The nation's retailers boosted holiday hiring to the highest level in six years despite worries about the economy, Superstorm Sandy and the presidential election, according to an analysis of government job data by a leading outplacement consultancy.

The Trustees also accepted the resignation of Trustee Mary S. Stone, director of the Culverhouse College of Commerce & Business Administration at the University of Alabama.

An attempt at solving Illinois' worst-in-the-nation pension problem faces its first test Monday as a House committee considers a plan calling for more employee contributions and freezing cost-of-living increases for retirees.

The Supreme Court won't stop the government's funding of embryonic stem cell research, despite some researchers' complaints that the work relies on destroyed human embryos.