Government agencies and private employers said this month that they plan to lay off 51,114 workers, the outplacement consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported this morning.

And while that's down 23 percent from the 66,414 layoffs announced in July, the August total was still "up 47 percent from a year ago," the firm said.

What's more, it added:

Good morning.

States from North Carolina north to New England continue to cope with the aftereffects of Hurricane Irene, as we reported earlier. The Associated Press says 2.5 million customers still don't have power and that the death toll now stands at 44 people in 13 states. Flood waters continue to be huge problems in New Jersey and states to the north.

Meanwhile, other stories making headlines include:

While Hurricane Irene may, according to The New York Times, "prove to be one of the 10 costliest catastrophes in the nation's history," the recovery efforts as work gets going to repair the estimated $7 billion to $10 billion in damages are not going to give the overall U.S. economy a much-needed lift, our Planet Money colleague Adam Davidson says.

An Australian artist received a government grant for $20,000 in cash. He neatly stacked the money into a pile. Voila, art! The piece is called Currency. It went up for auction and the winning buyer will pay $21,350.

At airport security in Richmond, VA., Aaron Tobey stripped to his shorts showing off that on his chest was the Constitution's Fourth Amendment which forbids unreasonable searches. Tobey was detained and he sued the government. A judge has thrown out most of the suit but the court will hear Tobey's claim that his free speech rights were violated.

Libya's Transitional National Council is calling on police to return to the streets of Tripoli. The police fled as rebels took control of the capital. Despite being associated with Moammar Gadhafi's regime, and no money to pay them, some police are returning to work.

President Obama spoke to the 93rd annual convention of the American Legion in Minneapolis Tuesday. The president laid the groundwork for the upcoming 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and for his speech next week on jobs and the deficit. GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry addressed the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in San Antonio, Texas.

Communities on the East Coast planned for hurricane Irene with help from analysts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA forecasters use data from federally-funded weather satellites to predict storms. One of those satellite programs is facing deep cuts in the latest round of congressional belt-tightening.

One of the nation's largest gas companies Pacific Gas & Electric is to blame for an explosion that killed eight people and burned down a neighborhood in California's Bay Area last year. That's the unanimous finding of the National Transportation Safety Board. The panel says substandard welds and other safety problems date back to the mid-1950s and that regulation was lax.