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The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a Kansas law that prohibits insurers from covering abortion in their comprehensive plans.

After a summer of recall elections stemming from how Wisconsin lawmakers reacted to Gov. Scott Walker's proposal curbing public employee union rights, Republicans emerged bruised but not beaten while Democrats expressed optimism the tide was turning their way.

Unionized state employees are voicing optimism that a second attempt at achieving labor savings will succeed as they finishing voting on a clarified agreement that will stop thousands of layoffs and help balance Connecticut's budget without deep spending cuts.

Seeking a jolt for the economy, President Barack Obama will lay out new ideas for speeding up job growth and helping the struggling poor and middle class in a major speech in early September, a senior administration official told The Associated Press.

Just 9 percent of information technology leaders report that their employers have formal, well-defined processes in place to deal with their current work force planning strategies, with only 8 percent having a system for focusing on future strategies, finds a recent quarterly study from TEKsystems and the Inavero Institute.

The number of workers covered by workers' compensation hit a new low when the figure fell by 4.4 percent in 2009, the largest decline in two decades, according to a report by the National Academy of Social Insurance.

Wisconsin's powerful statewide teachers union said 40 percent of its staff members were laid off Monday as a result of the law pushed by Gov. Scott Walker and passed by the Legislature curbing collective bargaining rights.

The Philadelphia School District says it will be offering teaching positions for the upcoming school year to 325 teachers laid off earlier this summer.