A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds autism affects 1 in 68 children, up from 1 in 88 just two years ago. USA Today says that means virtually every grade in every elementary school has a least one child with autism. Most experts believe the higher rates are due to better awareness and diagnosis and not an actual increase in the number of children affected with the condition.

The infield shift - employed since the days of Ted Williams - is now common in baseball. The Wall Street Journal says it represents the biggest change in baseball strategy since Reconstruction. Teams now have defensive alignment plans for every batter - and they adjust their positioning during each at bat, depending on the count. Some teams now employ defensive coordinators - like NFL squads do.

Richard Pérez-Peña of the New York Times writes that the ruling that Northwestern University must treat football players as school employees highlights the fact that college has become less of a rite of passage and more of a business transaction. Competitiveness among colleges has “crystallized the understanding that higher education is a market,” says one University of Pennsylvania professor.

At first I thought this was something from The Onion. The New York Post says men in North Korea have been ordered to get the same haircut as their leader, Kim Jong Un; shaved close on the back and sides, with longer hair on top brushed back off the forehead. Prior to now, North Korean men had their choice of 10 state-approved haircuts.

A new study finds autism begins during pregnancy with subtle disruptions in patches of a fetus’ brain. The San Diego Union-Tribune says the small study examined the brains of 11 children with autism who had died. 10 of the 11 children were found to have disruptions in the normal organization of the cortex, the area of the brain that controls social interaction and language skills.

Chicago Tribune columnist Phil Rosenthal says Northwestern University should be proud of its student athletes who won a victory against the school when the National Labor Relations Board ruled that football players are essentially employees of the school and should be allowed to unionize. Rosenthal says the school taught its students enough about ethics, economics, history, political science and math to realize how unfair the college athletics system is for student athletes.

New data released by the Census Bureau finds population growth has been shifting toward the country’s 381 metro areas, especially since the economic recovery began in 2010. USA Today says the growth is being driven by young professionals and retiring baby boomers who prefer to live in the city. Another factor is young people delaying or deciding not to have children, which often leads to a move to the suburbs.

The Wall Street Journal examines the world of luxury bedding, breaking down the cost of a $500 set of sheets. A set of Boll and Branch sheets costs about $150 to make, ship, package and warehouse. The company sells direct to customers for $250 for a King sheet set. Bedding manufacturers say it’s difficult to see what goes into an expensive sheet, noting that the common measure thread count can be easily inflated.

Paul Farhi of the Washington Post examines the gradual decline in local news reporting. He says more and more news gathering operations target a broad and borderless audience online, resulting in less coverage of local news and events. A report from Pew found that just 30 national and international news sites accounted for 60 percent of all new digital journalism jobs in the last five years.

The Sacramento Bee has an interesting look into the thousands of scores businesses use to rank consumers. From customer loyalty to purchasing power, so-called e-scores or predictive scores are used by companies to determine everything from which coupons to send you to how easy it will be for you to open a bank account. These scores have drawn scrutiny since they aren’t regulated by the government, and unlike your credit score, you have no legal right to see how you’re ranked.

Surveillance video posted to YouTube shows the moment a Chicago Blue Line train derailed at O’Hare Airport - sending the train hurtling up an escalator. The Chicago Sun-Times says the original clip posted to YouTube was quickly deleted. Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the crash. VIDEO

Many of us have come up with a few of our own rules for the classic board game Monopoly. Now Hasbro is asking players to submit their favorite “house rules.” The New York Times says the top picks will be incorporated into a special edition of the game due out this fall.  Jeff Lehman, who wrote a book about Monopoly strategy, predicts the new version won’t make much of a difference, saying people who have made up their own rules obviously feel they don’t need Hasbro’s permission.

The Dallas Morning News says Southern Methodist University’s Meadows Museum is on the cutting edge of efforts to reach out to visually impaired patrons by offering multisensory experiences involving touch, sound and taste. Visitors can hold a pipe similar to the one in Diego Rivera’s Portrait of Ilya Ehrenberg or hear music from the time and place of a particular work. Scents are also used to evoke atmosphere.

Smartphones have been getting noticeably bigger the past few years. The Wall Street Journal’s Geoffrey Fowler says bigger phones make life easier. But, you need to be able to reach all of your phone’s key features with your thumb. The Journal has a handy thumb measuring system to make sure your hand will fit your phone’s screen.

“The guy is either really stupid or he just really likes it in jail.” That’s how one New Jersey Corrections Department describes Christopher Miller in the New York Post. Miller spent 15 years in prison for robbing a Stride Rite Shoe store. The day after he got out of prison, police say he went right back to the same store and robbed it again. The manager on duty during the first robbery was there again, she said she recognized Miller immediately.

It was the longest of long shots - coming up with a perfect NCAA Tournament bracket to win one billion dollars. The brackets were all busted within days, but there was one big winner, Quicken Loans. USA Today says the company sponsoring the contest claims it received one billion social media and PR mentions since it began. And brand awareness for Quicken Loans is up 300%.

Two bridges that span the Missouri River could be yours - for free - if you can move them. The Kansas City Star says the 2,600 foot bridges that carry U.S. 69 traffic over the river are scheduled to be replaced in 2015.  Since they’re eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, federal law requires the bridges be offered for reuse as an alternative to being demolished.

The New York Times reports on a new analysis of smoking data that finds it’s increasingly becoming a habit of the poor. Smoking has seen huge declines in more affluent counties across the country, but smoking rates have remained the same in poorer counties. That gap in smoking rates among the rich and poor is contributing to inequality in health outcomes.

The Detroit Free Press catches up with Cheong Choon Ng, the Michigan entrepreneur who saw his two girls weaving bracelets out of pony tail rubber bands and came up with the idea for the Rainbow Loom. Ng was able to convince his wife to use their $10,000 in savings to bring the idea to the market. It won Toy of the Year last year and the company saw $50 million in revenue.

Rescuers searching for the more than 100 people missing from Saturday’s mudslide in Washington are having a tough time preventing volunteers from conducting their own searches for victims. The fear is that untrained volunteers could become victims themselves in the continually shifting slide.

The Los Angeles Times has a fascinating story about Larry Osterhoudt, a man so obsessed with a roller coaster he never got to ride as a kid, that he may just get the chance to rebuild it. Osterhoudt has spent 17 years building an exact replica of the Cyclone Racer, a roller coaster that once stood on the Long Beach, California pier. Osterhoudt was too frightened to ride it as a 9-year-old and the coaster was torn down before he returned. But now the Long Beach City Council is working on a plan to have Osterhoudt rebuild the Cyclone Racer as a way to boost tourism.

A long sleep debate gets awakened in the Wall Street Journal today. Is it better to wake up when the alarm goes off or to hit snooze and get 10 extra minutes of sleep? Dr. David Dinges says hitting snooze isn’t as bad as you might think. It allows us to gently awaken the mind. But he says it’s really just a temporary fix and the real solution is to get more sleep. Dinges says you’re better off going to bed 10 or 20 minutes earlier.

It used to be the crime that sparked headlines and created famous criminals - but bank robbery has seen a big decline nationwide. The Press-Enterprise says there were at least 6,000 bank robberies every year between 1987 to 2006. By 2012, that number dropped to fewer than 3,900. Experts cite improvements in security, more cooperation among law enforcement and longer prison sentences. And many would-be bank robbers believe there are less risky ways to steal money.

An unusual looking helicopter is helping the Navy clean up a bombing range in Florida’s Ocala National Forest. The chopper’s 20 foot-long arms are equipped with metal detectors that can scan the forest for exploded or unexploded bombs. The Orlando Sentinel says the contraption works in the same way as the guy on the beach with the metal detector combing for jewelry and coins.

The Indianapolis Star says the recent indoor youth archery tournament was the largest in state history. Nearly half of the 1600 participants were girls - up from fewer than 25 percent just a few years ago. The bow wielding heroines in “The Hunger Games” and Disney’s “Brave” are being cited as big factors in the increase in interest in archery among girls.

Just a tiny amount of liquid nicotine can cause vomiting or seizures - and even a diluted amount can kill a small child. Yet, liquid nicotine is being sold legally, with no regulations, as the main ingredient in refillable “e-cigarettes.” The New York Times says reports of accidental poisonings are soaring. One poison control center director says many people seem unaware of the dangers posed by the liquids.

Geologists say Saturday’s mudslide in Washington was probably triggered when a river undercut a slope that will still soggy from recent rain. The Seattle Times says the same area was hit by a smaller landslide in 2006. But the size and force of the wall of mud on Saturday came as a surprise. Experts say it can be difficult to predict which slopes are primed to fall.

The gas leak that led to the explosion in Harlem that killed eight people earlier this month is a surprisingly common phenomenon in New York and other big cities. The New York Times says nearly half of the natural gas lines in New York were installed before 1940. In 2012 alone, the two distributors of natural gas in New York City reported nearly 10,000 gas leaks - more than half of which were considered serious.

In this day and age of social networking, smart phones and other technology that gathers information about us - the Wall Street Journal says more and more Americans are fighting back to regain some online privacy. About half of all Americans say they’re concerned about online privacy.  Many are turning to even more technology to cover their tracks, using programs that show who has access to your social networking information and search engines that don’t track queries.

Streaming music services like Pandora use complicated algorithms to determine our tastes to come up with playlists. But can a human do a better job? The Wall Street Journal says there’s a new job that essentially didn’t exist a few years ago - the professional music curator, experts who can help you navigate through the vast musical landscape.