In the Region
Omnicare raises offer for NCS Health to $5.50 a share
Omnicare Inc., the Kentucky company battling with the parent of Baltimore-based NeighborCare to acquire NCS Health Care Inc., said yesterday that it was raising its offer to $5.50 a share. NeighborCare's parent, Genesis Health Ventures Inc. of Kennett Square, Pa., had offered $3.50, Omnicare said.
Earlier this year, Genesis signed a deal valued at $1.60 a share for Ohio-based, financially troubled NCS. If completed, the deal would make NeighborCare the second-largest supplier of prescriptions to nursing homes.
But Omnicare, already the largest institutional pharmacy company, bid $3.50. Genesis said its sale agreement was binding, but the Delaware Supreme Court this week ordered the Genesis-NCS deal blocked, prompting the new offers.
Lockheed wins extension of Sandia lab contract
Lockheed Martin Corp. will be awarded a five-year contract extension to manage the Sandia National Laboratories through September 2008, U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said yesterday.
Abraham announced his intention to extend the contract non-competitively Bethesda-based Lockheed, the largest U.S. defense contractor, in a speech to employees at the Albuquerque, N.M., nuclear weapons lab.
Sandia's budget is about $2 billion a year, and Lockheed will receive $21.5 million for managing the lab in fiscal year 2003, which ends Sept. 30, said Chris Miller a lab spokesman. The fee is renegotiated annually.
Change of venue denied in Rite Aid fraud trial
A request to move the criminal fraud trial of three former executives and one current officer of Rite Aid Corp. from Harrisburg, Pa., has been denied by a federal judge, who said a change of venue would be "inopportune" at present.
Attorneys for Martin L. Grass, the former Rite Aid chairman and chief executive officer, and three others had asked for the trial to be moved to Pittsburgh, claiming media coverage had prejudiced potential jurors.
The U.S. attorney's office in Harrisburg argued that a change of venue is unwarranted unless jury selection determines that it is impossible to find an impartial pool of local jurors.
Elsewhere
2 Conn. newspapers win federal appeal of Internet libel case
Two Connecticut newspapers won a ruling in federal appeals court yesterday over whether placement of an article on the Internet broadens exposure under libel laws. Judge Glen M. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals 4th Circuit overturned an earlier ruling against the Hartford Courant and New Haven Advocate and several of their employees.
A Virginia warden, Stanley K. Young, had sued the publications. He argued that their stories critical of the treatment of Connecticut prisoners in Virginia jails defamed him at home because Virginians could read the pieces on the Internet. The judge ruled that the papers aimed their coverage on an issue of public interest for a Connecticut audience, not a Virginia one, in spite of the wide reach of the Internet.
A verdict by the High Court of Australia against Dow Jones & Co. Inc. in another libel case this week renewed fears among publishers that the Internet may pose new legal challenges for them. The Hartford Courant is owned by the Tribune Co., owner of The Sun.
Computer Sciences to buy DynCorp for $677 million
Computer Sciences Corp., of El Segundo, Calif., said yesterday that it agreed to acquire DynCorp, a closely held Reston, Va., provider of technology and outsourcing systems to the federal government, for about $677 million.
The purchase will enable Computer Sciences to expand its government contract work amid the U.S. crackdown on terrorism.
This column was compiled from reports by Sun staff writers, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News.