Women

Women whose breasts became tender after taking hormone replacement therapy had nearly twice the risk of developing breast cancer than women whose breasts did not become tender on the drugs, U.S. researchers said Monday. Breast tenderness may be a way to identify women who have a higher risk of developing breast cancer while taking hormone replacement therapy to treat menopause, Dr. Carolyn Crandall of UCLA and colleagues reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine. "We report that an increase in breast tenderness, easily detected by physicians or patients, identifies a population at particular risk for breast cancer," the researchers reported.

Middle-aged men still have higher rates of heart attacks and heart disease than middle-aged women, but those gender differences appear to be narrowing, according to a study published Monday. The findings follow earlier research, published in a 2007 issue of the journal Neurology, establishing that stroke prevalence among women ages 45 to 54 was double that of men of the same age. Together, the findings suggest "an ominous trend in cardiovascular health among midlife women," said the lead author of both studies, Dr. Amytis Towfighi, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Southern California.

The state Women's Conference, when it began almost two decades ago, was all about women changing the world. The speakers tended toward the practical. The frills were nonexistent. Under the direction of First Lady Maria Shriver, last week's conference was a two-day extravaganza, a Technicolor version of the event of old. Much of the focus was "The Shriver Report," a collaboration between Shriver and a Washington think-tank, which declared two weeks ago that we have become "a woman's nation."

Over one eventful day in Los Angeles, a series of women -- including a newly pregnant porn star, an uptight businesswoman, a masseuse, an escort, a therapist and a teenager -- all find themselves in surprising situations with unexpected people. Structured as a series of vignettes involving only a few characters at a time, "Women in Trouble," in theaters Friday, creates a world of campy happenstance and sexy confessionals reminiscent of the screwball melodramas of Pedro Almodóvar. Venezuelan-born writer-director Sebastian Gutierrez, whose credits as a screenwriter include "Snakes on a Plane" and "Gothika," wanted a departure from the horror movies he had found himself working on in recent years, and was inspired to create something more to his personal tastes.

In the story making the rounds here in Mexico's drug capital, the setting is a beauty parlor. A woman with wealth obtained legally openly criticizes a younger patron who is married to a trafficker. The "narco-wife" orders the hairdresser to shave the first woman's head. Terrified, the hairdresser complies. Urban legend or real? It almost doesn't matter; it's the sort of widely repeated account that both intimidates and titillates. And it highlights a disturbing trend: As drug violence seeps deeper into Mexican society, women are taking a more hands-on role.

Re "Forbes' recognition of cartel boss irks Mexicans," Nov. 14 This article, while newsworthy, appropriately deserved to be exiled to Page A23. It is repugnant for any publication, especially one as revered as Forbes, to showcase a despicable drug trafficker on its purported list of "movers and shakers." No doubt there are many criminals who are very powerful, having profited from crime and the degradation it brings to civilized society. To elevate such miscreants to any semblance of status, however, is a decision that Forbes should regret.

Octogenarian playboy Hugh Hefner ["Hefner's First Real True Love," by Geoff Boucher, Jan. 4] says, "Everything I learned about love, I learned from the movies," and then he proudly quotes an associate who claims that Hef "was the only man who had made love to over a thousand women and they all still liked him." I wonder. Did he really "make love" with these hordes of women or did he, with at least a few, just have sex? Alleen Morris Pacific Palisades

Police in Hoboken, N.J., say a man posing as a waiter collected $186 in cash from diners at two restaurants and walked out with the money. The man, said to be in his 20s and wearing a dark button-down shirt, yellow tie and khaki pants, reportedly asked two women if they needed anything else before paying. They said no and handed him $90. About two hours later he approached three women dining at another restaurant, took $96 and never returned with the change.

The important thing about the recent study by a Princeton University economics student concerning the ongoing discrimination against women playwrights in the American theater is that it will throw more light on an exasperatingly stubborn problem. But the research by Emily Glassberg Sands raises questions I think should be examined more fully before definitive conclusions are drawn. In particular, the controversial discovery that women artistic directors and literary managers gave lower marks than their male colleagues to plays when the author was identified as female should be interpreted with caution.