen told us that it all sounds like so much

campaign talk to him. >> pelley: bill, thanks. no president since f.d.r. has been re-elected with an unemployment rate this high. but the president decided to focus today on the number of jobs that were created, and nancy cordes is at the white house. >> those are our neighbors and family members finding work, and the security that comes with work. but, let's acknowledge, we've still got too many folks out there who are looking for work. we've got more work to do on their behalf. >> reporter: the slight rise in unemployment was a disappointment at the white house where senior advisers used to predict privately that the rate would drop below 8% by election day. >> any increase in the unemployment rate is unwelcome. >> reporter: alan krueger is the president's top economist. >economist. mitt romney today called the unemployment rate a hammer blow to middle class families. >> i don't think it was a hammer low to the 163,000 americans who found a job in july.

the president has made a number of proposals that we believe will lower the unemployment rate, and if congress acts on those proposals, i would expect the unemployment rate to come down further oath to date, mr. obama urged congress to give middle class families more supporter by extending the bush tax cuts for households making less than $250,000 a year. republicans, including mr. romney, want the tax cuts extended for the highest earners, too, but a quinnipiac university/nbc news/"new york times" poll this week found roughly six in 10 voters in three states that could decide this election agree with the president's position. >> i just think we've got our priorities skewed if the notion is that we give tax breaks to folks who don't need them and to help pay for that, we tax folks who are already struggling to get by. that's not how you grow an economy. >> reporter: white house officials argued today that we shouldn't focus on any single

monthly jobs report and that what's really important is that the private sector, scott, has been creating jobs for the past 29 straight months. >> pelley: nancy, thank you. there will be three more unemployment reports before the election. congress has gone on vacation for the next five weeks, leaving work on their desks involving jobs, taxes, and budget deficit. seemed like the kind of thing we should check in with bob schieffer about, our chief washington correspondent and anchor of facethe nation. bob. >> reporter: scott, i have to tell you, congress managed to get through last year without passing one single piece of significant legislation. now, it would be hard to do worse than that, but this crowd may actually manage to do it. any one who has been watching television lately knows american crops are dying on the vine, but when congress left town last night, they couldn't even agree on drought relief for struggling farmers and livestock producers. >> let's go home and prepare for

a farm bill debate when we come back, but most importantly, let's just go home! >> reporter: not to worry. maybe it will rain. farmers shouldn't feel slighted, though. congress also couldn't agree on a plan to protect our vital infrastructure from cyber attack. most national security advisers say that's really important, too. and there's also a couple of fairly important items that have to be resolved one of these days-- whether to let the bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year, and whether or not to block a draconian, $110 billion kroos the board cut in defense and domestic spending. now, there is no word on what if anything they plan to do about those items. the truth is, no one expects them to do anything until after the election. but i have to tell you, scott, the way it stands now, if the united states capitol caught on fire, this congress could find a way to make it a partisan issue, and do everything but call the fire department.

>> pelley: bob, thanks very much. don't miss bob this sunday on "face the nation"." his guests will include virginia governor bob mcdonald, and retired supreme court associate justice sandra day o'connor. it is important this evening to check in again on syria. today, the u.n. general assembly denounced syrian dictator bashar al-assad's war on his own people. the secretary general compared the war to the genocides in bosnia and rewanda. there was major fighting in the capital, damascus, today. and in syria's largest city, aleppo, rebels with rifles are battling one of the largest armies in the middle east. it was a year and a half ago that a popular uprising began to challenge the 42-year-old dictatorship of the assad family. the regime is trying to keep reporters out, but our charlie d'agata slipped in, where he met one family suffering terrible losses.

>> reporter: brutal war has torn the country apart, family by family. ahmed hameda buried his younger brother on monday. two days later, he buried another. "god willing," she said, "i will see them in heaven." abdu died fighting the syrian rebel in aleppo. "he called me to say he had been hurt" he told us. "i am dying, i am dying, he said. and then he was gone." between them, the two brothers left five young children behind to be raised by the the family. in syria, dying has become a way of life. it's impossible to know how many people have died in this conflict, but what is certain is many more will. and in this town, they've already started digging out graves in advance. the cycle of violence seems to have become unstoppable.

when i asked ahmed whether he wanted revenge, he told us that is up to god. but something happened after his brothers' funerals that changed his mind. we learned that the rebels had captured one of the men they believe had killed ahmed's brother. ahmed showed me the place where he had taken one look at the accused man and shot him dead on the spot. he said, "i just heard my brother's voice telling me to kill him. he told me his mind just went blank. now, he said, he's ready to go back to the fight in aleppo. "god willing," he said, "i will continue fighting, never stop." and there are many more like him. >> pelley: charlie d'agata is joining us. charlie, to what extent is religion driving this war? the dictatorship belongs to one branch of islam. most of the rebels belong to a different branch of islam.

>> reporter: it'sul fighters that we spoke to, scott, consider themselves revolutionaries, but the father in that story, the father of all those brothers, he is a sunni. his family is all sunni, and he sees it as specifically a religious war, a sunni versus shia. >> pelley: charlie, very complex situation there. thank you. nasa is about to attempt its most daring mission to mars. western wildfires are burning everything in their path. and american swimmers go for the gold. today's olympic results when the cbs evening news continues. [ fem cleaning better doesn't have to take longer. i'm done. i'm gonna...use these. ♪ give me just a little more time ♪ [ female announcer ] unlike mops, swiffer can maneuver into tight spaces and its wet mopping cloths can clean better in half the time. mom?

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[ all ] yay! [ female announcer ] new ensure clear. nine grams protein. zero fat. twenty-one vitamins and minerals. in blueberry/pomegranate and peach. refreshing nutrition in charge! >> pelley: firefighters in oklahoma are struggling to control fast-moving wildfires. flames engulfed buildings south of lake thunderbird today. dry grass and high winds are feeding half a dozen fires, but no injuries have been reported. nasa will try monday to land a rover on mars. it is a delicate operation, including what's being called the "seven minutes of terror" when the spacecraft will slow from threne,000 miles an hour to a soft landing, if all goes well. we asked john blackstone to tell us more about this mission to mars. >> and liftoff of the atlas five with curiosity. >> reporter: the most complex and expensive robot ever sent to mars depends on a landing like

nothing ever attempted before. you are going to get this safely on to the surface of mars, right? >> that's the idea. >> reporter: as this nasa animation shows, the car-sized nuclear-powered rover named "curiosity" will be lowered on cables, dangling beneath a rocket-propelled platform. the landing team is led by adam celsener. somebody had to say, "you have to be crazy of the of the. >> that's right. the first time it was offered up, it was called "rover on a rope," and the team said, "that's crazy," and we put it aside. >> reporter: previous rovers sent to mars bounced on to the planet, wrapped in airbags, but "curiosity" 10 feet long and weighing almost a ton, is too big. >> eventually, we came upon the sky crane, which we've come to really love quite a bit. >> reporter: love but it scares you as well. >> yes, yes. >> reporter: the scary part begins as soon as the spacecraft enters the martian atmosphere at 13,000 miles an hour. to slow it down, engineers

created the largest, strongest, supersonic parachute ever made. at 200 miles an hour, the rocket-powered brakes will switch on, and the sky crane will gently lower "curiosity" to a pinpoint landing in a martian crater. but if anything goes wrong, the $2.5 billion mission could be ruined. jessica samuels is on the rover's engineering team. >> we're looking forward to a fantastic landing. >> reporter: but a little tense all the time. >> it will definitely be tense but it doesn't go without a nice, big reward at the end. we've got this remote sensing mask, which will be able to give us our nice 360-degree panoramas. it will be fantastic. >> reporter: the first images could come back to earth within a half hour of the landing. then, "curiosity" will spend two years searching for evidence mars was once capable of supporting life. you are an explorer. >> i am an explorer. i use robots to extend my and

our human reach, but it's absolutely exploration. >> reporter: after suffering big budget cuts, nasa is hoping success for "curiosity" will reignite enthusiasm for planetary exploration, but failure could leave nasa struggling to find support for other missions to mars and beyond. john blackstone, cbs news, pasadena. >> pelley: best of luck. from attic to auction, baseball cards collecting dust are now collecting a fortune. next. es like a squirrel stashes nuts, you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® liquid gels. nothing starts working faster than zyrtec® at relieving your allergy symptoms for 24 hours. zyrtec®. love the air. today training depends on technology. and when it takes a battery, there are athletes everywhere who trust duracell. they rely on copper to go for the gold.

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>> pelley: a treasure of rare baseball cards discovered in an attic in ohio has sold at auction. 37 cards went to anonymous buyers in baltimore last night for a total of more than half a million dollars. nearly half of that went for a 1910 hopus wagner. the cards were among more than 700 found in february in the home of a woman who had recently died. 20 nieces and nephews will share in the profits. now for our nightly warning. here come the olympic results. we're going to start with 16-year-old wejan shahra-khani. she lost her first and only judo match in just 82 seconds, but there was victory this her defeat. she became the first woman from saudi arabia to compete in the olympics. michael phelps also made history today with his 17th gold medal. he won the 100-meter butterfly,

his last individual event before he retires. 17-year-old missy franklin broke the world record in the 200-meter backstroke to win her third gold. and katie ledecky one the 800-meter freestyle. at 15, she is the youngest u.s. olympian in any sport. gabby douglas is 16, and she's on a cereal box. we'll take you to where it all began for this gold medalist♪ next. mm. some laxatives like dulcolax can cause cramps. but phillips' caplets don't. they have magnesium. for effective relief of occasional constipation. thanks. [ phillips' lady ] live the regular life. phillips'. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] you've been years in the making. and there are many years ahead.

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>> pelley: gabby douglas made history when she struck olympic gold in gymnastics. we sent elaine quijano to the town where this star was born. >> reporter: this is the place where gabby douglas' olympic hopes first took off, excaliber gymnastics in her hometown of virginia beach, virginia. her talent was obvious to coach dena walker. she began keeping douglas at age eight. what did you see in her then? >> just incredible flexibility, really spunky, very quick, good power, strong-- all the attributes you would need to be an olympic champion. >> reporter: two years ago, at age 14, douglas moved 1200 miles and a world away to iowa, to train with a new coach who trained other olympiciaps. she saw her mother just four

times in two years. but last night, her mother was there as she vaulted into olympic history. dub haas is the first african american and only the fourth american woman to win the all-around individual gymnastics gold medal. mary lou retton was the first. >> she has inspired a whole generation of young african americans to say, you know what? i can do this, too. i mean i guess goosebumps when i say it, i can do and be just like gabby douglas and do what she did. the world is at my doorstep. >> reporter: at douglas' old jim, nine-year-old micah swaby, who trains about five hours a day, five days a week, now dreams of her own olympic moment. >moment. how does it make you feel about your own gymnastics? >> it's very inspiring, and it makes meantime to push myself harder. >> reporter: yesterday, the young gymnasts watched together as she gave her gold medal

performance. >> it's weird seeing her an olympian and that's what people know her as. i see her as just gabby, my friend. >> reporter: her friend, the olympic champion. >> it means so much, all the efforts put in the gym, and hard days. hard days are the best because that's where champions are made. if you push through the hard days, you can get through anything. >> reporter: the discipline, drive, and talent that first blossomed here now in full bloom. elaine quijano, cbs news, virginia beach, virginia. >> pelley: and that's the cbs evening news for tonight. for all of us at cbs news all around the world, i'm scott pelley. i'll see you sunday on "60 minutes." good night. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

now, "entertainment tonight," the most watched entertainment newsmagazine in the world. what's next for america's new olympic darling gabby douglas. the fame. the endorsements. will she cash in on her gold medal win? >> people are estimating $10 million in endorsements alone. i'm watching all of it. >> "entertainment tonight's" all-time favorite tear-jerkers. >> benjamin button.