Sylvia Pagan Westphal

By Sylvia Pagán Westphal Unbeknown to many parents, a few hair products – especially some marketed to black people – contain small amounts of hormones that could cause premature sexual development in girls. The evidence that hair products containing oestrogens cause premature puberty is largely circumstantial, and the case is still unproven.

In a case with the potential to inspire more securities-fraud litigation, a federal judge in New Jersey ruled that a short seller can sue former executives and others connected with the defunct Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV. Rocker Partners LP, a New York hedge fund, alleges that it lost "tens of millions" of dollars by "shorting" Lernout & Hauspie stock, or selling borrowed shares in the expectation that the price would fall before the loan had to be repaid.

JENN MCNARY KNOWS ANGER. It has overcome her often, and with the ravaging might that only a mother knows when her child is dying. Except in her case, it’s not one son but two who face a death sentence. At 34, McNary’s face still has the glow of youth, and it lights up when she talks about all four of her kids, although she knows she has given most of her life, her energy, and all of her fight to her two oldest.