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RIO DE JANEIRO - A beautiful young woman who returns to her hometown to take revenge on her evil stepmother. Dark love triangles, fiery obsession and the casual sensuality of a free-spirited young woman. A murder mystery. Intrigue. An underdog soccer team. Nothing else captures the attention of Brazil like its telenovelas, massively popular nighttime soap operas. Except perhaps for the World Cup, there is nothing else that brings the country together like the carefully polished big-budget dramas.

The tech industry has been buzzing in recent weeks about the sudden burst of announcements about wearable computing, and in particular about rumors that Apple is working on some kind of iWatch. But in the view of some Apple fans, such a gadget wouldn't be Apple's first watch. As far as they're concerned, Apple already released -- and then withdrew -- its first watch when it introduced the 6 th generation of its iPod Nano in 2010. STORY: Waiting for Apple's iWatch As part of a larger story about Apple's iWatch plans, I spoke with Scott Wilson, a Chicago-based designer who has been involved in various ways with smartwatch efforts over the years.

The human appetite is a fickle thing. It may come on strong if you walk by a hot dog stand but disappear if you spend too much time thinking about the ingredients. Comfort eaters may feel ravenous at the end of a bad day. And people who are bored with what they're eating may feel full (or at least fed up) after just a few bites. At a time when so many people are struggling with their weight, appetite has become a hot topic. Researchers work to understand its ebb and flow, and dieters look for ways to dial it back.

Maxine Stuart, 94, a stage, film and TV actress whose long career included memorable guest appearances on "The Twilight Zone" and "The Wonder Years," died Thursday of natural causes at her Beverly Hills home, according to her daughter, Chris Ann Maxwell. Stuart began her career in New York theater and had a handful of small movie parts but was best known for her television work. In the early 1950s she appeared in dramatic anthology programs and was a regular on "The Edge of Night" soap opera.

Last spring, the creators of the Pebble smartwatch shocked the tech community when their Kickstarter campaign raised $10 million .  It was still a long road from when the campaign closed in May to when Pebble finally started shipping its first smartwatches to backers in January. And while the initial batch of watches came out in a slow trickle, the pace kicked up in late February and early March. And now, 10 months later, Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky is thrilled with the reception the product is receiving and to finally be getting feedback from users.

THE short-lived Fox show "The Princes of Malibu" was nothing more than a speck of reality-TV stardust, vivid only as it expired. But the story that took place around the show has proved much more resonant. For its starring family, the show triggered a shift so profound that the "real life" that inspired it is now more elusive than ever.

Hunched over, her eyes fixed downward, Tanya Hart inches across the vast wing of the B-2 stealth bomber one small step at a time, looking for any nicks or hairline scratches in the freshly repainted surface. Even a tiny blemish could make the B-2 as visible on radar screens as a giant flying tin can. Hart, 50, is the last line of defense for what may be the world's most expensive paint job. "This isn't a job where you can afford to mess up," said Hart, a "surface technician" for Northrop Grumman Corp.

Nathan Johnson has landed in one of the longest unemployment lines in Los Angeles. Just another face in the crowd, Johnson is here because he's hoping to get a job as, yes, just another face in the crowd. But the crowd keeps getting bigger every day. The lobby at Central Casting is so packed it seems impossible that one more person could squeeze through the door. Johnson, 30, handsome and elegant in a crisp, white shirt, has been waiting to sign up for an hour.

Having conquered reality television, the Kardashians are fashioning a celebrity retail powerhouse. Beyond the glittery red carpets and steamy tabloid fodder, the famous family has transformed itself into a branding machine, quickly leveraging the hype into a retail empire worth tens of millions of dollars. Unlike other reality-stars-turned-entrepreneurs such as Snooki of "Jersey Shore" fame or Lauren Conrad of "The Hills," the Kardashians are in a class by themselves and unfazed by skeptics who doubt they can keep it up for the long haul.

The $300-billion fashion business is in the midst of an epic shake-up that is changing the way clothes are designed, marketed and purchased. The Internet -- the same force that has splintered the media and music industries -- is challenging the taste-making role of the fashion elite, a shift that is being accelerated by the rise of cheap chic and a recession that has blunted more-is-more spending. In turn, many retail businesses, confronted by changing spending patterns, are becoming less brand-centric and more consumer-centric.