Black Rock

Target-date retirement funds are supposed to be safe and conservative, but the market meltdown revealed that some funds were less risk-averse than advertised. Have they cleaned up their act -- and can you trust them with your retirement?

Four years ago, at the height of the real estate bubble, it seemed like a great idea: buy Manhattan's massive Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town housing complexes, throw out the existing tenants and raise the rents to market rates, then sit back and collect billions. But on Monday, Tishman Speyer threw in the towel, turning the complex over to creditors in one of the the biggest real estate fiascoes in history.

Now that private equity is no longer producing monster returns, it's time to assess its value. By using debt, buyout shops have taken over struggling companies and enriched investors. But critics say the practice leads to more layoffs and the "flipping" of companies.

Gunga Dan's not looking so nutty now, is he? Dan Rather scored a major triumph against his former employer yesterday as a state supreme court judge reinstated his fraud claim against CBS and ordered the network to turn over thousands of documents it was hoping to keep private. I'll be the first...