Cynthia Mary Roberson is an unemployed mother who police say led her 12- and 14-year-old sons and their friends to commit at least 20 armed robberies and assaults, including the beating of a teenage boy who had nothing more than an orange lollipop. Her motivation was purely financial — police said she needed money to pay rent and the loan on her gold Chevrolet. In every case, the mother drove the getaway car and once coached ...

Americans lucky enough to still have a job are noticing something unpleasant in their paychecks: They're making less money. Employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, far more than expected, and the jobless rate hit a 26-year high of 9.5 percent. Just as worrisome, wages shrank to their lowest in nearly a year. The bleak news Thursday from the Labor Department underscored one of the big threats to ...

A Phoenix home that famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed for his son has been sold for $2.8 million. Realtor Cionne McCarthy says escrow on the spiral-shaped home of about 2,250 square feet closed last week. She says the undisclosed buyer plans to restore the home, built in 1951, to its original condition and live in it. The 2-acre property includes a guesthouse, pool and a spiral ramp leading to the ...

The sales price of U.S. homes continues to fall, but the pace appears to be slowing. The report from S&P/ Case-Shiller comes as good news to homeowners who have watched their equity erode over the last year and a half. Figures through April 2009, measured by the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, show that, although still negative, the annual decline of the 10-City and 20-City Composites improved. The 10-City and 20-City Composites declined 18.0 percent and 18.1 ...