WASHINGTON (AP) -- For the first time in a year, Americans have stopped spending more. Consumer spending failed to budge from April to May, evidence that high gas prices and unemployment are squeezing household budgets. When adjusted for inflation, spending actually dropped 0.1 percent last month, the Commerce Department reported Monday.

BUCHANAN, N.Y. (AP) -- As America's nuclear power plants have aged, the once-rural areas around them have become far more crowded and much more difficult to evacuate. Yet government and industry have paid little heed, even as plants are running at higher power and posing more danger in the event of an accident, an Associated Press investigation has found.

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) -- Outspoken congresswoman and tea party favorite Michele Bachmann cast herself as the "bold choice" for the Republican presidential nomination as she formally kicked off her campaign Monday in her Iowa home town.

The gloomy federal jobs report for May has brought to the forefront again all the questions – and fears – about the economy and the jobs crisis that six months ago were pushed into the deep background by the compromise on unemployment benefits between President Obama and the Republicans in Congress.
The legislation ensured that for all of this year all jobless workers who reach the normal six-month cutoff point for unemployment benefits – estimated at about four million – would automatically have their payments renewed.

When it comes to employee health, the Casino Queen in East St. Louis, Illinois hedges its bet. For around 10 years, the casino's ownership and management has contracted with Dr. Ken Rybicki, an internal medicine physician, who, along with a nurse and a medical assistant, help keep casino workers healthy by providing them with the convenience of an onsite and totally free medical clinic.

As candidates from both parties line up to run and unseat President Barack Obama in 2012, some in the Black community are being forced to face the reality that race relations in America have not improved.  Others were never under that illusion.
"I truly thought things might evolve racially with Obama in office.  But I've watched even more racism spew from White folks, the Tea Party, and Republicans.  I've watched them attack Michelle Obama and even read about all of the assassination attempts against her husband. It's sad," Deborah Rogers, 60, told The Final Call.

Danny J. Bakewell, Sr. the fiery chairman of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, who gained a national reputation for challenging corporate America for fair advertising dollars over the past two years, has announced he will not seek re-election at the end of his tenure this week.

Slavery as a topic needs no introduction to most Americans.  But it does need an introduction to children; and how the facts of Negro Slavery in America has been taught to school children has often been as fraught with tension and controversy as other spheres what used to be known as "race relations."
So, the foundation of this nation was built on the backs of enslaved workers, who were mostly Black, setting the tone for a racially sensitive American society.

One presidential candidate's perspective on race has ignited commentary and discussion about racial identity and its importance in the 2012 race.
When Bloomberg News interviewed Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, the conservative said he did not like to be labeled as "African-American"—instead, he said he preferred "American."
"I don't like people trying to label me.  African-American is socially acceptable for some people, but I am not some people," Cain said in the interview.

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) -- Josh Sutinen isn't old enough to vote and only got his driver's license last month, but he's already among the leaders in a growing national backlash against cameras that issue traffic tickets.