In a survey by the University of Michigan, half of those polled said that they believe that the next five years will bring continuous good times, more than did at any point from 1970 to 1996 and up from a low of 8 percent in 1975...

In a monthly survey, the Conference Board asks people to evaluate the economy as positive, negative or neutral and to predict its condition in six months. In April, the index that the company calculates from the responses was at 109, up from a recent low of 85... In the 60's, a decade of mostly good times, confidence measures behaved much as they have the last decade.

The latest variant of the Klez virus started spreading 10 days ago. The virus e-mails itself from infected machines using a bogus "From" address randomly plucked from all e-mail addresses stored on an infected computer's hard drive or network. Recipients of the virus-laden e-mails, not understanding that the "From" information is virtually always phony -- or even that they have received a virus -- have been clogging networks with angry and confused e-mails that are causing a great deal of cyber-havoc...

A mailing list for fans of the Grammy Award-winning Steely Dan band has posted an explanation directed to those who were subscribed to the list by the virus: "We are not infected with the Klez virus. We don't know if you are infected with the Klez virus. You may be. But even if you are not, someone out there who is infected has both your address and our address on their computer ... and therein lies the problem," the explanation reads, in part...

E-mails containing an invitation to view what purports to be an attachment with pornographic images appears at first glance to have been sent out by Catholic parishes in New York and Maryland. The attachment actually contains the Klez virus, and tracing information indicates the e-mails were actually sent from an Internet service located in the United Arab Emirates.