The nation’s unemployment rate jumped to 5.5 percent in May — the biggest monthly rise since 1986 — as nervous employers cut 49,000 jobs. The latest snapshot of business conditions showed a deeply troiubled economy, with job opportunities dwindling in a time of continuing hardship in the housing, credit and …

NEW YORK – A European Vogue cover model fell to her death from her Manhattan apartment building Saturday in an apparent suicide, a coroner ruled Sunday. Ruslana Korshunova, 20, died around 2:30 p.m. in a fall from a building on Water Street, in Manhattan’s Financial District. Korushnova’s New York agency …

ALBANY, N.Y. – New Yorkers start paying the highest cigarette taxes in the nation Tuesday with the latest $1.25 spike per pack that officials expect to bring in $265 million a year. Convenience stores across the state and the smokers who will be paying the price are angry about the …

Bridget Moynahan says she had a “traumatic time of being heartbroken” and pregnant after the relationship with her baby’s father, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, ended. “I’m not sure anyone — and I could be wrong in this — grows up thinking, ‘I want to be a single mom,'” …

LOS ANGELES – With the same purpose as one of his in-your-face jumpers, Kobe Bryant leaned into the microphone. He promised more NBA finals games to come. “The series ain’t over,” he said. “It’s far from over.” Faced with long odds, Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers returned to the …

HAVANA – Cuban television on Tuesday showed the first images of Fidel Castro in six months, with a silent video of the ailing revolutionary chatting in a garden with visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The 81-year-old Castro looked thinner, and his hair and beard appeared much whiter, in the latest …

BRUSSELS, Belgium – Riot police armed with shields and batons charged hundreds of protesting fishermen outside European Union headquarters Wednesday after a demonstration over high fuel prices turned violent. Protesters hurled flares, firecrackers and rocks at police beyond razor-wire barricades. They also fired flare guns at the EU headquarters building …

HOUSTON – Astronauts made preparations Saturday morning to take the international space station’s newest piece of equipment out for a spin, albeit a limited one. Space shuttle Discovery crew members Akihiko Hoshide and Karen Nyberg were assigned to move the Japanese Kibo lab’s robotic arm for the first time, but …

OAKLAND, California – You know you are in a different kind of college when a teaching assistant sets five marijuana plants down in the middle of a lab and no one blinks a bloodshot eye. Welcome to Oaksterdam University, a new trade school where higher education takes on a whole …

• Omar Bongo ascended to Gabon’s presidency Dec. 2, 1967, after his predecessor’s death. In his 70s, Bongo faces little political opposition in oil-rich West African nation of 1.5 million. • Moammar Gadhafi of Libya took power through a Sept. 1, 1969, military coup in the oil-producing North African nation …