Top Stories - U.S. News & World Report

All too often, mutual fund prospectuses feel eerily like those medicine commercials that have endless lists of potential side effects. The only difference, it seems, is that while both mutual funds and medications have led to plenty of unanticipated cases of headaches and profuse sweating over the past year, mutual funds have been more likely to wipe out your retirement savings in the process. Full Story »

At LaGuardia Community College, a school of 65,000 students in Queens, N.Y., just a stone's throw from Manhattan, President Gail Mellow did something this year she had never done before: She closed admissions and stopped taking applications from some 1,000 applicants. Full Story »

Any woman who's been diagnosed with breast cancer asks her doctor what she can do to avoid a recurrence. Sometimes the answer is nothing, since aggressive cancers can quickly spread throughout the body regardless of what a woman does. She can, though, lower her chances of having a relapse by taking steps to reduce levels of estrogen, thought to trigger the growth of the most common breast tumors. This can be achieved by minimizing alcohol, adding exercise, and shedding excess body fat. ... Full Story »

If you've been jobless for three or six or nine months or more, the holidays can be an especially difficult time. All that mandatory good cheer! Not to mention the pressure to spend, spend, spend. It's enough to make a Grinch out of anybody, unemployed or not. Full Story »

Having a mentor, especially at the early stages of your career, can be invaluable. You get someone who can advise you on career decisions, help you navigate tricky situations, and even just suggest ways to succeed at the more mundane aspects of office life. Full Story »

The subject of networking comes up most often as it relates to searching for a job. Unfortunately, most of us begin to network when we are out of work--not before. Full Story »

At his jobs summit on Thursday, President Obama said, "...while I believe that government has a critical role in creating the conditions for economic growth, ultimately true economic recovery is only going to come from the private sector." Full Story »

Parents around the nation breathed a sigh of relief with the news that Zhu Zhu Pets, those adorable robot hamsters, are not contaminated with antimony, a metallic element that can cause heart and lung problems. Zhu Zhu Pets are the "it" toy of the 2009 holiday season; more than 6 million of the fuzzy cuties have been sold so far, meaning that there would have been a lot of very disappointed kids on Christmas morning if the toys had indeed been tainted. Full Story »

One of the many ironies of mutual fund investing is that by the time analysts pinpoint a trend, it's often too late for investors to capitalize on it. Even so, some trends are as easy to detect as they are long lasting. Flow patterns--which quantify how investors move into and out of funds--are among them. For the past 37 weeks, mutual funds have had net inflows, and this movement appears very unlikely to let up soon. Full Story »

I'm going to do some Christmas shopping this week, and I'm hoping to pick up a little something for myself, too. I was thinking of hitting the sale rack at J. Crew, but Consumer Reports has other plans for me: The folks there suggest 12 healthy holiday gifts you can buy for yourself (or, I'd imagine, anyone on your list). Full Story »