President Obama will follow up his State of the Union address next week with a three-day, five-city swing through electoral battleground states. The White House announced Wednesday that Obama will make stops in Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan next week to sell his election-year agenda, which likely will focus on jobs.

The recent grounding of Carnival Corp.’s Costa Concordia ship off Italy’s coast left cruise fans wondering: Could this happen on a cruise departing from the U.S., particularly the cruise hub of South Florida?

Something about TV singing shows tends to bring out the worst in human nature: put-downs, feuds and back-stabbing. But enough about the producers. At least the contestants are usually polite to each other.

School officials were put on notice they can be sued for violating the FirstAmendment if they discipline students for vulgar and malicious postings on home computers.

Most people probably haven’t paid much attention to the huge corporations waging war in Washington over legislation designed to crack down on online theft of movies, music and other content. But the conflict will hit consumers in the face Wednesday, when Wikipedia and several other websites intend to go dark to protest the proposed changes.

An eerily lifelike Steve Jobs doll will not be sold because the company behind the product received “immense pressure” from Apple’s lawyers and the late CEO’s family to not sell the figurine.

In one of the most sustained batterings he has endured in the 2012 presidential primary debates, Mitt Romney was repeatedly put on the defensive over his business and government record and the attack ads by his supporters that are swamping South Carolina’s airwaves.

Online retailer Zappos.com and its discount affiliate, 6pm.com, disclosed Sunday a data breach that compromised customer account information such as billing addresses and the last four digits of credit card numbers.

Whether Jon M. Huntsman Jr. has a political future or not, he will go down in history as the first American presidential candidate to deliver a retort in Mandarin Chinese during a nationally televised debate.

Despite all his tough talk leading to Sunday night’s broadcast, it was a markedly respectful and restrained Ricky Gervais who showed up to host this year’s Golden Globes, leaving one to wonder why he bothered to take the gig at all (except for the money, of course).