Checklist

Regional

• Arlington contractor CACI International Inc. and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., which provide services to the U.S. military, were sued by an Iraqi blacksmith who claims he was tortured at Abu Ghraib prison, his lawyers said. Emad Al-Janabi, 43, sued CACI, which provided interrogators at the prison, and L-3, which provided translators, according to his lawyers. He accused the companies of torture, war crimes and civil conspiracy in a Los Angeles federal court complaint.

• Lockheed Martin Corp., the Bethesda defense company, protested a U.S. Navy award to Northrop Grumman Corp. for an unmanned spy-plane program valued at as much as $3.74 billion.

• Legendary model train maker Lionel LLC has emerged from bankruptcy protection, the company’s Web site and court documents show. Lionel, which has been in business since 1900, sought bankruptcy protection in 2004 after a trade-secrets dispute with MTH Electric Trains of Columbia, Md.

• Marriott International Inc., the Bethesda lodging chain, plans to add nine hotels in Saudi Arabia from 2010 to quadruple its assets in the biggest Arab economy.

National

• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission member Paul Atkins, a Republican who resisted the agency’s crackdown on corporations after mutual-fund trading scandals and the collapse of Enron Corp., is stepping down. Mr. Atkins, 50, plans to stay until a successor takes office, the SEC said. President Bush might nominate law professor Troy Paredes for the post, three people briefed on the matter told Bloomberg News.

• Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, announced it would expand its discounted prescription-drug program to offer 90-day supplies for $10 and add several women’s medications at a discount. Almost all the prescription generics in the company’s original $4 program were included in the expanded $10 offer.

• Drug developer Merck says it is cutting 1,200 sales jobs in the United States following a week of regulatory setbacks for two drug candidates. The job cuts follow Food and Drug Administration rejections for the company’s proposed allergy drug combining the active ingredients of Merck’s Singulair and Schering-Plough Corp.’s Claritin. The FDA also rejected the company’s developing cholesterol drug Cordaptive, while publicly demanding the company clean up problems at its main vaccine plant.

• The nation’s service economy unexpectedly expanded last month after contracting for the previous three months. The Institute for Supply Management’s index of the service sector showed a better-than-expected reading of 52 for April, up from 49.6 in March. A reading above 50 indicates the sector is growing.

• A strike by a United Autoworkers local at the General Motors plant near Kansas City, Kan., could endanger production of the popular Chevrolet Malibu sedan, adding to mounting problems for the automaker.

• Conectiv Energy and three subcontractors will pay $1.65 million to settle a discrimination lawsuit filed by four black workers, who said they were subjected to racial slurs, Ku Klux Klan graffiti and a noose that was left hanging for more than a week, according to terms of settlement announced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

• Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. asked a federal judge to block the Chicago Transit Authority from removing advertisements for its “Grand Theft Auto IV” video game. Take-Two, based in New York, filed suit in Manhattan, N.Y., federal court, saying the CTA interfered with its right of free speech by removing ads for the game from the transit system.

• The chief executive officer of book publisher Random House is set to step down in the next few weeks, the New York Times reported on its Web site, citing a pair of executives at owner Bertelsmann AG it did not name. Peter W. Olson, CEO of Random House since 1998, had come under increased pressure from the German media conglomerate because of lower profits at the publishing house and wider losses in its American book clubs.

• Residential Capital LLC, the real estate lending unit of GMAC LLC, said it is taking steps to alleviate a near-term liquidity crisis, including redeeming outstanding debt at less than face value, tapping new credit lines and selling assets.

• Deutsche Telekom AG reportedly is considering a bid for Sprint Nextel Corp. Neither Sprint Nextel nor Deutsche Telekom would comment on the report in the Wall Street Journal.

• Exxon Mobil Corp. plans to spend more than $100 million to build a plant in Wyoming that will allow it to finish developing and test technology that could make capturing and storing carbon dioxide more affordable and open up vast new sources of natural gas. The Irving, Texas, company said it will build the plant this summer. Start-up is scheduled for late 2009.

• The Iraqi government ordered 30 Boeing 737 airplanes in a deal worth up to $2.2 billion and taken options on 10 more. Iraq also is “finalizing an agreement” to buy 10 of Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliners, the touted long-range aircraft whose deliveries have been delayed until the second half of 2009.

International

• The president of the European Central Bank warned there are considerable risks of worldwide inflation and that central banks must make an effort to lower expectations that prices will rise. “On a global level, inflationary risks are significant,” ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said.

• Royal Dutch Shell and Spain’s Repsol may pull away from deals to develop Iran’s South Pars natural gas field. Shell and Repsol have until the end of the month to give Iran a final decision about the $10 billion project, but the prospect of facing sanctions from the United States, which has already imposed sanctions on Iran, reportedly is giving the oil companies second thoughts.

• Former Broadway theater producers Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb pleaded not guilty to participating in a large-scale accounting fraud. The two co-founded Livent, one of the major Broadway theater companies in the 1990s, that produced hit shows such as “Ragtime” and “Showboat.”

• Parmalat SpA, the Italian dairy company that collapsed in 2003, is seeking $2.2 billion in damages from Citigroup Inc. at a civil trial in New Jersey, a company lawyer told a judge. Parmalat Chief Executive Officer Enrico Bondi seeks to prove that Citigroup, the largest U.S. bank by assets, aided and abetted larceny by corrupt insiders at Parmalat.

• The International Monetary Fund’s chief economist, Simon Johnson, announced he is resigning, a year after taking the post, to return to his professor’s post at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is on leave of absence, the IMF said.

• Zimbabwe’s central bank, currently grappling with record-breaking inflation, introduced a bank note worth a quarter of a billion Zimbabwe dollars, state television said.

From wire dispatches and staff reports