Matt Damon takes on energy industry with fracking film Promised Land

As one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors with a reputation for straight-talking, he has made little secret of his willingness to confront thorny political and social issues.

Now Matt Damon is facing off against one of America's most powerful institutions - the oil and gas industry - in a film that represents a new battleground for environmentalists' campaigns against fracking.

Promised Land, which goes on nationwide release in the US this week, is set to intensify debate on the controversial drilling technique to such an extent that the industry has prepared a public relations campaign of its own to mitigate the film's impact.

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THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- NOVEMBER 2012

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 146,000 in November, and the unemployment rate edged down to 7.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. 

Employment increased in retail trade, professional and business services, and health care.

Household Survey Data  

The unemployment rate edged down to 7.7 percent in November. The number of unemployed persons, at 12.0 million, changed little. (See table A-1.)  Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (7.2 percent), adult women (7.0 percent), teenagers (23.5 percent), whites (6.8 percent), and Hispanics (10.0 percent) showed little or no change in November. The unemployment rate for blacks (13.2 percent) declined over the month. The jobless rate for Asians was 6.4 percent (not seasonally adjusted), little changed from a year earlier. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)