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An independent political committee supportive of Newt Gingrich is planning to release a film critical of Mitt Romney’s tenure at a private-equity firm, just days after a Las Vegas billionaire contributed $5 million to the group to bolster the former House speaker’s White House run.

The Gingrich-leaning Winning Our Future PAC said Sunday that the 28-minute video _ which assails Romney for “reaping massive awards” while head of Bain Capital _ will be posted online soon and could show up on TV ahead of this month’s primary elections.

Meanwhile, a person familiar with the development said Sheldon Adelson, a casino mogul and longtime donor to Republican candidates, made the contribution Friday to Winning Our Future, which is run by Gingrich allies. The person, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said Adelson is expected to contribute to groups backing the Republican nominee, be it Gingrich or one of his rivals.

Both the film and the large contribution highlight the growing role that new “super” political action committees are playing this election. Just weeks ago, a Romney-leaning super PAC called Restore Our Future hammered Gingrich with $3 million in negative ads that largely contributed to his eroding support before the Iowa caucuses. Gingrich finished in fourth place.

Now, the tables have turned: Winning Our Future’s case marks the first time Gingrich and his allies have targeted Romney’s time at Bain. They have said Romney’s record is fair game, but up until now have restricted attacks to his time in government.

The film, called “When Mitt Romney Came To Town,” assails Romney for “reaping massive awards” for himself and his investors. Bain has been credited with turning around dozens of companies, including well-known brands like Domino’s Pizza, but its record has been criticized _ notably by the Democratic National Committee _ for slashing jobs in the process.

Rick Tyler, a former Gingrich aide who is now working for Winning Our Future, said the full video would be posted online “soon.” Some segments could be used in shorter TV ads, he said, although there were no immediate plans to run the full piece on television.

Super PACs have sprouted up from a series of federal court rulings, including the Supreme Court’s Citizens United case in 2010 that stripped away restrictions on corporate and union spending in elections. The groups can’t coordinate directly with campaigns but many of them active in this election are staffed by longtime supporters of the candidates.

While some super PACs have to disclose their contributors’ names later this month, many will never be known. Some super PACs have established nonprofit arms that are permitted to shield contributors’ identities as long as they spend no more than 50 percent of their money on electoral politics low fee payday loans. Crossroads, the giant conservative outfit tied to former George W. Bush political adviser Karl Rove, operates both a super PAC, Crossroads GPS, and a nonprofit, American Crossroads.

Crossroads GPS and other Republican-leaning super PACs played a significant role in the 2010 midterm elections, helping deliver the House to the GOP and boost the number of Republicans in the Senate. The 2012 contest is the first to test the influence of such groups in presidential politics.

But no candidate has seen his fortunes affected by the emergence of super PACs more than Gingrich.

Riding high in polls just a month ago, he became the target of a $3 million advertising barrage sponsored by Restore Our Future, a super PAC supporting Mitt Romney run by several of the former Massachusetts governor’s allies. The ads, which pounded Gingrich for his ties to federal housing giant Freddie Mac and his reversal on issues such as climate change, sent his political fortunes plunging in Iowa.

Romney and Gingrich tangled over the role of super PACs in a nationally televised debate Sunday. Romney said he had not seen Restore Our Future’s ads but defended their content.

“Governor, I wish you would calmly and directly state it is your former staff running the PAC,” Gingrich said to Romney, warning his own allies would be on the air soon.

Gingrich has pledged to carry on and is hoping to resuscitate his campaign in South Carolina, which holds its primary Jan. 21. With Romney heavily favored to win the New Hampshire primary Tuesday, his rivals are looking to slow his momentum when the contest moves to the South.

Several super PACs have already played a role in the Republican campaign. They include Make Us Great Again, a super PAC backing Texas Gov. Rick Perry; Our Destiny, supporting former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman; and the Red White and Blue Fund, which helped revive Santorum’s campaign in Iowa and is running ads in South Carolina.

Priorities USA Action, a super PAC backing President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, has spent modestly during the Republican nominating contest and is expected to step up its role in the general election.

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Gillum reported from Washington. Associated Press Writer Shannon McCaffrey in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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- Despite an upswing in hiring during 2011, the jobs crisis could last many more years as millions of Americans struggle to find work.

In Orlando, Florida, Brenda Solomon lost her retail job last May at a department store and was unable to find even temporary work during the holiday season.

“I’ve tried and tried and tried,” Solomon, 58, said on Friday while visiting a job center.

Earlier, the U.S. Labor department said employers added 200,000 jobs during December, many more than expected by Wall Street. In 2011 as a whole, 1.64 million jobs were created, well above the 940,000 in 2010 and the best showing since 2006.

But the amount of jobs in the economy is still about 6.1 million lower than before the brutal 2007-2009 recession. At December’s pace of gains, it would take about 2 1/2 years just to get back to pre-recession levels of employment.

That means many people will be in for an agonizing wait.

In December, 5.6 million of the nation’s unemployed had been out of work for at least six months, the Labor Department data showed, only slightly lower than the previous month.

Laquanda Carmichael has been without work for just over a year and has seen no improvement in the labor market.

“It’s been the same to me. I have a lot of discouraging days,” the 39 year-old former science teacher and hospital worker said.

“I’m looking for anything right now. Warehouse processing, hospitality, anything.”

While jobs creation certainly picked up in the United States during the end of the year, economists point out that even a gain of 200,000 underwhelms considering constant growth in the population and the still-high 8.5 percent unemployment rate.

Princeton University economist Paul Krugman said that at December’s pace it could take a decade for the labor market to recover from the recession.

In a back-of-the-envelope calculation, Krugman was considering that the country’s growing population adds at least 100,000 people to the workforce every month.

“We need much faster job growth,” he wrote on his blog. “It says something about how beaten down we are that this (jobs report for December) is considered good news.”

The unemployment numbers reflect a persistent difference between those with a higher education and those without - especially in certain sectors like engineering.

Nearly 90 percent of 2011 graduates from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts got jobs or attended graduate school - almost the same level as before 2008.

Jeanette Doyle, director of the school’s Career Development Center, said there was a 7 percent uptick in late 2011 in the number of companies at the school’s fall recruiting event, and 17 companies were on a wait list to get in.

For lower-paid Americans, the picture is very different.

Construction worker Richard White, also at the job center in Orlando, has not had steady work in the last three years, and gets by on occasional stints doing electrical work or carpentry.

In December, the construction industry added 17,000 jobs. But that sector, devastated by a burst housing bubble that helped trigger the last recession, has even farther to go than the rest of the economy before it can recover.

There were still almost a third fewer construction jobs in December than at the industry’s pre-recession peak in August 2006.

As for the December’s advance, White said: “I’m not seeing it.”

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Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said monetary policy has influenced inflation and price expectations, even with the benchmark interest rate near zero since December 2008.

European stocks rose on Friday as investors set aside concerns about the euro’s debt crisis to focus on the impending release of monthly U.S. jobs data, which many hope will confirm a mild recovery in the world’s largest economy.

Asian market indexes closed lower as they reacted to poor economic and financial indicators out of Europe the previous day. That stream of poor European data continued on Friday, with new information showing a drop in retail sales and economic sentiment among consumers and businesses. Unemployment in the 17-nation eurozone, meanwhile, remained at a worrying 10.3 percent.

Traders expect 2012 to be a tough one for Europe, as it slides back toward recession, and appeared relieved to have more upbeat U.S. economic indicators to focus on Friday.

Analysts are projecting hiring gains of about 150,000 when the U.S. Labor Department issues the December jobs report. That would mark a six-month stretch in which the economy generated 100,000 jobs or more in each month. Expectations of the data rose on Thursday, when the private payrolls agency ADP said its own calculations for hiring gains were much stronger than forecast.

An improvement in the U.S. labor market is crucial for global markets because American consumer spending accounts for a fifth of the world’s economic activity. A recovery in the U.S. would also mitigate the impact of the sharp slowdown in Europe.

Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.4 percent to 5,644.55, while Germany’s DAX rose 0.6 percent to 6,131.25. France’s CAC-40 rose 0.8 percent to 3,170.85. Ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street, Dow Jones futures rose almost 0.1 percent to 12,334 and S&P 500 futures gained 0.1 percent to 1,274.50.

Although upbeat U.S. data could push stocks higher, gains were likely to be limited by the lingering fears about Europe’s debt crisis. Italy’s benchmark 10-year bond yield edged further above 7 percent, a borrowing rate that is considered unsustainable over the longer term.

Italy, along with many other European governments, has to roll over huge amounts of debt in coming months. It is trying to restore investor confidence in its public finances to get those bond yields down and pay lower rates when it auctions its bonds to raise cash from capital markets.

Traders will watch comments from Italian Premier Mario Monti, who will hold talks in Paris with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday.

Banks, meanwhile, are hurting due to fears that they will take big losses on their holdings of government debt and will struggle to raise new cash to plug those holes.

Trading in UniCredit, Italy’s largest bank, was halted on Thursday after the stock lost a quarter of its value in two days. The bank said Wednesday it would need to offer huge discounts to investors to raise money in a new share sale. The stock was down another 11 percent on Friday.

Longer-term concerns about the euro and the region’s financial system pushed the common currency to 15-month lows on Thursday. It recovered slightly on Friday, rising 0.1 percent to $1.2808.

Outside the eurozone, Hungary was sliding deeper into its own financial crisis. It had to pay a staggeringly high interest rate of 10 percent on its 12-month debt. That is far above the 7 percent level that forced Greece and Portugal to seek emergency bailouts to prevent them from defaulting on their debts.

Investor confidence in the country has deteriorated to the point that the country is considering asking the International Monetary Fund for a standby rescue loan.

Asian indexes ended mostly lower as they reacted to the previous day’s European market jitters. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index closed 1.2 percent lower at 8,390.35. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.2 percent at 18,593.06 and South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.1 percent to 1,843.14. Benchmarks in Taiwan and Indonesia also fell. India and Singapore rose.

In mainland China, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.7 percent to 2,163.39, while the smaller Shenzhen Composite Index gained 0.5 percent to 817.78.

Japanese stocks are hurt by the yen’s rise against the dollar, which makes exports less competitive internationally. On Friday, the dollar dropped another 0.1 percent to 77.07 yen.

Benchmark oil for February delivery rose 60 cents to $102.41 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell by $1.41 to end Thursday at $101.81 in New York.

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Wall Street is heading higher on the last day of trading at the end of a raucous year on positive signals this week about jobs and, depending how you look at it, housing.

Oil prices edged higher in the absence of any major economic data Friday.

The government said Thursday that the number of people applying for unemployment benefits each week has dropped by 10 percent since January and pending home sales jumped to their highest point in a year and a half.

Still, investors will wait to see if those home sales actually close and also for a raft of data next week on manufacturing.

Dow futures rose 0.07 percent, to 12,225 and S&P 500 futures added 0.17 percent to 1,259.50. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.13 percent to 2,280.25.

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Stocks are opening slightly lower as worries over the European debt crisis persist, overshadowing a strong auction of Italian government debt.

The European Central Bank said the continent’s banks parked a record $590.72 billion overnight at the bank, reflecting distrust in the European banking system.

Italy held two successful bond auctions Wednesday at a substantially lower cost than what it paid in similar auctions last month payday loan lenders. The sales raised hopes that the country would be able to roll over its enormous national debt with new bonds.

The Dow Jones industrial average is down 20 points at 12,272 in early trading. The S&P 500 is down 3 at 1,262. The Nasdaq is down 6 at 2,619.

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The Sappington Farmers Market, which filed for bankruptcy Friday, will remain open despite its troubles.

“The reorganization of Sappington Farmers Market will allow the store to remain open and viable,” said Nancy Smith, the market’s manager, in a written statement. “We feel this will position us to be successful in the future.”

Smith didn’t provide an interview.

The store, on Watson Road in Marlborough, has roots going back to the early 1980s, and has been at its present location since 1995 where it has gained a loyal following of bargain hunters and proponents of local farming.

The store’s mission has long been to support area farmers by featuring their products.

In her statement released Saturday, Smith said the store would continue to feature local farmers, and would continue distributing their products not only through the store, but through schools, restaurants and a “mobile market instant payday loans.”

The store’s founder, Tessa Greenspan, sold it in 2008 to a cooperative of small-scale farmers known as the Missouri Farmers Union, which formed a company called Farm to Family Naturally LLC to buy the business.

Farm to Family Naturally, which does business as Sappington Farmers Market, was the organization that filed forChapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday.

Members of the original cooperative who purchased the store have since left, according to employees.

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The leaders of Germany and France called Monday for a new European Union treaty to restore confidence in the euro currency and to ensure that the region’s debt crisis never happens again.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that they would prefer a treaty agreed by all 27 members of the European Union but would also accept a treaty among just the 17 countries that use the euro.

The new treaty should include automatic sanctions for countries that violate rules meant to keep government deficits in check.

Investors cheered the two leaders’ comments, with the euro and stocks rising and bond yields dropping.

The meeting comes at the start of a crucial week for the eurozone, as it struggles to convince markets that it is able to solve its debt crisis.

Sarkozy said a jointly issued bond by all the countries that use the euro is not the solution to the continent’s debt crisis.

Many analysts have said that only by issuing bonds backed by the whole eurozone will Europe be able to save its shared currency.

Stronger countries, like Germany and France, have resisted those calls, but some thought that as the crisis worsens they might be forced to relent. Sarkozy reiterated Monday, however, that a common bond was “in no way” the solution to the crisis.

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Courting disaffected conservatives, House Republican leaders offered Friday to overturn a pair of Obama administration environmental policies and avert a deep cut in payments to doctors treating Medicare patients as part of legislation renewing a Social Security payroll tax cut through 2012.

The tax cut, due to expire on Dec. 31, “hasn’t stimulated the economy at all,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, one of several Republicans who emerged from a closed-door meeting and spoke unfavorably about the proposed extension at the heart of President Barack Obama’s jobs program.

“But over the long term, it does add to our deficit,” he added.

A one-year extension would cost an estimated $120 billion. The expense would be offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget, but Republican critics noted the savings would take a decade to materialize fully, while the cut itself would last for only one year.

Despite the misgivings, Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and other Republican leaders are committed to passing the legislation, fearing political fallout if payroll taxes rise on Jan. 1 on 160 million wage-earners.

The situation is similar in the Senate, where 26 of 46 Republicans voted Thursday night against a leadership-backed plan to renew the payroll tax cuts.

Officials said that to sweeten the measure for conservatives, House Republican leaders informed lawmakers they are prepared to add a provision averting a 27 percent cut in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients, effective Jan. 1. The cost is about $38 billion over two years.

In addition, officials said Boehner and the leadership suggested including a provision that delays and eases a proposed Environmental Protection Agency requirement for new pollution regulations on industrial boilers and incinerators. The House approved legislation along the same lines in October, with the backing of 41 Democrats.

The EPA announced during the day it had agreed to ease the rules, although the change seemed unlikely to satisfy critics.

Another provision that would be added to the payroll tax bill is designed to speed construction of a proposed Keystone XL pipeline that pits environmentalists on one side, and industry and some labor unions on the other. The 1,700-mile structure would carry as much as 700,000 barrels of oil a day from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma.

Despite a three-year review by federal agencies, Obama announced recently he would not decide whether to grant a construction permit until after the election in November 2012.

Democrats and Obama want to pay for the additional year of payroll tax cuts by imposing a 3.25 percent surcharge on individuals and couples with $1 million in income or more, and are hoping to use the issue to depict Republicans as benefactors of the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

House Republicans are opposed to raising taxes, and the leadership reviewed a list of alternative proposals with the rank and file that officials said had originated with Obama or been embraced by the administration earlier in the year.

Among the options are a pay freeze for federal workers through 2015 and a requirement for them to pay a higher share of their pension costs. Raising the cost of Medicare premiums for the well-to-do is also on the list, as are proposals to charge a fee for mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the sale of spectrum rights now held by the government, and a denial of unemployment benefits or food stamps to million-dollar earners.

“Now is not the time to slam the brakes on the recovery. Right now, it’s time to step on the gas,” Obama said in an appearance at a construction site at which he noted that unemployment last month fell to a 2 1/2-year low of 8.6 percent.

If Congress fails to deliver the legislation to his desk before its scheduled adjournment for the year, “we can all spend Christmas here together,” said the president.

Obama is scheduled to leave on Dec. 17 for a Christmas vacation in Hawaii with his family and friends, spokesman Josh Earnest said. Those plans may be delayed by unfinished business with Congress, as it has been in the past.

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