Today in Globe Business

Wary consumers, restaurants make changes after egg recall

The expanding national egg recall, the largest in recent history, is having a far-reaching impact on farmers, grocery stores, chefs, and consumers across the region.

The federal government has recalled more than a half-billion eggs that may have been tainted with salmonella bacteria and sickened hundreds of people nationwide. The outbreak is not linked to any farms or shops in New England, but many area businesses and customers are still taking extra precautions.

Some local restaurants, like Sami’s Wrap N’ Roll in Jamaica Plain, recently changed suppliers to ensure the eggs served were known to be from a safe source, even though the ones previously used were not involved in the recall.
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Gold, but not much glitter

NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH — Most people outside Massachusetts do not know where this town is, never mind that it is home to one of the country’s biggest gold refineries, a place that regularly churns out gleaming ingots.

Yet Metalor USA Refining Corp. is situated, nonchalantly enough, in an office park here. The concrete compound’s discreet green-and-brown exterior blends into the woodsy landscape, though the seemingly endless razor-wire fencing surrounding it sends a clear “stay out’’ message.

And that’s exactly how Metalor likes it.

“It’s like Fort Knox,’’ said Paul Belham, vice president of the North Attleborough Industrial Park Tenants Association, which represents businesses in the park where the company is located. “They’re very secretive over there.’’
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Sprint bringing 4G wireless to Boston

Bostonians who rely on telephone and cable TV companies for their high-speed Internet service will soon have a third option. Sometime next month, cellphone carrier Sprint Nextel Corp. will launch the region’s first 4G wireless data service, designed to deliver broadband speeds far faster than today’s 3G services. The new service, already available in about 50 US cities, can bring the Internet to desktop and laptop computers as well as Sprint’s smartphones.

“We should launch sometime during the month of September,’’ said Sprint chief executive Dan Hesse during a visit to Boston last week. Sprint’s first 4G-compatible smartphone, the EVO 4G, is already sold out at stores throughout the United States; a second phone, the Epic 4G, will go on sale Aug. 31.

Existing 3G services, made popular by the success of Apple Inc.’s iPhone, enable users to visit websites and download music and videos. Although mainly used with smartphones, many laptops also use 3G Internet access. But 3G download speeds are relatively slow, usually around 1.5 million bits per second; that’s adequate for reading Web pages, but sluggish for video or gaming. Sprint’s 4G network is designed to deliver speeds ranging from 3 million to 6 million bits per second.
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Harvard Pilgrim's pragmatic warrior

WELLESLEY — When an insurance appeals board issued a surprise ruling on June 24 toppling the Patrick administration’s cap on Harvard Pilgrim Health Care’s premium rates, there was little time for gloating in the health insurer’s executive offices off Route 9.

“We believed from the beginning that we did the right thing’’ in challenging the rate cap on small businesses and individuals, said Eric H. Schultz, 51, who took over as chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim on March 1. “But we knew that if we didn’t reach some kind of settlement, we wouldn’t have clarity and our customers wouldn’t have stability.’’

A week letter, Harvard Pilgrim struck a deal with regulators voluntarily limiting its 2010 rate increases to single digits. The company initially had requested average base rate hikes of 8 to 12 percent. As the first large carrier to ink a settlement, it helped establish a pattern — “a glide path,’’ Schultz called it — that led to a series of other deals, effectively ending the five-month standoff between insurers and the state.
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More parents saving for college

The number of parents who are saving to pay future college costs is up, but the percentage of costs those savings will cover is slipping down.

That’s the good news/bad news from a study to be released today by the Boston financial services giant Fidelity Investments. The study found that this year 69 percent of Massachusetts parents have begun saving for future college costs, up from 59 percent in 2008. Yet the percentage of college costs the savings are projected to meet is only 18 percent, down from 22 percent last year, and 29 percent in 2007.

Jim Dwaileebe of Melrose has been saving for his son Paul’s education since Paul was 12. Now that Paul is 20, and a junior at Bryant University in Rhode Island, Dwaileebe is discovering that his savings will cover only about 50 percent of his son’s tuition and expenses. The elder Dwaileebe recently cosigned a loan for his son to help pay for Paul’s junior year. A year at Bryant University, according to Dwaileebe’s estimate, hovers around $52,000.
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Oppenheimer continues to fight over records

The brokerage firm Oppenheimer & Co. is continuing its legal battle to keep confidential hundreds of documents in a case involving the former manager of its Boston office, even after a judge ruled that there are no grounds to keep most of the records private.

In a hearing scheduled for tomorrow in Suffolk Superior Court, Oppenheimer will present its motion to impound documents related to an arbitration between the firm and James Dever, a former manager who resigned after a disagreement with the firm in a regulatory probe.

Oppenheimer said it wants to protect customer records and other information the firm considers proprietary. But Dever’s lawyer, in an opposition to the motion, said Dever has no interest in those records. Rather Dever, his lawyer argues, needs certain records to clear his name — documents that Oppenheimer says would embarrass the firm.