TUCSON - A 23-year-old Mexican woman with three American-born children, including one just three weeks old, has returned voluntarily to Mexico after what supporters call a harrowing experience with authorities during a traffic stop.

WASHINGTON - The nation’s businesses cranked up hiring in November after a twomonth lull, a sign the labor market is back in the groove as the ill effects of the Gulf Coast hurricanes fade.

WASHINGTON - A hiring revival pulled the nation’s unemployment rate down to 4.7 percent in August and flashed a Labor Day weekend message that the slowing economy isn’t in danger of fizzling out.

WASHINGTON - The job market is struggling to regain its balance after getting knocked over by Hurricane Katrina. Employers, coping with high energy prices and shaken by two other hurricanes, showed caution in hiring in October.

WASHINGTON - The nation's unemployment rate climbed to 6.1 percent in May, the highest level in nine years, as businesses cut 17,000 jobs in a weak economy struggling toward recovery.

WASHINGTON - A crackdown on illegal immigration will have to go forward without help from Congress, the Bush administration said Friday, asserting that an executive-branch-only approach is better than doing nothing.

WASHINGTON - A cooling housing market may put buyers in the driver’s seat while an improving job market could give workers and job-seekers more leverage, economists say.

WASHINGTON - Most Americans who rely on just a full-time job earning the federal minimum wage cannot afford the rent and utilities on a one- or two-bedroom apartment, an advocacy group on low-income housing reported Monday.

STANFORD, Calif. - As an eager freshman in the fall of 2001, Andrew Mo's career trajectory seemed preordained: He'd learn C++ and Java languages while earning a computer science degree at Stanford University, then land a Silicon Valley technology job.

DAMADOLA, Pakistan - Pakistan on Saturday condemned a deadly airstrike in which the U.S. reportedly targeted al-Qaida's second-in-command, as villagers whose homes were destroyed denied the militant was ever there and thousands of Pakistanis protested the attack.

DAMADOLA, Pakistan - Pakistan on Saturday condemned a purported CIA airstrike on a border village that officials said unsuccessfully targeted al-Qaida's second-in-command, and said it was protesting to the U.S. Embassy over the attack that killed at least 17 people.

MUNICH, Germany- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issued uncompromising challenges to both the United Nations and NATO over Iraq on Saturday, warning that the global bodies risked ridicule and discredit and cautioning three of America’s European partners that delaying plans to defend Turkey weakened the Atlantic alliance.

The U.S. Department of Labor has filed a lawsuit against Houston-based Cemex Inc., alleging that the company failed to properly pay more than $5 million in overtime back wages to about 2,000 ready-mix drivers from Arizona and seven other states.

WASHINGTON – Migrant laborers in this country will be able to get information on workers compensation, wage-and-hour laws and other U.S. labor protections “no matter how you got here,” under an agreement signed Monday.

The number of people signing up for jobless benefits declined last week, the third straight drop from a six-year high reached earlier this month, the government said Thursday.

WASHINGTON - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits, after having fallen to the lowest level in four years, shot up last week by the biggest amount since late 2002. The new report dealt a setback to hopes that the economy is finally beginning to produce a sustained recovery in jobs.

WASHINGTON - America's payrolls picked up in August, with the economy adding 144,000 jobs, slightly less than economists were forecasting and highlighting the slow and uneven recovery in the labor market that jobseekers have braved.

WASHINGTON - U.S. companies slashed 108,000 jobs in March following huge cuts the month before as war in Iraq battered the economy at home. But the overall civilian unemployment rate held steady at 5.8 percent.

The American economy grew at a revised annual rate of 1.9 percent in the first quarter of 2003, up slightly from the previous quarter but still sluggish, the Commerce Department reported on Thursday.

WASHINGTON - The number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits dropped last week to the lowest level in more than three years, a promising sign that companies feel better about the economy's prospects and are less inclined to get rid of workers.

NEW YORK - As president, he crushed one of the few labor unions whose endorsement he won as a candidate.

Grocery prices in Maricopa and Pinal counties shot up more than 7 percent in 2007, according to a U.S. Department of Labor report released Wednesday.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. job market is proving sturdier than expected at a time when the economy is under pressure from Washington gridlock and the threat of government spending cuts.

WASHINGTON - Consumers paid more to fill up their gas tanks, buy groceries and go to the hospital in January as prices on a wide range of items pushed higher.