Oregon's unemployment rate remained unchanged last month, according to new numbers from the state Tuesday. Officials say the 8.8 percent  jobless rate is the lowest in Oregon since November 2008. Employment department economist Nick Beleiciks says the non-farm payroll lost 6,400 jobs. But he says despite what he called “surprising” job losses, the employment picture is slowly improving.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states cannot be sued for money damages for failing to give an employee time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act to recover from an illness. The vote was 5 to 4 with no legal theory commanding a clear majority.

Idaho lawmakers are one step closer to signing off on a bill that would ban texting while driving.

For years state lawmakers have tried to pass legislation that would make it illegal to text and drive. This year may be different because Tuesday the House agreed to a bill that would make texting while driving an infraction. Supporters say this would send a strong message to drivers, especially teenagers, that it's dangerous to text and drive.

Right now the Navy is allowed to use sonar for testing and training exercises off the Northwest coast and down to Northern California. There is evidence that using sonar may interfere with marine mammal behavior – and even damage hearing and cause stranding. But the Navy’s use of sonar could change if it doesn’t get its permits renewed by 2015.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in two murder cases testing whether it is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a 14-year-old to life in prison without the possibility of parole. There are currently 79 people serving such life terms for crimes committed when they were 14 or younger.

You may think that the great historic debate between communism and private property is over.

Well, it's not. Not at your local community garden.

Take, for example, the experience of Campos Community Garden in Manhattan's East Village.

Eight years ago, the garden was decrepit and abandoned. Beverly McClain walked by it all the time, on the way to her daughter's school. And one day, she and a motley group of fellow gardeners decided to revive it.

Seventy years ago, in the middle of World War II, a couple of hundred miles north of Toulouse, Claude Lanzmann was a high school student — and an assimilated French Jew. Every day he faced the risk of arrest.

When Lanzmann was a teenager, both he and his father independently joined the Communist Resistance. He writes about that in his newly translated memoir, The Patagonian Hare.

The University of Southern Mississippi announced that it took disciplinary action against five of its pep band members today.

The five students were involved in one of the more controversial moments of the NCAA tournament, when they chanted "Where's your green card?" as Angel Rodriguez, a Latino player from Kansas State, took a free throw.