More than 80 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, the highest such number since the early 1990s, according to a new survey.

The CBS News-New York Times poll released Thursday showed 81 percent of respondents said they believed 'things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track.' That was up from 69 percent a year ago, and 35 percent in early 2002.

The survey comes as housing turmoil has rocked Wall Street amid an economic downturn. The economy has surpassed the war in Iraq as the dominating issue of the U.S. presidential race, and there is now nearly a national consensus that the United States faces significant problems, the poll found.

A 12-year-old boy fatally slashed a man who was attacking his mother at the boarding house where they lived, authorities said.

Salomon Noubissie, 64, died at a hospital after he was slashed across the neck Monday night in the home in the Landover area.

Cpl. Diane Richardson, a spokeswoman for Prince George's County police, said Wednesday that authorities hadn't decided whether the boy would be charged with anything.

... 'In Maryland, there can be a legitimate defense of third parties in the event of a violent attack,' State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey told the newspaper. 'That is a possibility in this case.'"

People as young as 18 can now buy and own handguns in South Carolina. Governor Mark Sanford signed a bill into law Wednesday to lower the minimum age from 21.

'People who are old enough to fight and die in the military should be able to purchase handguns, and the bill will put our laws more in line with those of other states,' Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said.

The law went into effect immediately.

South Carolina is one of 18 states -- and the only one in the South -- that had set 21 as the age for handgun ownership, according to the National Rifle Association. The group says Wyoming has no handgun age requirement. In Montana, it's set at 14; in Vermont, 16.