The news keeps getting better for dividend investors. But can it last?

The latest sign of a dividend renaissance is Apple's decision to begin sharing some of its profits with shareholders for the first time in nearly two decades. The world's most valuable company will start paying a dividend later this year, rather than continue to stockpile cash from iPhone and iPad sales.

That announcement came a week after major banks moved to restore their dividends, after cutting them during the financial crisis to conserve cash. At least nine top banks plan to raise their payouts or are considering doing so after the government conducted stress tests to ensure the banks can survive another crisis.

It adds up to better times ahead for dividend investors. Payouts by companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index are expected to climb 15 percent from last year to $277 billion, according to S&P Indices. That amount would top the previous record of $248 billion, set in 2008. Three-quarters of the S&P 500's dividend-paying companies are making higher payouts than they did last year.

Interest is so intense that hedge funds and many other Wall Street pros who normally avoid dividend stocks have been rushing into them lately, and Apple's actions can only add to the frenzy, says analyst Howard Silverblatt of S&P Indices.

In fact, dividend stocks have been among the market's strongest performers the past 12 months, a fact that hasn't been lost on investors. Over that period, they have deposited a net $25 billion into mutual funds specializing in dividend stocks – usually labeled `equity income' funds – according to industry consultant Strategic Insight.

That number wouldn't normally be impressive, except that the cash came in as investors pulled out of nearly all other types of stock funds. A net total of $136 billion was withdrawn from all other stock fund categories, reflecting........More

Dawn Josephson could barely believe it when she found health insurance that would actually cover the cost of treating her young son’s eye condition.

Josephson, a freelance editor, wife and mother of two in Jacksonville, Fla., had been spending as much as $1,000 a month of her family’s budget on surgery, doctor visits, tests, and treatments in the seven months since 2-year-old Wesley awoke one morning with his eyes pointed toward each other, a condition called strabismus. That was on top of the $807 in monthly premiums the family spent on an insurance plan that excluded anything related to her son’s eyes.

A few weeks after President Barack Obama signed a sweeping health care reform law in March 2010, Josephson got a call from another insurance company telling her the family had been accepted into a new plan. “What about Wesley’s eye? If he needs another surgery, another test, another something, is it covered?” she asked the customer service representative. She pressed the point again: What’s the catch? “Nothing. Your family’s fully covered,” she was told.

Josephson's change in fortune was the result of the new law's provision that prohibits insurance companies from refusing to cover children with pre-existing medical conditions. The family's new insurer decided to change its rules before the law required it, giving Josephson, her husband Dave, Wesley, and his little sister Margo some relief. A few months later, Josephson got to meet Obama at a health care reform event in Falls Church, Va.

Even with that relief, Josephson can't rest easy. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments next week in a case challenging the constitutionality of health reform. The court, or a Republican president next year, could reverse the family's fortunes again, with Josephson's son, now 6, still struggling to gain control of his right eye. He sometimes wears an eye patch, and might need more surgery, Josephson said.

The fate of millions of other Americans also hangs on the Supreme Court's ruling. Repealing health care reform would squash the hopes of uninsured people struggling to pay for health care.

“I definitely think I’d have to worry about it,” Josephson said. “It’s scary because you see the before and after.”

Forbes' comprehensive list of the world's billionaires (there are 1226) came out recently, and we were curious -- are there women on the list?

Turns out, there are. Yes, men far outnumber the ladies. But starting at number 11, women help fill out the ranks of the fabulously wealthy.

Where do these fortunes come from? Uniformly, these top six women have shrewdly managed the companies and fortunes handed to them by husbands and fathers. But most of these women have put in their own hard work into these companies to grow them, especially the woman who is now president of Fidelity Investments. (Because women do make better investors!)

Of course, it took a few generations for these fortunes to build up, and many of the male billionaires on Fortunes' list are, well, advanced in age, having worked hard for their wealth over a lifetime. We're looking forward to a few years down the road when the list is populated by many more women and their own companies, instead of those founded by the the men in their lives.

After all, the founder of Spanx just broke into the billionaire list. Who knows what kind of riches she'll have by the time she retires?

Learn more about some of the richest women in the world:

6. Laurene Powell Jobs
Estimated net worth: $9 billion
Rank: 100th richest person in the world, 36th richest person in the U.S.
Age: 48
Why she's rich: She's the widow of Steve Jobs.
Lives in: Palo Alto, California

5. Abigail Johnson
Estimated net worth: $10.3 billion
Rank: 85th richest person in the world, 33rd richest in the U.S.
Age: 50
Why she's rich: She owns and runs Fidelity Investments with her father, Edward Johnson III.
Lives in: Milton, Massachusetts

Welcome to Fashionably Late, where we round up the style scraps that didn't make it to our news page this week. Click through and catch up on what else happened this week!
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Now that winter has begun to thaw, models are unpacking their tiniest bikinis and heading to the beach.

Any complaints? We didn't think so.

Anne V. and her fellow Sports Illustrated swimsuit girl, Irina Shayk, headed to Miami on Friday to celebrate Anne's 26th birthday, splashing in the waves and hanging out with girlfriends at Soho House. "We are booty shaking with miss Shaykie herself!" Anne tweeted exuberantly.

They also showed off their sexy swimsuits: Anne wore what looks like a Missoni knit bikini, and Irina paired a leopard bandeau top with neon green bottoms.

Also in Miami on Friday, Victoria's Secret Angel Doutzen Kroes hit the shores in a teensy black two-piece with her husband, DJ Sunnery James, and their one-year-old son Phyllon. (Although Doutzen and the other girls unfortunately didn't seem to cross paths.)

And for what it's worth, Bar Refaeli seems to be enjoying some waterfront vacation time, too.

Who will be the next model to suit up for a spring vacation? Don't worry, we'll do the hard work of keeping an eye on all of them for you.

We've gone a little mad prepping for the Season 5 premiere of "Mad Men" ... but can you really blame us? It's been 525 days since the Season 4 finale, and those cliffhangers have kept our wheels turning ever since.

What year will it be when we see our Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce friends again? And what's Don Draper's personal life looking like these days: Did he marry Megan? Is he still living in that sad little apartment? How's his relationship with his kids?

We know we're not alone, which is why we've worked tirelessly to fill the gap for fans, getting some of the best interviews, with star Jon Hamm and the entire cast, as well as creator Matt Weiner; teasing as much as we can in our review; creating some fun video mash-ups, and gathering the coolest viral videos; and even shaking up a signature cocktail to toast the show's return.

To make it easier on you to find everything, it's all right here. Happy reading, watching, drinking and "Mad Men"-ing!

From pregnancies to rehab reveals, it's been another wild week in the celebrity world. In case you've been out of the loop -- or perhaps waiting in line for "The Hunger Games" movie tickets -- we've rounded up some stories you may have missed.

Reese Witherspoon is pregnant. Though the actress has not officially announced the happy news, several sources close to the actress spilled the beans to outlets including Us Weekly and People. This will be the first child for Witherspoon and her husband of one year, Jim Toth, though she has two children with her ex-husband, Ryan Phillippe.

Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino is in rehab. The hard-partying "Jersey Shore" star revealed he voluntarily opted to get treatment for a prescription pill addiction.

Ashton Kutcher is headed to space. Yes, you read that right. It was announced this week that the "Two and a Half Men" actor is Virgin Galactic's 500th customer.

Whitney Houston's cause of death was revealed. The L.A. County Coroner's report ruled her official cause of death as accidental drowning.

Hilary Duff is a mom! The actress and singer gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, named Luca Cruz, on March 20.

Nine suspected gang members and associates were charged Friday in a sexual attack on a 14-year-old girl who was forced back inside an abandoned St. Paul house and raped after trying to leave a party last November, authorities said.

The girl and her friend were picked up at school by one of the men and lured to a party with suspected members of the TB22, or True Blood 22, street gang, prosecutors said.

"This crime was every parent's nightmare," Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said in a statement. "Crimes like these shock the conscience of our community."

According to a criminal complaint, the girl wanted to leave the Nov. 17 party at the abandoned St. Paul house but was pulled from a car and carried back inside.

"The victim reported grabbing whatever she could, including door frames, to stop them from bringing her into the bedroom," the complaint said. The girl told a nurse that once she was forced onto a mattress on the floor inside the bedroom, a group of men held her down while she struggled and yelled for help.

One of the defendants told police at least two men raped the girl, according to the complaint.

Citing complaints and petitions filed in Ramsey County District Court, the St. Paul Star Tribune reported the alleged victim heard one suspect say, "Are you in? I call second."

Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich slammed Barack Obama on Friday, saying the president's remarks about the fatal February shooting of Trayvon Martin were "disgraceful."

President Barack Obama addressed Martin's death during a Rose Garden appearance earlier Friday, framing the tragedy in personal terms by saying, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon." Gingrich responded to Obama's remarks during a "Hannity Radio" interview:

What the president said, in a sense, is disgraceful. It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background.

Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it didn’t look like him. That’s just nonsense dividing this country up. It is a tragedy this young man was shot. It would have been a tragedy if he had been Puerto Rican or Cuban or if he had been white or if he had been Asian American of if he’d been a Native American. At some point, we ought to talk about being Americans. When things go wrong to an American, it is sad for all Americans. Trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. I really find it appalling.

Gingrich's comments came amid boiling public outrage over the death of Martin -- an unarmed, 17-year-old African American shot by a volunteer neighborhood watchman. The former House speaker commented on the shooting Thursday during an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan, calling it a "tragedy."

If you're traveling 80 miles per hour, how long does it take you to go 80 miles?

That's the relatively simple math question Travis Chambers posed to wife Chelsea on a road trip from Logan, Utah, to Boise, Idaho, to visit her family while his camera was rolling.

Her husband posted the video on YouTube, titling it, "The real meaning of MPH," where her muddled math has unexpectedly racked up more than 3.5 million views.

"I don't know. Because if I run the mile in like 9 minutes, then, I mean but that's when I'm out of shape," she says in the video. "When I'm really in shape it's like 7 minutes … and that takes me a mile. And we're going 80 miles. And I'm running 10 mph, if that."

Using her own running speed as a basis, and taking into account the tire speed, weight of the car, and whether it's a stick or an automatic, she uses roundabout logic to come up with an educated guess.

"It's got to take like 58 minutes or something," she says, not too far off from the correct answer of 60 minutes.

"Think about 80 miles per hour," her husband says, teasing her as he keeps making faces to the camera. "So how long does it take me to go 80 miles if I'm going 80 miles per hour."

"You are driving faster than a minute a mile," she says to him. "I would whack 80 in half and that's 40."

His teasing continues: "Think about the term MPH. So if I say I'm driving 80 MPH."

"I make sense, you do not make sense," she tells him. "You don't even know the answer."

There's a moment toward the end of the video where she asks him to stop filming. Finally, he relents and tells her the answer: "The answer is 1 hour. Your guess was close."