By Chris Cillizza
washingtonpost.com staff writer

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton claimed a convincing win over Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in today’s Puerto Rico primary, a victory that may well be her last in her fading bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Polls closed in Puerto Rico at 3 p.m. Eastern time and the race was called for Clinton almost immediately by the major television networks and the Associated Press.

For Clinton, the win provides a quick bounce-back from her campaign’s resounding setback on Saturday at the hands of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, which ruled in Obama’s favor in a dispute over the seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations, but does little to change the overarching dynamic of the primary fight.

While Clinton will win a clear majority of Puerto Rico’s 55 delegates, she will still stand well behind Obama in the overall count. Coming into today’s vote, Obama had 2,052 delegates, 66 short of clinching the nomination. Clinton had a total of 1,877 delegates.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/livecoverage/

By Shobhana Chandra

June 1 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. lost jobs for a fifth month in May and manufacturing contracted, signaling the economy is stagnating, economists said before reports this week.

Payrolls probably dropped by 60,000 workers, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before the Labor Department’s June 6 report. Figures tomorrow may show the Institute for Supply Management’s factory index fell to 48.5 in May.

Credit restrictions triggered by foreclosures, along with soaring food and fuel prices, have caused spending to slow, prompting banks, construction companies and manufacturers to fire workers. Rising joblessness heightens the risk that consumers will keep retrenching, further hurting growth.

“The job market is really emphasizing how bad things are in the economy,” said Lindsey Piegza, an economic analyst at FTN Financial in New York. “Payroll declines will further weaken consumer spending.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aUYG2fgTYF8s&refer=home

By Rob Stein

Proponents of sex education programs that focus on encouraging abstinence are launching a nationwide campaign aimed at enlisting 1 million parents to support the controversial approach.

The National Abstinence Education Association, a Washington-based advocacy group, said that it sent e-mails last week to about 30,000 supporters, practitioners and parents to try to recruit participants and plans to e-mail 100,000 this week as part of the first phase of the $1 million campaign.

The e-mail is promoting the Parents for Truth campaign, which the group hopes will eventually involve 1 million parents nationwide to lobby local schools to adopt sex education programs focusing on abstinence and to work to elect local, state and national officials who support the approach.

“There are powerful special interest groups who can far outspend what parents can in terms of promoting their agenda. But we recognize that parents more than make up for that by their determination and motivation to protect their own children,” said Valerie Huber, the group’s executive director.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/31/AR2008053101742.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Clinton defies party leaders; eyes Puerto Rico win

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer 58 minutes ago

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, newly defiant against her own party leaders, sought a victory Sunday in Puerto Rico’s presidential primary that would give her a toehold on an increasingly slippery path to the nomination.

The island territory, once a political asterisk in presidential contests, stood as Clinton’s last best electoral chance. She, former President Clinton and their daughter Chelsea have spent a combined 15 days in the commonwealth hoping to keep her relevant in the contest.

Sunday’s vote follows the decision Saturday by a panel of the Democratic National Committee to give each Michigan and Florida delegate a half vote at this summer’s convention. It was a compromise that did no harm to Obama’s near claim to the nomination but infuriated the Clinton camp and prompted new threats to carry the fight to the August convention.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080601/ap_on_el_pr/primary_rdp