Yes, it’s that time again, folks. It’s the first Friday of the month, when for one ever-so-brief moment the interests of Wall Street, Washington and Main Street are all aligned on one thing: Jobs.

A fresh update on the U.S. employment situation for January hits the wires at 8:30 a.m. New York time offering one of the most important snapshots on how the economy fared during the first month of 2012. Expectations are for 125,000 new jobs to be created, according to economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires, compared to 200,000 jobs added in December. The unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 8.5%.

Here at MarketBeat HQ, we’ll be offering color commentary and tracking the markets before and after the data crosses the wires. Feel free to weigh-in yourself, via the comments section.

The company earned $58.9 million, or 39 cents per share, compared with $67.1 million, or 44 cents, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, the company earned $68.1 million, or 45 cents, surpassing Wall Street’s expectations by four cents.

Revenue fell 3 percent to $643 million from $662 million. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected $646.5 million.

In the struggle for supremacy, curses are exchanged, aspersions cast. These two great American cities cannot avoid one another, and they are on a collision course once again in the Super Bowl.

Sunday’s big game between the New York Giants (who really play in New Jersey) and the New England Patriots (home town: Foxborough, Massachusetts) is stirring passions across trading floors, bars and chatrooms throughout the U.S. Northeast, a proxy for greater battles over commerce, academia, cultural achievement and clam chowder.

“Half this firm has roots in Boston, the CEO is a Bostonian,” said Peter Kenny, managing director of the Knight Capital brokerage in Jersey City, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

What? Blasphemy! How could that be?

Well, think about it: Back in the late 1970s, the Giants were simply bad. There was The Fumble in 1978, perhaps the one event that spawned all of this. A refresher for non-Giants fans:

On Nov. 19, 1978, the Giants led the Philadelphia Eagles, 17-12, and had the ball with seconds remaining. Rather than take a knee, quarterback Joe Pisarcik muffed a hand-off to Larry Csonka. Eagles cornerback Herman Edwards scooped up the fumble, ran 26 yards for a game-winning touchdown and crystallized the utter frustration the Giants had endured for more than a decade.

Long story short, that loss led to the eventual revamping of the Giants organization. A guy named George Young took over as GM, and hired a former Patriots assistant coach, Ray Perkins, as the Giants head coach. Perkins eventually hired a young assistant named Bill Belichick and another named Bill Parcells.

Jackpot. Then Parcells became the head coach when Perkins left to be Bear Bryant’s successor at his alma mater, Alabama. Belichick became the Giants defensive coordinator, and in three years – one year after the Patriots had gotten blown out by the Super Bowl Shuffle Bears – the Giants won it all. Four years later, they did it again, and Parcells’ status as a revered coach was cemented.

Belichick left to become the head coach at Cleveland after that 1990 season, and Parcells, fighting heart woes, stepped down. Two years later, the floundering Patriots hired him as their coach, then-owner James Orthwein choosing him over Buddy Ryan.

There you go. There’s the major link. Why? Because, frankly, it was Parcells, not Belichick, who fundamentally changed the culture of the Patriots, based on his success with the Giants. Since Parcells took over before the 1993 season, the Patriots have had only three losing seasons. He brought in some of the mainstays of the Patriots’ Super Bowl success that began 10 years ago.

Belichick’s years with the Giants spawned his coaching success, or at least put him on the map. He learned from his mistakes in Cleveland, did more time as a Parcells assistant, and then the rest is, well, history.

“Certainly those 10 years with Parcells in New York, as well as New England and New York (Jets) again,” Belichick said. “He was a huge influence as well. He reinforced a lot of things as well.”

The archdiocese says in a statement that its staff and outside auditors spotted Collins’ theft and alerted the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

A coalition of Muslim groups is calling for Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s dismissal. Kelly appears in the controversial documentary The Third Jihad, widely available on Youtube. It portrays even ordinary Muslims as suspects in a radical Islamic quest to destroy Western civilization and take control of the United States.

“About 18 percent, at last count, of prisoners in New York State are Islamic,” he stated.

Police officials initially denied using the film at training sessions.  But a Freedom of Information request revealed documents confirming such use.  Kelly has issued an apology and enjoys the support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“Commissioner Kelly should not step down,” Bloomberg said. “I think it’s fair to say that it was a little bit of an embarrassment that this film was made.”

Activists say actions, not apologies are needed, first of all Kelly’s resignation or dismissal.  Shahid Farooqi represents the Islamic Circle of North America, an organization of mostly South Asian Muslims.

“Second is [an] independent investigation.  The third is to start respecting our Muslim community members,” Farooqi demanded.

The Third Jihad is filled with images of Muslim violence accompanied by threatening rhetoric and music.  It was produced by the Clarion Fund, a conservative non-profit organization and played on a continuous loop in the last quarter of 2010 on the sidelines of police counterterrorism training sessions.  Muslim activists say the documentary poisoned the minds of New York City Police officers.  They demand that those officers be retrained.

An earlier controversy over alleged random police surveillance of New York’s Muslim community triggered protests and also a boycott by some Muslim clerics of Mayor Bloomberg’s annual prayer breakfast.

The probe into Greg Kelly, co-anchor of the popular Good Day New York show on local Fox 5 television, was immediately transferred from the police to the district attorney’s office, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, in order to avoid any conflict of interest.

The store changes will take until 2015 to complete. Shares of J.C. Penney fell 3 percent.

The store revamp and pricing plan were the first strategic announcements from Ron Johnson, who in November was hired away from Apple Inc (AAPL.O) — after building that company’s retail chain — to turn around the 110-year department store chain as its chief executive.

We’re sure you’ll hear about it often over the next couple of weeks, but let us remind you that the Giants and Patriots did meet this season up in Foxborough. New England was a six-point favourite in that one before being upset 24-20 by the visiting G-men. The game stayed under the posted total of 52.

Michael Mele pleaded guilty to manslaughter and evidence tampering in the killing of 25-year-old Laura Garza.

The plea came Monday just before the start of his murder trial in Orange County.

Mele confessed he suffocated Garza in his Wallkill apartment. He says she became upset when she learned he had a girlfriend. He says that after he killed her, he stuffed her body in a laundry basket, drove to Pennsylvania and dumped it in a wooded area.

Garza had moved to Brooklyn from McAllen, Texas, just five months before she disappeared in December 2008. She had dreams of making it as a dancer.