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The New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday fined brokerage firm Edward Jones & Co. $200,000 for improperly supervising the sale of about $3 billion worth of long-term certificates of deposit. "In certain instances, the registered representatives did not adequately disclose the features and risks of the investment to customers," the NYSE said.

Biweekly mortgage payment plans are back. "Don't miss out!" proclaims a pitch from Citibank's BiWeekly Advantage program. "The BiWeekly Advantage Plan is a convenient mortgage budgeting plan that can help you save thousands of dollars in interest and pay off your mortgage sooner. " Although many people receiving the recent pitches have never heard of biweekly mortgages, they have been around for decades. They simply got mothballed when consumers were more interested in adding to their debt with home equity lines than they were in paying off their loans faster.

Jermaine Jackson says he took a biting musical swipe at his superstar sibling, Michael, because his younger brother had frozen him out of his life. In an interview, Jermaine explained that the cantankerous lyrics to his song "Word to the Badd!!," which criticize Michael for allegedly changing his skin color and obtaining plastic surgery, were written in retaliation for eight months of unreturned phone calls.

First of three parts Tiffany Lee wanted a car. She was weary of the two-hour bus ride to her job at a UCLA Health System clinic. She hated having to ask friends to drive her 7-year-old son to his asthma treatments. But as a single mother with three children, bad credit and a $27,000-a-year salary, she couldn't find a bank or dealership willing to give her a loan. Then a friend steered her to Repossess Auto Sales in Hawthorne. Another buyer might have balked at the deal she was offered.

They were a couple of auto mechanics with a pronounced Boston brogue and, improbably, degrees from MIT. They hadn't a clue how to perform on radio, much less public radio. So Tom and Ray Magliozzi just decided to have a good time. The result was "Car Talk," which shattered the perception that public radio is inaccessible to the masses and became National Public Radio's top-rated weekend show. "They never developed that affect of sonorousness and seriousness and gravitas public radio is known for," said the show's executive producer, the man Tom and Ray would identify on air as Doug "Not-a-Slave-to-Fashion" Berman.

Elizabeth Taylor, the glamorous queen of American movie stardom, whose achievements as an actress were often overshadowed by her rapturous looks and real-life dramas, has died. She was 79. Hospitalized six weeks ago for congestive heart failure, Taylor died early Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles with her four children at her side, publicist Sally Morrison said. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of this article said Mickey Rooney played Elizabeth Taylor's trainer in "Lassie Come Home.

On May 17, 1987, Gene Ackley was carried by friends from a sea of wine bottles in a Gardena motel room to the safe harbor of a Costa Mesa white clapboard house. There--with the help of fellow alcoholics at Charlie Street, a free 10-day program run entirely by volunteers--he came off a three-week blackout bender into the beginning of a new life.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California must remove tens of thousands of inmates from its prison rolls in the next two years, and state officials vowed to comply, saying they hoped to do so without setting any criminals free. Administration officials expressed confidence that their plan to shift low-level offenders to county jails and other facilities, already approved by lawmakers, would ease the persistent crowding that the high court said Monday had caused "needless suffering and death" and amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

A former university professor was sentenced to 12 years in state prison Wednesday in a sexual molestation case sparked when photographs showing graphic abuse of a Newport Beach girl were found discarded on a Los Angeles street. Ronald Ruskjer, 44, a one-time faculty member at Loma Linda University's school of public health, wept and apologized during a 40-minute statement before a San Bernardino Superior Court judge.

You could say Backpage.com is a page nearly everyone wants to rip out of the Internet, crumple up and throw away. Last week, two legal cases out of Washington state illustrated how the popular website, known for its promotion of adult escort services, has to cling by its nails to the generosity of American law to survive. On Friday, three girls - two 13 and one 15  at the time they ran away from home - filed suit in Pierce County Superior Court against Backpage.com, alleging it allowed them to be bought and sold over the site for sex by the pimps who captured them.