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Panelists at the annual Corporate Crime Reporter Conference in Washington, D.C. Friday said they were concerned that the Justice Department is abandoning full criminal prosecutions of financial industries in favor of Deferred and Non Prosecution Agreements (DPAs and NPAs), which usually involve a fine and a set of conditions that must be followed. The company in exchange does not get prosecuted for criminal activity.

The good news in the April unemployment numbers delivered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday finally spilled over to people under 25, who saw their unemployment rate drop last month even as their labor force participation rate increased.

The class of ’13 has no luck at all.

As the graduates take to the streets with their six-month grace periods before their student loan debt bills begin arriving, they face a horrific job market.

“At 16.2 percent, the March 2013 unemployment rate of workers under age 25 was [roughly] twice as high as the national average,” in the words of a recent report on young people entering the work force.

Young people starting out are normally at a disadvantage because they are trying to establish themselves in a profession.

In the constant race to be the best America is falling behind other large, wealthy nations in at least one major category: Employing the nation’s youth.

So far, the airline and meat industries have managed to exempt their parent agencies — the USDA and FAA respectively — from following through with furloughs that the across-the-board sequestration cuts require. It’s a victory, they say, for ordinary Americans who, without these exemptions, would be less safe as travelers and consumers.

Here’s an example of how government subsidies distort market economics: Gas prices are down nearly 35 cents from last year, yet this has had virtually no impact on this year’s first quarter profits of the big oil companies.

Dig into today's job numbers and you'll find a tale of two Americas. 

In one America, unemployment remains at catastrophically high levels. The African-American unemployment rate is 13.2 percent -- a level not seen for the U.S. as a whole since the Great Depression. The jobless rate for construction workers is 14.3 percent. 

State officials around the country have spent the last few months bending over backwards finding reasons to accept Medicaid expansion for low-income Americans, refuse it, or try to create a publicly-funded privately managed hybrid. But what do these choices mean for real people?

New York, NY – Today, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signed into law landmark legislation that will allow voters to both register to vote and cast a ballot during the state’s early voting period. Twelve states and the District of Columbia now offer Same Day Registration. Senate Bill 279 also adds two additional days to the early voting period, increasing the number from six to eight days to vote prior to Election Day.