Thieves from the professional to the bumbling are scaling cellphone towers, ripping off baseball field lights, looting construction sites, tearing out potentially lethal live wires, removing huge spools from utility company grounds, hauling off massive sculptures in the middle of the night and even stealing gravestone plaques and then selling the copper.

In response, lawmakers and authorities are taking steps to catch more thieves and are toughening the punishment for those who are convicted.

[Read](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/10/AR2008051002239.html?nav=rss_nation “Read the Article”) (Washington Post)

With the price of gas approaching $4 a gallon, more commuters are abandoning their cars and taking the train or bus instead.

Mass transit systems around the country are seeing standing-room-only crowds on bus lines where seats were once easy to come by. Parking lots at many bus and light rail stations are suddenly overflowing, with commuters in some towns risking a ticket or tow by parking on nearby grassy areas and in vacant lots.

Some cities with long-established public transit systems, like New York and Boston, have seen increases in ridership of 5 percent or more so far this year. But the biggest surges — of 10 to 15 percent or more over last year — are occurring in many metropolitan areas in the South and West where the driving culture is strongest and bus and rail lines are more limited.

[Read](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/business/10transit.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss “Read the Article”) (New York Times)

The foreclosure crisis is hitting yet another American locale: the self-storage center.

Nearly non-existent 35 years ago, self-storage has become ubiquitous, with 51,000 facilities nationwide. Even as the larger economy falters, the industry is flourishing. Executives say the mortgage crisis is one reason.

People generally rely on storage when they are dealing with major milestones: marriage or divorce, a relative’s death, a job transfer or, in boom times, remodeling or building new homes. Now you can add foreclosure to the list.

As they lose their homes, people are turning to these humble cinderblock and sheet-metal boxes to store their stuff. But some people cannot keep up with their storage bills any better than they could handle their mortgage payments, and storage companies are auctioning off their property for a pittance.

A cottage industry has developed to profit from these lost and abandoned items.

[Read](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/business/11storage.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin “Read the Article”) (New York Times)

Soaring gas prices have turned the steady migration by Americans to smaller cars into a stampede.

In what industry analysts are calling a first, about one in five vehicles sold in the United States was a compact or subcompact car during April, based on monthly sales data released Thursday. Almost a decade ago, when sport utility vehicles were at their peak of popularity, only one in every eight vehicles sold was a small car. At the same time, sales of pickup trucks and large sport utility vehicles have dropped sharply.

In another first, fuel-sipping four-cylinder engines surpassed six-cylinder models in popularity in April.

[Read](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/business/02auto.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin “Read the Cover Story”) (New York Times)

The European dream is under assault, as the wave of inflation sweeping the globe mixes with this continent’s long-stagnant wages. Families that once enjoyed Europe’s vaunted quality of life are pinching pennies to buy necessities, and cutting back on extras like movies and vacations abroad.

Potentially more disturbing — especially to the political and social order — are the millions across the continent grappling with the realization that they may have lives worse, not better, than their parents.

Since 1999, prices have risen 22.5 percent in the 27 member states of the European Union, and 18.8 percent in the 15 countries that use the euro. Much of the declining purchasing power of European workers can be traced to those numbers, and to policy decisions and economic developments over the last decade when globalization began to reshape Europe and the world.

[Read](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/business/worldbusiness/01middle.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin “Read the Article”) (New York Times)

Only 50 percent of some 18.9 million Latino immigrants in this country now send money regularly to relatives in their home countries, compared with 73 percent two years ago, a survey found.

The drop in the number of people sending remittances, as the money transfers are known, is a sign of pressures on Latino immigrants as a result of the slump in the low-wage job market and of the Bush administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, the survey shows. Of the three million immigrants interviewed, 47 percent said they did not have legal status. The others were American citizens and legal immigrants.

[Read](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/us/01immig.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin “Read the Article”) (New York Times)