Well, now it’s official, at least the million-pound part. From the press release:

Today, Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Barbara Ferrer, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, launched Boston Moves for Health, an ambitious campaign to improve the health and fitness of the city of Boston. Making the announcement from Blue Cross Blue Shield, Mayor Menino challenged Bostonians to collectively lose one million pounds and walk 10 million miles as part of the initiative.

Joined by the campaign’s lead sponsors Blue Cross Blue Shield, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and Partners HealthCare, the Mayor unveiled www.BostonMovesForHealth.org. This free online resource allows participants to set health goals, record their individual progress, find community resources to help keep them on track, connect with friends and neighbors to share tips and workout routines, and view the city’s progress toward meeting the challenge goals.

The Boston Globe’s Kay Lazar reports on the city effort here, and columnist Yvonne Abraham looks at how hard it can be for urban families to live healthier.

Kay’s story ends with top Boston officials pledging to do their part. Barbara Ferrer, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, says she aims to get in five to seven miles a week at Franklin Park, “And drag my husband.”

The Natick, Mass.-based medical device company said that both ICD product lines, called Cognis and Teligen, are performing within reliability expectations, in an update to its quarterly product performance report.  The two product lines were approved by the FDA in 2008.

“However, an electrical component referred to as a ‘transformer’ has exhibited an identifiable pattern of malfunction that has occurred at a low rate (currently 26 out of 233,000, or 1 out of every 8,900 devices implanted),” the update stated.

Gabriel Bitran, 66, founded GMB Capital Management LLC in 2005 and with his son Marco Bitran raised more than $500 million over a three-year period, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in an administrative order filed today. The two men, who resolved the claims without admitting or denying wrongdoing, also agreed to be barred from the securities industry.

“The Bitrans solicited investors by touting an impressive track record and a unique investment strategy,” David Bergers, head of the SEC’s Boston office, said in a statement. “They lied about both.”

To market their fund, the Bitrans created performance records dating from 1998 that showed annualized returns of as much as 16.2 percent with no down years, the SEC said. They told investors the records were based on actual trading using Gabriel Bitran’s optimal-pricing models when they were actually based on hypothetical historical investments, according to the order.

Early Monday morning, police responding to a noise complaint at a fraternity house on Ashford Street in Allston found five BU students tied up in the basement, duct-taped wrist-to-wrist wearing only underwear. The students had welts all over their backs and were covered head-to-toe in honey, hot sauce, and other food.

“All five were shivering and had horrified and fearful looks on their faces,” police officers wrote in a report. When an officer asked the students if they were OK, one shook his head no as tears fell down his face.

A spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department said criminal charges were likely.

Kenneth Elmore, BU’s dean of students, said the suspected hazing is extremely serious and that those responsible would likely be removed from school.

“If these allegations are true, I think those students should expect they will not be students at BU,” he said.

Elmore said two of the students were also involved in a suspected hazing incident earlier this year in which underage sorority members were forced to drink to the point of requiring hospitalization.

Students who live at the Ashford Street home are members of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, which is not affiliated with the university. University officials have stressed to all students in Greek organizations that any hazing is unacceptable.

“I’ve got to think they got the word how serious we are about this,” Elmore said. “It’s troubling and very disappointing.”

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said he was concerned about the incident and asked BU to forward their findings to the city.

“We’re not going to condone issues like this,” he said.

On Ashford Street, neighbors said the students were notorious for loud, late-night parties that often spilled out into the street and left the area littered with beer cups and broken bottles.

“Four a.m., and we can still hear music,” said Juan Valdez, a freshman at Berklee College.

T.J. Freda, a BU student who lives in the neighborhood, said he knows some of the students who live at the house, and said they “seem like the type that would do something like that.”

He said he was stunned by the apparent extent of the hazing.

“I don’t know what to think,” he said. “I thought that kind of thing was only done back in the old days.”

The large shingled house has a new fence and appears to have been remodeled. Three “No Trespassing” signs are prominently displayed out front.

Sarah Smith, a 26-year-old who lives two doors down, said the fence was built after an “obnoxiously loud party” in the fall.

“The house is absolutely beautiful,” she said. “It’s a shame they rented to such sketchy people.”

But BC’s brightest hope just might be a freshman forward from New Jersey who looks as if he should still be playing youth hockey.

Johnny Gaudreau scored with three minutes remaining to break open what had been a tense struggle between a Boston College team making its 23rd appearance and beat a Ferris State (26-12-5) team that had qualified for the postseason only twice and was in the Frozen Four for the first time.

Gaudreau is listed as 5-8, 150 pounds, but that appears generous on both counts. He entered the game with 20 goals and 23 assists skating on BC’s third line. He had contributed two assists in the Eagles’ 6-1 demolition of Minnesota in the semifinals.

Gaudreau had been in the background of Saturday’s title game at Tampa Bay Times Forum until he picked up a pass at center ice, slithered through two Ferris defenders and lifted a backhander over Bulldogs goalie Taylor Nelson’s stick.

“It was a big-time goal by a big-time player,” said Ferris State’s Bob Daniels, who won national coach of the year honors for the second time.

Gaudreau said his first instinct after taking a breakout pass from Destry Straight was simply to dump the puck in deep to kill time.

“I didn’t go with what I was thinking,” he said. “I just went with it and luckily it happened to work for me.”

Boston College coach Jerry York, who moved into a tie for most career titles with five (four at BC, one at Bowling Green), said Gaudreau ranks with former Eagles standout freshmen such as Ben Eaves and Chuck Kobasew.

“He’s certainly had a huge, huge impact on college hockey,” York said. “He’s almost a magician out there with the puck.”

Boston College finished on a 19-game winning streak that set a school season record, and in that span Milner allowed 21 goals. In four NCAA tournament showdowns, he allowed two goals while stopping 110 shots.

“I think Boston College is special,” said Daniels, whose team was attempting to become the first since Maine in 1993 to win it all in its first trip to the final. “That was as good as we can play.”

Bailey had surgery on Wednesday to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament and said he expected to return and help out the beleaguered bullpen before the season is out.

“The whole season isn’t lost. There’s a lot of good in that,” Bailey said Friday during a conference call. “It’s still very frustrating to have to start the year like this.”

Bailey was injured while covering first base in a March 21 spring training game against Pittsburgh. He tried to pitch through it, but “it got worse and worse,” he said.

Bailey will spend the next 10-14 days in a soft cast before he can begin rehabbing. Meanwhile, the Red Sox are looking for a closer to replace Bailey. He was acquired to replace Jonathan Papelbon, who saved 219 games and posted a 2.33 ERA during seven years in Boston.

Papelbon, who got the last out of their 2007 World Series sweep of Colorado, left as a free agent in the offseason, taking a $50 million, four-year deal from Philadelphia to be its closer.

The Red Sox acquired Bailey in a trade with Oakland over the offseason. But his injury troubles, which put him on the disabled list in each of the previous two seasons, quickly resurfaced. He strained a lat muscle in his entrance physical and missed the early part of spring training before returning to pitch in six games.

The latest injury was bad luck.

“It’s just a freak thing,” he said. “It’s not really a throwing injury. It’s trying to be an athlete and cover first base.”

With Bailey out at least until the All-Star break, the Red Sox are hoping to find a closer from within. Alfredo Aceves and Mark Melancon are possibilities, but the pair of ex-Yankees already failed once.

The Red Sox rallied from a 2-0 deficit to tie the opener against Detroit on Thursday, but the Tigers got back-to-back, one-out singles against Melancon. Aceves hit Ramon Santiago on the foot to load the bases before Austin Jackson singled past a drawn-in infield.

Bailey said the Boston bullpen is strong without him.

“There’s a lot of good arms down there. Those guys are going to have a good year. I’m hoping to join them soon,” he said. “It’ll figure itself out. The bullpen is going to be fine; I know that. They’ll be able to hold it down until I’m able to get back and help them out.”

Five years after Boston completed the “Big Dig” project to relocate 7.5 miles (12 km) of interstate expressways in tunnels under the city – the largest public works project in U.S. history – comes word that the tunnels’ light fixtures need a total overhaul.

At an estimated $54 million, the proposed new lighting will cost just a fraction of the roughly $22 billion, including interest, that will finally be spent once the Big Dig is fully paid off in 2038.

The 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, is being challenged in two cases before the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The law also prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.

In arguments to the court, Paul Clement, a lawyer for the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, defended the law, saying Congress had a rational basis for passing the law known as DOMA in 1996, when it appeared Hawaii would become the first state in the nation to legalize gay marriage and opponents worried that other states would be forced to recognize such marriages.

Clement said Congress wanted to preserve a traditional and uniform definition of marriage. He also argued that Congress has the power to define the terms used in federal statutes to distribute federal benefits.

“This is not in any way an effort to override the states’ own definition” of marriage, Clement said.

But lawyers who brought two lawsuits challenging DOMA argued that the power to define and regulate marriage had been left to the states for more than 200 years before Congress passed DOMA. They said the law puts same-sex couples into a separate but unequal class of marriage.

Mary Bonauto, an attorney for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), said Congress passed the law out of “moral disapproval.”

“It is simply that, frankly, Congress just didn’t want to deal with same-sex couples,” said Bonauto.

“This is across-the board disrespect,” she said.

“The AQC has become a national model for payment reform and we are pleased that Boston Medical Center has committed to working with us in a deeper, more collaborative way to lower the cost and improve the quality of the care they deliver to their patients,” said Andrew Dreyfus, President and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. “The agreement continues to validate that the AQC is an attractive model that can work for a variety of provider organizations – including urban hospitals and community health centers – that are committed to lower the cost and improve the quality of health care.”

BMC works with an extensive network of community health centers in Boston, including seven that will participate in the AQC contract: Codman Square Health Center, Dorchester House Multi-Service Center, East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, Greater Roslindale Medical & Dental Center, South Boston Community Health Center, South End Community Health Center, and Upham’s Corner Health Center. By joining the AQC, BMC is not only committing to improving the cost and quality of care for patients that seek care at Boston Medical Center – they are committing to work with the seven health center partners to improve the quality and cost of care for patients receiving their care in a health center setting. The AQC contract will also include Boston Medical Center’s community-based primary care physicians who are part of the Boston University Affiliated Physicians (BUAP) group. These practices are in Boston’s Back Bay and South End, Foxboro, Norwood, and Taunton.

“BMC’s focus is providing high quality, affordable and accessible care to all our patients, and we work closely with our community health center partners to deliver on that high standard, whether it’s here at the hospital or in the community,” said Kate Walsh, BMC President and CEO. “Participating in this agreement together gives us an exciting opportunity to coordinate even more closely, and that will mean even better care for our BCBSMA patients.”

“East Boston Neighborhood Health Center (EBNHC) provides a range of high quality services to the communities we serve. BMC is a key partner in efficiently and effectively meeting the full spectrum of our patients’ health needs. Joining together in this agreement not only strengthens our ability to provide great care, it’s a model for the kind of innovation in health care delivery we’re all working toward, ” said John P. Cradock, EBNHC President and CEO.

This agreement brings nearly 800 additional physicians into the AQC who care for approximately 13,000 of BCBSMA’s in-state HMO members. The AQC now has more than two-thirds of doctors in BCBSMA’s in-state HMO network participating who provide care to approximately 76% of BCBSMA members.

With their significant gains in quality, AQC providers now significantly outperform the rest of BCBSMA’s fee-for-service network on a comprehensive set of quality and outcome measures. This is particularly true in managing chronic illness, preventive care screenings and treating depression. Recent independent studies conducted by Harvard Medical School, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and Brandeis University, published in Health Affairs, found that the AQC is achieving its twin goals of improving care and slowing costs.