Your customized headlines for Sun, Jun 24, 2012

For a generation of young adults, Reading Rainbow was a PBS staple. Now the show is back in a different form — an app made just for the iPad. The app comes with video segments starring the show's host, LeVar Burton, going on "video field trips" as well as, of course, access to lots and lots of books — for a fee. The app will give you one book for free, and then requires a subscription of $9.99 per month or $29.99 for six months. This one's aimed at kids, but in-app purchases are password protected. Children earn virtual stickers for every book read, which can be placed in their own sticker book. The app is built around genre-based "islands" with themes such as "Animal Kingdom" or "Genius Academy" and also includes book-related games. Free to download, for the iPad.

The big idea: How does a manager make a promotion decision after learning that the preferred candidate is using an off-label, performance-enhancing medication?

The scenario: A senior vice president, "Mark," in an investment firm must decide which of his two best employees to promote to the position of managing vice president. The vice president had initially preferred "Jeff" over "Donald," but that decision had become far from clear-cut when Mark learned, after inadvertently overhearing an office conversation, that Jeff was taking a medication off-label: Adderall, a stimulant primarily prescribed for people who have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Jeff did not have ADHD. As Mark pondered the situation, questions arose: How should he deal with this? Whom should he promote? Was it fair to Donald — or any of the other high-performing employees at the firm — to promote someone who illicitly used a substance not medically required in order to boost his performance? What is "true" performance, and what are the boundaries? How much would Jeff's work suffer if for some reason his surreptitiously obtained Adderall prescription was cut off? What are the implications for Evergreen's other employees?

Ever since the robo-signing scandal erupted in October 2010, large U.S. banks have slowly come to realize that their practices are under ever-increasing scrutiny. A "Duh!" observation for most people, but not, apparently, for bankers.

One-hundred-thirty members of Congress or their families have traded stocks collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars in companies lobbying on bills that came before their committees, a practice that is permitted under current ethics rules, a Washington Post analysis has found.