A billion-dollar class-action lawsuit over Apple's iPod music players heads to trial on Tuesday in a California federal court after nearly a decade in legal wrangling.

Attorneys for consumers and electronics retailers claim Apple Inc. used software in its iTunes store that forced would-be song buyers to use iPods instead of cheaper music players made by rivals. The software is no longer used, but the plaintiffs argue that it inflated the prices of millions of iPods sold between 2006 and 2009 — to the tune of $350 million. Under federal antitrust law, the tech giant could be ordered to pay three times that amount if the jury agrees with the estimate and finds the damages resulted from anti-competitive behavior.

Now is a good time to get a smartphone. The latest devices hit shelves in time for the holiday shopping season, and there's likely to be a lull in new releases until next spring. So why wait?

Here are some things to consider before hitting stores. If you're upgrading from an older model, you can skip the first part aimed at first-time smartphone buyers.

A year ago, Amazon.com workers like 34-year-old Rejinaldo Rosales hiked miles of aisles each shift to "pick" each item a customer ordered and prepare it for shipping.

Now the e-commerce giant boasts that it has boosted efficiency — and given workers' legs a break — by deploying more than 15,000 wheeled robots to crisscross the floors of its biggest warehouses and deliver stacks of toys, books and other products to employees.

In the more than two decades since world leaders first got together to try to solve global warming, life on Earth has changed, not just the climate. It's gotten hotter, more polluted with heat-trapping gases, more crowded and just downright wilder.

The numbers are stark. Carbon dioxide emissions: up 60 percent. Global temperature: up six-tenths of a degree. Population: up 1.7 billion people. Sea level: up 3 inches. U.S. extreme weather: up 30 percent. Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica: down 4.9 trillion tons of ice.

Like most children his age, Denis Akimov spends hours daily on his computer surfing the Internet. It isn't just for fun.

As schools are forced to limit operations in the conflict-battered eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, educators are turning to the Web to keep their charges learning.

Too many U.S. infants sleep with blankets, pillows or other unsafe bedding that may lead to suffocation or sudden infant death syndrome, despite guidelines recommending against the practice. That's according to researchers who say 17 years of national data show parents need to be better informed.

THE STUDY

Two months ago, the World Health Organization launched an ambitious plan to stop the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa, aiming to isolate 70 percent of the sick and safely bury 70 percent of the victims in the three hardest-hit countries — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — by December 1.

Only Guinea is on track to meet the December 1 goal, according to an update from WHO.

After a busy holiday weekend in shopping malls, millions of Americans are expected to log on and keep shopping on the day dubbed Cyber Monday.

That day, the Monday after Thanksgiving, has been the biggest online shopping day of the year since 2010. The day could take on added importance after a Thanksgiving weekend that saw fewer shoppers and lower spending than last year, according to some estimates.

Watch out world, the Girl Scouts are going digital to sell you cookies.

For the first time in nearly 100 years, Girl Scouts of the USA will allow its young go-getters to push their wares using a mobile app or personalized websites.

Tabare Vazquez easily won Uruguay's presidential election on Sunday, returning to power a left-leaning coalition that has helped legalize gay marriage and moved to create the world's first state-run marijuana marketplace.

The runoff vote had drawn international attention because Vazquez's rival, center-right candidate Luis Lacalle Pou, had promised to undo much of the plan to put the government in charge of regulating the production, distribution and sale of marijuana on a nationwide scale.