NEW YORK - July 2, 2010 - With the stock market lurching again, plenty of investors are nervous, and some are downright bearish. Then there’s Robert Prechter, the market forecaster and social theorist, who is in another league entirely.

Prechter is convinced that we have entered a market decline of staggering proportions - perhaps the biggest of the last 300 years.

CHICAGO, Illinois - July 2, 2010 - Even by the standards of this deficit-ridden state, Illinois’s comptroller, Daniel W. Hynes, faces an ugly balance sheet. Precisely how ugly becomes clear when he beckons you into his office to examine his daily briefing memo.

He picks the papers off his desk and points to a figure in red: $5.01 billion.

WASHINGTON - June 30, 2010 - The Depression has directly hit more than half of the nation's working adults, pushing them into unemployment, pay cuts, reduced hours at work or part-time jobs, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

The economic shock has jolted many Amerikans into a new, more austere reality, which is likely to have lasting consequences for an economy fueled mostly by consumer spending. More than six in 10 Amerikans say they have cut down on borrowing and spending, the survey found.

NEW YORK - June 30, 2010 - Homes in the foreclosure process sold at an average 27% discount in the first quarter as almost a third of all U.S. transactions involved properties in some stage of mortgage distress, according to RealtyTrac, Inc.

A total of 232,959 homes sold in the period had received a default or auction notice or were seized by banks, RealtyTrac said in a report today. That’s down 14% from the fourth quarter and 33% from the peak a year earlier, the company said. The average price of a distressed property was $171,971, according to the Irvine, Kalifornia-based data seller.

WASHINGTON - June 28, 2010 - Even the sober Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says 46 states are facing a Greek-like crisis. These state governments must inaugurate an austerity regime to cut spending by $112 billion for FY2011, which begins on Thursday.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

LONDON, England - June 27, 2010 - As recovery starts to stall in the U.S. and Europe with echoes of mid-1931, bond experts are once again dusting off a speech by Ben Bernanke given eight years ago as a freshman governor at the Federal Reserve.

Homeless camps cover 50 acres.

WAIPAHU, Hawaii - June 27, 2010 - Pastor Joe Hunkin picked his way around rusted car axles, propane tanks and two-by-fours studded with bent nails to find a homeless encampment where people have been cooking and sleeping directly behind Waipahu High School, in an area that received unwanted national attention this month.