Parents of students who are taking the SAT test on Saturday — or getting ready for the next one in May — know that test prep can be an expensive proposition, limited mainly to affluent families who can afford expensive private tutoring sessions. But in a deepening recession that has forced families to cut back, the test-prep industry has responded by lowering prices. And business is booming. One of the biggest low-cost growth areas is in ...

The panic comes in the morning. As I sit at my desk and drink a tall glass of Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice, I start to worry about my career. I may be the best journalist in the world, but if there are no journals left to be journalisting for, I'll have to use my communication skills in some other way, like asking my parents for money. That's why I've decided to save print journalism. My first idea was to get ...

Even before the financial and home foreclosure crisis hit full stride, the number of homeless children in America had reached an alarming level. The National Center on Family Homelessness released a report today that estimates that one in every 50 American children was homeless between 2005 and 2006. That totals roughly 1.5 million kids. While the center provided no previous statistic to compare against that figure, a study conducted with different measures published in 2000 put the total at 1.35 ...

Over the last few weeks, the newspaper industry has entered a new period of decline. The parent of the papers in Philadelphia declared bankruptcy as did the Journal Register chain. The Rocky Mountain News closed and the Seattle Post Intelligencer, owned by Hearst, will almost certainly close or only publish online. Hearst has said it will also close The San Francisco Chronicle if it cannot make massive cuts at the paper. The most recent rumor is that the company ...

An Illinois sheriff filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the owners of craigslist, accusing the popular national classified-ad Web site of knowingly promoting prostitution. Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart wants craigslist to eliminate its Erotic Services section. "Craigslist is the single largest source of prostitution in the nation," Dart said. "Missing children, runaways, abused women and women trafficked in from foreign countries are routinely forced to have sex with strangers because they're being pimped on craigslist." The FBI ...

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, has withdrawn his name from consideration as surgeon general of the United States, an administration official said Thursday. (CNN) -- Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, has withdrawn his name from consideration as surgeon general of the United States, an administration official said Thursday. "Sanjay Gupta was under serious consideration for the job of surgeon general," the official said in an e-mail. "He has removed himself from consideration to focus more on ...

Stocks crashed through a psychological barrier on Monday, falling below 7000 to close down 4.24% for the day, at 6763 — the first market close under 7000 since May 1997. The broader S&P 500 was down sharply as well, falling 4.66% to finish at 700.82. The market opened on a sharp down note after absorbing a weekend of anxiety over AIG, the black hole of an insurance company that is swallowing another $30 billion of government assistance with no ...

The New York International Children's Film Festival , which opens this weekend, is the biggest children's film festival in the U.S. This is not the kind of event where they screen Dr Seuss' Horton Hears Another Who or Madagascar 3: Botswanarama! This is a venue for those budding cineastes between the ages of 3 and 18 for whom this weekend could not be complete without screening a film in the Children and War series — or another of the ...

By his statistics alone, Barry Bonds would be considered one of the greatest players to ever walk onto a baseball field. In addition to a string of playing awards, Bonds holds the most sacred record in all of American sport: the all-time homerun record. From 2000-2004, opposing teams were so afraid of his ability they essentially refused to pitch to him, choosing instead to tactically move him on to the next base instead of allowing him to hit the ball. ...

I don't like populists. First of all, they seem a lot more popular than I am. Second, they derive their popularity from exploiting our base fears — Joe McCarthy's fear of communist takeover, George Wallace's fear of black people, Lou Dobbs' fear of other cultures, Joe the Plumber's fear of working. Whereas I derive my popularity from ending paragraphs with middling jokes. But CNBC reporter Rick Santelli's now famous rant against President Barack Obama's Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan ...