Guidelines

When should the government file criminal charges against powerful corporations - and when is it enough to accept cash and a promise not to break the law again? How about selling drugs for unapproved uses? Pfizer Inc. paid $2.3 billion in 2009 to settle government painkiller-marketing accusations, avoiding prosecution. What about helping rich people illegally evade taxes? Union Bank of Switzerland averted a criminal court battle when it paid $780 million and agreed to give the IRS data from secret Swiss bank accounts in 2009.

IS THE CEREAL BOWL half empty - or half full? When it comes to a government proposal to pressure food companies to voluntarily change the way they market fast food, candy and sugary cereals to children, it's hard to say. A couple of weeks ago, an Interagency Working Group - including the Federal Trade Commission, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture - released proposed...

CHICAGO - Los Angeles Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti is operating under the same budgetary guidelines he had before Major League Baseball seized control of the team and said yesterday he reports to owner Frank McCourt until an administrator is appointed by Commissioner Bud Selig. Colletti talked with a league official Thursday but declined to identify the person. MLB spokesman Pat Courtney told the Associated Press that Colletti has been in contact with multiple people with the commissioner's office during the past couple of days, including Rob Manfred, baseball's executive vice president of labor relations.

Four years after creating a guide for Pennsylvania trial judges on the complexities of sexual-violence cases, state judicial system officials have begun distributing a new version for the state's 540 magisterial district judges. "Since district judges often make the first significant decisions in these cases, we felt it was important for them to get guidelines on the special conditions concerning victims and witnesses and also protecting the rights of the accused," state Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin said in an interview this week.

  INDIANAPOLIS - Dave Duerson's suicide last week came at a very inopportune time for the NFL owners. With them still hell-bent on expanding the regular season to 18 games, the last thing they really need right now is people rubbernecking at the scene of another football-related wreck that might or might not have been triggered by brain damage from one too many concussions. Predictably, the league began pounding the player-safety drum again yesterday, bringing in a member of its Head, Neck and Spine Committee to the media workroom at the NFL Scouting Combine to announce a new concussion-assessment tool designed to help provide a standardized method of evaluating head injuries on NFL sidelines.

The Philadelphia School District on Wednesday agreed to strict guidelines on protecting South Philadelphia High students from racial bias, and said it would submit to federal and state oversight on its progress. The U.S. Justice Department in July notified officials that based on its investigation, the district had deprived Asian students at the school of equal protection "by remaining deliberately indifferent to known instances of severe and pervasive student-on-student harassment of Asian students based on their race, color, and/or national origin.

A graphic published Tuesday showing new Vitamin D guidelines gave incorrect units of measure. The Recommended Dietary Allowances and Upper Level Intakes listed the correct amounts but should have said they were in the form of International Units (IU). The Inquirer wants its news report to be fair and correct in every respect, and regrets when it is not. If you have a question or comment about news coverage, contact assistant managing editor David Sullivan (215-854-2357) at The Inquirer, Box 8263, Philadelphia 19101, or e-mail dsullivan@phillynews.

Government scientists on Tuesday tripled the recommended intake of Vitamin D for most Americans. At the same time, the federal panel cautioned that most people already get enough - and should be skeptical of myriad reports that far higher amounts offer benefits for diseases ranging from cancer to diabetes. The impact of the advice - coming after a decade of highly publicized research that has led to gradual changes in mainstream medical practice and dramatic increases in over-the-counter supplement sales - was unclear.

Amy McDonald, 34 weeks into her second pregnancy with gestational diabetes, was in for a routine checkup in Bala Cynwyd: blood pressure (fine), fetal heartbeat (loud), review of home blood-sugar monitoring (time-consuming). A lab test for Vitamin D had come back low on a previous visit, and McDonald was now taking supplements. "Any problems with the Vitamin D?" asked her doctor, Daphne M. Goldberg, who had recommended at least 10 times the dosage in federal guidelines. (No problems.

A federal panel has approved changes to the sentencing guidelines for defendants convicted in crack-cocaine cases, taking another step toward shrinking the disparity between crack- and powder-cocaine sentences. The changes could have a particular impact in Philadelphia because many more federal drug defendants here - 32 percent as opposed to 22 percent nationally in fiscal 2009 - have been charged with crack offenses rather than powder-cocaine offenses. Crack convictions have generally drawn longer prison terms, with the average sentence for crack being 10 years, as opposed to seven for powder.