Business/Economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — The outlook for the U.S. economy appeared dimmer Monday after a report that Americans spent less at retail businesses for a third straight month in June.

The report led some economists to downgrade their estimates for economic growth in the April-June quarter. Many now think the economy grew even less than in the first quarter of the year, when it expanded at a sluggish 1.9 percent annual rate.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Banks are increasingly placing homes with unpaid mortgages on a countdown that could deliver a swell of new foreclosed properties onto the market by early next year, potentially weighing further on home values.

June provided the latest evidence of this trend, as the number of U.S. homes entering the foreclosure process for the first time increased on an annual basis for the second month in a row, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers added only 80,000 jobs in June, a third straight month of weak hiring that shows the economy is still struggling three years after the recession ended.

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent, the Labor Department said in its report Friday.

The economy added an average of just 75,000 jobs a month in the April-June quarter. That's one-third of the 226,000 a month created in the first quarter. Through the first six months of the year, job creation is also trailing last year's pace.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The governor and Legislature face a critical policy choice in the wake of Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a federal health care overhaul and must decide whether to expand the state's biggest health care program to cover an estimated 170,000 uninsured New Mexicans.

The court ruled the federal government couldn't force New Mexico and other states to expand Medicaid eligibility in 2014 by threatening to withhold federal aid received for the program.