October 9, 2005

Fear of the bird flu sweeping across Asia has played a major role in the government's flurry of preparations for a worldwide epidemic. That concern prompted President Bush to meet with vaccine makers on Friday to try to persuade them to increase production, and it led Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt to depart yesterday for a 10-day trip to at least four Asian nations to discuss planning for a pandemic flu.

New York City real estate brokers and sellers are uncertain what last quarter's data on housing market indicates--stall, pause or blip; sales and prices have dropped significantly, except for one-bedroom and studio apartments; market buzzword is 'negotiability' as sellers no longer see bids higher than asking price and apartments stay on market longer; photos (M)

Former New York Times reporter Michael Gross book 740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building examines history of fabled Manhattan co-op and its rich and famous occupants; photo (M)

Hannah Rothstein, 7 months old, has double thighs and a dimpled bottom, but very svelte German underwear. She can still fit into her birth-to-3-month-old clothes because she lacks her peers' familiar bulge in the rear. She can sleep all night without a diaper. And during the day, every so often, after her mother, Melinda, of Newton, Mass., places her on a plastic potty and makes a little ''pss-wss-wss'' sound like the one used to call a cat, Hannah uses the toilet. For many parents in the United States, the idea of potty training before a baby is able to walk, or even before age 2, is not just horrifying but reprehensible -- a sure nightmare for parents and baby, not to mention a direct route from the crib to the psychiatrist's couch. But a growing number of parents are experimenting with infant potty training, seeing it as more sanitary, ecologically correct and likely to strengthen bonds between parent and child.

FOR the lawyers who file lawsuits against corporations, it looked like the next big thing -- the next fen-phen, asbestos or even tobacco, the mother of all jackpots. Like the lawsuits involving asbestos, the fire-retardant material that when inhaled can cause a horrible lung cancer, the new suits involved a substance that under certain circumstances could harm the lungs: silica, a purified sand used as a cleaning abrasive as well as in making glass, paint, ceramics and other materials. Silica dust, when inhaled, can lodge in the lungs, causing silicosis, a disabling and often fatal lung disease.