Jennifer Ordoñez

Why shoppers are relying on a retro financing to get through the holidays.

The faltering economy is casting a pall over 'Sweetest Day,' typically the start of holiday shopping in the Midwest.

As California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger discussed the "unprecedented wildfire siege" that since late June has burned more than 700,000 acres in his state, a handful of Buddhist monks in the Los Padres National Forest valiantly protected their monastery while fire crews from Mexico, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere in the United States, including 2,000 California National Guardsmen, prepared to lend a hand to state efforts.

An appeals court ruling makes it more difficult for employers to sniff around in workers' electronic communications.

The Internet as a medium seems made for comical content. But as a business, comedy on the Web has been a joke.

Internet porn is forcing adult magazines to diversify their business.

Free game sites have become a furtive pastime among office workers, insomniac moms and chronic procrastinators.

The number of casual videogamers is rising. If only the developers could find a way to make more money out of them.

The pages of 8020 Publishing's two magazines are filled entirely with content submitted by readers through its Web sites.

8020's publications are filled entirely with content generated by online readers. But will people pay for it?

Microsoft is paying a premium to catch up to Google.

To stop McDonald's and other rivals from siphoning away even more customers, the company begins testing $1 cups of coffee.

Could the writers' strike kill the ailing soap-opera genre? Tune in to see.

The battle brewing between Starbucks and McDonald's

In May, Latino protesters at a rally in Los Angeles failed to heed warnings to disperse—warnings shouted at them in English from a noisy police helicopter.

Struggling to police ever more diverse communities, law enforcement agencies are turning to handheld translation devices.

Hollywood's Secrets: What the picket lines reveal.

What a film and TV writers strike will mean to viewers.

Apple releases its new OS, Leopard.

Tuning in to Rupert Murdoch's new business network.

How Frito-Lay is re-engineering its munchies to make healthier snacks

There was a time—say, the fourth grade—when I was sure my genetic destiny was to be an athlete. My father was a three-time All-American wrestler in college.

After 10 years as a clinical endocrinologist, Dr. Matthew Corcoran, founder of the Diabetes Training Camp, was frustrated. Having seen thousands of patients—as assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals and most recently as a physician in Lehigh Valley Hospital's diabetes and endocrinology group—he wondered why more wasn't being done to prevent the very complications he spent so much time trying to treat.

Stay-at-home mothers just got a little more ammunition against their working counterparts in the mommy wars. It seems that if homemakers were ever paid for the myriad jobs they perform—from chef to chauffeur to psychologist—they'd command a whopping $138,095 annually, several times what most working mothers earn in the workplace.

Tax time can tax even the strongest marriages, but newlyweds Brad and Drew Erb, who took their vows last October, should be feeling particularly in love as April 15 approaches.

Regina Miller says she is tired of "throwing away $1,520 each month" to rent the two-bedroom apartment in Long Beach, Calif., that she shares with her 12-year-old son.

On Saturdays around 6 a.m., there's a decent chance that Tim Rios, a native of Guadalajara, Mexico, will be working the fields of Northern California. Rios, an executive vice president at San Francisco-based Wells Fargo Bank, sets aside his pinstripes and sets up shop at vineyards and farms, looking to connect with laborers in need of financial services.

Spend an hour talking to Dov Charney, founder of American Apparel, and he is likely to start yelling: about his passion for his edgy clothing company, for sexy women, for being a "hustler," in the best sense of the word.

There you are, sitting in your favorite recliner, wearing your hardly stylish, yet comfy sweatpants. Your laptop is fired up—wireless connection at full strength, classical music from your digital library playing softly.

When Karin Jordal's son hooked up a Webcam in her California home a month ago, the 69-year-old artist and mother of two considered it a novelty. With one son living in the family's native Norway and another headed to the Philippines, Jordal though at best the $50 gadget would allow her to keep in touch with her boys via the Internet without running up the phone bill.