“The unwelcome messages that have been clogging e-mail inboxes for two decades have made the jump to handsets,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle this morning. The number of spam texts sent within the US rose 45 percent last year, reaching a new high of 4.5 million. Spammers can easily find phone numbers on the Internet. They then use prepaid cell phones to make their actions untraceable, causing a conundrum for both customers and the phone industry.

The “CAPTCHA” is supposed to be the visual test that a computer can’t easily solve. It’s intended to throw a wrench in “robot” programs that attempt to automate online tasks like buying tickets the moment a concert goes on sale. But the computers are getting better at reading those twisted CAPTHCA letters, says the Philadelphia Inquirer, which means the people who make the visual challenges are forced to make them even harder to read.

An exposé in Sunday’s New York Times reports that Apple uses subsidiaries in Ireland, the Netherlands, and other countries with low tax rates as part of a plan to drastically cut the amount of US taxes it owes. The paper says it’s not rare for companies to go to great lengths to trim their tax bills but because of its size, “Apple serves as a window on how technology giants have taken advantage of tax codes written for an industrial age and ill suited to today’s digital economy.”

It’s not just major American newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat these days—USA Today says the problem continues all the way down the food chain. College newspapers all over the country are feeling pressure to trim their budgets and costs. And a handful of storied papers, including Berkeley’s Daily Californian and the University of Illinois’ Daily Illini, are facing bankruptcy as the journalism industry continues to contract.

The answer is “28 seasons.” The question: “How long has Alex Trebek been the host of Jeopardy?” The game show institution is going strong at 71 years of age. A Washington Post profile says he’s become a “syndicated staple of Americana” after more than 6000 shows.

The NFL draft isn’t the first stop for many of the athletes who are in New York this week. Their first stop is to meet with a fashion stylist. Many players try to take it up a notch before their big moment in the draft, says the New York Times. Stylist Rachel Johnson says she tries for personality without being too bold, which can look overwhelming when you’re working with a linebacker’s physique.

Marketers have discovered you can get a man to buy expensive eye cream…if you tell them it’s “for men.” In this morning’s paper, the Wall Street Journal declares that “men’s grooming has gone mainstream.” But that doesn’t mean men are ready to spend more time in the beauty aisle—many retailers are spending big money to create “men’s skin-care man caves” to put their new client base at ease.

A new study has concluded that women can improve their memory by eating blueberries and strawberries. The New York Daily News says on average, women who ate berries every day “kept their wits up to two years longer” than those who did not. Researchers focused on the benefit for women, but say that there’s hope for men too.

US Bank is among several big banks highlighted in the New York Times this morning, for going after the little guy. A new report has shown some banks are finding that there’s good money to be made by targeting low-income earners and getting them into accounts that carry significant fees. The Times says banks are targeting products like short-term, high-fee loans because they were largely untouched by recent financial regulations.

If you’ve even been to Florida you’ve seen those signs littering the grassy medians of most roads. Usually advertising some service or another, they’re about the size of political yard signs but featuring an ad instead of an endorsement. Locals call them “snipe signs” and the Sun Sentinel says they’re sick of them. Some cities have decided on an interesting way to curb the problem: robo-call the phone numbers listed on the advertisements until they are taken down.

The Supreme Court seems “receptive” to the core elements of Arizona’s controversial immigration law, reports the Washington Post this morning. Justices on both sides of the political aisle expressed skepticism that the state’s mandatory immigration status check of anyone stopped by the police violated Congress’s ability to regulate national immigration policy, which is what the Obama administration is arguing.

By most accounts, Andrew Luck is presumed to be the #1 pick in today’s NFL draft. Luck is going to the Colts, which prompts Indianapolis Star sports columnist Bob Kravitz to ask whether the Stanford alum is ready for his new job. He says only a few quarterbacks have had to follow in the footsteps of a superstar like Peyton Manning, but concludes that “if anybody seems to have the pedigree, the athleticism and the mental toughness to follow an icon, it’s Luck.”

Beyonce was named People’s Most Beautiful Woman of 2012. The New York Daily News says it agrees with the number one pick but has some ideas of its own for the rest of the top 10. They rounded out the rest of their list with the following ladies, all who were missing from the People list: Freida Pinto, Jessica Pare, Eva Mendes, Brooklyn Decker, Zoe Saldana, Olivia Wilde, Anne Hathaway, Monica Bellucci and Adriana Lima.

The New York Times laments the death of the sports cartoon in today’s paper. Back in the day, sports cartoons were thought of as a separate form of journalism, combining the “skills of a caricaturist and the mind-set of a columnist.”  But writer Richard Sandomir says newspapers just aren’t willing to pay for them anymore.

Cool photo on the front page of the Seattle Times this morning. That’s a very rare white orca, in the middle of the pod. The whale was just spotted off the coast of Russia. Scientists are now trying to determine if it’s the same one they saw off the coast of Alaska in 2008, or if there could be more than one.

The Boston Herald calls him “the beast of the east.” Mitt Romney swept through primaries in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island, New York and Connecticut yesterday,  finally claiming the GOP nomination after a long battle. At a victory party in New Hampshire, Romney tweaked a classic Bill Clinton quote, telling a crowd of supporters, “It’s still about the economy ... and we’re not stupid.”

Apparently, John Edwards and his mistress had a “bat phone.” The Greensboro News & Record says Edwards’ longtime aide Andrew Young took the stand yesterday in North Carolina, where the former senator is on trial for violating campaign finance laws. Young told the jury after Rielle Hunter made a call to Edwards’ home and started making “suggestive comments” to his late wife, Edwards got a secret cell phone to conduct his extra-marital affair.

James Cameron had to pay a fee for the Picasso image—“Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”—he used in “Titanic.” According to the New York Times, the agency that handles the publishing rights for Picasso’s estate now says the 3D version is a “new work” and wants a new fee. Even though MoMA owns the physical painting, the artist’s estate still owns the actual image.

Yes, sometimes Hollywood actors act. But it seems that, increasingly, they are spending their time making wine. Drew Barrymore is the latest star to launch a wine brand, but the New York Post says there’s something unique about the actress’s label: it’s actually good. Earlier this month Barrymore Pinot Grigio won a gold medal at France’s largest wine competition, the Le Challenge International du Vin.

Forget about the Cristal. All you need is $10 for Moscato. The New York Post says sales of the sweet, often poo-pooed wine have skyrocketed since Drake mentioned it in a 2009 song. Now, it’s the beverage of choice for the hip-hop world.

The Washington Post attended the first induction ceremony to the “Internet Hall of Fame” last night. One of the inductees was Raymond Tomlinson, the man who resurrected the “at” sign from obscurity. Tomlinson invented email 25 years ago, and says he chose the symbol simply to separate the user name from the host name. The Post says the symbol has since transformed our lives, making the Internet “a place one can go…and a place at which one may reside.”

There’s an interesting story about why kids lie in the Wall Street Journal this morning. Children start lying early, around the age of two. Researchers say when they are ages 4 to 7, more than half of children have told a lie, usually to avoid punishment. They also say parents are incredibly bad a detecting a lie from their child, only picking up on it about 53 percent of the time, just slightly better odds than chance.

USA Today puts a topic I feel strongly about front and center in this morning’s paper: financial literacy. Or rather, the lack of financial literacy amongst young adults in this country. On average, twentysomethings hold about $45,000 in debt and have a higher rate of unemployment than the rest of the population—12.4 percent. High schools in just 13 states require students to take a course in personal finance.

Teens have found a new drug of choice, says the LA Times this morning: hand sanitizer. Yes, I’m serious. Apparently, six teenagers have been admitted to the ER in recent months after drinking hand sanitizer. Medical experts say the high alcohol content is attracting teens. Some use salt to “distill” the alcohol from the sanitizer, making a shot akin to Everclear.

Jennifer Hudson took the stand yesterday as a witness for the prosecution in her ex-brother-in-law’s murder trial. The Chicago Tribune says Hudson shed little insight into the slayings of her mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew, but “gave prosecutors a chance to put a heartbroken — and familiar — face on a gritty South Side crime.” Experts say Hudson is an important asset to the prosecution, which is said to be working largely with circumstantial evidence.

USA Today did a little math and figured out that, at most rental car companies the “prepay for a full tank” gas option—supposedly your best deal—is more than the average nearby pump price. Enterprise was the exception. At nine out of 10 airports the paper studied, Enterprise’s prepay prices were cheaper than at nearby gas stations.

The Wall Street Journal says picking an alarm clock used to an exercise in balancing the annoyance of the ring with how effectively that ring will get you out of bed. Now, a new crop of “smart clocks” promises to wake you up at the perfect time. The clocks use a sensor to monitor your tossing and turning and determine when you’re in light sleep mode.

An article in the Wall Street Journal this morning has got my itching to wash my sheets. Dr. Philip M. Tierno Jr. says most people don’t wash their sheets frequently enough. Dust mites apparently love to dine on human skin, which means your bed is full of them. And their feces. And also probably “dust, lint, fibers, particulates, insect parts, pollen, soil, sand and cosmetics.” Oh, and most people sweat about a quart of water a night. Tierno suggests washing sheets every week in 130- to 150-degree water.

Woolrich has a new pair of pants. They’re chino and go for $65. Oh, and there’s a bonus: they’re perfect for hiding a handgun. The New York Times says the 182-year-old clothing company has added a second pocket in the front , perfect for the “fashion-aware gun owner” who wants to conceal a weapon. The waistband is stretchy too, in case you prefer to keep your gun there. And the back pockets are equipped to hide a knife, or a flashlight.

Move over, Botox, says the Sun Sentinel. Apparently, getting a chin implant is the cosmetic procedure to get these days. Plastic surgeons say they performed 71 percent more chin implants in 2011 (20,680) than they did in 2010 (12,077). Anecdotally, at least, it seems to be a trend tied to the surge in video-chatting. Doctors say more and more people come to see them after being unhappy with the way they look on their computer or their iPhone’s built-in camera.

David Carr writes a good piece in the New York Times this morning about the reluctance of TV stations to issue on-air corrections. And he’s right, whether I like it or not. Luckily it was NBC’s gaffe earlier this month, when they edited that clip of George Zimmerman to be “misleading, incendiary and dead-bang wrong” that set Carr off, not anything I did.

George Zimmerman was released from jail early this morning, reports the Orlando Sentinel, after he posted $150,000 bail. He was whisked away in a white BMW driven by an unidentified man. Police say an electronic monitoring device on his leg will track his every move until he stands trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin.

Elected officials in Philadelphia are taking on a unique task, says the Inquirer this morning. They’ve been challenged by the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger to live on only $5 a day, the average allotment for someone receiving food stamps. The idea, says the organizers, is to illuminate the “anxiety-driven calculus of finding nutrition with nearly no money.”

With New York’s primary tomorrow, the New York Times manages to squeeze out the most tepid of endorsements for Mitt Romney on its editorial page this morning. “In a year that started with the most right-wing fringe lineup we have seen,” writes the Times, “Republicans could have done a lot worse than Mitt Romney.” The paper goes on to praise the presumptive nominee for being “the best bet to challenge President Obama.”

Debbie Stevens of Long Island donated a kidney to her boss—and then she got fired. That’s her boss on the front page of the New York Post this morning. Stevens says after she donated the organ, her boss became combative so it didn’t appear Stevens was getting special treatment at work. She has now filed a discrimination lawsuit and is seeking millions in compensation.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune asked noted oncologist Dr. David Agus to give ten recommendations people could follow to live a healthier life, and hopefully avoid a cancer diagnosis. Dr. Adnus suggests keeping a predictable schedule, saying that a regular sleep pattern is more important than the actual number of hours you get. He also suggests ditching the multi-vitamins unless you are pregnant or have a confirmed vitamin deficiency.

Michael Winerip writes a column in the New York Times this morning on the rise of the robo-grader. Programmers have developed computers that will read essays, and most of the time they grade them consistently with the grades given by humans. And apparently, it’s possible to fool the computers. If you can’t remember a relevant fact but can manage to state some fact—and do so in a proper sentence—the computer will like it and give you a good grade.

It’s Preservation Week at the Library of Congress, says the Washington Post, a time to preserve the nation’s most important items of nostalgia, like Emily Dickinson’s handwritten notes, the circa 1990 video game “Red Dragon,” and a curio of technology—the floppy disc.

The New York Daily News has the first photos of the Colombian call girl in the middle of this Secret Service scandal. And, of course, they managed to get bikini shots too. Dania Suarez is a 24-year-old single mom, who allegedly went to the police after an agent offered her $28 for an $800 service. So far, three agents have been fired over the scandal.

Ferris Bueller would be so proud. The San Francisco Chronicle says some of the best and brightest students at Berkeley High School have been suspended after hacking into the school’s attendance database and erasing tardies and absences from their permanent records. School administrators say the students charged $2 to $20 for their revisionist-history services.

An effort to make sure kids eat breakfast has backfired says the New York Times. NYC schools offer breakfast to students in the classroom when they arrive at school, to avoid the stigma of having to walk to the cafeteria to get a free meal. But the health department recently halted the program, saying kids were “inadvertently taking in excess calories by eating in multiple locations.” Translation: They were eating at home, as well as at school, and it was showing. 

It was his Last Waltz. Levon Helm, the drummer and “rough-throated” singer for The Band died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. He was 71. An obituary in the New York Times says “muscle, swing, economy and finesse were inseparably merged” in Helm’s drumming and calls him the “American linchpin of the otherwise Canadian group.”

Passengers on a Delta flight to LA yesterday were only in the air for a few minutes when the plane made an emergency landing after several birds were sucked into the engine. My good buddy and CNN anchor Ali Velshi was on board. He told the New York Daily News “I heard a real grinding and I thought ‘Whatever it is, it couldn’t be serious,’ then the cabin started filling with smoke.” VIDEO

Interesting immigration story in the Birmingham News this morning. Sofyan Eldani has been arrested 35 times during his 12 years in Alabama, mostly for drug-related charges. The 45-year-old man carries an Egyptian passport but claims he’s from Palestine. Authorities say that creates a conundrum: They can’t deport someone to a country that doesn’t technically exist.

Carnival Cruises has launched an investigation after passengers aboard one of its ships say their captain passed a small fishing boat in distress without stopping to help. The Miami Herald says two men aboard the boat later died. The captain says he was unaware of the fishing boat though dozens of bird-watchers on deck watched in horror as the cruise liner glided past the fishermen. Maritime law mandates that a ships stop if they see another vessel in trouble.

There’s a big birthday happening in Boston today. Fenway Park, home to the Red Sox, is turning 100. The stadium is unlike no other, says the Boston Globe. Because it was built in the middle of a city block it’s a “crazy confluence of oblique angles.” The odd design also means there is very “little playable foul territory,” which means an unusually high number of balls end up in the stands.

What’s in a name? For one Austrian village, the answer is decades of ridicule and “semi-naked women posing for photographs beside signs.” Yes, the town of F**king, has decided to change its name. There is now a movement to revert back to the 16th-Century spelling, which would replace the “ck” with a double “g”. Not sure if “Fugging” is much better….

If you thought putting together an Ikea bookshelf was challenging, you might want to hold off on the company’s latest offering. USA Today says Ikea has melded a line of TVs with the furniture it sits on so that the cables can be completely hidden. So instead of buying a TV and a TV stand, you can buy them both, ready to be assembled in one piece of furniture. Can’t wait to see the instruction manual.

If you’re in the market to buy a new laptop, wait. That’s advice from the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg, who says there are innovations coming out later this year that are worth the wait. For PC customers, the debut of Windows 8 will ring in an era of laptops that are convertible, from tablet to clam-shell laptop. On the Apple side, Mossberg says an overhaul of the Mac Book Pro is likely to hit stores later this summer.

How much control does Mark Zuckerberg have over Facebook? The Wall Street Journal says even his top deputies were taken by surprise by his Instagram deal. Apparently, Zuckerberg told members of Facebook’s board about his intentions to buy photo-sharing app on the morning of April 8. In the afternoon, the deal was secured. The deal itself took only three days to draw up.

Warren Buffet told the Omaha World-Herald his cancer diagnosis is “no cause for concern” but the paper says it’s a reminder that “the day will come when someone else will take his job.”  Buffet is being treated for low level prostate cancer. The Berkshire Hathaway CEO says he’ll receive radiation treatment over the next 2 months.

Pizza, pizza, pizza is the topic in the New York Times dining section. Mark Bittman debuts a new column today, which he says he was inspired to write after eating a “perfectly ordinary, overly poofy, drearily sauced pizza” at a notable restaurant. The experience prompted him to try and outdo pizza joints everywhere, from his own kitchen.

Craft beers are floating into unchartered territory, says the Boston Globe this morning. After years of building a discerning clientele for their specialty product, craft brewers have taken a shine to something decidedly low-brow: the can. They say because modern cans have a water-based liner, there’s no fear of canned beer taking on a metallic taste.

James Price’s garage is full. Next to his family car sits a jetliner cockpit, says the San Jose Mercury News. Price says he has been obsessed with building a flight simulator for almost twenty years. After his first attempts to fashion a cockpit from wood failed to do the trick, he went ahead and bought the real thing. Aviation experts say he’s one of the few people in the world to have “built their own flight simulator cockpit in an actual jet nose.” VIDEO

A fantastic photo on the front page of the Washington Post this morning. That’s not a bird or a plane, it’s the space shuttle Discovery. The retired shuttle arrived at Dulles yesterday on the back of a 747 after touring the area. It was its last hurrah before being parked at the Smithsonian. Inside the paper, there’s another great PHOTO of the shuttle perched atop the Washington Monument. VIDEO

There’s a nap for that, says the Chicago Tribune. Apparently an iPhone app that can control your dreams is in the testing stages. Designed by a British psychologist, the Dream:ON app plays one of twenty soundscapes—“Wild West”; “A Trip to Tokyo”—to help evoke certain dreams. All you have to do is choose one, put your iPhone face down on the pillow next to you and drift away.

New York Post TV critic Linda Stasi says viewers are ready for a “hip replacement”—in other words, it’s time to let Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon replace Letterman and Leno. Her reasoning? “The two men holding the golden spots at CBS and NBC since Jesus was in swaddling Pampers — David Letterman and Jay Leno — are now being beaten (how is this possible?) by ‘Nightline.’”

I was hot just walking around the city—I can’t imagine how it felt to run 26.2 miles in yesterday’s weather. In fact more than 4000 people bowed out of the Boston Marathon because of the unseasonably hot weather, and more than 2000 were treated for dehydration along the route. Mens winner Wesley Korir told the Boston Globe he took more water breaks than normal, even if it meant that his time suffered. Korir won with a time of 2 hours 12 minutes and 40 seconds.

It was a good morning for ABC last week after its long-running morning show finally came from behind and bested its NBC rival, the “Today Show” for the first time in 16 years. “GMA” managed to pull in 13,000 more viewers last week though “Today” performed better with viewers between the ages of 25 and 54. The New York Daily News notes that even though “Today” host Matt Lauer was out last week, NBC graciously conceded defeat.

When Larry Page pressured Google’s board to split its stock in two last week, he wasn’t doing it for the shareholders says the New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin—he was doing it for himself. According to Sorkin, “shareholders, oddly, don’t seem to be too upset,” even though the split created a new class of shares that carry no voting rights, thus a class a of shareholders with no say in the future of the company.

There’s a chilling photo on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle this morning. That’s the Low Speed Chase. The yacht washed up on the rocks after a wall of water threw five expert sailors overboard during a crew race this weekend. Yesterday, Bay Area officials called off the search for survivors.

Today’s Wall Street Journal comes with some news you can use: a guide to flossing your teeth. The suggestion is that brushing then flossing then rinsing should be your nighttime routine. Apparently, the biggest flossing mistake people make is sawing back and forth, which can wear down the tooth and even take off your crown.

John Edwards has gotten thrifty. The politician is now a regular at Super Cuts in Raleigh, North Carolina, where a wash-n-style goes for $12.95. The New York Post compares his new haircut to his infamous $500 one this morning. The paper points out Edwards could save even more money if he’s convicted of violating campaign-finance laws: haircuts in prison are free.

Apparently the “e” in e-book stands for erotica. The San Jose Mercury News says the success of books like “Fifty Shades of Gray” has illuminated an interesting trend: the booming electronic sales of erotica and romance fiction. Women say it’s much easier to pick up a scandalous title when a bare-chested Fabio isn’t announcing their reading choice on the cover.

The Justice Department’s decision to sue Apple and five publishing companies for e-book price fixing while ignoring Amazon’s influence caught New York Times’ columnist David Carr’s eye this morning. He says that’s like ” taking on Standard Oil but breaking up Ed’s Gas ’N’ Groceries on Route 19 instead.”  Carr says the Apple lawsuit misses the point that Amazon is “publishing’s real nemesis.”

The New York Post couldn’t help putting a beer-drinking Hillary Clinton on its front page under the headline “Swillary.” Clinton was allegedly “knocking back brews” while a Secret Service scandal was developing in Colombia. Up to 20 US Secret Service employees are being invesigated for their involvement in a prostitute “bacchanal” while in Cartagena for the Summit of the Americas, which the Post has dubbed the “Serviced-Men Scandal.”

The front page of the New York Times details a twist on the American Dream this morning. American-raised kids of foreign descent are increasingly leaving their parents behind and returning to their ancestral countries for work. Many say their decision to become expats had to do with dismal employment opportunities in the US.

Can an illegal immigrant be accepted to the Florida bar? That’s the question on the front page of the Sun Sentinel this morning. Jose Godinez-Samperio wants his Bar card but he doesn’t have a green card. The 25-year-old entered the US when he was 16 on a tourist visa. He subsequently became an Eagle Scout, his high school’s valedictorian, and a law school graduate. The Florida Supreme Court is now debating whether to let him practice law in the state.

Arthur Longworth has won two national literary prizes since 2010. College students around the country are assigned his work. But Longworth hasn’t really had time to enjoy his success—he’s been behind bars since 1985 when he was found guilty of aggravated murder. A Seattle Times profile looks at Longworth’s strange path to literary glory.

Michigan has a new policy for getting DUI down in the state: it is targeting “Super Drunks.” Instead of going after people who’ve had a glass of wine or two, police are concentrating their efforts on drivers with blood-alcohol levels that are more than twice the legal limit. The Detroit News says there have been 700 arrests since the “Super Drunk” law went into effect 17 months ago.

The sun could almost fit through the sunroofs on the market today, says USA Today this morning. The latest, a 15.2-square-foot “glass roof” on Ford’s newest Lincoln model, is the biggest in its mid-size division and covers the front and half of the back seat. Experts say oversized sunroofs can deplete a cars structural integrity.

This morning’s USA Today looks into the growth of the de-cluttering business. Reporter Craig Wilson came away with several helpful tips after attending the National Association of Professional Organizers conference in Baltimore recently. Reminding yourself that digital clutter is still clutter is one of the tips that hit home with me. Experts say if it takes more than a minute to find what you need on your computer it’s time to do some de-cluttering.

I guess he likes it. Brad Pitt finally put a ring on Angelina Jolie’s finger reports USA Today this morning. Pitt’s manager confirmed the engagement after celebrity jeweler Robert Procop told the Hollywood Reporter he designed a ring for the couple. Apparently the resulting design took more than a year to make.

“I just grabbed her and whipped her out of the bed,” , says Newark Mayor Cory Booker to the Star-Ledger this morning. He was talking about the daring rescue he made last night, after arriving home from an interview with a local TV station and seeing his neighbor’s house on fire.  Booker ran into the burning building, trailed by his security detail, and managed to get everyone out safely.

North Korea’s failed attempt to fire a rocket into orbit yesterday has officials all over the world “huddled for emergency meetings” says the Washington Post, as they discuss whether the country should face international punishment for what most see as a “de facto long-range missile test.”

The First Lady tweeted her support for the wife of her husband’s assumed opponent after a Democratic strategist accused Ann Romney of never having worked a day in her life. The Boston Globe says Michelle Obama picked up the mantle for women everywhere, sending out a message that read, “every mother works hard, and every woman deserves to be respected.”

USA Today reviews the new Nook in this morning’s paper. Barnes & Nobles latest e-reader comes with an e-ink screen, but features a built-in light, making it just as easy to read on a sunny beach as it is in a dark bedroom.  Tech columnist Ed Baig says it was one of the most requested features B&N got from Nook customers.

The Wall Street Journal has a good piece on the absurdity of the cell phone patent wars in today’s paper.  One of the raging debates: is “slide to unlock” different from “stretch to unlock?” In recent months, Apple has filed suit again Samsung and Motorola, claiming the companies violated Apple’s slide-to-unlock patent.

My daughters aren’t even in high school yet, but I guess I should start saving now. According to USA Today, the average American family with a graduating student will spend $1078 on prom. Calling prom “the new wedding,” experts say with people getting married later and later in life, prom has “replaced weddings, debutante balls and coming-out parties as the formal occasion of a young adult’s life.”

The weird winter we’re coming out of is still causing some problems in the midwest, says the Wisconsin State Journal, where farmers are trying to figure out what to do about this year’s alfalfa crop. Apparently, alfalfa—the main staple of livestock—is usually harvested in late May, but the hot-cold weather has made it almost impossible to tell when its ready.

Planning a trip to Disney World this summer? Make sure to set aside some extra cash. The Orlando Sentinel says prices in and out of the city have sharply increased recently. The cheapest ticket from New York to Orlando is about $40 more than it was last year; if you’re flying from Dallas expect to pay double what you did last year.