In an election year in which the economy ranks as Americans’ top concern, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney holds significant advantages over President Obama among white voters who are struggling financially and buffeted by job loss, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll . Read full article > >

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Romney holds key advantages among financially struggling white voters

President Obama on Thursday nominated Allison M. Macfarlane, a professor of environmental science and policy at George Mason University, to be the next chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Macfarlane, a geologist by training, served as a member of the White House Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, which examined nuclear waste disposal. Read full article > >

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Obama nominates George Mason professor Allison M. Macfarlane as NRC chairman

Falling off a cliff is never a good idea. Then again, neither is digging yourself deeper into a hole. Those are the messages, contradictory but compelling, embedded in a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) about the fast-approaching “ fiscal cliff .” The economy will confront the precipice at year’s end, on account of a confluence of tax cuts set to expire and spending cuts scheduled to kick in. Read full article > >

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Responsibility is missing as ‘fiscal cliff’ approaches

Over at FT Alphaville, Cardiff Garcia passes along this striking stat from Credit Suisse: Vehicle purchases by consumers alone accounted for 30% of all the GDP growth in the last two quarters. Cars are, ahem, driving the recovery. But will it continue? Auto analysts are expecting another record month of car sales in May: TrueCar.com announced today that it was predicting the highest monthly level of vehicle sales since 2007, up 32 percent since this time last year. Read full article > >

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Auto sales are propping up the U.S. economy

The Senate held two votes Thursday on measures to ensure that student loan rates for millions of college students do not double in July — and at the conclusion of the legislative action, the issue remained exactly where it began: stuck. Read full article > >

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Senate fails to agree on student-loan-rate freeze

BEIJING — Faced with political turmoil at the top, a slowing economy, and a young and wired population restless for change, China’s Communist rulers appear to have dusted off a time-tested tactic: blaming foreigners for the country’s problems. Read full article > >

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In China, foreigner-bashing brings backlash

Say at the end of 2012, Congress can’t strike a budget deal and we reach the dread “fiscal cliff.” Taxes go up, spending gets slashed. Would the U.S. economy fall into recession? The Congressional Budget Office sure thinks so . But Ryan Avent wonders why the Federal Reserve couldn’t just step in. Read full article > >

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Why can’t the Fed just prevent the ‘fiscal cliff’?

The UK economy shrank by 0.3% in the first three months of the year, more than previously estimated, revised figures show.

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Economy shrank more than thought

Regional leaders meeting in Brussels failed to signal concrete steps to stimulate the economy or resolve the competing agendas of the German chancellor and the French president.

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Euro Zone Crisis Boils as Leaders Argue, Failing at Pact

It was just the kind of information that could make you a million. But you couldn’t find it on Facebook or, for that matter, anywhere else on the Internet. In mid-May, as the social-networking company prepared for a public sale of its stock, an analyst at Morgan Stanley began advising clients orally that Facebook profits would probably be lower than previously estimated. Read full article > >

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Investors sue Facebook, advisers as scrutiny of IPO hype intensifies

VALLEJO, CALIF. — The first couple of years were ugly. After this working-class port city became the largest in America to declare bankruptcy in 2008 , crime and prostitution surged as the police force was thinned by 40 percent. Firehouses were shuttered, and funding for libraries and senior centers was slashed. Foreclosures multiplied and home prices plummeted. Read full article > >

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Vallejo, Calif., once bankrupt, is now a model for cities in an age of austerity

Last week I was looking at a pile of smartphones I’d recently been given to review. The devices were virtually indistinguishable from one another. Slab after slab, no keyboards, no color. Just black blocks with shiny touch screens, maybe a few buttons dotted along the side. Some had fake metal rings that wrapped around the body of the phone, a kind of mimic of the iPhone’s metal antenna. Some went for a matte finish instead of high gloss. All were familiar, and all were uninspired. Read full article > >

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Uninspiring by design

When Mark Zuckerberg’s stated mission to connect and empower people collides with Wall Street’s actual mission, which is to empower and enrich the well-connected, guess which mission prevails? Wall Street’s, hands down. That’s the lesson we can take from the debacle of Facebook’s initial public stock offering. Read full article > >

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In Facebook IPO debacle, Wall Street prevails

Dean Obeidallah says the candidates would like to sell themselves as super heroes for the economy. The truth is not that simple, and voters know it

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Opinion: No ‘Avenger’ in sight for U.S.

Dean Obeidallah says the candidates would like to sell themselves as super heroes for the economy. The truth is not that simple, and voters know it

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Opinion: No ‘Avenger’ in sight for U.S.