The impish, cartoony monster toys, whose fans include Sasha Obama and Snoop Dogg, started with a doodle on creator David Horvath’s letters to his college sweetheart.

To their legions of fans — Sasha Obama and Snoop Dogg included — the Ugly Dolls are anything but ugly. ¶ With names such as Babo, Big Toe and Puglee, the plush creatures look more like impish cartoon monsters than adorable Beanie Babies. ¶ Millions of these odd, squishy misfits have charmed their way into buyers’ hands since David Horvath began doodling them eight years ago on letters to his college sweetheart, Sun-Min Kim. ¶ Manhattan Beach residents Horvath and Kim had dreamed about creating toys that could tell stories and make kids happy. But they eschewed the route normally followed by entrepreneurs: Make a toy that fits a trend, pitch it like crazy to all the big toy makers, pray they buy your idea and sell your toys at Wal-Mart. ¶ Instead, Horvath and Kim started small and tried to stay that way by selling only to independent stores. They began by making things they loved.

The Times’ Chris Dufresne unveils his preseason college football top 25, one day (and team) at a time:

The Times’ Chris Dufresne unveils his preseason college football top 25,

Albert Gonzalez, who helped the Secret Service hunt hackers, is charged with the nation’s largest breach — 130 million credit and debit card accounts. He holds the old record too, prosecutors allege.

Federal prosecutors Monday charged a former government informant with the nation’s largest theft of credit and debit card data, accusing him of swiping 130 million accounts on top of 40 million he stole previously.

Does the card issuer have to notify you of a breach? How much damage could the hackers do to you?

Hackers got access to 130 million credit and debit card accounts, federal prosecutors allege.

But it blames outside political groups for signing their members up to get messages from the Obama administration.

After insisting that no one was receiving unsolicited e-mails from the White House, officials reversed themselves Monday night — but blamed outside political groups for the messages.

How to keep a low profile Find out what’s already out there by searching for your own name with services such as Google, 123people.com, PeekYou.com and Snitch.name.

Government grants to help expand Internet broadband service apparently make the big carriers nervous.

The Obama administration made it a national priority to spread high-speed Internet access to every American home and it offered stimulus money to help companies pay for it, but the biggest network operators are staying away from the program.

Top video games

Several titles due out over the next several months could provide a boost. Some firms are holding off on releasing certain games amid the economy’s woes.

The video game industry experienced a stomach-churning 29% drop in U.S. sales in July, its third-worst year-over-year slide since January 1995, when NPD Group Inc. first began tracking sales data.

Sara Williams used the popular micro-blogging website to share details — from the time her water broke to baby’s first diaper — with more than 16,000 of her Twitter followers.

Could this be the first Twitter baby?