It’s hip to be square in Cambridge

This architect-designed home may be the most unique in Cambridge, as much a work of art as a place to live.

The single-family detached house at 19 Clifton St. sits on commonly held land behind an 1886-built home and is technically part of a two-unit condo association. Designed in 2006 by local architects Beat Schenk and Chaewon Kim, the dwelling consists of three stacked boxes set at angles, with an exterior of stained Okoume plywood, the kind normally used on yachts.

The home looks unusual from the outside, but the interior consists of well-thought-out rooms and a masterful use of space. The two-bedroom, free-standing townhouse is on the market for $579,000.

From the front of the house you don't see any windows, but there are windows on the far side and in back, and many of the rooms get decent light from skylights cut into the exposed roof corners.

The first floor of the house has a skylit living/dining area with a white Carrara marble floor. A plywood staircase set at an angle divides this room from a kitchen area with four skylights that features a bottom row of stainless steel cabinets topped by brown granite counters.

Up above is a row of frosted glass lift-up cabinets. Stainless-steel appliances include a new Bosch dishwasher, a General Electric refrigerator and an Amana gas stove with a stainless-steel hood that vents to the outside. There's an additional wall for more kitchen storage and gadgets.

A glass door leads out to a crushed stone back yard with trees that provides parking for two vehicles.

The home's second floor has a guest bedroom, set off with sliding plywood doors, with polished plywood floors and knotty pine walls with two skylights and a window. Adjacent is a full bathroom with a white ceramic sink and a tub/shower with Carrara marble walls. Also on this floor is a small home office area with a window and a built-in bookcase.

The third floor is a sunny master bedroom suite with a large oak-floor bedroom, two windows, a wide skylight and recessed lighting. In one corner of the room is a two-door custom wardrobe with built-in drawers and hanging rods.

An angled frosted-glass window shields the bedroom from a large en-suite master bathroom. This space features Carrara marble floors and walls and an open shower area. There's also an area for a stacked Kenmore washer/dryer.

The 150-square-foot finished basement, with a window, is outfitted as a family room. The home has a heat-pump-based multi-zoned central heating and air-conditioning system.

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New England farmers look for creative ways to grow

DEERFIELD — Atlas Farm is growing more than just food — it is growing its business in ways that bring it more in touch with the everyday consumers it, and all New England farms, needs to survive.

Owner Gideon Porth, who has farmed 55 acres of land on the Connecticut River here since 2006, has bought 40 acres of cropland and a retail farm stand on Route 5 that he plans to open in May. The land and greenhouses on Route 5 will be vital, he said, since they are on the busiest road in his part of Franklin County, and because direct marketing is crucial not just for him, but for farmers all over New England.

"Our farm for the last five or six years has gotten more into wholesale production and sales," he said.

Wholesalers, those who buy produce and move it on to supermarkets, restaurants or to specialty retailers such as Whole Foods, have grown to about two-thirds of Porth's business, he said. Direct-to-consumer channels such as farm shares and farmers markets, as close as Northampton and as far away as Boston, are just a third of the business.

"But wholesale business is less stable," Porth said. "I feel like it is a lot less reliable in certain ways. You are competing in a global marketplace with fresh produce."

Global marketplace? In the organic vegetable business with its hippie ethos?

"Even in the organic world," Porth said. "There are big players in organics these days. If there is cheap organic lettuce coming out of California, we are subject to those pressures. And in California there are 5,000-acre lettuce farms."

He'll also bring the farm-share concept to the stand. Traditional farm shares allow people to pay upfront for a share of a farm's harvest. People get a box of vegetables every week or so.

The stand share will allow folks to pay up front for a selection of produce from the stand, Porth said.

That pressure to compete in a global marketplace with fresh, locally grown food is why more than 500 farmers and aspiring farmers from all six New England States gathered late last month in Sturbridge for the Harvest New England Agricultural Marketing Conference and Trade Show. Attendees ranged from farmers with hundreds of dairy cattle to a woman who raises vegetables on two vacant city lots in Providence, R.I.

It featured seminars and talks from people who have successfully marketed New England food both here and outside the region.

Massachusetts statistics show that there are 7,700 farms in the state. Most are small, averaging just 68 acres in size. Just 1,700 of those farms were big enough to require any hired labor. The total cash receipts from all 7,700 farms totaled $489 million in 2011.

Linda M. Paquette, of Hampden, bought a plot of land in two years ago. She calls it Scantic River Farm and hopes to grow herbs and vegetables. But so far most of her income comes from selling fresh eggs. A nurse by profession, she grew up in Springfield.

"I just always wanted to be a farmer," she said.

And there were plenty of vendors at the show willing to help out, ranging from Oesco, an orchard supply company in Conway with a selection of ladders and cider presses, to companies with seed trays. Then there was Jean McCarthy with North Woods Animal Treats of Keene, N.H., who was looking to wholesale doggy treats to farm store owners looking for impulse-buy items to stock near the cash register.

"All these people want to have retail operations," she said. "All these people might be looking for more things to sell at those retail operations. All the people who are interested in natural foods and would go to those farm retail operations might also be interested in natural pet treats. It is a natural fit."

The future of, and the possible undoing of, New England's farms is in the hands of those health-and-nature conscious customers, said Lorraine Stuart Merrill, commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food.

"There is a great opportunity today to get people to eat fresh, local foods," she said. "It is not a fad. Once a person starts, they never go back."

But all those local customers also pose a threat. They like to buy houses, houses that take up land.

"This drives our high cost of land," she said during a roundtable forum with heads of the agriculture departments from all six New England States. "It is very expensive."

Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Ross said direct marketing can also bring culture clashes. He reminded the crowd of farmers that Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vt., was faced with death threats last year after word got out on social media that the college was going to put down an aged working ox and serve the beast in the dining hall.

"This is the mentality you are dealing with," he said to the snickers of a knowing audience. "People think their food magically appears at the grocery store."

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Agriculture disputes threaten new US-EU talks

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama used Washington's grandest stage — the State of the Union speech — to announce negotiations with Europe aimed at creating the world's largest free trade agreement. Just weeks later, there are signs that old agriculture disputes could be deal-killers.

European Union leaders don't want the negotiations to include discussions on their restrictions on genetically modified crops and other regulations that keep U.S. farm products out of Europe. But Obama says it's hard to imagine an agreement that doesn't address those issues. Powerful U.S. agricultural lobbies will do their best to make sure Congress rejects any pact that fails to address the restrictions.

"Any free trade agreement that doesn't cover agriculture is in trouble," said Cathleen Enright, executive vice president at the Biotechnology Industry Organization, which promotes biotechnology, including genetically modified products.

That would threaten the dream of a behemoth free trade deal between the world's two largest trading partners that together account for more than half of the world economy. It would lower tariffs and remove other trade barriers for most industries. Some analysts say the deal could boost each economy by more than a half-percentage point annually and significantly lower the cost of goods and services for consumers.

Agricultural issues have long bedeviled attempts to expand free trade across the Atlantic and have led each side to file complaints against the other before the World Trade Organization, an arbitrator in trade disputes. While the U.S. protests EU restrictions, Europeans want the U.S. to reduce agricultural subsidies.

Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, have been a core part of the dispute. Agricultural scientists change the genetic makeup of agricultural products to improve their quality and boost production. In Europe, there is widespread public opposition to GMOs. The EU argues that the risks of altering the genetic pool are unknown. It has strict rules and imposes a heavy burden of proof before such crops can be grown or imported in the EU.

U.S. companies say that genetically modified products have been proved safe by scientific studies and are being excluded based on irrational fears. They accuse Europe of trying to help their own farmers by keeping out American products.

While they have little expectation that the EU would end the restrictions, they say it would be a victory if it clarified what it describes as opaque rules and also set timelines for considering products. Regulators now take what they call a precautionary approach, declining approval of products until they can be more certain of their safety.

But any move to water down the regulations could provoke a backlash in Europe.

"My reading of the mood in Europe around genetically modified crops is that it's extremely negative," said Paul DeGrauwe, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics. "It's going to be very difficult."

Indeed, the top EU trade negotiator, Commissioner Karel De Gucht, seemed to rule out a compromise in remarks this month: "A future deal will not change the existing legislation. Let me repeat: no change."

The U.S. and the EU have similarly intractable disagreements on what the two sides call sanitary issues in meats. U.S. poultry products are restricted in the EU because U.S. companies use chlorine to sanitize the meat. Pork is also restricted because U.S. farmers use a feed additive that makes pigs leaner. The two sides partially resolved disputes over U.S. beef after an agreement that U.S. farmers would restrict hormones in cows intended for the European market.

Some European officials say the agricultural differences should be discussed after a major trade deal is completed. This month, French President Francois Hollande called for excluding sensitive issues, including the sanitary standards, from the talks. In the past, France has been among the most adamant of the European countries about protecting agricultural interests.

Obama, in a talk with his export council this month, suggested this could be a deal-breaker.

"There are certain countries whose agricultural sector is very strong, who tended to block at critical junctures the kinds of broad-based trade agreements that would make it a good deal for us," he said. "If one of the areas where we've got the greatest comparative advantage is cordoned off from an overall trade deal, it's very hard to get something going."

Powerful U.S. agricultural groups could probably block a trade deal from winning approval in Congress. In interviews, representatives of many of these groups said they would oppose a deal that didn't address the regulatory differences.

Robert Thompson, an academic at Johns Hopkins University and a former economist for the Agriculture Department, said that the agricultural issues could easily upend the talks.

"I'm not expecting an agreement to emerge any time soon," he said. "I'm thinking years."

Of course, the rhetoric at the beginning of talks might not preclude compromise in the end. In his talk with the export council, Obama expressed optimism. He noted that austerity measures in response to the debt crisis in the EU have caused European countries to look to a free trade deal as a rare opportunity to boost the economy and improve competitiveness.

"I think they are hungrier for a deal than they have been in the past," he said.

___

Melvin reported from Brussels.

___

Follow Desmond Butler on Twitter at http://twitter.com/desmondbutler

Follow Don Melvin on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Don_Melvin

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Troubled Calif. nuke plant seeks restart in summer

LOS ANGELES — As part of an effort to convince federal regulators that a nuclear reactor is safe to restart, the operator of the shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant in California has disclosed it might push for a rewrite of the facility's operating rules.

Southern California Edison disclosed Friday it hopes the move could open the way for the Unit 2 reactor to be back in service by summer, when power demand typically soars in the region.

San Onofre has been shut down since January 2012, after a small radiation leak led to the discovery of unusual damage to hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water.

Edison has been trying since October to convince the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it's safe to run Unit 2 at no more than 70 percent power. Company engineers believe the reduced level will limit vibration and friction that can cause excessive wear to tubing.

The tentative proposal amounts to Edison's third attempt to answer a thorny question raised by the NRC: Is the plant that hasn't produced electricity in more than a year capable of running at full power?

In earlier filings, Edison argued that its 70 percent restart target was, in effect, full power. It later submitted another analysis showing the reactor could run at 100 percent power, but the research found the risk of a tube break could reach unacceptable levels after 11 months.

The new proposal could essentially eliminate the debate over the full power threshold.

It calls for capping the plant's power output at 70 percent in the plant's technical operating rules, rather than the now-required 100 percent. It also argues that running the reactor at 70 percent capacity would pose no significant safety risk.

The proposal, known as a license amendment, came as a surprise since Edison has long argued such a revision was unnecessary to restart the plant.

If approved by federal regulators, the move could offer a potentially quicker way to a restart.

"We want to do every responsible thing we can do to get Unit 2 up and running safely before the summer heat hits our region," SCE President Ron Litzinger said in a statement.

Anti-nuclear activists who have opposed the restart accused Edison of trying to circumvent a thorough NRC review of machinery with a history of trouble.

According to Edison documents, members of the public can request a hearing on the amendment, but if NRC staff finds there is no significant hazard, the hearing can be held after the amendment is approved.

"Edison is more focused on making profits than it is in assuring the safety of millions of Southern Californians living near these reactors," Damon Moglen of the advocacy group Friends of the Earth said in a statement.

Daniel Hirsch, a lecturer on nuclear policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a critic of the nuclear power industry, said Edison was trying to delay a substantive review until "long after it has already restarted."

"If it is subsequently determined it wasn't safe to do so, it would be way too late," Hirsch said in a statement.

NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said the agency had not received the proposal from Edison.

The problems at San Onofre focus on its steam generators, which were installed in a $670 million overhaul in 2009 and 2010.

Last year, federal regulators blamed heavy tube wear in the generators on a botched computer analysis that they said misjudged how water and steam would flow in the reactors, along with manufacturing problems.

The generators, which resemble massive steel fire hydrants, control heat in the reactors and operate somewhat like a car radiator. At San Onofre, each one stands 65 feet high and weighs 1.3 million pounds, with 9,727 U-shaped tubes inside that are each 0.75 inch in diameter.

Overall, NRC records show investigators found wear from friction and vibration in 15,000 places, in varying degrees, in 3,401 tubes inside the plant's four generators, two in each reactor.

The future of the heavily damaged Unit 3 reactor, where the radiation leak occurred after a tube break last year, is not clear. Edison has said that because of manufacturing differences, Unit 2's generators did not suffer the extent of deep tube wear witnessed in its sister.

Cracked and corroded generator tubing has vexed the nation's nuclear industry for years.

Decaying generator tubes helped push San Onofre's Unit 1 reactor into retirement in 1992, even though it was designed to run until 2004. The following year, the Trojan nuclear plant, near Portland, Ore., was shuttered because of microscopic cracks in steam generator tubes, cutting years off its expected lifespan.

San Onofre is owned by SCE, San Diego Gas & Electric and the city of Riverside.

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Take these jobs and love it

Patrick administration officials touted yesterday's jobs report, trumpeting that the state has returned to pre-recession employment levels, but the anemic 500 jobs created last month could be one indication that Massachusetts is not out of the woods yet, economists told the Herald.

Statistics for the Bay State show 18,900 jobs were created in January, compared to the 16,100 initially estimated.

Robert Nakosteen, a professor of economics and statistics at the UMass Amherst Isenberg School of Management, questioned the enormous gap between the January and February jobs numbers, which are gleaned from a survey of employers.

"If the numbers are accurate, it's a strange pattern," Nakosteen told the Herald. "It's certainly not part of any trend I can imagine."

There are now 3,318,500 people working in Massachusetts, compared to 3,304,300 in April 2008, when the recession took hold here, according to the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development.

Last month, the state unemployment rate ticked down to 6.5 percent from 6.7 percent in January. But initial estimates show that only 500 jobs were created in February, with five of 10 sectors losing jobs.

Both Nakosteen and Northeastern University economist Alan Clayton-Matthews said the Massachusetts economy has improved, but they forecast modest growth in the months ahead.

"I expect the state's economy to grow, but the growth to slow a bit because of the increase in the payroll tax and sequestration," Clayton-Matthews said, referring to the across-the-board cuts in federal spending that took effect this month.

Those cuts stand to have a greater impact here than in other states because Massachusetts receives a disproportionate amount of federal funding for research, health care and defense, Nakosteen said.

Frank Conte of the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University said the state should also be worried about the loss of 2,900 manufacturing jobs since February 2012.

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Walmart ad chops Stop & Shop

Walmart takes aim at competing local grocery stores in a new price-comparison advertising campaign, but a Somerville consumer advocate warns such ads are "inherently deceptive."

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retail giant specifically targets Quincy-based Stop & Shop, showing how a shopper saved 14 percent at its Walpole store on items that she had purchased at a Stop & Shop in the same town.

Walmart launched the price-comparison campaign more than a year ago in Charlotte, N.C., and now is shooting commercials in some 50 markets across the country.

"We've had a lot of positive customer feedback, and we think that reflects how much customers appreciate learning about the price differences that exist in their communities and where they can find the most affordable prices," spokesman Bill Wertz said.

In a TV commercial shot Tuesday in Walpole, shopper "Grey" from Wrentham, who was compensated for her appearance, saved a combined 14.3 percent, or $14.75, on 24 items, ranging from Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese (8 oz.: $2.28 at Walmart and $3.04 at Stop & Shop) to Tide Clean Breeze Laundry Detergent (100 oz., 64 loads: $11.97 at Walmart and $14.49 at Stop & Shop). Some items were duplicates, but all except four were cheaper at Walmart, whose comparison excluded non-identical items and random-weight meat and produce on Grey's original Stop & Shop receipt.

But Somerville consumer advocate Edgar Dworsky urges shoppers to "take such comparisons with a grain of salt," noting they generally don't include a big enough sample of random items to mimic the average consumer's shopping experience.

"Do your own comparison for the items you buy," said Dworsky, a former director of consumer education at the state Executive Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation and former state attorney general in consumer protection. "The best shopper is the 'specials' cherry picker. The one who buys the best sales items from a variety of stores is going to save the most. You cannot save the most just going to one store."

Walmart's campaign runs through Monday and includes print, radio, TV and online elements at www.walmart.com/boston.

A Stop & Shop spokeswoman said "we continually strive to bring our customers savings every day." The chain offers weekly specials, "Real Deals" items on sale for multiple weeks and a gas rewards program. It also recently has provided clip coupons in its circulars, according to spokeswoman Suzi Robinson.

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Saudi buyer has new Ames for Hub mansion

Brokers wrapped up a blockbuster deal in Boston's Back Bay this week, finalizing the $14.5 million sale of the Ames-Webster mansion.

But it took three years and a hefty 37 percent price cut before a deep-pocketed Saudi businessman snapped up 306 Dartmouth St., one of the largest properties in the neighborhood.

The grand 26,000-square-foot property — with 50 rooms and 28 fireplaces and parking for up to six cars — hasn't been serving as a home but rather the offices of owner Raymond Property Co., a Hub real estate developer.

Originally listed in January 2010 for $23 million, then transferred to broker Campion & Co. in May 2011, the property had one price reduction to $18 million in November 2011.

306 Dartmouth was built as the home of Stephen Van Rensselaer Thayer and his wife, Alice. The wealthy Thayer was president of the Institute of 1770, Hasty Pudding Club and the Harvard Boat Club. But during construction, Thayer died at the age of 24. The home was bought by Charles Whitney, who sold it to prominent capitalist Frederick L. Ames in 1880.

Ames was born into great wealth in the 1830s. His great-grandfather founded the Ames Shovel Works and Ames invested heavily in railroads, becoming one of the principal owners of the Union Pacific Railroad.

Ames was determined to give this home his personal stamp, so he hired the architectural firm Sturgis and Brigham to extensively renovate the home and add a four-story, off-center tower — highly fashionable at the time.

The renovation also doubled the size the home's dining room, and added some of the finest museum-quality finishes including a skylight by Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant. The French artist's work is housed in collections across the world including New York's Metropolitan Museum and Russia's Hermitage.

Campion's listing boasted that the mansion has an "embassy-worthy main floor with handsome carved wood and elegant detail at every turn. The main entry is covered in hand-applied tesserae glass mosaic and bordered in market. The great hall, with its elaborate staircase and tower, is 60 feet long.

According to real estate records, the buyer of the property was FAL Boston LLC, an entity managed by Fahad Al-Athel, a Saudi sheikh and head of FAL Holdings, a conglomerate based in Riyadh. FAL was represented by broker First Boston Realty.

It's unclear at this point what Al-Athel intends to do with the property — keep it as an office, convert it back to a single-family residence or divide it into condominiums. The property has duel permit status both commercial and residential.

One thing is certain: The powerful Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay will be watching closely.

Jennifer Athas is a licensed real estate broker. Follow her on Twitter @JenAthas.

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Judge: Aggregator of AP news can't have free ride

NEW YORK — A federal judge ordered an Internet news clipping service to stop reselling stories from The Associated Press, saying the ability of news organizations to perform an "essential function of democracy" was jeopardized when a company is allowed to "free ride" on the costly work of others.

Media observers say the ruling against Meltwater U.S. Holdings Inc. and its Meltwater News Service, if upheld on appeal, could provide strong protection for the news industry as it struggles to survive in an Internet age.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote rejected Meltwater's claims that its use of Web stories drawn from a scan of 162,000 news websites from more than 190 countries was a fair use of copyright-protected material.

"Through its use of AP content and refusal to pay a licensing fee, Meltwater has obtained an unfair commercial advantage in the marketplace and directly harmed the creator of expressive content protected by the Copyright Act," Cote said.

She said in a ruling released to lawyers in the case Wednesday and to the public on Thursday that investigating and writing about newsworthy events worldwide was expensive, and copyright laws permits the AP to earn money to pay for it.

"Permitting Meltwater to take the fruit of AP's labor for its own profit, without compensating AP, injures AP's ability to perform this essential function of democracy," Cote wrote.

In a statement, Meltwater called the ruling "at odds with a variety of prior decisions that have paved the way for today's Internet," and said it would appeal.

The judge noted that commercial Internet news clipping services like Meltwater perform an important function for their customers, but that "does not outweigh the strong public interest in the enforcement of the copyright laws or justify allowing Meltwater to free ride on the costly news gathering and coverage work performed by other organizations. Moreover, permitting Meltwater to avoid paying licensing fees gives it an unwarranted advantage over its competitors who do pay licensing fees."

Meltwater is a 12-year-old electronic news clipping service that helps its clients monitor how they are covered in the press. In its lawsuit, the AP alleged that Meltwater News had been pilfering current and past material from the AP and other news providers without paying licensing fees.

George Freeman, a media law expert in private practice at Jenner & Bloch, called the ruling "one of the most solid and comprehensive that we've had in this very important field."

Richard Stim, a San Francisco attorney and author of "Getting Permission: How to License & Clear Copyrighted Materials Online & Off," said the ruling is special because most lawsuits against news aggregators get settled out of court.

"It gets a case out there that makes it easier to push people into licensing agreements," he said. "That's its ultimate business function. That's why everybody settles. They don't want a case out there that gives (content owners) the ammunition to say, 'Last time we did it, we won in court.' "

Even on appeal, the case will provide an important precedent, he said.

"The appeal may or may not go the same way," Stim added. "For people who follow these things, there'll finally be some judicial decisions."

Dwayne Buttler, an expert on copyright law and an endowed chair at the University of Louisville, said Cote's ruling was likely not the final word on the matter, since various appellate courts are in disagreement on the subject.

He also cautioned that works that are more factual than creative are given less protection by U.S. copyright law, which does not protect facts or ideas from copying.

"Newspapers are on the borderline of protectability," Buttler said.

The judge rejected Meltwater's claims that it operates like a search engine.

"Meltwater News is an expensive subscription service that markets itself as a news clipping service, not as a publicly available tool to improve access to content across the Internet," she said. "Instead of driving subscribers to third-party websites, Meltwater News acts as a substitute for news sites operated or licensed by AP."

Cote praised the operation of legitimate search engines.

"These interests are complementary. The Internet would be far poorer if it were bereft of the reporting done by news organizations and both are enhanced by the accessibility the Internet provides to news gathered and delivered by news organizations," Cote said.

She also defended the creativity necessary to write the first paragraph of a story, known as a "lede," saying Meltwater "misses the mark" when it argues that ledes are teasers and not summaries of news.

"If anything, the observation emphasizes the creativity and therefore protected expression involved with writing a lede and the skill required to tweak a reader's interest," Cote said.

Meltwater said it believes Cote misapplied the fair-use doctrine.

"Meltwater is especially troubled by the implications of this decision for other search engines and services that have long relied on the fair-use principles for which Meltwater is fighting," the company said.

Jorn Lyseggen, Meltwater's founder and chief executive, said the company was considering options and looked forward to appealing to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

AP CEO Gary Pruitt said the ruling was important for the AP and "others in the news business who work so hard to provide high-quality original news reports on which the public relies."

"For years, all of us have been hearing that if it is free on the Internet, it is free for the taking. The judge in this case just rejected that argument," he said.

Earlier this year, The New York Times, USA Today publisher Gannett Co. Inc., the McClatchy Co. and Advance Publications Inc. said in court papers that their businesses would be jeopardized if Meltwater was permitted to continue as it had.

The publishers said the ability of companies to distribute their content without paying licensing fees jeopardized their websites and other digital businesses that generate revenue through advertising, subscriptions and licensing fees.

One of Meltwater's competitors, BurrellesLuce, joined in a friend-of-the-court brief to say that it operates at a disadvantage because it pays to license content that Meltwater takes for free.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge supported Meltwater in a court brief.

Caroline H. Little, president and CEO of the Newspaper Association of America in Arlington, Va., which joined an amicus brief on behalf of news companies, called the ruling a "monumental decision" that recognizes the value of newsgathering in society.

"The significant costs associated with global, national, regional and local newsgathering cannot be sustained if news organizations cannot protect the integrity of our publishing process," she said.

Meltwater was founded in 2001 in Oslo, Norway. According to the company's website, it has more than 800 employees working in 55 offices around the world.

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Sox hit deal out of park

The owners of the Boston Red Sox have snapped up a parking garage on Lansdowne Street opposite Fenway Park, paying $10.5 million for the potential redevelopment play.

"I'm not sure what exactly they have in mind for the property, but they could expand it, go up, a lot of different things," said John Rosenthal, the Hub developer who sold the garage that Sox sluggers sometimes hit with out-of-the-park home runs. "It has great potential."

The garage sale stems from a partnership Rosenthal struck six years ago with the Sox that paved the way for his $450 million Fenway Center project, set to break ground this year.

Under current zoning, the two-story garage could be converted into an eight-story building — about twice the height of the iconic Green Monster across Lansdowne.

The Sox were tight-lipped yesterday about what they'll do. "It will be operated as a parking garage for the foreseeable future," Sox spokeswoman Zineb Curran said.

Marc Ganis, a Chicago-based sports business expert, said it's a no-brainer for the team to take control of the 340-space garage.

"If you are the Red Sox and you are landlocked, so to speak, anytime a property adjacent to the stadium becomes available you have to buy it, even if you don't have any immediate uses for it," Ganis said. "It's both an offensive move to expand and a defensive move to prevent competing businesses from moving in."

Rosenthal bought the garage for $2.5 million in 1993 and planned to redevelop it. But, facing opposition from the Sox owners, who wanted to protect historic Fenway Park, Rosenthal shifted his project to Sox-owned parking lots and Pike air-rights parcels on the other side of Brookline Avenue.

Rosenthal and the Sox remain partners on a Pike air-rights parcel behind the garage, "so that could be a future development site."

Rosenthal's highly visible Stop Handgun Violence billboard covers the back of the garage along the Pike. An easement will allow the billboard to stay, but Rosenthal expects it to eventually find a new home.

Ganis said that with the salary savings alone from last year's big trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Red Sox can afford to take it slow on the garage.

"The debt service on $10.5 million isn't very much," he said. "Getting rid of Carl Crawford for half a season took care of that ... and they got something that will last forever. They should send the Dodgers a thank-you card."

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Experts: CVS won’t be last to seek health info

It's a choice most working Americans eventually will have to make, experts say: Tell your insurance company how much you weigh, and how much fat you're carrying, or pay a lot more for your medical coverage.

"We're going to see this a lot more," Boston lawyer Valerie Samuels said after a Herald story about CVS' new "comply or pay" health screening plan for employees ignited a national debate on the issue yesterday. "In the past three, four, five years, employers have been facing horrible problems with rising health insurance costs, and now we're seeing that they are using a 'stick' approach to health efforts, because the voluntary programs are not making enough of a dent in the premiums."

CVS Caremark Corp., which has 200,000 employees, has told all workers who use the company's health insurance to "voluntarily" report their weight, height, body fat, glucose and lipid levels to CVS' insurer by May 1 — or pay an additional $600 a year for coverage.

The company told workers that the insurer will pass their health statistics on to a third party, which will use the information to try to improve the workers' health by aggregating it, analyzing it and helping the company design wellness programs.

"We want to help our employees to be as healthy as they can be, which is why we decided to implement this plan," CVS spokesman Michael D'Angelis said yesterday.

He said CVS took the approach because it works.

"To encourage a higher level of participation in our wellness review, we reviewed best practices and determined that an additional cost for those who do not complete the review was the most effective way to incent our colleagues to improve their health care and manage health costs," he said in a statement.

Northeast Human Resources Association Executive Director Tracy Burns called CVS' policy a new twist on a long-running practice.

From discounted gym memberships and fresh foods in the cafeteria, "companies have been promoting health and wellness efforts for years," she said. "Typically, we've seen it used more as a 'carrot' than a 'stick,'" Burns said.

D'Angelis also said CVS bosses won't ever find out workers' weight or glucose levels.

­

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Device blocks cell use in cars

The West Bridgewater Police Department is touting a device they say can save lives by preventing people from texting, emailing or calling while driving.

Sgt. Tim Nixon said the department will describe the Cellcontrol Trigger to parents today at West Bridgewater High School's Safety Night and give away 10 of the devices as door prizes.

"When my kids are old enough to drive, they will be having something like this," Nixon said. "It takes the thought process out of the equation for the driver. The parent is the one who chooses the control options."

The Trigger works by plugging into a vehicle's on-board diagnostics port, which is located just under the steering wheel.

Once connected, the device automatically transmits information to the driver's mobile phone, deactivating such features as email, phone, text and the Internet the moment the vehicle begins to move.

The phone remains on, but the driver can't use it except to call 911 or a number the parent has put on an approved list.

The Trigger, which retails for $89, can also be used with tablets and laptops, and by companies with fleets of vehicles, said Chad Kennedy, senior vice president of engineering for Cellcontrol.

In 2011, 3,331 people were killed in crashes involving a distracted driver, compared to 3,267 in 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another 387,000 people were injured in such crashes in 2011.

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Managers have ball in their court

Some companies blame March Madness for distracting workers and sapping office productivity, but other firms say the college basketball tourney actually boosts morale and can be a team-building tool.

ZeroTurnaround, a Hub-based Java productivity tools maker, is among the companies that uses the tournament to boost competition between sales staff to generate new opportunities and deals.

"Our 'March Madness' is about hitting our March numbers, and if people are hitting their numbers, I don't care if they check ESPN," ZeroTurnaround President and COO Alex Laats told the Herald. "If you just recognize that it's on people's minds and if you can turn that around and turn it to your advantage, then you can boost productivity and have fun with it."

At Jumptap, employees rally around March Madness through group polls and viewing parties after work. Later this month, Jumptap's MobileSTAT, a monthly report that shows mobile audience trends, will include March Madness-themed data, said spokeswoman Christina Feeney: "For Jumptap as a business, it's absolutely a positive."

The hoops competition heats up today and tomorrow as 64 teams face off on the road to the national championship.

A recent Challenger, Gray & Christmas study found that the tournament's first two days of play will cost American companies at least $134 million in "lost wages" as an estimated 3 million employees will spend one to three hours following the basketball games instead of working.

Even President Obama took time out of his busy schedule to release his tourney picks. The commander-in-chief has Indiana beating Louisville to win the national championship.

But Katie Loehrke, an editor at J.J. Keller & Associates, said March Madness can give workers with little in common something to bond over.

"One of the things that can really influence morale in a positive way is employees who feel like they're trusted," she said. "If they're trusted to get their work done and still be able to flip over to ESPN.com for five minutes ... that can boost morale."

Hub-based online fantasy sports startup DraftKings has an internal bracket challenge going on among its 13 employees that's designed to help them generate better products and experiences for customers.

"There's no better way to know what a sports fan wants than to live it," said CEO Jason Robins.

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RI men face counterfeiting charges in Mass.

BOSTON — Authorities say two Rhode Island men are facing charges in Massachusetts for allegedly trying to pay their tab at a Boston bar with fake $100 bills.

Felix Perez of Providence, R.I. and Dana Leyland of Pawtucket, R.I., were arraigned Tuesday on charges including of possessing counterfeit notes and uttering counterfeit currency. Perez was held on $1,000 bail while Leyland was held on $7,500 bail but detained without bail on two unrelated cases. He was also accused of giving police a false name. Not guilty pleas were entered on their behalf.

Prosecutors say a bartender at the Charlesmark Hotel called police Monday night to say three men had bought beer and cognac with what he thought were counterfeit bills.

Perez and Leyland were found at another bar nearby. The third man escaped.

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World stocks rise ahead of Fed statement

BANGKOK — World stock markets moved higher Wednesday as investors set aside their apprehension over the financial fate of Cyprus and looked ahead to the Federal Reserve for its assessment of the U.S. economy.

Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.4 percent to 6,468.92. Germany's DAX advanced 0.7 percent to 7,999.12. France's CAC-40 added 0.9 percent to 3,809.52. Wall Street appeared set for a session of gains, with Dow Jones industrial futures rising 0.3 percent to 14,428. S&P 500 futures gained 0.3 percent to 1,546.80.

Stock markets in Asia displayed caution after Cypriot lawmakers rejected a proposal Tuesday to place a tax on bank deposits that would have partly funded an emergency bailout to save the Mediterranean country from financial collapse. The proposal, cobbled together by international lenders, would provide the country with 15.8 billion euros ($20.4 billion) to bail out its heavily indebted banks and shore up government finances.

If it doesn't get the money, the banks could fail, Cyprus' government finances could be ruined for years and the country could face expulsion from the union of 17 countries that use the euro. That's a scenario European policymakers fought to avoid with Greece as its bailouts were negotiated because of fears it would splinter the currency union.

"The trouble in Cyprus is going to cause risk aversion," said Daniel Martin of Capital Economics in Singapore. "It's a reminder of how precarious things are in Europe. At some point, we're expecting a nasty shock from Europe, probably in the second half of the year."

Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 1 percent to 22,256.44. South Korea's Kospi fell 1 percent to 1,959.41. Australia's stock market was dragged lower by mining shares. The S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.4 percent to 4,967.30. Benchmarks in Taiwan, Indonesia and Singapore also fell.

Mainland Chinese shares rose on optimism about the economic outlook as concerns over recent property price curbs faded. The Shanghai Composite Index surged 2.8 percent to 2,317.37, the biggest gain in more than two months, while the smaller Shenzhen Composite Index added 2.7 percent to 949.82. Shares in financial companies, cement producers and home appliances led the gains.

Stock markets in Japan were closed for a public holiday.

Strong housing data from the U.S. softened the damage to confidence from the Cyprus crisis. On Tuesday, government data showed U.S. builders stepping up construction of homes, while a private report showed the number of Americans with equity in their homes increased last year. That suggests one of the biggest drags from the housing crisis is easing.

Investors will also be monitoring the U.S. Federal Reserve, which ends a two-day policy meeting later Wednesday. The Fed is expected to keep borrowing costs at record low levels despite signs of a strengthening economy. The meeting will end with updated economic forecasts and a policy statement, and Chairman Ben Bernanke will hold a news conference.

Fears over Cyprus have also been contained by the European Central Bank's backstop to euro nations. The ECB said after the vote that it would continue to provide emergency liquidity to Cypriot banks to make sure they do not collapse.

Among individual stocks, Chinese property stocks rose sharply. Hong Kong-listed Evergrande Real Estate Group surged 4.9 percent. Shanghai-listed Citic Securities Co., China's biggest securities brokerage by asset value, rose 6.2 percent. Australian mining giants BHP Billiton fell 2.7 percent and Rio Tinto Ltd. shed 2 percent.

Benchmark oil for April delivery was up 33 cents to $92.85 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.58 to finish at $92.16 a barrel on the Nymex on Tuesday.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.2888 from $1.2875 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar rose to 95.38 yen from 95.09 yen.

___

AP researcher Fu Ting contributed from Shanghai.

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Mashpees agree to new casino terms with state

BOSTON — The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council has approved a new deal under which it will provide 17 percent of gambling revenues from a proposed casino in Taunton to the state.

The deal approved Tuesday replaces an earlier deal with the administration of Gov. Deval Patrick under which the tribe would have handed over 21.5 percent of gambling revenue to the state. The federal government said that was too much.

The tribe has been given exclusive rights to negotiate for a casino in southeastern Massachusetts, but the state gambling board on Thursday is scheduled to debate whether to extend or end a ban on commercial casino developers that want to open a gambling facility in that part of the state.

The tribe must still have its Taunton land placed into federal trust.

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Cyprus works on Plan B to stave off bankruptcy

NICOSIA, Cyprus — The Cypriot government and the country's central bank were working Wednesday on an alternative proposal to stave off bankruptcy, a day after Parliament rejected an initial plan to raise billions of euros by seizing up to 10 percent of people's bank savings.

Tuesday's decisive rejection of the plan to take a slice of all deposits above 20,000 euros has left the country's bailout in question and fueled fears that the Cypriot economy is on the cusp of bankruptcy — and could potentially have to leave the euro.

That scenario that could roil global financial markets as well as endanger deposits in the country even further.

Government spokesman Christos Stylianides said a meeting was underway at the central bank to discuss an alternative plan for raising funds, but also for reducing the 5.8 billion euros ($7.5 billion) that must be found domestically.

President Nicos Anastasiades was also meeting with the representatives of his country's potential creditors — the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission. The three, collectively known as the troika, must sign off on any Plan B the Cypriots come up with if it is to be approved as part of the bailout.

Under the initial plan conceived in Brussels last weekend, other eurozone countries and the IMF would give Cyprus 10 billion euros in rescue loans if the country raised 5.8 billion euros through a bank deposit seizure.

The bank's deputy governor, Spyros Stavrinakis, said no decision had been taken on when banks, which have been shut since the weekend, would reopen, and that a new plan has not yet been presented to the country's euro partners and IMF.

The banks remained shut for the third day running to avoid a bank run, and there are growing expectations they may not reopen until next week — certainly not until Cypriot authorities come up with a credible financial package that has the troika's blessing.

The package must also win approval from lawmakers.

In a two-pronged approach to the crisis, Finance Minister Michalis Sarris was in Moscow for meetings with his Russian counterpart. Russia could play a key role in any alternative package that may emerge. Russians are believed to account for just under a third of Cyprus's 68 billion euro bank deposits.

"We will be here until some kind of agreement is reached," Sarris said.

In Nicosia, residents waited anxiously to see what lay in store for them.

Avetis Bahcecian has been running his Armenian restaurant in Nicosia for years. Now, with the uncertainty swirling around Cyprus, he's worried about his business.

"Whatever they do, they have to do it quickly because this uncertainty is hurting business," the 41-year-old said as he kneaded dough to make lahmacun, a traditional Armenian pizza-style food. "Our business is down by 40 percent in the last couple days."

ATMs have been dispensing cash and debit and credit cards have been working, so Cypriots have not faced any immediate cash shortage for day-to-day living.

A Cypriot financial official said authorities were working on bills which would need parliamentary approval aiming to limit the amount of money leaving the country, and that a decision would be announced later on how long the banks would remain closed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information.

A government official said an alternative plan to raise the 5.8 billion had been drafted and was to be presented to the troika, most likely on Wednesday. The plan would raise money from domestic sources, including pension plans and subsidiaries of foreign banks active in Cyprus.

One of those domestic sources may be the country's influential Orthodox church.

Its head, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, said he would put the church's assets at the country's disposal, saying the church was willing to mortgage its assets to invest in government bonds. The church has considerable wealth, including property, stakes in a bank and a brewery.

"The wealth of the church is at the disposal of the country," Chrysostomos said after meeting with Anastasiades Wednesday morning.

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Newspapers voice disquiet at UK media regulation

LONDON — Britain's politicians have finally struck a deal to regulate their country's press. Whether the press will allow itself to be regulated is another question.

Across Britain, newspaper front pages voiced disquiet at the establishment of an independent watchdog that would have the power to order prominent apologies and take complaints into arbitration.

Partisans on all sides of the argument have loudly proclaimed their loyalty to a free press and free speech, but newspaper groups worry that the new body will become a burdensome regulator.

Business-oriented London free sheet City A.M. had the words: "UNFREE SPEECH" written across its front page Tuesday. The Sun, Britain's top-selling tabloid, compared the new body to the infamous Ministry of Truth from George Orwell's "1984."

Politicians have defended the deal as a sensible compromise.

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Lego plans first China factory as Asian sales leap

HONG KONG — Lego is building its first factory in China as part of a plan to move production closer to Asia, its fastest growing market.

The Danish maker of colorful plastic building blocks for children said it's investing at least 100 million euros ($130 million) in the new plant. Construction will start in 2014 and it will be fully operational by 2017.

The factory will be located in Jiaxing, 100 kilometers (67 miles) southwest of Shanghai, where Lego is planning an Asian distribution center.

Lego said the new factory will be "a supply base for future growth in Asia." The company said that in recent years sales in the region have grown by more than 50 percent annually.

Chief Operating Officer Bali Padda said the company's strategy is to cut down on time needed for shipping by basing production near its main markets.

Lego predicted the factory, which will have moulding, decoration and packaging facilities, will be able to supply 70 to 80 percent of the toys it sells in Asia in 2017.

The plant will employ 2,000 workers by the time it's fully operational. The company also has factories in Denmark, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Mexico.

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China's leader Xi meets US treasury secretary

BEIJING — China's new leader, Xi Jinping, told the U.S. Treasury secretary he wants strong ties with Washington as the two sides resumed high-level interaction Tuesday following a months-long hiatus during the Chinese leadership transition.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew's agenda for the two-day visit includes North Korea's nuclear program, China's exchange rate controls and cyberspying.

"I attach great importance to China's relationship with the United States," Xi told Lew during a meeting attended by diplomats and finance officials from both governments. "We stand ready to work with the U.S. side to continue to develop this China-U.S. cooperative partnership so that we will be able to open a path of cooperation between major countries."

The meeting was the first high-level U.S.-Chinese contact since then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's brief visit to Beijing in September.

Leaders of the world's two biggest economies have stressed their common interests in security affairs and global economic stability even as they wrangle over complaints about China's trade surpluses, its exchange rate controls and efforts to curb global warming. Numerous computer hacking attacks on U.S. companies have been traced to China.

Contacts were suspended during the U.S. presidential election and China's once-a-decade leadership transition, which began with Xi being named Communist Party leader in November. He became president last week.

Xi referred to Lew as a "special representative" of President Barack Obama, suggesting he might be responsible for a wider range of issues than just finance. Xi acknowledged the two sides have "some differences" but said they have "enormous shared interests" and should "handle this relationship from a strategic and long-term perspective."

Lew said Washington wants to work with Beijing to reduce trade and investment barriers and to "protect the work of our innovators," a reference to complaints about rampant Chinese copying of foreign goods from Hollywood movies to software and telecoms technology.

"The president is firmly committed to building a relationship of growing strength," Lew said at the meeting in the Great Hall of the People, the seat of China's ceremonial legislature in Beijing.

Lew said the U.S. government looks forward to China's growth as a market for foreign goods. Chinese leaders have pledged to build a consumer-driven economy, reducing reliance on trade and investment. That might help to boost demand for imports, narrowing China's multibillion-dollar trade surplus with the United States, a chronic source of tension.

Also at the meeting were China's new finance minister Lou Jiwei, U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke, an assistant Chinese foreign minister Cui Tiankai and other officials of both governments.

At a later 45-minute private meeting, Lew raised exchange rates, intellectual property, cybersecurity and North Korea, according to a U.S. official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. The official gave no other details.

Lew was due to meet with Premier Li Keqiang, who took office last week as China's top economic official. He also was due to meet the newly appointed chairman of the Cabinet's powerful planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also plans to visit Beijing next month.

In a phone call with Xi last week, Obama stressed the need for cooperation to ensure North Korea fulfills commitments to eliminate its nuclear development efforts, according to the White House.

In a reflection of wide-ranging ties, the White House said Obama also discussed China's exchange rate policy, trade, intellectual property protection and cybersecurity threats.

The Obama administration has been escalating its criticism of cyber and intellectual property thefts by China.

A security firm, Mandiant, said last month it traced electronic break-ins at more than 140 companies to a military unit in Shanghai. The Chinese government rejected the report and said it also is a victim of hacking, much of it traced to the United States.

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Fed likely to back low-rate policies despite gains

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy is strengthening on the fuel of more job growth, rising home prices and solid retail sales. Just don't expect the Federal Reserve to let up in its drive to keep stimulating the economy with record-low interest rates.

Not yet, anyway.

That's the view of economists as Fed policymakers hold a two-day meeting that starts Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Fed will issue a policy statement and update its economic forecasts, and Chairman Ben Bernanke will hold a news conference.

All of which will likely reinforce Bernanke's stated view that the job market, in particular, has a long way to go to full health and still needs the Fed's extraordinary support.

The unemployment rate, at 7.7 percent, remains well above the 5 percent to 6 percent range associated with a healthy economy. The Fed has said it plans to keep short-term rates at record lows at least until unemployment falls to 6.5 percent, as long as the inflation outlook remains mild. And it foresees unemployment staying above 6.5 percent until at least the end of 2015.

On Wednesday, economists think Bernanke will acknowledge the economy's gains. But most foresee no pullback in the Fed's strategy of keeping short-term rates at record lows and of buying $85 billion a month in Treasurys and mortgage bonds to keep long-term loan rates down.

"They will keep the pedal to the metal at this week's meeting," says Diane Swonk, chief economist Mesirow Financial. "Even though the economy has improved, it has not improved enough to switch course. We still don't have unemployment low enough."

The economy slowed to an annual growth rate of just 0.1 percent in the October-December quarter, a near-stall that was due mainly to temporary factors that have largely faded. Economists think growth has rebounded in the January-March quarter to an annual rate around 2 percent or more. The most recent data support that view.

Americans spent more at retailers in February despite higher Social Security taxes that shrank most workers' paychecks. Manufacturing gained solidly in February. And employers have gone on a four-month hiring spree, adding an average of 205,000 jobs a month. In February, the unemployment rate, though still high, reached its lowest point in more than four years.

The brighter news has prompted speculation that the Fed might be preparing to dial back its easy-money policies. Such thinking has been fed by concerns voiced by a few Fed regional bank presidents about the low-rate policies.

These include fears that the Fed has pumped so much money into the economy that it could eventually ignite inflation, fuel speculative asset bubbles or destabilize markets once the Fed has to start raising rates or unloading its record $3 trillion investment portfolio.

Minutes of the December and January policy meetings showed that some officials suggested that the Fed might need to at least scale back its $85 billion-a-month in bond purchases. Still, the low-rate policies received solid backing in 11-1 votes. And economists see no sign that this support is eroding.

When he gave the Fed's twice-a-year economic report to Congress in February, Bernanke defended the low-interest rate programs. And while he acknowledged the fears of critics, he downplayed them. He struck the same note in a speech to a conference in San Francisco. There, Bernanke said it would be "quite costly" to the U.S. economy if the Fed pulled back too soon.

At their last meeting Jan. 28-29, Fed officials reaffirmed their decision in December to keep short-term rates at super-lows at least as long as unemployment stays above 6.5 percent. The Fed's benchmark rate for overnight bank lending has remained at a record low near zero since December 2008. The Fed also repeated its plan to keep buying bonds to lower long-term rates until the job market had improved "substantially."

One reason for the Fed's reluctance to reduce its stimulus is the history of the past three years. In each of the three, economic prospects looked promising as the year began. Yet in each case, the economy stumbled.

In 2010, U.S. growth was hurt by turmoil from Europe's debt crisis. In 2011, a spike in gas prices and supply disruptions caused by Japan's earthquake and tsunami dampened growth. And in 2012, higher gas prices cut into consumer spending.

Though the economy has brightened this year, it still faces threats, including across-the-board government spending cuts that took effect March 1 and are expected to trigger furloughs and layoffs. Those spending cuts, along with the Social Security tax increase and higher taxes on top earners, are expected to cut growth in half this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO predicts that the drag will slow growth by 1.5 percentage points, to 1.5 percent.

"There are still question marks over the economy," says David Wyss, former chief economist at Standard & Poor's and now a professor at Brown University. "Things are looking a little better, but they are not better enough to make the Fed change anything significantly."

As for concerns that the Fed's easy-money policies will escalate inflation, Wyss suggests looking at Japan, which has pursued similar policies for 20 years without triggering runaway prices. The bigger danger in Japan remains the opposite threat of deflation — a prolonged period of falling prices.

David Jones, chief economist at DMJ Advisors, expects the Fed's policies to remain intact this week and at its April meeting. But he says policymakers might signal at their June meeting that they're considering some changes in their bond-buying program.

"I think the June meeting will be the one that really counts," Jones says. "At that time the Fed might consider at least tapering its $85 billion in bond purchases to a smaller level."

Whenever the Fed announces that it's ending some aspect of its easy credit, Jones says he expects the news to jolt financial markets, causing rates on long-term Treasurys to rise and stock prices to drop.

"The Fed has artificially depressed long-term interest rates and artificially boosted the stock market for such a long period of time and by such a large amount, that no one can predict how much financial market instability will occur at the first hint they are pulling back on accommodation," Jones says.

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Breakers raise money for educational video

The Boston Breakers are hoping a monthlong Kickstarter campaign will net the team $35,000 to finance an instructional video series for parents and coaches about the physical and emotional effects of soccer on young female players.

The Somerville-based professional soccer club is already a third of the way toward its goal, less than a week after kicking off its campaign. The project has a working title of "Beautiful: Teaching Girls Soccer the Boston Breakers Way."

"Beautiful," which features commentary from players, and coaching and sports medicine experts, will tackle such issues as concussions; how early prevention also can reduce risks of serious knee injuries; how girl players process coaching information differently than boys; and how girls mature socially faster than boys, making team dynamics critical.

"With this DVD, we want to enhance the game, enhance the education of young athletes and help grass-roots soccer develop," Breakers General Manager Lee Billiard told the Herald.

The Breakers have teamed up with Newton-based production company The Word Syndicate to tackle the project, which starts filming in mid-April. "Beautiful" is expected to be available in DVD and online by early summer.

"The emphasis on winning and competition actually prevents American youth soccer players from developing the way they potentially could," said Ralph Ranalli, The Word Syndicate's owner and executive producer, and president of Newton Girls Soccer. "(The Breakers) have got a vested interest in teaching soccer the right way because essentially that means better players will come out of the American system."

The team's Kickstarter campaign follows the recent creation of the Boston Breakers Academy, a program that focuses on developing young players technically, tactically and physically on the soccer field.

The project is also designed to enhance the Breakers brand, officials said. The Breakers currently play for the newly established, eight-team National Women's Soccer League, which draws star national team athletes from the United States, Canada and Mexico.

"It helps support youth soccer not only in Massachusetts, but it's going to help soccer all over the country," Billiard said. "We hope people see there is a need for it."

The Breakers kick off their 2013 season April 14 against the Washington Spirit at Somerville's Dilboy Stadium.

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BlackBerry OS not a perfect 10

The new BlackBerry 10 operating system is a total revamp. It has not one line of code in common with the software that powered previous BlackBerry smartphones, but still manages to feel like an improvement on something familiar. The new touchscreen-only BlackBerry Z10, available at the end of the month from Verizon and AT&T, is therefore a brand-new product — not an evolved device like the iPhone 5 or upcoming Samsung Galaxy S 4.

The OS is made up of a set of desktop panels accessed by a conventional slider tray, an active frames screen and the "Hub." Swiping up from the bottom takes you to your active frames screen, which contains open applications. An inward swipe from the left takes you to the Hub, which is a chronology of notifications, messages, emails and calls — convenient for a busy day.

The BlackBerry die-hards might be turned off by the Z10's lack of a physical keyboard. But the virtual keyboard is among the best in the touchscreen world, with a new auto-complete feature that will finish your word with an upward swipe.

Yet the biggest problem with this phone almost feels weird to write about a smartphone: It's no fun.

Yes, fun. We now live in a world of mobile apps, with their funky camera filters, mobile window shopping, GPS navigation and custom radio channels. And what exists of this in the BlackBerry World store is mostly expensive and poorly reviewed. There's no Yelp, Instagram, Google Maps, Netflix, Vine or Amazon, to name some popular apps.

Almost making up for this lack of apps is the incredibly fast LTE speeds from AT&T on the Z10 I tested. And while BlackBerry 10 does have social media integration, it feels half-baked. For instance, if you receive a notification that one of your friends has updated her Facebook status, clicking on it will show you the full status update but lead you to a dead-end.

This is just one of a handful of improvements that the new OS on the Z10 needs to be a game-changer. Yet it should be considered a respectable entrant to the most competitive industry in the world.

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The Ticker

State: Please file online

Less than a month before the tax filing deadline, Massachusetts officials continue to urge taxpayers to file their state returns electronically if possible.

The state Revenue Department said it had processed nearly 1.4 million electronic returns as of Friday, compared with about 154,000 paper returns. The average turnaround for a refund was just under three and a half days for electronically filed returns and five days for those filed the old-fashioned way.

Maxim's up for sale

Racy men's magazine Maxim is up for sale, according to the publication's president, Ben Madden. The private equity owners of Maxim's parent, Alpha Media Group, have owned the business for more than six years, and that is the usual time for such investors to try to sell, he said. Madden added that the company's investment in online video and digital subscriptions is starting to pay off. Digital revenue is up 
45 percent so far this year, compared to a year ago, while print ad revenue is set to rise in the first half, he said.

Today

 The Boston Redevelopment Authority holds a community meeting for a convention center hotel project on D Street in South Boston.

 Moscow government officials and KPMG host conclude presentations of their "Destination Moscow Roadshow 2013" at the InterContinental Hotel in Boston.

TOMORROW

 The Commerce Department releases housing starts for February.

 Federal Reserve policymakers meet to discuss interest rates.

 Commerce Bank has promoted Alan Jenne, left, as senior vice president of consumer lending. Jenne, who is responsible for the bank's consumer lending and classic car divisions, joined the bank in 2009 as vice president of consumer lending.

 Welch's of Concord has appointed Geralyn R. Breig to its board of directors. Breig is a former executive with the Avon and Godiva brands and is currently a board director with 1-800-Flowers.com.

 Monster has hired Matt Anchin as senior vice president of global communications. Most recently, Anchin served as senior vice president of global marketing and communications for the media businesses of Nielsen, and vice president of online communications at American Express.

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Pro-Cape Wind group pushes project loan guarantee

Pro-Cape Wind group pushes project loan guarantee

March 18, 2013

BOSTON — Supporters of the Cape Wind offshore wind project say they've submitted a petition with nearly 1,200 signatures in support of a Department of Energy loan guarantee for the project.

The petition was posted online by Cape Wind Now. The group says Cape Wind's clean energy is badly needed and the Energy Department should immediately proceed with the loan guarantee. They say the project proposed in 2001 has been senselessly delayed for too long.

The $2.6 billion, 130-turbine Cape Wind project planned for Nantucket Sound aims to be the nation's first offshore wind farm.

The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, a Cape Wind opponent, has also submitted comments to the Energy Department. It argues the project would violate laws that protect the environment and wildlife and has an uncertain future because of pending lawsuits against it.

Cape Wind — which has touted its intention to boost the local economy — has basically pulled a bait and...

Another significant portion of the Cape Wind project — due to be underwritten by taxpayers and ratepayers...

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Cab lawyer eyes suit against SideCar

The lawyer who filed suit against on-demand-private-driver service Uber said he is now targeting the ride-sharing app SideCar, which last week added Boston to its growing roster of cities.

Calling itself a ride-sharing service is merely a way for SideCar to avoid taxi regulations, said Sam Perkins, who represents the Boston Cab Association.

"Both existing taxi companies and the hackney division need to pay attention to any private transportation company whose drivers don't meet hackney division standards and whose cars haven't passed safety inspections," Perkins said.

Just to apply for a hackney license in Boston, drivers have to meet 13 criteria, including undergoing criminal record and sex offender registry checks, he said.

Nick Allen, SideCar's co-founder, said drivers who offer rides to people through its app also undergo those checks and must have a valid license and registration.

Unlike cab fares, however, payment is up to the discretion of the passenger and made via the app, with 20 percent going to SideCar, Allen said, and both driver and passenger can rate each other at the end of the trip.

"We don't charge a metered fee," he said. "We are a technology platform, not a transportation company. We also take safety very seriously."

Since it launched in San Francisco last June, SideCar has facilitated more than 100,000 rides in eight cities, Allen said.

Last Tuesday, members of Boston's taxi industry filed a lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court against the company's competitor, San Francisco-based Uber, accusing it of operating a car-for-hire service that violates state and city laws, and deceives consumers about fees, drivers, safety and insurance.

Michael Pao, general manager of Uber Boston, called the charges "baseless," adding Gov. Deval Patrick reversed a prior ban on the service in the Hub last summer.

Ira Kantor contributed to this report.

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Heiress talk of Tinseltown

Hub celebrity hounds are giddy about sightings of Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams, but the person who is really shaking up Hollywood is the 27-year-old heiress who is signing their checks.

Megan Ellison is the daughter of Oracle Corp. co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison, who is ranked by Forbes as the fifth-richest person on the planet and whose $43 billion fortune includes the Hawaiian island of Lanai.

Megan and her brother, David, also a film producer, are Ellison's only children, the products of his marriage to Barbara Boothe — his third of four wives.

Like any young woman who has received — depending on which reports you believe — anywhere between $200 million and $2 billion from her father, Megan 
Ellison has skipped the waiting tables, fetching coffee and doing commercials stages of most Hollywood hopefuls. She seems to have started her career as a film prod­ucer — and a very talented one.

So far, unlike many super-rich folks who have tried to take Tinseltown by storm, Megan and her production company, Annapurna Pictures — operated from three houses in the Hollywood Hills — have backed some real winners.

In fact, if you enjoyed "Lawless, "The Master" or "Zero Dark Thirty," you have Megan Ellison to thank.

According to its website, 
Annapurna Pictures, which gets its name from the Hindu harvest goddess who protects the world from starvation, has "the goal of creating sophisticated, high-
quality films that might otherwise be considered risky by trad­itional Hollywood studios."

It seems that Ellison is on the right track again by backing 
David O. Russell's untitled 
Abscam film project, which has brought the latest crop of stars to Boston.

Ellison, who "does not do press interviews," according to her publicist, reportedly rides a Harley and likes to hang out with Jessica Chastain. In a nod to Hollywood's love of sequels, she also has purchased the rights to the "Terminator" film franchise.

In other words, Ellison is living the dream.

According to her Twitter 
account, she was recently at the South by Southwest festival for the premier of "Spring Breakers," a film she produced that stars James Franco and several women in 
bikinis, including Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez.

Hopefully, Boston will be next on Ellison's itinerary. She can stop by the Herald — we're in the same building as the Abscam flick's 
offices — and we can join her 
in bashing Vanity Fair for a nasty little comment about her looks in a recent profile.

It may take several more great films, but we can't wait for the day when Larry is introduced as Megan Ellison's father.

Boston, keep an eye out for 
Megan. She's the one to watch.

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PAX East goes for big game

Bay State digital artists are taking their creations to a new level for this year's PAX East video gaming expo, which kicks off Friday.

Visible from a half-mile away on a digital canvas, six marquee artworks have gone live on an 80-foot-tall LED tower outside the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. All the videos were designed by video game company employees or video game design teachers.

"This is the future of public art," said George Fifield, president of Boston Cyberarts, a local nonprofit arts group that organized the display with the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. "The first time (the artists) see something they made on something so humongous, you see their jaws drop and their eyes open wide."

The 30-second works on the digital billboard reflect gaming culture, either in vintage or modern forms. For example, a group of eight artists who work for Needham-based game design company Turbine Inc. created "Mists of Mortal Legends" featuring "high-flying intergalactic combat where issues of control are turned upside down."

Meanwhile, Fitchburg State College media professor Jeffu Warmouth's "1UP" shows a self-inspired character "moving through a shifting set of game environments drawn from the Golden Age of arcade games."

Warmouth, 42, a Groton resident, said he spent about 100 hours creating his video, which recalls scenes from the classic 8-bit games "Donkey Kong," "Joust" and "Dig Dug."

"I've always done work with kind of a popular bent to it and I've done a lot of work about pop culture, and I've always been interested in venues that are not white gallery space," said Warmouth, who has made two previous videos for the BCEC marquee. "There's something great about the marquee being in the public space where people are not expecting art. Definitely, it's expanded my audience."

Other digital works include "LARP" by Chris Florio; "Space Plants" by Fish McGill; "Tiger Training" by William Russell Pensyl; and "Growing Phones" by Joshua Pablo Rosenstock.

The artists and teams chosen to produce marquee art are paid a $500 honorarium for their work, which take about a month to complete.

PAX East, which attracts thousands of video game enthusiasts from around the globe, runs March 22-24.

"(The marquee's) become something of a landmark for the South Boston waterfront and reflective of the fact this is the Innovation District," said convention center chief Jim Rooney, adding the agency would consider calling for more videos geared toward future BCEC events.

A separate Boston Cyberarts gallery exhibition in Jamaica Plain titled "The Game's Afoot: Video Game Art" runs until April 14.

"The whole gaming industry has been in retreat these days as people change the game platforms they've been using," Fifield said. "When all gaming finds its feet again, Massachusetts is positioned to be a really important player."

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Cyprus parliament delays vote on bank deposits tax

NICOSIA, Cyprus — An official says Cyprus' parliament had postponed the debate and vote on the controversial levy on all bank deposits that the country's creditors demanded in exchange for €10 billion ($13 billion) in rescue money.

Parliamentary official Antonis Koutalianos said the vote that was scheduled for Sunday afternoon has been pushed back to Monday, but the exact hour of the vote has yet to be fixed.

The decision to impose the one-time levy of 6.75 percent on all deposits under €100,000 and 9.9 percent over that amount, has triggered scorn from Cypriot politicians who condemned it as unfair, bringing in doubt its approval in parliament.

It marks the first time that the 17 eurozone countries and the IMF have dipped into people's savings to finance a bailout.

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