Obamacare's impact is expanding to the ivory tower, with some adjunct faculty members finding they're caught up in the turmoil surrounding the national health care insurance overhaul. 

More colleges are limiting the hours their adjunct faculty members can work, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Why? The colleges want to avoid having to pay for health insurance coverage for the adjunct professors, given that the Affordable Care Act requires large employers to cover staffers working more than 30 hours a week. 

But as the Chronicle points out, adjunct faculty members are rarely paid by the hour. Instead, the norm is to pay them by the course, which makes it complicated to estimate how many hours each professor or lecturer requires to prepare and manage a class. 

 

If your daily commute by car seems worse lately, take heart: Experts say that's a sign of an improving economy.

INRIX, a global provider of traffic information and driver services, says traffic congestion is rising this year, after two consecutive years of double-digit declines. According to the firm's sixth traffic scorecard annual report, the 4% overall increase in traffic for the first three months of 2013, compared with the same time last year, suggests a better financial landscape that's in line with rising employment data.

So far this year, according to the report, 61 of America's 100 largest cities have experienced increased traffic congestion. That's a big jump from 2012, when 94 of those cities had declines. But Bryan Mistele, INRIX president and CEO, says we're not yet back to prerecession traffic levels.

 

If the fast-food business held a popularity contest, Wendy's (WEN) would win hands down.

According to data from Technomic, a food industry market researcher and consultant, the Dublin, Ohio-based chain was preferred by consumers over Burger King (BKW) and McDonald's (MCD), in food quality and taste and flavor. It wasn't even close.

Wendy's was rated excellent by 50.9% of consumers for food quality compared with 44.2% for Burger King and 37.4% for McDonald's, according to Technomic Consumer Brand Metrics. The numbers for food taste and flavor were just as stark. Wendy's scored 56.5% in that category, surpassing Burger King's 49.4% and McDonald's 40.7%. The data are based on interviews with consumers who have visited the chains within the last 30 days. 

Waitresses and waiters are hoping a proposal from President Barack Obama will change an aspect of their jobs they say has grown way, way stale: the "tipped minimum wage."

This wage, which is significantly lower than the regular minimum wage and applies to professions relying on tips, hasn't budged in 22 years. The federal government requires restaurants, hotels and other employers to pay just $2.13 an hour for workers who rely on gratuities. 

While most states require a higher tipped minimum wage, 13 states rely on the federal level, Bloomberg reports. As part of Obama's plan to increase the federal minimum wage to $9, he's also calling for a boost to the tipped-wage base, although his proposal hasn't spelled out specifics. 

Another bill was introduced last month by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., which proposed a gradual increase to the tipped minimum wage. 

 

The prom isn't only a major rite of passage for teens, it has also become a financial burden for families, with the average expenditure slated to reach $1,139 this year. 

That's a 5% bump from last year, according to a survey from Visa (V). That means prom spending is rising faster than the rate of inflation, which has hovered below 2% this year.

Another trend emerged in Visa's survey: It found that poorer parents plan to spend more than wealthier ones. Families earning less than $50,000 a year will spend $1,245, while those earning more will fork over only $1,129. 

The biggest spenders of all are single parents, who said they'll shell out $1,563 to outfit their children in tuxes and prom dresses, hire limos and buy other accoutrements. Meanwhile, married parents are relatively frugal, budgeting just $770, the survey found. 

 

Warning: Spring cleaning can be hazardous to your leisure time because it points out all the other jobs that need doing around the house. Start cleaning, and you may soon find yourself doing touch-ups or even painting whole rooms. And that's exactly what the U.S. paint and coatings industry, with its combined annual sales of around $20 billion, expects of us.

According to the national home color survey by industry giant Sherwin-Williams (SHW), 62% of homeowners are planning a painting project this spring.

So, the question becomes, after the drop cloths are picked up and the brushes washed, what to do with that extra paint? Some will go into basements or closets for future use. But a study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates about 10% of all the house paint purchased each year -- up to 69 million gallons -- ends up discarded, often in landfills.

 

Quick: What's one of the few global industries the U.S. still monopolizes? If you said "pornography," congratulations.

Nearly 90% of porn is American-made, and U.S. Internet porn sites generated $2.84 billion in revenue in 2006, according to Good magazine. Sex sells so much, in fact, that more than 260 new sex sites reportedly go online daily -- with about $89 spent every second on pornography.

For decades, Los Angeles County has been home to the U.S. porn industry. But that changed last November, when county voters approved a mandate requiring porn actors to wear condoms during filming. The new law was intended to combat the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases -- but it's having an unexpected side effect.

 

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the suspected mastermind of the Boston Marathon bombings who was killed in a shootout with police, received welfare benefits from the state of Massachusetts -- as did his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter, according to the Boston Herald.

 

The news is sure to anger many Americans who are already upset about the tragedy that left three dead and injured 260.

Exactly how long Tsarnaev and his family received public assistance wasn't clear. A spokesman for the state's Executive Office of Health and Human Services told the paper that the payments ended in 2012 when the family no longer met eligibility requirements.