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Rita found a gorgeous place to stay for dirt cheap. Problem was, she didn't much care for her roommate.

SAO PAULO (AP) — A technology security company says it has uncovered a massive cybercrime ring in Brazil that may have stolen billions of dollars from a widely used online payment system.

The RSA Security division of EMC Corp. says in a research report released Wednesday that a "malware-based fraud ring" had infiltrated the online payment method known as the boleto, diverting payments to accounts held by members of the ring.

Boletos are used in a wide range of transactions, such as telephone, school tuition, mortgage and credit card payments.

The report said the scheme may have compromised close to 500,000 transactions over a two-year period with an estimated value of $3.8 billion. However, researchers were unable to determine how many boletos were paid.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers accelerated their hiring last month, adding a robust 288,000 jobs and helping drive the unemployment rate to 6.1 percent, the lowest since September 2008.

It was the fifth straight monthly job gain above 200,000 — the best such stretch since the late 1990s tech boom. Over the past 12 months, the economy has added nearly 2.5 million jobs — an average of 208,000 a month, the fastest year-over-year pace since May 2006.

Thursday's jobs report from the Labor Department made clear that the U.S. economy is moving steadily closer to full health after having shrunk at the start of the year.

June's job gain followed additions of 217,000 jobs in May and 304,000 in April, figures that were both revised upward. Monthly job gains so far this year have averaged 230,833, up from 194,250 in 2013.

Investors appeared pleased by the news. When stock markets opened Thursday, an hour after the government released the jobs report, the Dow Jones industrial average traded above 17,000 for first time. By 10 a.m., the Dow had risen about 65 points.

The unemployment rate dipped last month from 6.3 percent in May to its lowest level since the financial crisis struck at full force in the fall of 2008 with the bankruptcy of the Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers.

"Since February, this has now become a textbook jobs expansion," said Patrick O'Keefe, director of economic research at the consultancy CohnReznick. "It is both broad and accelerating."

The June job gains were widespread. Factories added 16,000 workers, retailers 40,200. Financial and insurance firms increased their payrolls by 17,000. Restaurants and bars employed 32,800 more people. Only construction, which gained a scant 6,000, appeared to reflect the slow recovery of previous years.

Job growth has averaged 272,000 over the past three months. In May, the economy surpassed its jobs total in December 2007, when the Great Recession officially began.

The number of long-term unemployed has dropped 1.2 million over the past year to just under 3.1 million. That's half what it was three years ago.

Still, researchers at the liberal Economic Policy Institute estimate that 6.7 million more jobs would have been needed to keep up with population growth.

The challenge is whether the job gains will pull more Americans back into employment and lift wages that have barely budged. Many people who lost jobs during the recession and were never rehired have stopped looking for work. Just 62.8 percent of adult Americans are working or are looking for a job, compared with 66 percent before the recession.

Average pay has grown just 2 percent a year during the recovery, roughly in line with inflation and below the long-run average annual growth of about 3.5 percent.

Despite the improving job market, most employers still have plenty of applicants to choose from, and many workers with jobs don't have enough confidence to look for better-paying ones.

The lack of strong wage growth means the Federal Reserve may not feel pressure to start raising short-term interest rates soon as a way of controlling inflation.

"We are still not seeing any significant pickup in wage growth," Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a research note. "We suspect that Fed officials will continue to cling to the view that there is still plenty of slack in the labor market."

The economy actually shrank in the first three months of this year at an annual rate of 2.9 percent. It was the sharpest quarterly contraction since the recession. Ferocious winter storms and freezing temperatures caused factories to close and prevented consumers from visiting shopping malls and auto dealers.

Still, the winter failed to freeze hiring and job growth has continued with little to no interruption. This should help to speed economic growth because more jobs lead to more paychecks to spend.

Most economists say annualized growth is tracking a solid 3 percent to 3.5 percent in the current second quarter. Growth over the course of the entire year should be closer to 2 percent for the entire year, roughly similar to the 1.9 percent increase in gross domestic product achieved last year.

Other than the weak growth at the start of the year, some other signs point to the improving health of the economy.

Auto sales rose at the fastest pace in eight years in June. Dealers unloaded vehicles at an annual pace of 16.98 million last month. Factory orders picked up last month as well, according to a report this week by the Institute for Supply Management.

Home sales also strengthened in May, after having sputtered in the middle of last year when higher mortgage rates and rising prices hurt affordability.

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AP Economics Writer Paul Wiseman contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama wants his Cabinet secretaries to hit the road and is urging them to "be creative about how we can make real progress" on issues where Congress won't act.

Obama, meeting Cabinet members at the White House Tuesday, said he would prefer that Congress act on issues such as immigration and infrastructure because laws are more sweeping than his own administrative actions.

Recalling last week's trip to Minnesota, Obama said Americans are "extraordinarily cynical about Washington right now."

"We're not always going to be able to get things through Congress, at least not this Congress," Obama said. "I want to make sure we emphasize not what we can't do, but what we can do in the coming months."

Later Tuesday, Obama was mixing a little Fourth of July patriotism with a pitch to fix the nation's bridges and highways.

He planned to call on Congress to close tax loopholes and use the money on infrastructure projects. He will issue his appeal at Washington's Key Bridge, named after "Star-Spangled Banner" author Francis Scott Key. The bridge is getting repairs from the Highway Trust Fund, which expires at summer's end if Congress doesn't act.

The White House said Obama wants his Cabinet secretaries to travel this summer to listen to Americans' concerns.

The meeting came a day after Obama declared that he would act on his own to address weaknesses in the nation's immigration system after House Speaker John Boehner informed him that the House would not take up an immigration overhaul this year.

Obama has already taken executive action to require federal contractors to pay a higher minimum wage and initiating steps to to lower carbon emissions in coal-fired power plants.

Republicans have pushed back against the tactic, saying Obama has overstepped his authority. Last week, Boehner threatened to file a lawsuit to halt Obama's unilateral measures.