Police say former Washington Mayor Marion Barry has been arrested and charged with stalking a woman.

The United States Park Police said Barry was arrested on Saturday in the national capital after a woman flagged down an officer and complained that Barry was stalking her.

Barry, currently a DC Council member, was charged with misdemeanour stalking and released.

A message left seeking comment from a spokeswoman for Barry was not immediately returned early yesterday.

Barry served four terms as mayor. In his third, he was videotaped in 1990 in a hotel room smoking crack cocaine in an FBI sting. He served six months in prison and in 1994 regained the mayor's office.

Biden predicts more stimulus-created jobs

WASHINGTON (AP):

The Obama administration 'misread' the depth of the economic troubles it inherited and still expects more new jobs in the long term as the spending pace from the US$787-billion stimulus plan quickens, Vice-President Joe Biden said.

Republican congressional leaders expressed disappointment about the impact of stimulus spending. "I'm very skeptical that the spending binge that we're on is going to produce much good and, even if it does, anytime soon," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a statement yesterday.

"I think the economy is just as likely to begin to recover on its own, wholly aside from this, before much of this has an impact."

Biden, in an interview that aired on ABC's 'This Week', said the 9.5 per cent unemployment rate is "much too high". The administration had predicted unemployment would stay below eight per cent with its stimulus plan.

"The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there," Biden said. "We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package."