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reached a 4½-year low of 7.3 percent. Layoffs are dwindling.
• Yet other barometers of the job market point to chronic weakness:
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress returns to work facing a momentous vote on whether the United States should attack Syria, a question that overshadows a crowded and contentious agenda of budget fights, health care, farm policy and possible limits on the government's surveillance of millions of Americans.
• Back Monday after a five-week break, many lawmakers stand as a major obstacle to President Barack Obama's promised strikes against Syria amid fears of U.S. involvement in an extended Mideast war and public fatigue after more than a decade of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Obama insists the world must act. He blames Syrian President Bashar Assad for gassing his own people, killing 1,429 civilians, including 426 children. The Syrian government has denied responsibility for the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack outside Damascus, and blames rebels.
• On Wednesday, the 12th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the first showdown Senate vote is likely over a resolution authorizing the "limited and specified use" of U.S. armed forces against Syria for no more than 90 days and barring American ground troops from combat. A final vote in the 100-member chamber is expected at week's end.
• "I think we're going to get 60 votes. It's a work in progress," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Friday.
• ___

• NEW YORK (AP) -- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in an interview that one leading Democrat vying to replace him is running a "racist" campaign based on "class warfare."
• Bloomberg made the comment about candidate Bill de Blasio in an interview with New York magazine due on newsstands Monday. It appeared on the magazine's website Saturday.
• De Blasio is white, but he has been polling well among blacks since he began airing television ads featuring his interracial family. His wife is black and the couple

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