WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama named veteran adviser Gene Sperling as director of the National Economic Council Friday, placing a Washington insider with a bipartisan nature in the White House as the administration contends with a divided Congress. Sperling’s appointment ...

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WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Friday that there is increasing evidence that a “self-sustaining” economic recovery is taking hold, but he said the Fed’s $600 billion Treasury bond-buying program is still needed because it will take ...

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy added 103,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate dropped to 9.4 percent last month, its lowest level in 19 months. But the job growth fell short of expectations based on a strengthening economy. And ...

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WASHINGTON — The number of people applying for unemployment benefits over the past month has reached its lowest point since July 2008, raising hopes that hiring is about to accelerate. The drop in applications is the latest sign that the ...

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WASHINGTON — More Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, but not enough to reverse a downward trend that suggests employers will accelerate hiring in the coming months. Applications remain slightly above the lowest level in two years and the ...

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WASHINGTON— Companies added nearly 300,000 jobs in December, according to an unofficial count by a private payroll firm — more than in any month in the past decade. The news raised hopes that the government’s official report Friday on last ...

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WASHINGTON — Unemployment rates rose in more than two-thirds of the nation’s largest metro areas in November, a sharp reversal from the previous month and the most since June. The Labor Department says unemployment rates rose in 258 of the ...

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ANNAPOLIS  — Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold on Thursday announced his fifth countywide hiring freeze in four years. Leopold said each hiring freeze saves between $2 million and $2.5 million, depending on the number of job vacancies and how ...

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No. 1: The blizzards With bread, milk and toilet paper nearly cleared from local store shelves, flakes began to fall on the metro region the evening of Feb. 5. What followed was labeled historic and expensive with a Biblical twist ...

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WASHINGTON — The number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell to its lowest point in nearly two and a half years, a sign that the job market is slowly improving. Applications dropped by 34,000 to 388,000, the fewest since ...

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