MLM Counties News. Notices. Need-to-know Information.

Pope Francis praised American bishops on Wednesday for their “generous commitment” to helping victims of clergy sex abuse, drawing an angry rebuke from advocates who said the bishops acted only under the threat of hundreds of lawsuits. Addressing church leaders ...

Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates declined this week following the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates at record lows for now. Mortgage giant Freddie Mac said Thursday the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 3.86 percent ...

Buoyed by steady job gains and low mortgage rates, Americans purchased new homes in August at the fastest pace in more than seven years. New-home sales surged 5.7 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 552,000, the ...

Hollister Co. has agreed to remodel entrances to dozens of its beach-house style stores across the country to make them wheelchair accessible as part of a proposed settlement agreement. A Denver federal judge is expected to approve the settlement Thursday, ...

Caterpillar is planning another round of job cuts that could exceed 10,000 people through 2018, as the construction and mining equipment maker adjusts to downturns in key markets that it serves. That would amount to more than 8 percent of ...

A proposal that called for Kansas City’s minimum wage to increase to $15 per hour won’t appear on the November ballot. The Kansas City Star reports that a Jackson County Judge on Tuesday ordered the measure’s removal. Presiding Circuit Judge ...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Tuesday criticized judges who believe the Constitution is a “living” document, saying they amount to policy makers who are rewriting it and making moral decisions for the entire country about same-sex marriage and ...

A federal judge in Wyoming says it’s tough luck that the world’s largest private coal company doesn’t dig a 1970s-era protest song. U.S. Magistrate Kelly Rankin in Cheyenne rejected a request by Peabody Energy Corp. to strike lyrics from singer-songwriter ...

The tech company Square has opened an office in St. Louis and plans to hire more than 200 people over the next five years, boosting the city’s effort to become a Midwest hub for high-tech businesses. The San Francisco-based company ...

Vacant slabs, weed-choked lots and solitary stairs to nowhere permeate this tiny town in southwest Louisiana. All that remains of the Klean-N-Kruise car wash is a rusted white sign overlooking an empty, overgrown lot. Residents travel 30 miles away for ...

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt obtained a judicial order Tuesday preserving the state court system’s funding amid a legal dispute over an administrative policy imposed on it by legislators. Schmidt filed a petition in Neosho County District Court to block ...