Going ape over new gadget for wallet

Some people have monkeys on their backs. Zootility Tools founder Nate Barr wants consumers to have monkeys in their wallets.

In fact, Barr has already sold 5,000 "PocketMonkeys" worldwide to date. The stainless steel tool, which is the same size and thickness as a credit card, serves 12 functions in one, including bottle and letter opener, ruler, screwdriver and banana nicker.

A successful Kickstarter campaign netted Barr's creation more than $27,500, at least six times what he initially asked for. Now, the 31-year-old Somerville resident is thinking mass production, having placed an order for another 5,000 PocketMonkeys with a California manufacturer to keep up with growing demand.

"I've never had an idea take off so well, so I've been surprised in that regard," Barr told the Herald. "We've been selling it faster than we can make it."

Barr, a former mechanical engineer and part-time user interface engineer at Jumptap, hit upon his concept after locking himself out of his apartment twice.

"It's always with you. You never have to think about it," Barr said. "The real catch is it's technically difficult to engineer something as thin as a credit card but strong enough to do the functions you want it to do."

PocketMonkey, which sells for $12, is also compliant with Transportation Safety Administration rules, Barr said.

"I wasn't trying to develop something to be used in a bar fight," he said. "I think by meeting TSA guidelines you develop a pretty innocuous product."

PocketMonkeys can be purchased online, but Barr said his goal is to market the tool to more retailers nationwide, including big-box stores that can "place orders for 100,000 of these at a time." PocketMonkeys are currently sold in stores as varied as Davis Squared in Somerville and San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art gift shop, Barr said.

"It'd be awesome to have it make enough money to sustain a lifestyle of trying new ideas, but even if it just lets us learn how to do this stuff, then the next idea can be even more powerful and happen even more quickly and be more efficient," he added.

Barr is also at work on another TSA-compliant tool called KnifeNinja, which will get its own Kickstarter campaign in the near future.

As Zootility tries to keep up with orders, Barr said he is seeking another manufacturer that can produce thousands of PocketMonkeys at a time.

"What's compelling is how many things are packed into such a small package," he said. "We differentiate ourselves on the personality of our tools, that people see it as a premium brand over perhaps some cheap knockoffs. Other people try to imitate the intention, but not the execution."

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Babson holding food boot camp

Budding food entrepreneurs hungry to cook up their own businesses can learn the key ingredients during a one-day culinary boot camp at Babson College on Wednesday.

Sponsored by the Wellesley-based school's Graduate Student Council, "Small Bytes and Apps" will tackle such topics as the emotional components of starting and owning a food business; permits needed to set up shop; the landscape of food and tech businesses; and marketing and branding.

Event speakers told the Herald the purpose of the event, which is free to veterans and Babson students, is to motivate participants to tinker with their ideas even if they risk failure, given that the food industry has become more influenced by youth and technology.

"We're trying to inspire people who might be currently sitting on the sidelines who have a great idea but are scared and do not know the first step to starting their own business," said local "popup entrepreneur" and chef Wheeler del Torro, 32, of Jamaica Plain. "When I started my first culinary business, I was 16 years old and I had no idea what I was doing."

Del Torro said the Babson boot camp stems from his startup Farmacie, which caters motivational lunches for tech startups and corporations and is comprised of not just entrepreneurs with MBAs, but MFAs as well.

"For us, the creative side is a lot more important than having a fail-proof business plan. The business stuff you can always learn," del Torro said. "Creativity is a very hard thing to pick up."

Despite a growing influx of food trucks and businesses throughout the city, the food industry can scare younger people thinking about opening a business because of Boston's high cost of living, del Torro added.

Yet Rayna Verbeck, owner of 3 Scoops Cafe in Brighton and a second-year Babson graduate student, said now is an opportune time to open a food business, despite the sluggish economic outlook.

"It's a great time for people to create their own jobs and innovate in as many ways as possible," she said. "With the growth of food trucks and cafes and Internet connections, you don't have to worry about reaching the whole country with food right away."

Verbeck, who will discuss paperwork, agencies and legal and insurance issues involved in starting a food business, said technology, particularly social media, can influence a brand's success in ways that seemed impossible years earlier.

"I bought 3 Scoops three years ago when I was 24. I did not have it all laid out in front of me. Any new entrepreneur, no matter what stage or experience coming in can use as much knowledge as possible and as many guiding steps as possible," she added. "These are tips I would have given me three years ago."

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Milan show mixes design, fashion, architecture

MILAN — Bathrooms that beg indulgence. Tiles that reduce pollution. Lighting that mimics a rainbow.

Extravagance, social consciousness and innovation are strange, but alluring, bedfellows at the Milan Furniture Show and the myriad side events dedicated to design that wrap up Sunday, ending a weeklong celebration of domestic bliss in its many forms.

The burgeoning event was originally conceived to promote Italian furniture making, which is withstanding the recession better than many industries, and now encompasses also design, fashion and architecture.

And as all these disciplines converge, so does utility. More and more, pieces can be shifted from room to room, and from home to office.

Global sales of luxury furnishings last year rose 3 percent to 18.5 billion euros ($24 billion), according to a study by Bain&Company for the Altagamma association of luxury designers. That's behind the 10 percent growth of the luxury industry as a whole, largely because emerging markets like China still haven't gotten around to redecorating their interiors, which Bain says gives great growth potential to the sector.

The sprawling event gives ample space for everyone from established designers like Phillipe Starck and Ingo Maeur to unknown newcomers to showcase their new creations.

LIGHTING

Inside a darkened room, tiny LED lights create halos that seem to bend when a hand reaches through. The effect is one of a rainbow, this one manmade with by the Tokyo/Milan design studio IXI with technology by Toshiba. Here, crystals mimic water droplets and the LED lights the sun. The one-off installation created for design week is called "Soffio," Italian for breath.

Lighting fixtures remain a central theme during design week, from the elegant to the fanciful.

The prestigious French crystal maker Baccarat engaged some of the industry's luminaries to interpret lamps, chandeliers and lighting fixtures for this year's furniture show.

Brazilian brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana incorporated rattan, bamboo and silk in a series of exotic lamps. For their Fusion collection, the encased a greenish blue crystal bulb within bell-shaped rattan shade that suggests the Maghreb. And a clear crystal bulb nests within bamboo cocoon in a table lamp that evokes Asia. Phillipe Starck designed a series of elaborate 24-light chandeliers, one featuring three glass deer heads in full antlers, while Arik Levy created a modernist 4-level frozen pattern chandelier.

Munich-based Ingo Mauer had a wholly modern interpretation on the chandelier. His "Flying Flames" evoke floating candles fashioned from red or black circuit boards with an electronic flame rendered in LEDs, each suspended from the ceiling. The 32-light creation was shown spectacularly in front of a reproduction of Leonardo's Da Vinci's "Last Supper."

BATH

No more is the bathroom strictly utilitarian. Increasingly, it is a sanctuary for indulgence, more spa than pit stop on the way to the office or out for the evening.

Design firms are taking note of trend, and have begun to enter one of the fastest-growing luxury furniture sectors, worth 2.8 billion euros globally last year.

Kartell, the Italian design leader, launched its first-ever collection intended for the bathroom, teaming up with the Swiss fixture maker Laufen and designers Ludovica and Roberto Palomba.

"I noticed more than two years ago that the bathroom is becoming more and more important," said Kartell president Claudio Luti. "Now, people want to find the comfort there that you have in the rest of the house. It becomes total living."

The Palomba design team used Laufen's latest technology, a ceramic called SaphirKeramik that is 30 percent lighter and easier to shape, to create graceful bathtubs and washbasins and sanitary fixtures.

The tub and sinks are freestanding and floor-mounted for a clean and spare look. Overflow drains can be hidden, and Kartell has designed colorful disks that fit over external faucets to incorporate utility.

The fixtures are paired with transparent cabinets, shelves, stools and towel racks in Kartell's signature transparent plastic — also in warm colors like orange and blue — that allow many configurations to customize the space.

SUSTAINABLE LIVING

Design is getting more ecological. Consider that it may not be the family car that is contributing the most to pollution. Buildings are responsible for 40 percent of energy consumption and one-quarter of carbon gas emissions, exceeding industry and transport sectors when it comes to pollution.

Architect Mario Cucinella has been pushing the agenda of sustainable buildings and this year presented a conceptual project with tile-maker Marazzi aimed at focusing attention on the importance of clean air. Titled "Pure Air," the 6-square-meter (7-sq. yard) cube installed at Milan's state university was filled with purified air and covered with hexagonal black stoneware tiles produced with an energy efficient process. Inside, both air and noise pollution are filtered out.

Cucinella said he wants to promote the idea that new architectural materials — like tiles that absorb humidity — can help tackle the growing problem of pollution.

"For me the idea is to say, 'Come to breath pure air,' " Cucinella said. "I am not interested in making an extravagant building to show off my architectural ego."

For those not looking to build or embark on major remodel, the design week offered other stylish, sustainable solutions.

Bologna-based designer Alessandro Israelachvili set up a temporary store filled with furnishings made from recycled objects: lamps shaped from a 1970s desk telephone, an old-fashioned electric iron and even a washing machine centrifuge.

NEWCOMERS

A group of young designers from Serbia presented creations based on their interpretation of a "memory box," an exercise meant to reflect on Serbia's drive for EU membership while confronting its role in the 1990s Balkan wars. The theme was the basis for a national contest promoted by Serbia's investment and export agency to promote young Serbian designers abroad. Each of the winning creations was inspired by necessity and had a spare simplicity in both the design and execution. Most were made from wood, a resource plentiful in Serbia.

Sasha Mitrovic created "Matrioshka," a system of seven nesting wooden storage units that recall the Russian doll of the same name. From a container measuring 110X86X63 centimeters (43X34X25 inches), which can easily fit in even a compact car, emerge smaller cabinets, drawer and shelf units with painted facades that stack together to create a wall unit.

Mitrovic said he was inspired by the ingenuity of the matryoshka dolls. "You open the door, and don't know what to expect," he said.

Stevan Durovic, 25, showed off a switch-less lamp shaped, a large sphere that turns on and off when rotated. The light has a full-moon effect, accentuated by a spare dark base that recedes into the darkness. And Ana Babic, 26, was inspired by the Ferris wheel to create a whimsical, rotating storage unit consisting of five tool boxes.

DESIGNERS

Versace Home collaborated with the Haas brothers from Los Angeles to create black leather furnishings with golden accents that ooze the Versace DNA, evident in the names: The Stud Club and The Bondage Bench.

An armchair is covered with studs, reflecting Donatella Versace's rock 'n roll spirit, while a bench is wrapped in belts, which the collection notes say "plays with the sexuality of fashion and design." The legs of the pieces are clad in honeycomb-shaped brass for a flashy look even in a darkened room.

For the show, Roberto Cavalli created a melange of tableware incorporating his animal prints, while Bottega Veneta commissioned American artist Nancy Lorenz to create 25 unique boxes inspired by the cosmos. The pieces are covered in the high-quality Bottega Veneta leather, and Lorenz used materials such as gold, silver leaf and mother of pearl to create abstract images that recall outer space.

CROSSOVER DESIGN

The lines between design, fashion and architecture continue to blur.

Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas shifted scale to create 11 pieces of furniture for the U.S. industrial design house Knoll. The "Tools for Life" pieces, meant for home or office, include a dynamic counter — a stack of three horizontal beams that can be transformed from a screen-like unit to cantilevered shelves and benches that invite people to sit, climb and lean in. The end result is a social/intellectual romper room.

Italian eyewear maker Safilo engaged architect Michele De Lucchi, who created a natural pinewood structure fitted with plaster casts of ancient figures wearing eyeglasses. Safilo CEO Roberto Vedovotto said the company's participation in the design fair is meant "to underline we are fully part of the world of design."

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Relief sought as grim fishing year approaches

BOSTON — Deep cuts in catch limits will hit New England's fishing fleet in less than three weeks, and there's little hint any real relief is coming. But regulators and fishermen are still seeking ways to lessen a blow fishermen warn will finish them off.

In recent months, federal regulators have pushed several measures that aim to give fishermen more fish to catch by the May 1 start of the 2013 fishing year. Meanwhile, fishing groups and lawmakers are lobbying for changes that would make year-to-year cuts in the crucial Gulf of Maine cod species less severe.

As time grows short, Gloucester's Al Cottone said he and his fellow fishermen seem to be facing the future in a sort of "state of shock."

"Everyone's in denial. They still think, you know, someone's going to come in on their white horse and save us," he said.

The 2013 catch limit reductions come as science indicates key populations of bottom-dwelling groundfish — such as cod and flounder — are weak and recovering too slowly.

In January, regional managers approved a broad slate of cuts in catch limits to rebuild fish stocks, including a 77 percent year-to-year reduction in catch of cod in the Gulf of Maine and 61 percent in the catch of cod on Georges Bank.

Fishermen predict the range of cuts will kill the centuries-old fleet, while regulators acknowledge industry upheaval is ahead.

The cuts follow a down 2012 fishing year that's seen fishermen catch well below their allotments on several key species.

That's proof, some have argued, that the fish are in trouble, and it also shows the coming cuts might not be as brutal as feared.

For instance, the 61 percent year-to-year cut on the quota for Georges Bank cod doesn't look as harsh when the total allotment for the cod in 2013 is still more than fishermen are on pace to catch this fishing year.

But fishermen say the cuts are so broad, and involve so many key species, that they simply leave the industry with too few fish to make a living. So the aim of many mitigation measures proposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is to make more fish available to the fleet.

For instance, regulators have proposed increasing catch allotments for healthier species, including white hake, dogfish and monkfish, which are alternative species for many groundfishermen.

The winter flounder that swim in southern New England and the mid-Atlantic could again be available to catch for the first time since 2009, with regulators saying the species is now healthy enough to fish.

Fishermen could also boost their quotas by transferring over a percentage of whatever they didn't catch from their 2012 allotments.

One controversial proposal opens up segments of long-closed fishing areas off New England, so fishermen can better chase robust stocks that live there, including redfish and haddock. But that's strongly opposed by environmentalists who worry fishermen could devastate a last refuge for a struggling species. The issue won't be decided before May.

Federal regulators have also pledged to find $6.7 million to cover the cost of hiring required at-sea catch monitors.

The Northeast's top fishing regulator, John Bullard, said no one's pretending the proposals will help fishermen escape the pain of the cuts.

"Cushion the blow is probably the right term," he said. "We're not going to avoid the blow."

Jackie Odell of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, an industry group, said the measures will help some fishermen, but most won't see much difference.

Her group is seeking broader relief through the extension of emergency interim measures — first enacted for 2012 — that could significantly reduce the cuts on Gulf of Maine cod and haddock.

Bullard, though, has been unconvinced, saying that it's not legal and that easing the cuts will do nothing for fishermen or species that are clearly struggling.

Massachusetts lawmakers are trying to go over Bullard's head and have asked Gov. Deval Patrick to lobby his close friend President Barack Obama to get the interim measures enacted.

Meanwhile, various requests for federal disaster aid for fishermen have circulated in recent months, so far to no effect.

Odell emphasized that stocks are struggling even though fishermen haven't exceeded their fishing limits for years.

There is a fundamental problem with how fisheries are managed, she said, and the industry urgently needs support until changes can be made.

"People have got to be focused on opportunities and bridges, whether it's money, whether it's policies, whether it's programs, whether it's interim rules," she said. "What are people doing to help the industry?"

Cottone, the Gloucester fisherman, said he hasn't a clue what he'll do when May 1 comes. He's also unsure of what, if anything, could make a real difference for an industry on the brink of disaster.

Cottone said he's been allotted so few fish this year that he could hit his catch limits on all of them in a single tow. And then what?

"No one knows what they're going to do," he said. "Nobody."

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LePage to gun makers: Move to Maine

AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage is telling gun makers they should move to Maine.

In an opinion column published Saturday in the Wall Street Journal, LePage wrote that Maine is "fiercely protective" of its gun rights and would welcome gun makers and ammunition manufacturers.

LePage said anti-gun legislation has been passed in the home states of firearms manufacturers Beretta USA, Colt Manufacturing and Magpul Industries. He called the legislation in those states a slap in the face to companies that provide jobs and revenue.

LePage wrote that if those companies decide to come to Maine, they'll find a governor who would provide incentives and never sign "anti-gun legislation."

In concluding his column, the governor wrote, "Come to Maine. I'll even throw in some lobster."

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With market booming, brokers resurrect sales techniques

WASHINGTON — They're back after barely a decade: Escalation clauses in real estate contracts, "naked" contingency-free offers and lowball-priced listings designed to pull in dozens of bidders and turn routine sales transactions into auctions.

These are all techniques last seen with frequency during the frothiest months of the housing bubble in 2004-05, when prices were rising at double-digit rates, buyers thought they couldn't lose money in real estate, and mortgage financing was available to anybody who could sign a loan application. Now they are reappearing in some of the hottest sellers' markets from coast to coast — the byproduct of severe shortages in houses listed for sale combined with strong demand by qualified purchasers. Nationwide, according to surveys of 800-plus local markets by Realtor.com, inventories are down by 16 percent from year-ago levels. But in the hottest areas, listings are down by double or even triple that and prices are moving up fast.

Buyers, meanwhile, are out in droves, scanning newspapers and online realty sites for the latest listings, and signing up for alert services provided by realty firms. In the San Francisco Bay area, for example, agents say that realistically priced new listings are attracting dozens — sometimes even hundreds — of shoppers to open houses and stimulating bidding competitions with 30 to 50 or more participants.

Bidding wars are also increasingly frequent on well-priced listings in Washington, D.C., and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs, much of California, Seattle, Phoenix, Las Vegas,
Richmond, Va., Boston and parts of Florida, among others. In a handful of fiercely competitive areas, some listing agents reportedly are even restricting buyers' access to properties to narrow time windows — say, a few hours on Saturday and Sunday — in order to fan the flames.

To get a leg up in such situations, some buyers and their agents are using techniques that can be effective, but that also come with drawbacks and snares. Among them:

L Contingency-free and contingency-light offers

Carl Medford, an agent with Prudential California Realty in the San Francisco East Bay market, says these are almost routine for buyers determined to win a bidding competition. He calls them "unprotected" contract offers. Essentially the idea is to strip away some or all of the customary contingencies in an offer that might irritate a seller or render the buyer's bid less attractive. The financing contingency, which makes the entire transaction dependent on the buyer obtaining a satisfactory loan and appraisal, often is the first to go if the bidder is confident of qualifying for a mortgage, has been preapproved or is willing to pay what could be a lot more than market value.

Many buyers are also willing to delete the inspection contingency, which Medford considers much more risky, since the bidder agrees to fly blind with no way out of the deal if costly defects — tens of thousands of dollars' worth, potentially — later arise.

L Escalation clauses

These are add-ons to contract language that keep bidders in the competition, even when the price soars well beyond the original asking amount. Typically the bidder agrees to match and exceed any verifiable, bona fide competing offers by set increments ­— say, $500 to $1,000 — up to some to some maximum amount. Tom Conner, an associate broker with RE/MAX Gateway in Gainesville, Va., says "we're seeing them all the time now" in multiple-offer situations. The upside: Properly used, they work. Bidders with the highest maximums often get the house. Downside: If you need a mortgage, the appraisal could be a problem because it's likely to come in lower than the purchase price. Be prepared to throw extra cash into the deal upfront.

L Lowball listings

Rather than list a house at the price that comparable recent sales in the area indicate it's worth — say $495,000 ­— the sellers, advised by their agent, cut that to $479,000, hoping to stimulate a bidding war. Astute shoppers immediately spot the house as a "bargain," and multiple competing offers push the final price to $520,000.

Good for the sellers, right? Probably. They get top dollar. But the ultimate buyers end up committed to a contract requiring them to pay what may be $25,000 over the likely current appraisal value — and that could have negative consequences for both the buyer and the seller.

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AP Exclusive: Likely tax cheats flock South, West

WASHINGTON — Worried the Internal Revenue Service might target you for an audit? You probably should be if you own a small business in one of the wealthy suburbs of Los Angeles.

You might also be wary if you're a small-business owner in one of dozens of communities near San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta or the District of Columbia.

A new study by the National Taxpayer Advocate used confidential IRS data to show large clusters of potential tax cheats in these five metropolitan areas. The IRS uses the information to target taxpayers for audits.

The taxpayer advocate, Nina Olsen, runs an independent office within the IRS. She got access to the data as part of an effort to learn more about why some taxpayers are more likely to cheat than others.

The study also looked at tax compliance in different industries, and found that people who own construction companies or real estate rental firms may be more likely to fudge their taxes than business owners in other fields.

Many of the communities identified by the study are very wealthy, including Beverly Hills and Newport Beach in California. Others are more middle class, such as New Carrollton, Md., a Washington suburb, and College Park, Ga., home to a section of Atlanta's massive airport.

Steve Rosansky, president and CEO of the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce, said business owners in his city are probably targeted because many have high incomes. The likelihood of an audit does increase with income, according to IRS data.

"I imagine it's just a matter of them going where they think the money's at," Rosansky said in an interview. "I guess if I was running the IRS I'd probably do the same thing."

The study focused on small-business owners — sole proprietorships, to be specific — because they have more opportunity than the typical individual to cheat on their taxes. Many small businesses deal in cash while most individuals get paid in wages that are reported to the IRS.

The IRS only audits about 1 percent of tax returns each year, so the agency tries to pick returns that are most likely to yield additional tax money.

The IRS will not say much about how agents choose their targets. But as millions of procrastinators scramble to meet Monday's deadline to file their taxes, the agency is running every tax return through a confidential computer program to determine the chances of collecting more money from an audit.

Each tax return is assigned a score. The higher your score, the more likely you are to get audited because, according to the IRS, the more likely you are cheating on your taxes.

The score is called the Discriminant Inventory Function, or DIF. A high DIF score does not guarantee you are a tax cheat but the IRS claims it's reliable.

"If your return is selected because of a high score under the DIF system, the potential is high that an examination of your return will result in a change to your income tax liability," says an IRS publication that explains the auditing process.

How do you get high score? The IRS won't say, but veteran tax preparers and former IRS workers believe they have a pretty good idea.

"If you're reporting $8,000 of charitable contributions when you're only making $50,000, that's a red flag," said Bob Meighan, vice president of TurboTax, an online tax preparation service. "Likewise if you're reporting business or employee expenses that are out of the ordinary for your income range, that would attract the interest of the IRS as well."

The bottom line, according to the experts: People who take unusually large deductions for their income get a high score. Also, business owners who claim unusually large expenses for the size and type of their business get a high score.

"I had a case here where the person made about $40,000 and they claimed $25,000 of employment-related expenses," said Elizabeth Maresca, a former IRS lawyer who now teaches law at Fordham University. "Most people don't spend $25,000 to earn $40,000. That's an unusual number."

DIF scores can vary across industry, according to the study by the taxpayer advocate. For example, people who owned construction and real estate rental companies were more likely to have high scores. Lawyers, accountants and architects and people who provided other professional services were more likely to have low scores.

Olsen said construction and real estate rental companies probably deduct more expenses that are not independently reported to the IRS. The IRS does not like those kinds of expenses because they are harder to verify without an audit.

"Construction for sole proprietors has been historically a cash business," Olsen said.

The study, which was included in Olsen's annual report to Congress in January, used data from 2009 tax returns to plot the DIF scores for sole proprietorships across the country. The city where you live is not a component of the score, according to the study. Nevertheless, researchers were able to identify clusters of likely tax cheats.

Sole proprietorships make up about two-thirds of all U.S. businesses. Sole proprietors report business income on their individual tax returns and, the IRS says, they account for the biggest share of the tax gap, which is the difference between what taxpayers owe each year under the law and what they actually pay.

The tax gap was $345 billion in 2006, according the latest IRS estimate.

In all, researchers identified clusters of potential tax cheats in more than 350 communities in 24 states, mostly cities and towns but some neighborhoods, too. About one-third of them were in California, with most near Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Most of the others were in communities near Houston and Atlanta, and in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. There were relatively few in the Midwest or the Northeast.

The researchers also looked for areas with high concentrations of small business owners who were very unlikely to cheat on their taxes.

They came up with four: the Aleutian Islands in Alaska; West Somerville, Mass., a neighborhood in Somerville, a suburb of Boston; Portersville, Ind., an unincorporated town in the southern part of the state; and Mott Haven, a neighborhood in the Bronx, one of New York City's boroughs.

Stephen Mackey, president and CEO of the Somerville Chamber of Commerce, said he's glad the business owners in his community excel at civic virtue. But he was at a loss to explain why they stood out from so many others across the country.

"I'd like to think we're not alone in terms of the civic engagement of business people," said Mackey. "But I would say two things. One is they are very close to the community inside and outside their businesses. At the same time, it's not small town America. It's minutes from downtown Boston."

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AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

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Online: National Taxpayer Advocate study: http://tinyurl.com/cjtgpt5

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Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

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Warm ocean waters worry Maine lobstermen, industry

PORTLAND, Maine — Ocean temperatures have been higher than normal in the Gulf of Maine, creating worries among lobstermen that there could be a repeat of last spring's early harvest that resulted in a market glut, a crash in the prices fishermen get and a blockade of Maine-caught lobsters in Canada.

Temperature readings at selected ocean buoys off the Maine coast have been lower than last winter, but they've still been above normal the past few months. Some fishermen are already finding some soft-shell lobsters in traps, months earlier than usual.

Fishermen don't want to see a recurrence of last year, when the strong early catch caused prices to plummet and tensions to boil over when Canadian lobstermen, angered by the low prices, blocked truckloads of Maine's catch from being delivered to processing plants in Canada.

"I guess we're kind of just holding our breath," said Bruce Fernald, a longtime lobsterman from Cranberry Isles off Mount Desert Island.

Fishermen were scratching their heads last year when lobsters began showing up in traps in large numbers four to six weeks earlier than usual. Maine's lobster catch, which accounts for more than 80 percent of the total U.S. harvest, typically begins picking up in late June or early July as the bottom-dwelling crustaceans start getting active while shedding their hard shells in favor of new soft shells.

Last year's early flood of lobsters, combined with a strong Canadian spring catch, drove down prices and created a mess for lobstermen and dealers with supply far exceeding demand. For the year, fishermen hauled in a record 126 million pounds of product. But they received only $2.69 a pound on average, the lowest price since 1994.

Warm ocean waters were blamed in large part for last year's early surge. With Gulf of Maine water temperatures again running above average, fishermen and scientists are wondering when the lobsters will show up in volume this year.

The Associated Press analyzed temperature data collected at 50 meters deep from two ocean data buoys known as the eastern Maine and western Maine shelf buoys that are overseen by the Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal and Ocean Observing Systems.

In 2012, both buoys had record or near-record temperatures for the period for which data are available, from 2001 to 2012. A year ago, temperatures at those buoys were about 3 degrees above normal. This year, they're running 1 to 2 degrees above average.

A degree or two may not sound like much, but it is if you're a lobster, said Rick Wahle, a research professor at the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences at the Darling Marine Center in Bristol.

A lobster's growth and activity ramp up when the water warms up, he said. Water temperatures this February for the most part were at levels normally not reached until late May or early June. They've since cooled down a bit, but early April's temperatures were still at levels usually not reached for three to five more weeks in the Gulf of Maine, which stretches from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia.

"We aren't likely to see as an extreme of an event as last year, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see an earlier-than-normal shed," Wahle said. "A lot will depend on how the next few weeks play out."

Typically, late June or early July is when Maine's lobster catch picks up as lobsters shed their hard shells and grow soft ones in their place. Soft-shell lobsters, or shedders, have less meat than hard-shell ones, but they are easier to crack open and sell for a lower price.

This year, some lobstermen have already been bringing in small numbers of soft-shell lobsters from waters farther offshore. And they're getting split prices for their catch, with the soft-shell lobsters selling for less than the hard-shell variety.

David Johnson, from Long Island in Casco Bay, has been catching some shedders in traps 250 to 450 feet deep, 6 miles offshore.

"Years ago you never saw that," Johnson said by phone while pulling traps one day last week. "Last year was the first year we saw that."

Still, it's hard to say what the coming months will bring and just how strong the early harvest will be, fishermen and scientists agree. Air temperature, rainfall and sunshine all play a factor in how warm the waters are.

Even if there is an early deluge of lobsters like last year, lobstermen and dealers are better prepared to handle it, said Walter Day, who's been fishing for more than 50 years on Vinalhaven, an island with lobster-rich waters 15 miles off Maine's mid-coast.

Dealers can more easily handle an early influx of product, he said, because there's no large inventory of live lobsters in Canada and no frozen lobster product inventory to speak of. Canadian lobster processors — half or more of Maine's harvest is sent to Canada for processing — are also prepared to open early to handle the catch, he said.

Day, who has been pulling traps since he was 10, said no two lobster-fishing seasons are alike: "As I always say, call next January and we can tell you more about this season."

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Online:

NERACOOS Ocean and Climate Weather Display: http://neracoos.org/datatools/climatologies

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Who gets audited by the Internal Revenue Service?

The Internal Revenue Service only audits about 1 percent of individual tax returns each year. But the more money you make, the more likely you are to get audited. A look at which returns were audited in the 2012 budget year:

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Individual returns filed in the previous year: 143 million.

Audited by mail: 1.1 million.

Audited in person: 360,000.

Audit rate: 1 percent.

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Individual returns with incomes above $200,000: 4.8 million.

Audited by mail: 109,000.

Audited in person: 70,000.

Audit rate: 3.7 percent.

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Individual returns with incomes above $1 million: 337,000.

Audited by mail: 23,000.

Audited in person: 18,000.

Audit rate: 12.1 percent.

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Small corporation returns (assets under $10 million): 1.9 million.

Audited: 21,200.

Audit rate: 1.1 percent.

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Large corporation returns (assets $10 million and higher): 60,500.

Audited: 10,800.

Audit rate: 17.8 percent.

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Source: IRS enforcement: http://tinyurl.com/agwzcon

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London School of Economics denounces BBC tactics

LONDON — One of Britain's leading academic institutions, the London School of Economics, is accusing the BBC of putting students at risk by using them as cover for a covert reporting trip to North Korea.

The school says BBC's decision to send three TV journalists to the secretive communist state in March to shoot a documentary without governmental permission to work there by posing as members of a student trip could have caused grave trouble for the pupils, if the deception had been uncovered by North Korean authorities.

The squabble between two powerful British institutions comes at a time of uncertainty caused by North Korea's bellicose threats to launch a new medium-range missile at its enemies.

It brought more unwelcome attention to the BBC, which has faced sustained criticism for its handling of an investigation into alleged child sex abuse committed by the late Jimmy Savile, long a top BBC talk show host.

The "Panorama" documentary on North Korea based on the eight-day trip in March is set to air Monday night.

The BBC has thus far refused the university's plea to keep it off the air to protect the students from possible retribution if their identities are revealed on the show. The broadcaster said three students who have asked to be removed from the show will have their images blurred so they cannot be identified.

The trip was not organized by LSE but by a students' society known as the Grimshaw Club. University officials said they did not know about the BBC arrangement and would not have approved it if they had known about BBC's plans.

The BBC's John Sweeney, who LSE officials say posed as a post-graduate LSE student, said Sunday it was "entirely wrong" for the university to try to prevent the broadcast. He said all of the students had been told about the potential risk and had agreed to allow the journalists to join the trip, adding that all were over 18 years of age and capable of making their own decisions.

A BBC story about the trip that the network filed online Sunday said Sweeney and a two-person crew that included his wife spent "eight days undercover" in North Korea.

LSE student union general secretary Alex Peters-Day said Sunday that the students were lied to and that at least one of the students on the eight-day trip was not told in advance of the journalists' participation.

"This is a student welfare issue," she told a BBC interviewer. "We don't know what could have happened to those students and, truthfully, neither does the BBC. It's absolutely disgraceful that he (Sweeney) put students in that position. It's incredibly reckless."

She said Sweeney was being "disingenuous" by citing free-speech concerns as justification for putting students in danger.

LSE blamed BBC for not being forthcoming about its reporting plans in North Korea. In the past, journalists have at times been detained for working without authorization in North Korea, where foreign reporting crews usually have to operate under strict governmental supervision.

In an email sent to staff and students, the university complains that the BBC program was produced "using as cover a visit to North Korean which took place from 23-30 March in the name of the Grimshaw Club, a student society at LSE."

BBC News Head of News Programs Ceri Thomas said on a BBC News program Sunday that the students were given the information needed to give informed consent to the increased risk of traveling with journalists who did not have authorization to work in North Korea.

He said, however, that the students were told roughly a month before the trip that there would be "a journalist" traveling with them but were later told, once they were en route to North Korea, that there would be three journalists who would be conducting undercover filming for TV.

Thomas said the students may have been under the impression that a print journalist, not a three-person TV crew, was going to be involved.

He said BBC would air the documentary despite LSE's concerns because of high public interest in the show.

"It is disappointing for us that LSE has chosen to make this public," he said. "We would have kept them out of this altogether. They could have avoided the publicity, and we think that would have lowered the reputational risk."

He said BBC executives felt that if the deception was discovered the students likely would have been deported, but he admitted he could not "categorically" rule out the possibility that their lives might have been at risk.

BBC press officials said senior executives would not discuss the matter but might issue further statements.

The BBC's action sparked concerns that the use of a British academic research trip as a cover for a clandestine TV reporting venture might undermine the ability of researchers to operate overseas.

Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK, said BBC must understand how its actions might hurt research institutions. She said the BBC may have not only put students in harm's way but also damaged the reputations of British universities.

"We regret the BBC's approach," she said.

A BBC story about the trip says Sweeney and a two-person crew that included his wife spent "eight days undercover" in North Korea.

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