The Ticker

Connector extends sign-up deadline

The Massachusetts Health Connector is extending until Feb. 23 the deadline to complete an application and pick a health plan.

The deadline had been tomorrow, but officials pushed it off a week because heavy snowstorms have made it hard for some people to sign up for insurance.

The Feb. 23 deadline for making a payment stays in place.

Connector officials said they wanted to give people extra time, given the burden many have had as they've had to dig out from the successive storms.

The Connector's call center won't be taking calls tomorrow due to the storm, but will make return calls to consumers who have requested them. It has expanded hours through Feb. 23, including weekend hours on Saturday, Feb. 21, and Sunday, Feb. 22, from 9 a.m.-3 p.m., and on Monday, Feb. 23, from 
7 a.m.-9 p.m.

Caesars suit vs. 
panel dismissed

A Massachusetts court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Caesars Entertainment against the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. After the panel's background investigation on Caesars turned up concerns about an investor in the company, Suffolk Downs dropped the gaming giant from its resort proposal to win the single casino license for the Boston area in October 2013. Caesars was replaced by Mohegan Sun, which subsequently lost the bid to Wynn Resorts in Everett.

• Prelert, the leading provider of machine learning anomaly detection, announced that John O'Donnell has joined the company as chief financial officer.

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Redone condo leaves no stone unturned

This just redone unique North End condo is a showpiece of stone — with marble, quartz, onyx, slate, fieldstone and granite finishes, done by a developer who is also a stone supplier and refinisher.

The two-level first floor/basement duplex at 6 Henchman St. is one of 10 units in a 1900-built brick building that was once a speakeasy. Builder Tom Falcucci has crafted a European-style duplex with a wine cellar and tasting room, custom bathrooms and surround sound.

A private entrance leads down red oak stairs with walnut-paneled wainscoting to an open living/kitchen area with hickory floors and recessed lighting.

The recessed-lit kitchen has espresso-stained cabinets with a top row of frosted glass cabinets. It features brown-veined quartz countertops and backsplash, which also tops a large center island with a breakfast bar seating four. Stainless-steel Jenn-Air appliances include a refrigerator, dishwasher, gas stove with a built-in microwave above.

The living room is dominated by a restored wood fireplace surrounded by a wall of marble and has tray ceilings, a wall of paneled wainscoting and built-in ceiling speakers.

Behind the living/kitchen area is an open hickory-floored space that could be a dining room or a home office/study. It includes a media closet that houses the unit's surround sound and alarm systems.

Behind this room, the builder has added a unique wine cellar and tasting room that can also double as an entertainment room. The slate-floored space has restored original wood beams and side walls with built-in wine bottle racks. There's a seashell granite-topped wet bar with cabinets and a wine cooler, as well as a granite topped table.

Also on this level is a third bedroom with a closet but without a window. Adjacent sits a spectacular custom bathroom with fieldstone walls, a backlit onyx walk-in shower and a separate glass-doored wet steam shower lined with marble. This bathroom also has glass mosaic-tile floors and a gray stone sink on a wood vanity.

A set of oak stairs lead up to two bedrooms and two bathrooms on the second floor, with a hallway closet for a washer and dryer included in the sales price.

The master bedroom with two windows has a 9-foot coffered walnut ceiling as well as dark-stained oak floors and built-in surround sound. There's a large walk-through closet with custom built-ins that leads into the master bathroom. The bathroom features Carrara and basket-weave marble floors, as well as a marble vanity with glass-fronted drawers. The marble-lined walk-in shower has a rainhead fixture and there's a marble-surround whirlpool tub as well.

The second bedroom also has a coffered walnut ceiling, two windows and dark-stained oak floors. It has built-in bureau drawers and surround sound as well as a double-door closet with a built-in California closet system.

The second full bathroom has a porcelain tile floor with glass mosaic tile inlay, a Carrara marble surround for a soaking tub and shower, and a granite topped vanity.

The unit's $460 monthly condo fee includes heat and hot water. The developer will pay for one year of valet garage parking at nearby Battery Wharf, with a value of around $400 a month.

Home Showcase:

• Address: 
6 Henchman St., North End
• Bedrooms: Three
• Bathrooms: Three full
• List price: $1,699,000
• Square feet: 2,650
• Price per square foot: $641
• Annual taxes: $7,960
• Monthly condo fee: $460 
(includes heat 
and hot water)
• Location: Two blocks from offerings on Hanover Street.
• Built in: 1900, converted to condo 2014-2015
• Broker: Dale Murawski of Otis & Ahearn at 617-
652-6300

Pros:

• Unique onyx, marble, granite, glass mosaic stonework plus a wet steam room
• Custom kitchen with brown quartz countertops and Jenn-Air appliances
• Master bedroom suite with coffered ceiling, large California closet system and showpiece marble bathroom
• Wine tasting room with seashell granite-topped wet bar
• Hickory and dark-stained oak floors and paneled wainscoting

Cons:

• Only one small window on the lower level

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Partners income up despite insurance activity losses

Partners HealthCare Systems's operating income climbed during the first quarter of fiscal year 2015, but it continues to see losses in insurance activity.

Health care provider activity brought in $67 million in operating income, and the Neighborhood Health Plan saw $7 million in operating income in the three months that ended Dec. 31.

However, the $7 million includes a premium deficiency reserve set aside in fiscal year 2014 — without that, insurance activity would have seen a loss of $20 million.

Partners, the state's largest hospital and doctors' group, reported $45 million in operating income for the first quarter of last year, including $44 million from provider activity and $1 million from insurance activity.

"Maintaining our focus on the cost-effective, efficient delivery of care, Partners' health care providers generated a strong operating margin, which enables us to reinvest in population health management programs to further improve the patient experience," said Peter K. Markell, chief financial officer and treasurer for Partners HealthCare, in a statement yesterday. "However, our insurance plan, NHP, still faces a significant challenge with respect to receiving adequate rates from the state for the care of MassHealth members."

Total operating revenue at Partners increased $201 million to $2.8 billion in the first quarter.

According to Partners' quarterly report, "total operating expenses increased $173 million (7 percent) to $2.8 billion, due to higher wages and benefits, supplies and medical insurance claims."

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Cherokee Trailhawk chief in its class

With unmatched off-road capabilities and superior highway manners, the Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk blows away its competition with features and performance.

With a powerful 3.2-liter V6 24-valve engine, the compact sport utility vehicle accelerates quickly to pass cars on the highway with ease. A nine-speed automatic transmission smoothly changes gears as you move faster. The shift knob is leather-wrapped but the manual override seems to be counter-intuitive — move the knob up to shift down and down to shift up.

Jeep's selectable 4x4 modes allow the driver to dial in current conditions like snow, sand, mud and rock. It also has an automatic mode that lets a computer make these decisions for you. The Cherokee has a four-wheel-drive low mode for extra low-speed traction and earns its trail-rated certification in every way.

The Trailhawk will help you start an ascent on a hill automatically as well as help you control your speed on a descent. A rear axle disconnect feature only engages when necessary for improved fuel efficiency. It has a beefed-up off-road suspension and 17-inch aluminum wheels with all-
terrain tires that can take what Mother Nature dishes out.

The steering on this Jeep is stiff and responsive. Its leather-wrapped steering wheel is comfortable to grip and its mounted controls give the driver access to the phone and stereo controls as well as the on-board computer.

The electronics array is also well above average for its class. It features a premium navigation system that is designed with logic in mind. It is easy to enter a destination and it gives clear and concise directions. The Cherokee also has Sirius XM radio with traffic and travel weather alerts that are displayed on a 7-inch multi-view display. Bluetooth pairing is accomplished with ease and the rearview mirror has a microphone for hands-free conversations.

The Trailhawk also has a remote starter, keyless entry and start, rear power liftgate and a rear back-up camera.

Seating is quite comfortable with eight-way power adjustable leather-trimmed seats and adjustable lumbar support. The second row of seats is also comfortable and provides decent legroom for passengers.

The cabin feels roomy in spite of the lack of space a small SUV affords. Hidden storage areas help make this car feel roomier. There's storage accessed by a flip-up passenger cushion in the front seat. The doors have big pockets, the dashboard has a storage area and there are recesses in the deck of the cargo area in the rear.

All in all, this Jeep is head and shoulders above the other cars in its class and is worthy of its higher price tag.

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Boston app startup catches eye of Richard Branson

Wanderu, travel czar Richard Branson's new favorite startup, yesterday launched its free bus- and train-booking app for iPhone and iPad, with plans to debut an Android version within the next two months.

The Boston startup was among three companies invited recently to Necker, Branson's private island, to pitch to the Virgin Group founder and a panel of other judges at his Extreme Tech Challenge after being culled from more than 2,000 applicants at last month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

"It was an incredible experience because I look up to him. He's the king of transportation," Wanderu CEO Polina Raygorodskaya said of the man behind Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Trains and the space tourism company Virgin Galactic. "He said he's very excited about us simplifying the booking process for bus and train travel."

The app allows people to type in any city, address or point of interest and then finds them the lowest fare from among the bus and train companies that Wanderu partners with, as well as directions to the nearest station.

It also allows people to put together trips with multiple connections and saves their favorite routes and all their reservations in one place so that they can board with a confirmation number, rather than fumbling for tickets.

Since it launched a desktop version of its service in 2013, Wanderu has had 5 million users, growing by 400 percent quarter over quarter, Raygorodskaya said.

Its next stop after launching its Android app will be expanding to Mexico and other countries, she said.

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Harvard, MIT sued by U.S. deaf group

Advocates for the deaf are suing Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claiming discrimination over a lack of closed captioning for online courses, podcasts and other educational materials, which are exploding in popularity.

"If you were deaf or hard of hearing, you would not have access to this online content, and the online content we're talking about is being provided by two institutions that are leaders in a new movement in education," said Bill Lann Lee, a lawyer for the National Association for the Deaf, which filed class action lawsuits in federal court yesterday. "The National Association for the Deaf is interested in making sure the hard of hearing and deaf are not left out."

The lawsuits seek to compel Harvard and MIT to add closed captioning to their online materials and the NAD hopes the court action will prompt other schools to address the issue proactively.

"(The NAD) decided to sue two of the leaders in this movement, because their objective is not just to change the practices of two schools, but the practices nationally," Lee said.

In statements, both Harvard and MIT declined to comment on the suits, but said they are committed to making educational content accessible.

Harvard said new federal rules that will "provide much-needed guidance in this area" are expected to be proposed this year and the university will follow the new rules.

"Expanding access to knowledge and making online learning content accessible is of vital importance to Harvard and to educational institutions across the country," the statement said.

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Hot Property: New promotions try to lure renters

Sign an apartment lease and enter a raffle to win a $5,000 gift card.

With nine new apartment complexes opening in Boston and Cambridge this year, competition for renters is heating up, and some buildings that opened within the past year or so and still haven't fully leased up are offering new promotions to entice renters.

The 328-unit Batch Yard apartment complex in Everett is offering a Willy Wonka-influenced "Golden Ticket Contest" at the former Charleston Chew factory. Renters who sign a lease between Jan. 1 and mid-March are eligible for the $5,000 drawing March 18.

"The odds of winning are good," said Danielle Bertulli, senior sales and marketing associate for the Batch Yard, which is 33 percent leased. "The raffle is just another way to get people out to our property and give them another incentive to sign on."

The raffle joins other rent concessions already in place at the Batch Yard, such as a "look and lease" incentive that offers $500 to those who sign leases within 48 hours of touring an apartment. And if the renter moves in within 30 days, one month's rent is free.

The Lumiere, a 163-unit complex in Medford that's 39 percent leased, is offering a Valentine's Day special on select apartments, says property manager Robin Boersner. If you sign a lease by Monday, you get one month of free rent if you move in by April 1. With a deposit down within 48 hours of signing, you get an extra $1,000 off. And they'll throw in a free garage space, too.

The Flats on D in South Boston is fighting this winter's doldrums by offering a chance to win $1,500 in a travel giveaway raffle to renters who sign leases this month, with a drawing March 1.

"Generally if one building is offering concessions, others do so as well," said Alissa Issom, property manager of Flats on D, which is 69 percent leased. "But we were looking to do something different."

The Flats on D, along with some other new buildings, doesn't offer free rent incentives. These rental complexes rely on pricing set by revenue management software such as YieldStar and Rainmaker LRO, which adjusts apartment prices daily based on supply and demand.

"It compares our rents along with 20 competitors and sets prices," said Issom. "It really levels the playing field."

"The software reduced the price of some two-bedrooms to the point where I thought 'really?'" said Erica Stockton, property manager at The Commons at Southfield in Weymouth. "But when those apartments rented, the price of other two bedrooms went back up."

But plenty of other buildings that use revenue management software also offer additional incentives.

The Victor, a 286-unit complex near North Station, resets apartment prices every 24 hours, but also gives a $500 American Express gift card to renters who move in within two weeks of signing a lease, in addition to two free months on any vacant apartment.

"Boston is a tough market and renters in the city are being conditioned to getting two free months on leases, which is going to make retention tough," said Hilary Behrens, community manager of The Victor, which is 93 percent leased. "If you can save up to $8,000 a year in rent with incentives, you get accustomed to moving every year."

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New York Times media columnist David Carr dies at 58

David Carr, the iconoclastic media columnist for the New York Times, died Thursday while working at the Times' office, according a report posted late Thursday on the Times' website. He was 58.

The New York Times reported that he collapsed in The Times newsroom, where he was found shortly before 9 p.m. EST. He was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to the Times.

Earlier in the evening, he moderated a panel discussion about the film "Citizenfour" with its principal subject, Edward J. Snowden; the film's director, Laura Poitras; and Glenn Greenwald, a journalist.

Carr wrote the Media Equation column for the Times' Business section. He was also known to showbiz figures from his stint several years ago as the Times' award season correspondent for the Carpetbagger blog.

Carr was prominently featured in the 2011 docu "Page One: Inside the New York Times." He joined the Times in 2002. Before that, he was a contributing writer to the Atlantic Monthly and New York magazine. In the mid-1990s he was editor of Washington, D.C.'s City Paper.

Carr was candid about his past battles with drug addiction. In 2008 he published the nonfiction book "Night of the Gun," which revisited his experiences as a drug abuser and used traditional reporting techniques to fill in gaps and misperceptions from his own memory.

"His plainspoken style was sometimes blunt, and searingly honest about himself," the Times said in its story. "The effect was both folksy and sophisticated, a voice from a shrewd and well-informed skeptic."

On Monday, he wrote about the revelations that the NBC anchor Brian Williams had lied about being in a helicopter under fire in Iraq in 2003."We want our anchors to be both good at reading the news and also pretending to be in the middle of it," he said.

Carr's survivors including his wife, Jill Rooney Carr, and three daughters.

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Challenges lie ahead for new director of Mass Health Connector

Leadership changes, a board shakeup, improved communication and a better Obamacare website are all top priorities as the new executive director of the Massachusetts Health Connector tries to reform the troubled agency.

"If this were climbing Mount Everest, this would be base camp," Louis Gu­tierrez told the Herald yesterday. "There are still several major milestones to go."

Among them:

• Improve the "crucial" relationship between the connector and MassHealth — one of the key downfalls cited for the botched launch of the Obamacare site last year.

• Replace top brass, including completing the search to fill the job of Chief Operating Officer Roni Mansur, who left Jan. 31, and the position of chief financial officer, which has been vacant for several months. Although he praised the "very committed team," Gutierrez vowed: "There will be changes within the organization."

• Upgrade the website to handle complicated transactions and require fewer calls to customer support centers.

• Gutierrez said it was too early to say whether the state might try to opt out of part of Obamacare, but noted: "The federal government is allowing some leeway in terms of how states implement their programs in the next couple years, so we want to examine our options."

Gov. Charlie Baker is also shaking up the connector board, installing Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders as chairman and shifting Administration & Finance Secretary Kristen Lepore into a seat on the board reserved for the head of MassHealth or his designee. Baker will file a bill soon that will make the HHS secretary the connector board chairman.

Gutierrez left a private-sector job as the principal of the IT consulting firm Exeter Group to head the connector. He has also worked in technology roles both at the state and Harvard Pilgrim Health Plan.

"Throughout, there's this thread of wanting to apply the best there is in current technology to public purposes," said Gutierrez of his prior work. "This really is a dream role for doing that."

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John R. Lakian hit with fraud charges

John R. Lakian, who made unsuccessful bids for the Republican nomination for Massachusetts governor in the 1980s and for U.S. Senate nearly a decade later,­ is accused of scheming to defraud investors and banks of millions of dollars, according to federal prosecutors in New York.

Lakian, 72, and Dianne W. Lamm, 54, pleaded not guilty Feb. 4 to securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities, wire and bank fraud, according to U.S. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch. They were released on $2 million bond, pending a March 20 status conference.

The two investment managers are accused of stealing investors' money to keep for themselves and to pay for restaurant ventures, prosecutors said.

"As alleged, Lakian and Lamm preyed upon more than 100 investors, in multiple schemes, stealing their hard-earned money to use for their own purposes," Lynch said in a statement. "They similarly dis­regarded the interests of lending institutions by submitting forged documents to banks in an attempt to fraudulently secure more than $8 million in loans."

A woman who answered the phone at Lakian's Manhattan address said he was unavailable. Lamm said: "I have no comment, other than to say that (the charges) are all false."

If convicted, the two face up to 30 years in prison for the bank fraud count, 20 years for each of the securities fraud counts and 5 years for the securities and wire fraud conspiracy counts.

In 1982, Lakian lost the Republican nomination for governor following reports that he lied on his resume. He unsuccessfully sued The Boston Globe for libel. His losing streak continued in 1994, when he lost the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate to Mitt Romney.

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South Bay Center owner plans nearby mixed-use project

The owner of South Bay Center has plans for a large mixed-use project that would include a hotel, movie theater and up to 500 units of multi­family housing next to the Dorchester shopping center.

The "town center" project proposed by retail real estate developer Edens would encompass 10 acres and several new six-story buildings that also would include some 115,000 square feet of commercial/retail space, two parking garages and new internal roadways, sidewalks and open space.

The hotel would have between 150 and 200 rooms, while the cinema would be about 65,000 square feet, the Columbia, S.C., company said yesterday in a letter notifying the Boston Redevelopment Authority of its plans.

Edens, which said it will submit more detailed plans to the city within 60 days, did not return calls for comment.

The six parcels of land slated for the project are bounded by South Bay Center to the northwest and currently include a concrete plant, parking lots and vacant commercial/industrial, office and retail buildings.

Edens' plans must go through the BRA's large project review process.

"The proposed project would create a brand-new community from what is currently an under-utilized industrial area," BRA spokesman Nick Martin said. "We look forward to reviewing more detailed plans and continuing a dialogue with neighbors there. At first blush, it's an exciting proposal that would complement the adjacent South Bay Center and surrounding neighborhood."

South Bay Center opened in 1994. Edens bought it from original developer Samuels & Associates in 1998 and expanded it eight years later to include a Super Stop & Shop and two restaurants after paying $14.2 million for an adjacent eight-acre warehouse site. South Bay Center now encompasses 527,000-plus square feet, with other major retailers including Target, Home Depot, Old Navy, Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy, Marshalls and T.J. Maxx.

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CBS '60 Minutes' correspondent Bob Simon dies in car crash

NEW YORK — Longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent Bob Simon, who covered riots, Academy Award-nominated movies and wars and was held captive for more than a month in Iraq two decades ago, died in a car crash on Wednesday. He was 73.

"CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley, his eyes red, announced the death in a special report.

"We have some sad news from within our CBS News family," Pelley said. "Our colleague Bob Simon was killed this evening."

"Vietnam is where he first began covering warfare, and he gave his firsthand reporting from virtually every major battlefield around the world since," Pelley said.

A town car in which Simon was a passenger hit another car stopped at a Manhattan traffic light and then slammed into metal barriers separating traffic lanes, police said. Simon and the town car's driver were taken to a hospital, where Simon was pronounced dead.

The town car driver suffered injuries to his legs and arms. The driver of the other car was uninjured. No arrests were made, said police, who continued to investigate the deadly accident.

Simon was among a handful of elite journalists to cover most major overseas conflicts and news stories since the late 1960s, CBS said. He covered stories including the Vietnam War and the Oscar-nominated movie "Selma" in a career spanning five decades.

He had been contributing to "60 Minutes" on a regular basis since 1996. He also was a correspondent for "60 Minutes II."

He was preparing a report on the Ebola virus and the search for a cure for this Sunday's "60 Minutes" broadcast. He had been working on the project with his daughter, Tanya Simon, a producer with whom he collaborated on several stories.

Anderson Cooper, who does occasional stories for "60 Minutes," was near tears talking about Simon's death. He said that when Simon presented a story "you knew it was going to be something special."

"I dreamed of being, and still hope to be, a quarter of the writer that Bob Simon is and has been," the CNN anchor said. "... Bob Simon was a legend, in my opinion."

Simon joined CBS News in 1967 as a reporter and assignment editor, covering campus unrest and inner-city riots, CBS said. He also worked in CBS' Tel Aviv bureau from 1977 to 1981 and in Washington, D.C., as its Department of State correspondent.

Simon's career in war reporting began in Vietnam, and he was on one of the last helicopters out of Saigon when the U.S. withdrew in 1975. At the outset of the Gulf War in January 1991, Simon was captured by Iraqi forces near the Saudi-Kuwaiti border. CBS said he and three other members of CBS News' coverage team spent 40 days in Iraqi prisons, an experience Simon wrote about in his book "Forty Days." Simon returned to Baghdad in January 1993 to cover the American bombing of Iraq.

Simon won numerous awards, including his fourth Peabody and an Emmy for his story from Central Africa on the world's only all-black symphony in 2012. Another story about an orchestra in Paraguay, one whose poor members constructed their instruments from trash, won him his 27th Emmy, perhaps the most held by a journalist for field reporting, CBS said.

He also captured electronic journalism's highest honor, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, for "Shame of Srebrenica," a "60 Minutes II" report on genocide during the Bosnian War.

Former CBS News executive Paul Friedman, who teaches broadcast writing at Quinnipiac University, said Simon was "one of the finest reporters and writers in the business."

"He, better than most, knew how to make pictures and words work together to tell a story, which is television news at its best," Friedman said.

Simon was born May 29, 1941, in the Bronx. He graduated from Brandeis University in 1962 with a degree in history. He is survived by his wife, his daughter and his grandson.

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The Ticker

Apple to build $850M solar farm

Apple has committed nearly $850 million to help build a solar energy farm that will generate power for its California facilities, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced yesterday.

Speaking at a technology conference hosted by Goldman Sachs, Cook revealed that Apple is partnering with First Solar to construct the 1,300-acre plant, which he hailed as one of the tech giant's most ambitious projects ever. Apple's two campuses, data center and all 52 Apple Stores in the state will draw power from the facility, which will be built in Monterey County, Cook said.

TODAY

 Treasury releases federal budget for January.

TOMORROW

 Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims.

 Commerce Department releases retail sales data for January.

 Freddie Mac releases weekly mortgage rates.

 Commerce Department releases business inventories for December.

THE SHUFFLE

Boston-based cloud database system developer ScaleBase announced that David Valovcin has joined the company as executive vice president of field operations. Valovcin brings more than 30 years of experience including at IBM, Guardium, Courion and Pegasystems.

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Ten Mass. locales see big home value gains

Ten Bay State communities, including two Boston neighborhoods, saw big double-digit gains in home values in the past nine years.

According to a new Top 10 list compiled by the Warren Group, which publishes Banker and Tradesman, the 10 communities are Brookline, Belmont, Cambridge, Concord, Jamaica Plain, Lexington, Newton, Somerville, South Boston, and Winchester.

Forty-six communities are back above the 2005 peak prices they had before the economic crash, the group added.

Cambridge outperformed the rest of the Warren Group's Top 10 list, reporting median prices for a single-family home hitting $1.2 million in 2014, up from $667,500 in 2005.

That comes out to a 
79.8 percent increase in the median price.

Jamaica Plain, which shares a border with Brookline, was the runner-up, seeing prices rise to $700,000 in 2014 from $498,000 in 2005, a 40.6 percent increase.

Lexington and South Boston came in third and fourth, experiencing 
34.8 percent and 33.3 percent increases, respectively.

In Lexington, the price rose to $950,000 in 2014, while increasing to $545,000 in South Boston, an enclave that witnessed a 
44 percent increase in sales along with the growth in price.

Brookline came in at fifth place, with the median price in 2014 reaching $1.48 million from $1.1 million in 2005, a 32.6 percent increase.

Six of the top 10 communities had a 2014 median home price of $899,000 or higher, according to the Warren Group.

The rest of the top 10, in order, has Somerville (27.2 percent increase), Concord (26.1 percent), Belmont (24.9 percent), Newton (23.8 percent) and Winchester (23 percent).

Like South Boston, Lexington, Brookline and Concord saw sales increase with prices.

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Edward Davis joins firm that pinpoints indoor gunshots

Former Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis has joined a Bay State tech company that is marketing technology to summon cops and pinpoint the location of gunshots in indoor shooter situations.

"Shooter Detection Systems is an extremely innovative company with excellent technology behind it," Davis said in a statement. "The Guardian Indoor Active Shooter Detection System gives law enforcement officials invaluable intelligence, and it gives innocent people inside a building that is under siege a chance to survive. I am very excited to be a part of things at SDS."

Davis, who will be a business development adviser, was the BPD commissioner from 2006 to 2013, and won national notice after the Boston Marathon bombings.

"When you think of law enforcement leaders in not only New England but across the country, the name Ed Davis instantly springs to mind. He is synonymous with policing and progressive law enforcement, and he is a true and proven leader," said SDS CEO Christian Connors.

SDS is targeting public institutions, corporations and malls with a product that operates much like the outdoor ShotSpotter system that Boston police use to quickly zero in on the location of street shooting incidents. Guardian Indoor was developed in cooperation with the federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

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Brian Wlliams suspended from NBC News for six months

Hoping to tamp down a controversy growing around one of its best-known on-air personalities, NBC News on Tuesday suspended Brian Williams, the most-watched evening-news anchor in the U.S., from his duties as chief anchor and managing editor of "NBC Nightly News" for six months without pay in the wake of a scandal over misleading statements he made about his time covering the Iraq War in 2003.

The furor over Williams' embellishments have engulfed NBC News since early last week, when his account of facing enemy fire while riding in a helicopter in 2003 was challenged by Iraq veterans. Williams' last broadcast took place on Friday. Lester Holt will continue as substitute anchor.

NBC News has launched an internal probe of Williams' statements about the Iraq helicopter incident as well as other reporting that has since been challenged, NBC News said in a statement released Tuesday evening.

"We have concerns about comments that occurred outside NBC News while Brian was talking about his experiences in the field," NBC News president Deborah Turness said in a memo distributed Tuesday night.

Williams' suspension was "severe and appropriate," NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke said in the statement, but he also asserted that Williams "deserves a second chance, and we are rooting for him" even though he called the anchor's actions "inexcusable."

The decision was made jointly by Turness; Pat Fili-Krushel, chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group, to whom Turness reports; and Burke.

At the heart of the matter is Williams' falsification during several public appearances and on CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman" of an incident that took place on a reporting trip to Iraq. A helicopter carrying Williams and his crew never came under fire, but a Chinook copter that was more than an hour ahead of that aircraft did. Williams by his own admission conflated the two air trips and made it seem as if he were under fire. Oddly enough, on a 2003 broadcast of "Dateline," Williams reported the trip more or less accurately.

For NBCU the ramifications of his actions may be severe. Williams' newscast has been the steadfast asset in NBCUniversal's entire news portfolio. Its "Today" morning show remains in second place behind "Good Morning America" after ceding the top spot in 2012. "Meet the Press" is trying to gain traction after the ouster of one anchor, David Gregory, and the installation of another, Chuck Todd. Business-news network CNBC is struggling in daytime, so much so that the company said it will no longer do business with advertisers based on Nielsen ratings starting in the fourth quarter of this year. And MSNBC is trying to recalibrate itself in the wake of a ratings drop after thriving as a liberal-tilting news network.

Under Williams, "Nightly" has successfully fended off a challenge from ABC's "World News." With new anchor David Muir at its helm, that evening newscast has made strides in the audience most coveted by advertisers in news programming, adults 25-54. Whether "Nightly News" can fend off Muir in Williams' absence remains to be seen.

In recent days, Williams' ability to anchor the newscast was thrown into increasing degrees of doubt. News outlets began investigating any number of claims he made about past reporting exploits, including time spent covering Hurricane Katrina. Questions were raised about why NBC News had not forced Williams to stop telling the helicopter tale. And the propriety of having an anchor who lied about his own on-the-job actions telling the nation about developments in the world of politics and foreign affairs seemed skewed.

"While on Nightly News on Friday, January 30, 2015, Brian misrepresented events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War in 2003. It then became clear that on other occasions Brian had done the same while telling that story in other venues. This was wrong and completely inappropriate for someone in Brian's position," Turness said in the memo.

NBC is essentially following a textbook play. When other TV-network correspondents have made serious gaffes, their networks have suspended either them or their producers, sometimes both. In some cases, the reporter must struggle to find normalcy.

Claims made in a 2004 edition of the now-defunct "60 Minutes II" newsmagazine about President George W. Bush's service in the National Guard in the 1970s turned out to be based on documents that could not be authenticated. In the aftermath of that report, CBS set up an independent investigation, which led to the firing of the segment's supervisor. Three other supervising execs were asked to resign. The report tarnished the reputation of CBS News anchor Dan Rather, who delivered the segment.

In 2013, CBS News suspended "60 Minutes" correspondent Lara Logan and a producer, Max McClellan, after a report they delivered on an Oct. 27 broadcast of the newsmagazine that year turned out to be based largely on the accounts of a source who provided inaccurate information. CBS made its decision after having Logan deliver an apology on air, and then investigating the process behind the report.

Williams has been a near-ubiquitous presence at NBC, making appearances on everything ranging from "Saturday Night Live" to "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon." For six months, at least, he will stay off the TV screen. All kinds of things can happen in half a year in the TV industry, and what happens at the end of Williams' suspension remains to be seen.

Here is Turness' full memo:

We have decided today to suspend Brian Williams as Managing Editor and Anchor of NBC Nightly News for six months. The suspension will be without pay and is effective immediately. We let Brian know of our decision earlier today. Lester Holt will continue to substitute Anchor the NBC Nightly News.

Our review, which is being led by Richard Esposito working closely with NBCUniversal General Counsel Kim Harris, is ongoing, but I think it is important to take you through our thought process in coming to this decision.

While on Nightly News on Friday, January 30, 2015, Brian misrepresented events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War in 2003. It then became clear that on other occasions Brian had done the same while telling that story in other venues. This was wrong and completely inappropriate for someone in Brian's position.

In addition, we have concerns about comments that occurred outside NBC News while Brian was talking about his experiences in the field.

As Managing Editor and Anchor of Nightly News, Brian has a responsibility to be truthful and to uphold the high standards of the news division at all times.

Steve Burke, Pat Fili and I came to this decision together. We felt it would have been wrong to disregard the good work Brian has done and the special relationship he has forged with our viewers over 22 years. Millions of Americans have turned to him every day, and he has been an important and well-respected part of our organization.

As I'm sure you understand, this was a very hard decision. Certainly there will be those who disagree. But we believe this suspension is the appropriate and proportionate action.

This has been a difficult time. But NBC News is bigger than this moment. You work so hard and dedicate yourselves each and every day to the important work of bringing trusted, credible news to our audience. Because of you, your loyalty, your dedication, NBC News is an organization we can - and should - all be proud of. We will get through this together.

Steve Burke asked me to share the following message.

"This has been a painful period for all concerned and we appreciate your patience while we gathered the available facts. By his actions, Brian has jeopardized the trust millions of Americans place in NBC News. His actions are inexcusable and this suspension is severe and appropriate. Brian's life's work is delivering the news. I know Brian loves his country, NBC News and his colleagues. He deserves a second chance and we are rooting for him. Brian has shared his deep remorse with me and he is committed to winning back everyone's trust."

Deborah

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Storms dig into store sales

Three major storms in two weeks have had a financial toll on many Bay State stores, experts said, but the concern ahead is whether the snow forecast for the end of the week will cut into Valentine's Day shopping and dining.

"Valentine's week is a very important retail sale period," said Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. "Hopefully, consumers will be able to get out and spend as much shopping and dining as they normally would for Valentine's Day."

Many stores are worried about losing business to online retailers due to the weather, Hurst said, but the snow can delay deliveries and make shopping locally a more reliable option.

There could be a snow-free window for shopping over the next couple of days, and on Friday, though the National Weather Service is predicting a "possible plowable event" Thursday. There is also a chance of snow on Saturday, Valentine's Day, which could be a blow to restaurants.

Hurst said that "conservatively," Massachusetts retailers have lost about $10 million each day they have had to close or stayed open but had little or no business. The only thing that has kept that estimate from being much higher, he said, is that the worst snowfalls have come at the beginning of the week, which tends to be slower for most stores and restaurants anyway.

Kristen Keefe, general manager of Faneuil Hall Marketplace, said yesterday was the fourth day that she has decided to close the shopping center this winter.

"There's a vast impact," Keefe said. "Even on days we've opened, with the delays the MBTA has been experiencing, it's sometimes been a challenge for store employees and customers to get here."

Several Simon Malls throughout Massachusetts closed early, while Legacy Place in Dedham opened three hours later than usual, leaving it up to its stores' managers to decide when — and if — to open.

But at Warren Electric and Hardware in the South End, business was down but still brisk enough to make opening worthwhile.

"We've been doing about $300 an hour in sales — mostly snow melt, shovels, ice scrapers, space heaters, but also paint and other things for projects people figured they'd do around the house as long as they have the day off," said store employee Daniel Moore. "It'd be nice for the snow to stop, but as long as we're open, it's nice to be busy."

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The Ticker

London mayor eyes Hub tech

London Mayor Boris Johnson says his city's life sciences sector is growing and encourages more members of the Boston area's highly trained workforce to consider launching or expanding their companies.

Johnson visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology yesterday. He says his city's economy is undergoing its "greatest transformation" since the Industrial Revolution, and that the tech industry accounts for 27 percent of all new jobs in London.

The mayor is on a six-day trade mission to the United States. The trip includes stops in New York and Washington, D.C.

Markey: Vehicles could be hacked

U.S. Sen. Edward Markey is highlighting what he says are security and privacy gaps in the nation's cars and trucks.

The Massachusetts Democrat released a report yesterday outlining his concerns, including cars with wireless technologies that may be vulnerable to hackers.

TODAY

 Commerce Department releases wholesale trade inventories for December.

 Labor Department releases job openings and labor turnover survey for December.

TOMORROW

 Treasury releases federal budget for January.

THE SHUFFLE

 Boston-based BlueConic, a user-driven marketing platform, has announced that Cory Munchbach has joined the team as director of product marketing. Bringing years of industry knowledge and expertise, Munchbach most recently served as an analyst for Forrester Research.

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Business Protocol: Be prepared for your face-to-face interview

First impressions count, and in a job hunt, the interview is often your first face-to-face encounter with a prospective employer. You want to hit the right tone, and that means paying attention to details.

Make sure to begin with a pleasant greeting, an expression of thanks for the opportunity to interview and a firm handshake. Avoid any over-familiarity. When in doubt, use formal address, or ask how the person likes to be addressed.

Always let your host, the interviewer, be seated first. Think of a courtroom: The judge enters, and all rise; judge is seated, first.

If you intend to take notes, ask first.

If you expect to be asked to provide references, prepare in advance. Always ask people if they will provide you with a reference, and ask if they are willing to speak well on your behalf

References can be important, so it is key to always leave a prior employer on good terms. Never burn bridges!

Graciously decline any offers of hospitality in the interview ­— unless your host has gone to considerable lengths to have your favorite soy latte, chocolate apple cinnamon scone or if they bring out a porcelain tea service.

You don't want to be remembered for spilling the coffee, dropping crumbs or having food stuck in your teeth. Have your coffee and muffin before the meeting.

There may be exceptions. When meeting with an international company or client, research ahead of time to be sure that a refusal is not viewed as an insult. Accepting such an offer could be a gesture of goodwill and implies trust, which is something we endeavor to cultivate.

That said, should you decide to indulge, whatever you do, don't take the last doughnut!

End your interview as you began, with an expression of thanks. Remember to send your interviewer a formal note of thanks for taking the time, and use the opportunity to reaffirm your interest in the position.

Judith Bowman is president and founder of Protocol Consultants International and author of "Don't Take the Last Donut: New rules of Business Etiquette" and "How to Stand Apart @ Work … Transforming "Fine" to Fabulous!" Email her at Judith@protocolconsultants.com.

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Deadline passed, Revel sale to be killed Tuesday morning

CAMDEN, N.J. — The owners of Atlantic City's Revel Casino Hotel say they will cancel a deal Tuesday morning to sell it to a Florida developer.

Revel AC originally said it planned to scrap a deal to sell the shuttered casino to Glenn Straub for $95.4 million at 12:01 a.m., just after the midnight deadline for the sale had passed. But a Revel attorney told The Associated Press moments after the deadline had passed that the termination notice, in the form of a request to a bankruptcy court judge to let it cancel the deal, will be filed sometime during business hours Tuesday morning.

"We do not plan to file that until the morning," attorney Michael Viscount said. "The court is not going to read or act on any such thing at this hour."

The collapse of the Straub deal would mark the second time in the last three months a buyer has been unable to complete a purchase of the star-crossed casino, which cost $2.4 billion to build, never turned a profit, and closed on Sept. 2, 2014 after just over two years of operation. In November, Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management pulled out of a deal to buy Revel for $110 million.

"We need to come up with a Plan C really quickly," Viscount said.

Straub wants a bankruptcy court judge to approve an extension of the sale deadline to Feb. 28; a hearing on that request is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

His attorney, Stuart Moskovitz, said Revel does not have the legal right to terminate the deal and keep Straub's $10 million deposit.

"If Revel terminates this contract, it will cost them tens of millions of dollars," he told the AP "They will never get a bid at these numbers. From Day One, Revel was a disaster, in every way imaginable."

The apparent demise of the deal came after U.S. District Court Judge Jerome Simandle refused to let the proposed sale go through without taking into account the legal rights of a nightclub and restaurants at the former casino, as well as its utility provider, all of which are appealing a previous court ruling that the sale can go forward "free and clear" of their leases.

The judge issued a temporary stay on Monday, allowing the sale to proceed but saying it could not do so without taking the appellants' rights into consideration in the purchase. That left Straub unable to close on a deal, according to his lawyer.

"We can't close if we have no idea what we're closing on," Moskovitz said.

The deal had been progressing toward Monday's closing date, until a federal appeals court sided with the tenants late Friday and issued a partial stay of the sale. Monday's continuation of that stay appeared to be the last straw. The judge explicitly said that nothing in his order prevented the sale from closing, but the buyer disagreed.

Last week, the CEO of the Hard Rock franchise obtained preliminary authority to own a casino in Atlantic City, and indicated the company had spoken with Straub about a possible involvement in re-opening Revel. But Viscount said Hard Rock was never interested in buying it.

Straub had proposed re-opening Revel under a different name as a smaller casino, a water park, hotel and condominiums.

Viscount said that by keeping Straub's $10 million deposit, "there's a lot of things we can do to keep the ship afloat for a while."

Revel also kept an $11 million deposit from Brookfield when that deal fell apart.

___

Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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Wynn expecting a big win

Wynn Resorts is projecting big money from its casino in Everett, telling investors the Boston-area resort will be a winner for Wynn and Massachusetts.

"We are going to be responsible for $50 million a month in revenue for this state, probably another $50 million in related revenues to all the surrounding communities," said Ian Coughlan, president of Wynn Resorts-Macau on an earnings call last week. "To be in Boston, Massachusetts, and in the metropolitan area in Everett and have almost four million people where we're the only game in town is scintillating."

It is unclear exactly how much of the $50 million would come from gaming revenue, but William Thompson, a professor and gaming expert at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said those estimates put annual revenue above $2 billion — more than Wynn Las Vegas sees in a year.

"It's possible, but boy it's ambitious. On the other hand if anybody can do it, he can. He's proven his ability to do it," Thompson said.

In the earnings call, Coughlan said the resort's effective monopoly on gaming will mean more success compared to other Wynn casinos.

"We've never ever been in the position we were the only game in town," he said.

In its application to the Gaming Commission, Wynn said it expects to have a significant advantage over other casinos in the country by 
being in Boston.

"These (gross gaming revenue) projections imply that the Wynn Resort in Everett would be the highest grossing casino (non-Native American) in the United States (outside of Las Vegas), generating significant revenue premiums to casinos in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Maryland," the application says.

Wynn has publicly put the budget for its resort in Everett at $1.6 billion, but Coughlan said Wynn's budget is between $1 billion and $1.75 billion. He said the casino will have a massive impact when it is up and running.

"We are going to be the one of the top five private employers in the history of the state of Massachusetts," Coughlan said. "We are going to employ thousands and thousands of people. It's the largest construction budget in the recent history in Massachusetts, maybe forever."

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Booting Up: Light shines on ‘dark Web’

The so-called dark Web — where all browsing is anonymous — is facing an unprecedented spotlight.

From increasing references in pop culture, like the spy drama "State of Affairs," to renewed interest by law enforcement, expect to hear a lot about this digital underworld where drugs are sold in the open market, terrorists chat and depraved people satisfy disgusting habits.

But if it's the Internet's seedy back alley, the dark net is also a haven for global democracy. Freedom of speech advocates point out the importance of the dark Web to dissidents in oppressed countries. The dark Web also plays a critical role for military personnel, allowing commanders and field agents alike to avoid detection. And as the debate rages about the merits of a shadow Internet, here are five facts about the dark Web that everyone should know:

• It's accessed through a special Web browser called Tor, where no one can be tracked. Tor can be downloaded for free onto any computer and provides a simple user interface — not so different from mainstream browsers like Chrome and Safari. One big difference, however, is that Web addresses end in an .onion, an ode to the many layers of this peculiar place. URLs also change frequently and are made up of hard-to-remember numbers and letters, not the catchy dotcom domains we're used to.

• Contrary to popular belief, the Netflix series "House of Cards" doesn't reference the dark net. No, its plot lines center around something called the deep Web. The deep Web consists of Web pages that hide in plain site (on the regular, or surface Web) and are built to conceal themselves from search engine crawlers. The dark Web and deep Web are two very different things.

• Facebook launched a version of its service on the dark Web late last year, which, according to the folks at Tor, is accessed by thousands of oppressed citizens in countries such as Iran and China that block the social network. Kudos to Facebook for that.

• Our government funds it. Among Tor's active sponsors is the U.S. Department of State and the National Science Foundation.

As much as 80 percent of traffic on the dark Web may be pedophiles, however, according to a recent academic study by a British researcher released a little over a month ago. The study raises new questions about the dark net and law enforcement's response to it — and guarantees a debate about the merits of the mysterious corner of the net for months and years to come.

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Inspector Gadget: First ASUS smartwatch clocks in merely OK

ASUS ZenWatch ($249.99, various retailers)

This first smartwatch from Taiwanese manufacturer ASUS is powered by Android but appears to resemble the product images of the upcoming Apple Watch. It features the operating system Android Wear, a 1.6-inch AMOLED screen and comes with a brown leather strap.

The good: This is one stylish smartwatch. A far cry from the bulky wristbands we've seen from Microsoft and others, this comfortable and handsome watch is a joy to wear.

The bad: The heart rate and step-count monitor were wildly inconsistent, and the battery life leaves much to be desired, requiring a fresh charge each night.

The bottom line: If you're in the market for an Android smartwatch, choose this one but understand it has some limitations.

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Boston startup HourlyNerd poised for growth

A Boston startup that connects businesses with freelance consultants and experts has raised nearly $8 million to extend its services to large com­panies.

"There are hundreds, if not thousands, of projects that a client like General Electric is not able to pursue in the best way," said Peter Maglathlin, co-founder and chief financial officer of Hourly­Nerd. "What we allow them to do is tap into the global brain of 10,000 consultants in our network and find the right person."

HourlyNerd lets com­panies submit projects online, where freelance consultants who are experts in various fields compete for the project.

"We're delivering 90 percent of the quality at one-twentieth of the price," said Pat Petitti, co-founder and co-chief executive.

Created out of Harvard exactly two years ago, HourlyNerd has raised $7.8 million from investors including GE Ventures and the Kraft Group. The round of funding was led by Highland Capital Partners, which also led HourlyNerd's last round of funding.

"We've further confirmed the ability of HourlyNerd to disrupt a multi-$100 billion industry that we feel is fundamentally irrational and broken," said Dan Nova, general partner at Highland, which is an HourlyNerd customer. "You've got large enterprises spending hundreds of millions of dollars with large consultants where many of those projects don't need to be addressed by larger consulting organizations."

Billionaire Mark Cuban provided HourlyNerd's $450,000 round of seed funding in 2013.

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App tracking appetite gets NIH grant

Researchers at UMass Medical School and Worcester Polytechnic Institute have received a
$2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a smartphone app that will take a bite out of overeating caused by stress.

Development of the Re-lax app and a series of pilot clinical studies of 120 patients with obesity to evaluate the app's effectiveness will be led by Sherry Pagoto, associate professor in the Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine at UMass Medical School, and Bengisu Tulu, associate professor at the WPI Foisie School of Business.

"The app is different from others because it brings stress into the context of diet and exercise," Pagoto said. "My clinical and research experience shows that stress is a major reason people fail to follow through with lifestyle changes, which is what inspired this work."

Relax will entail both a mobile app that will enable patients to track their daily activities, and a web-based tool clinicians will be able to use to access patient information and help plan their treatment.

In addition to usual diet and exercise tracking, Pagoto said, the app also will help patients track both their stress and stress-induced eating and give them opportunities to do brief, relaxation exercises such as mindfulness meditation.

Using barcode scanning of foods, GPS technology and patients' text inputs, Relax will track their daily activities, eating patterns, exercise, mood and stress-inducing events, and provide them with an itemized list of the foods they ate and the times of day that were most stressful, illustrating the relationship between the two,

Data will be uploaded to a cloud-based platform to give clinicians guidance about when patients are experiencing stress and emotional eating, what foods they eat at those times and how often they do relaxation exercises — all information that clinicians during traditional weight-loss counseling sessions have to spend time soliciting from patients or gleaning from records.

By using the Relax web tool, clinicians will be able to more quickly get to the core of what's causing patients' eating habits, resulting in better outcomes with fewer visits to their doctors or counselors, Tulu said.

"We think that if you can shorten the time counseling takes," she said, "the money you save can be used to reach more patients."

The three-year project will track 120 patients to determine the app's effectiveness.

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The Ticker

EPA to help towns adapt to flooding

Two Massachusetts communities have been chosen to receive help from the Environmental Protection Agency in finding ways to become more resilient to flooding.

Scituate and Newburyport were chosen to receive EPA technical assistance through the agency's "Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities" program. The projects will involve a team of EPA-led experts and will include the public in workshops.

Scituate Town Administrator Patricia Vinchesi said the town is significantly affected by coastal storms that tax its infrastructure, residents and resources. Newburyport Mayor Donna Holaday said the town has increasingly experienced severe flooding and coastal erosion during storms.

TUESDAY

• Commerce Department releases wholesale trade inventories for December.
• Labor Department releases job openings and labor turnover survey for December.

WEDNESDAY

• Treasury releases federal budget for January.

THURSDAY

• Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims.
• Commerce Department releases retail sales data for January.
• Freddie Mac releases weekly mortgage rates. L Commerce Department releases business inventories for December.
• The TJX Cos., a Framingham-based off-price retailer, announced that William H. Swanson has been elected to its board of directors. Swanson is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Raytheon Co.

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Advocates say 150,000 need more fuel assistance due to harsh winter

Advocates for the poor are calling on state officials to provide immediate aid to approximately 150,000 low-income Massachusetts households — about one-third of them seniors — who have exhausted their fuel-assistance benefits due to one of the coldest winters in recent memory.

In the Boston area alone, approximately 18,000 families have used up their federal benefits and confront stark choices: whether to pay for heat and rent, or whether to pay for food, medicine or electricity, said John Drew, president and CEO of Action for Boston Community Development.

"So many people are hurting this winter, and with weather like this, there doesn't seem to be any end in sight," Drew said. "Oil prices are down, but this has not been a normal winter. And electricity costs have gone way up."

The maximum federal fuel-assistance benefit is $1,025 for the poorest families — those with total incomes below the federal poverty level of $23,850 for a family of four.

On Jan. 21, Massachusetts received an additional $13 million in federal fuel assistance for qualifying residents, bringing the total fiscal year 2015 award to more than $144 million. But that $13 million divided among 150,000 households comes to just $86.66 per family.

That is not enough to pay for even half what Sydney Fuller-Jones says she owes for the gas that heats the Mattapan apartment where she lives with her 13-year-old twins.

Although they are in no imminent danger of losing their heat because of the self-imposed moratorium Massachusetts utilities have on shutting off heat from Nov. 15 to April 1 to customers who demonstrate financial hardship, the growing amount she owes puts her deeper and deeper into a debt she sees no way out of.

Since her husband died in 2011, Fuller-Jones has been the sole breadwinner in the family. And of the $1,800 in pay the 52-year-old administrative assistant takes home each month, $1,400 goes toward rent, and $400 pays for her car and insurance. The rest — food, clothes, electricity — she pays for with credit.

"I don't want to break down, but I just can't keep up," she said. "I have bouts of anxiety and struggle with depression. But I have to keep going for my children."

Last year, the state provided $20 million to increase benefits for heating assistance for families such as hers.

State Rep. Brian Dempsey (D-Haverhill), chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, said Friday that lawmakers will determine what options they have while dealing with a 
$768 million budget deficit.

Elizabeth Guyton, Gov. Charlie Baker's press secretary, said he "understands this year's bitterly cold weather presents serious challenges for many. The administration will work with the Legislature to ensure that the necessary fuel assistance resources are available to the most vulnerable during the winter months."

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Ronan Farrow charts new course at MSNBC

The roving news correspondent worked his sources in Paris for days, with nary a chance to eat. His efforts paid off, with a couple of exclusive interviews with interesting people affected by the tragic Charlie Hebdo murders. Next he had to prepare to meet with whistleblowers in the United States who were ready to slip him damning details about the way the nation's government treats its veterans.

Was it CNN's Anderson Cooper? CBS' Scott Pelley? ABC's David Muir? No, this was Ronan Farrow.

If that name is surprising, well, MSNBC hopes it won't be going forward. Farrrow's MSNBC program, "Ronan Farrow Daily," has been dogged by cancellation rumors for months (though none of them have proven out) and that speculation that has been bolstered by the program's decidedly lackluster ratings. But MSNBC has plans for the Rhodes Scholar and former Obama foreign policy official whose youth (he is under 30) and family background (he is the son of actress Mia Farrow) have brought an extreme degree of attention to his fledgling effort in the world of cable-news.

"It's about diving in deep," says Farrow during a recent interview while reporting in Paris. His goal is to travel to places where big stories erupt, then find underreported facets, like discovering individuals whose lives have been changed by the news. He really enjoys "finding the human piece to tell the bigger story and push forward the narrative," he says.

MSNBC executives acknowledge Farrow's daytime program has not won in the viewership game, but suggest they see potential, both for TV and for grabbing attention from viewers who watch the news in new ways. Farrow has proven skilled in nabbing interviews with everyone from Mitt Romney to Angelina Jolie to Jeannette Bougrab, the partner of slain Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier, who gave a heart-wrenching account of life in the days after the terrorist attack on that publication. "I worked every angle and every connection that I had and ever worked with in government, and knew through random online connections," Farrow says of his work to secure interviews while in France.

These kinds of exchanges, executives suggest, spread quickly on social media and generate digital impressions that are likely to be valuable as viewers rely on connections other than cable subscriptions to gain access to video. In 2013, according to the Pew Research Journalism Project, 82 percent of Americans said they got news on a desktop or laptop, while 54 percent said they got news on a mobile device. Pew said 35 percent reported that they get news in this way "frequently" on their desktop or laptop, and 21 percent from a mobile phone or tablet.

"We have to look beyond cable ratings," says Izzy Povich, vice president of talent and development at MSNBC, in an interview, adding , "Ronan is somebody who really can be a content provider on different platforms, and I do think that's the future of where we are headed."

Even so, viewership for "Ronan Farrow Daily" has been disappointing. In some months since the program launched, it has not been able to attract on average even 50,000 viewers between 25 and 54, the audience most desired by advertisers in news programming, according to Nielsen data. In contrast, Farrow's feed on Twitter has 272,000 followers. In December, "Ronan Farrow Daily" lured an average of 206,000 viewers overall, according to Nielsen, and 41,000 in the demo. Rival programs on Fox News Channel and CNN performed significantly better.

MSNBC's plan sprouts alongside a January unveiling of a new streaming-video hub, Shift, which offers programming and personalities not typically seen on the cable outlet. Other TV-news networks are trying similar stuff. CBS News has launched CBSN, a daily broadcast sent via streaming video that emulates something one might see on a cable network. In both cases, the media outlets are stocking the venture with new talent and contributions from staff already in place.

The anchor says he's just getting the opportunities he has craved after working hard to establish himself in a new milieu since the launch of his program last February. "It's a completely hectic, makeshift process. You are building the airplane at the same time you are flying it," he says of getting started on his own hour-long show. Even so, he's had the same aspiration since he began on MSNBC: "I want to be on the ground and connecting with people, and I want that to really be reflected on the show." Still, he acknowledges, "you can't just jump into the deep end like that. You've got to earn your stripes."

Indeed, Farrow has put a lot of focus on fundamentals, says Kathy O'Hearn, executive producer of "Ronan Farrow Daily, and a TV-news veteran who has executive-produced "This Week with George Stephanopulos" on ABC and "Topic A," an interview show built around Tina Brown, at CNBC. "He just gets better every day," she says. "The arc has been learning the mechanics of it, the judgment calls."

In recent months, Farrow has had more of an opportunity to get out of the studio. He visited Dallas to cover the recent Ebola outbreak there. He traveled to the Midwest to examine terrorist recruitment in the United States, and spent a week in the western U.S. to look at life around the U.S. border, embedding with agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

He is also trying to do work that requires more depth of reportage. In December, Farrow launched an investigative series, "Inside the V.A.," based on his follow-up of a 2009 NBC News investigative report looking at how 10,000 U.S. veterans may have been infected with viruses during routine colonoscopies due to mistakes made in cleaning and configuring equipment. He is working with NBC News' investigative unit to track what he calls "the human cost of having to grapple with dysfunctional medical care. It's a really horrible story."

Farrow's increased presence from sundry locales is part of a broader MSNBC strategy to get its anchors out from behind their desks and out to where news is breaking. The network, known for its tilt toward the liberal and progressive side of the political aisle, has seen ratings slump in recent months and has made strides to broaden the issues is tackles.

The intense spotlight that was put on his program when he first started was overwhelming, Farrow says: "That's the understatement of the year" (Some viewers may have tuned in to see if he would comment on allegations made by his sister last February in The New York Times about alleged sexual abuse by filmmaker Woody Allen, her adoptive father who is said to be Farrow's father and who denied the allegations). Viewers may not have been aware he was taking a new step in a journey that has often included interesting paths, such as a degree from Yale Law School and founding the U.S. State Department's Office of Global Youth Issues.

"If you look at my career, such as it is, I wanted to go strike out, do something totally different from the family I grew up in, to do something worthwhile that I care about, make things better, stand apart in that way," says Farrow. "The scrutiny is something out of my control. It's not the easiest thing to deal with, I'll be completely honest, but there are a lot of worse crosses to bear."

Meanwhile, MSNBC would like to see his show perform better on TV. "I'm not satisfied" with the ratings, says O'Hearn, who believes Farrow is gaining an audience and making a name for himself in other ways. "The scrutiny has been a challenge, but we are hopefully out from under that right now. The kinds of things we have been doing have had a tremendous amount of feedback. A series from "Ronan Farrow Daily" called "Transgender Society," has been nominated for an award by GLAAD, the advocacy organization for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.

Farrow intends to press forward. "It's a lot of hard work getting into the nitty-gritty and talking to everyone and never sleeping and not really eating," he notes. To stand out in the modern TV-news landscape, that level of activity may be de rigueur.

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