HEALTH CARE

Leaders from the Mayo Clinic, Partners HealthCare advising White House on VA

Leaders from the Mayo Clinic, Partners HealthCare, and other large hospital systems have been quietly advising the Trump administration on how to improve the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Mayo Clinic’s chief executive said Thursday in Boston. “We have been working behind the scenes to help the White House and [former] Secretary Shulkin to help the VA,’’ Dr. John Noseworthy told business leaders at a meeting of the Boston College Chief Executives Club. “We will continue to provide advice and counsel in the background.’’ The VA has been in the spotlight recently: Ronny Jackson, President Trump’s nominee to lead the agency, withdrew his name Thursday after allegations of overprescribing drugs, drunken behavior, and poor leadership. Jackson called the allegations false. Trump tapped Jackson after firing David Shulkin as head of the VA last month. Noseworthy, a neurologist who has led the Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic since 2009, is set to retire this year. He didn’t respond directly when an audience member and then a Globe reporter asked whether he would consider the VA secretary’s job. “The next person to take that on . . . should be someone who truly understands how complex it is,’’ Noseworthy said. “It’s a very, very tough job.’’ Noseworthy and other health care executives, including Partners’ CEO, Dr. David Torchiana, have had conversations with Trump and his associates dating back to at least December 2016, when they flew to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort, to meet with the then president-elect. That meeting included the chiefs of the Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins Medicine. — PRIYANKA DAYAL MCCLUSKEY

FINANCE

State Street may move from its namesake office tower

The State Street Financial Center in downtown Boston may soon no longer have its namesake company as a tenant. State Street Corp. issued a request to landlords Tuesday for 500,000 to 700,000 square feet of office space. An office lease of that size would be a rare prize to a landlord, or to a developer seeking a big-name tenant to anchor a new tower. It would also represent a much smaller space than the 1 million square feet State Street currently leases at the tower, which is also known as One Lincoln St. The tower opened in 2003 with State Street leasing the entire building, and is one of the few in the city with its main corporate tenant’s name emblazoned atop its facade. But the financial services giant currently subleases much of its space in the tower, and with its lease expiring in 2023, began the hunt for smaller digs Tuesday. The company also rents offices at 100 Summer St., and that lease is also coming up for renewal. State Street currently uses about 715,000 square feet in One Lincoln, and another 211,000 square feet in 100 Summer. The company, which is being represented by brokerage CBRE in the hunt, hasn’t ruled out staying in one or both locations. State Street officials offered only a brief statement, in which they reaffirmed the company’s commitment to keep its headquarters in Boston. They also said they anticipate minimal, if any, impact to its Greater Boston employment as a result of any potential relocation. — JON CHESTO

HOTELS

Another high-end hotel planned for the Back Bay

Another luxury hotel company is coming to the Back Bay. Raffles Hotels & Resorts is partnering with developers Jordan Warshaw and Gary and Jeffrey Saunders to put its first North American property in a $375 million tower at the corner of Stuart Street and Trinity Place. The 33-story building will be roughly half hotel, half condominiums, and carry the flag — and the high-end services — of a luxury hotel brand best known for its flagship in Singapore, where the Singapore Sling cocktail was created and butler service is available 24 hours a day. The development team spent years trying to build on the site, and the deal with Raffles will allow construction on the 400-foot tower to begin later this year. One appeal of Raffles, Warshaw said, is that each of its 12 hotels is unique, designed to fit in, and highlight, its host city, whether in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, or Europe. — TIM LOGAN

WORKPLACE

On-job deaths in Massachusetts at an 11-year high

Antawani Wright Davis was on his bicycle, logged in and ready to make food deliveries for the online service DoorDash, when he was hit and killed by a dump truck in Dorchester last fall. Because Wright Davis, 19, was an independent contractor, there was no investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, unlike in most workplace fatalities. And because he wasn’t technically an employee of DoorDash, his family wasn’t entitled to monetary compensation or other support. Wright Davis is among a growing legion of independent contractors and temp workers with few if any employment protections, and one of at least two such workers killed on the job in Massachusetts last year, according to a report released Thursday by the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, known as MassCOSH. Overall, 74 people in the state lost their lives because of work-related accidents and illnesses in 2017 — an 11-year high, reflecting a nationwide rise in worker deaths — and contractor and temp fatalities are expected to grow as companies rely more heavily on them. A separate report out Thursday from the AFL-CIO detailing on-the-job deaths found that Massachusetts had a 57 percent increase between 2015 and 2016 — a jump second only to Alaska — driven in part by work-related opioid overdoses. — KATIE JOHNSTON

TRANSPORTATION

Transit line to move travelers around Logan to be studied

Seeking to reduce road traffic, officials at Logan International Airport will spend $15 million to design and study the feasibility of a transit line that would ferry travelers to and from terminals, the MBTA’s Blue Line, economy parking lots, and the car rental center. The Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs the airport, is planning to hire a consultant to advise it on building an “Automated People Mover’’ similar to the trains or monorails in use at many other busy airports around the world. The idea grew out of a proposal in 2015 by Massport to build a moving sidewalk between the Airport Station on the Blue Line and Terminal E, where the numbers of international flights and passengers have surged. Massport’s chief executive, Thomas Glynn, said it now sees a transit line stopping at each of Logan’s four terminals as a more comprehensive solution. Massport officials cautioned it would take at least 10 years for such a system to get up and running, and that it could cost $1 billion or more. If the study concludes the project would be too expensive or could not be squeezed into the crowded confines of Logan, Massport would reconsider a moving sidewalk or walkway, Glynn said. Another option would be to build a small transit connection between the T station and Terminal E. — ADAM VACCARO