Whenever companies start hiring freely again, job-seekers with specialized skills and education will have plenty of good opportunities. Others will face a choice: Take a job with low pay - or none at all. Job creation will likely remain weak for months or even years. But once employers do step up hiring, some economists expect job openings to fall mainly into two categories of roughly equal numbers:
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - Two boats capsized over the weekend in separate incidents on Congo's vast rivers, leaving 70 people dead and 200 others feared dead, and both vessels were heavily loaded and operating with few safety measures, officials said Sunday. Early on Saturday, a boat on a river in northwest Equateur Province hit a rock and capsized, provincial spokeswoman Ebale Engumba said Sunday. She said more than 70 people are believed dead among 100 estimated passengers. She said officials are investigating why the boat was traveling through the darkness without a light.
BAGHDAD (AP) - Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens. It was the first exchange of fire involving U.S. troops in Baghdad since the Aug. 31 deadline for formally ending the combat mission, and it showed that American troops remaining in the country are still being drawn into the fighting.
NEW YORK (AP) - It is a place of sacrifice. A place of mourning. A place people pass by on their way to grab lunch. It's a place where tourists crane their necks to snatch a glimpse around barriers walling off an enormous construction site - which is also what it is. Ground zero.
1 'censored' bar won't stop online prostitution NEW YORK (AP) - Craiglist's "adult services" section has been shut down in the U.S., but prostitution on the Internet is alive and well - even, quite possibly, on Craigslist. Users of the website and its CEO grouse that the Internet is still full of sites where people can find prostitutes. As for the massive online classifieds site itself, many personal ads, which remain on the site, appear to be thinly veiled solicitations of sex for sale.
ON THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) - Investigators looking into what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are a step closer to answers now that a key piece of evidence is secure aboard a ship. Engineers took 29 1/2 hours to lift the 50-foot, 300-ton blowout preventer from a mile beneath the sea. The five-story high device breached the water's surface at 6:54 p.m. CDT, and looked largely intact with black stains on the yellow metal.
NAHUALA, Guatemala (AP) - Torrential rains from a tropical depression caused landslides that have killed at least 38 people in Guatemala - some of them rescuers trying to save people already buried under a wall of mud. In the village of Nahuala, about 200 rescue workers suspended the search for bodies Sunday afternoon after heavy rain fell in the area, Civil Protection spokesman David de Leon said.
NEW YORK (AP) - How do you get penny pinchers to spend these days? Pitch products that promise to save them money. Demand is rising for kitchen and bath gadgets that squeeze out that last blob of toothpaste and help get the suds out of tiny slivers of soap.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - The yellow-green streaks of fireflies that bring a magical air to summer nights, inspire camp songs and often end up in jars in children's bedrooms may be flickering out in the nation's backyards as suburban sprawl encroaches on their habitats. Scientists concerned by reports from the public that they are seeing fewer of the luminous insects each summer have turned to a network of backyard volunteers spanning much of the nation to track their range and numbers. Their observations may shed light on whether fireflies are indeed declining - a trend that could dwindle the targets for the childhood rite of passage of chasing fireflies.
NEW YORK (AP) - Sam Querrey wants to put the "U.S." back in the U.S. Open. It's been seven years since a man from the United States won the country's most important tennis tournament. Indeed, it's been that long since an American man won any Grand Slam singles title.
