(Reuters) - Nothing in Wu Wenyong's rural childhood hinted he would end up on a hospital bed aged 15, battling two kinds of cancer.

Born to poor farmers in Xiaoxin, a dusty village of low brick houses in southwestern Yunnan province, he paddled in the Nanpan River as a child and later helped his parents tend rice.

About 3 km (two miles) from Wu's home stands a three-storey high hill of chromium slag produced from the Yunnan Luliang Peace Technology Company. The runoff from chromium-6, listed as a carcinogen by the World Health Organisation, seeped into the Nanpan, turning its waters yellow.

Two employees are suing Madison-based Quest Diagnostics and one of its subsidiaries alleging the companies engaged in systematic gender discrimination against women.

The lawsuit alleges that a predominantly male management team at AmeriPath, a Florida company acquired by Quest, fostered an environment hostile to the advancement of female employees and followed compensation, evaluation and promotion practices that had a disparate impact on women, pregnant employees and employees with family responsibilities.

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday for the first time that federal discrimination laws do not protect church employees who perform religious duties, a major church-state decision that recognizes religious groups’ constitutionally protected right to select their own leaders.

The justices ruled unanimously that the First Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion means that even neutral laws intent on banning workplace discrimination may not be applied to a religious institution choosing “those who will guide it on its way.”

“The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the court.

“But so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission.” When those principles are in conflict, Roberts said, “the First Amendment has struck the balance for us.”

The long debate over the National Football League’s handling of concussions is reaching the courts in a flurry of lawsuits, raising the possibility that dozens of former players will go before juries to outline the league’s medical practices and describe long-term cognitive problems they say were caused by the sport.

More than a dozen suits, filed since July on behalf of more than 120 retired players and their wives, say that the N.F.L. and in some cases helmet manufacturers deliberately concealed information about the neurological effects of repeated hits to the head. Several suits also say that even if the league did not know about the potential impact of brain trauma sustained on the field, it should have known.