State Street bets on Seaport

State Street Corp.'s new South Boston offices will help unite two distinct areas of the neighborhood still separated by empty lots and parking facilities.

The 11-story building will connect traditional South Boston with the rapidly growing Seaport District, Mayor Martin J. Walsh said at the ribbon-cutting for 1 Channel Center, located at Iron and A streets.

"I'm sure, month by month, you'll see commerce emerge" from people who recognize that State Street's employees — which will number 3,500 in the building by the fall — need places to work out and eat, State Street chairman and CEO Jay Hooley said.

The financial services firm, which has a 15-year lease for the new building, started consolidating employees there in February from four Boston locations where leases were expiring: the John Hancock Tower, Copley Place and the Prudential in the Back Bay and Lafayette City Center in Downtown Crossing. About 1,500 employees have moved in so far. State Street will offer a shuttle between there and its 1 Lincoln St. headquarters, which will be maintained.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority polled Seaport District workers, visitors and residents about Seaport District retail needs in December. A grocery store, pharmacy and more sandwich/salad shops were the top responses.

But although State Street touts its new facility as being in the Innovation District — a term coined by the Menino administration as another name for the Seaport District — it's actually closer to traditional Southie. It's just 0.2 miles from West Broadway, while twice as far from Congress Street in the Fort Point neighborhood.

With its leases expiring this year, Hooley said State Street considered several options, including relocating workers outside of Boston. "We examined that and quickly dispensed that," he said, citing the company's expertise in the city.

State Street bills its new building as the "workplace of the future," designed to support mobile and flexible work schedules and promote employee collaboration through shared and more open work spaces. Close to 70 percent of its employees have some type of flexible work arrangement, whether it's working from home or other locations, compressed or reduced schedules, or job sharing.

The building includes a "flex center" with 28 computer stations and three offices where employees from other locations can plug in and work.

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Wrentham woman charged with embezzling

A Wrentham woman was charged yesterday with embezzling $2.7 million from the Plainville medical supply company where she worked as a bookkeeper and spending it on gambling junkets and shopping sprees.

Laurieann Richard, 39, pleaded not guilty in Wrentham District Court to three counts of larceny over $250. Judge Emogene Johnson Smith set bail at $35,000 and ordered Richard to stay away from Dale Medical Products in Plainville, where she managed the company's accounts payable, as well as the corporate credit cards, before she was fired April 7, according to prosecutors and a Dale executive.

"I can tell you she had been an employee for almost 25 years — a trusted employee — so it did come as a surprise," said John Welch, Dale Medical's executive vice president and chief operating officer. "The company feels like something of a victim."

Between July 2007 and April 2014, Richard used an unauthorized American Express corporate account to make more than $990,000 in purchases at stores and restaurants and online retailers, prosecutors said. The credit card was also used to make more than $9,000 in payments on her 2007 Jeep Commander, prosecutors said.

Richard also used Dale's corporate credit accounts with Citizens Bank for retail purchases and cash advances worth more than $750,000 prosecutors said. "Scores" of the cash advances were at Twin River Casino in Lincoln, R.I., according to court papers.

Richard also used her knowledge of Dale's Juniper Mastercard corporate credit accounts to obtain about $977,000 in cash advances, prosecutors said.

"Her family is absolutely devastated," said William J. Galvin, Richard's attorney.

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Nintendo reveals 'Skylanders'-like toy line at E3

LOS ANGELES — Nintendo is taking a cue from "Skylanders" and "Disney Infinity."

The Japanese gaming giant unveiled a toy figure line called "amiibo" that will work in tandem with its video games like the toys-meet-games franchises from Activision Blizzard Inc. and the Walt Disney Co. The announcement was made in an online video released Tuesday during the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the industry's annual trade show.

"We see 'amiibo' as a brand-new platform for us," Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, said on the E3 show floor Tuesday morning. "We use the term 'platform' specifically. Today, it's figures. In the future, it could be other things that tie into the near-field communication technology built right into the GamePad."

Similar to Activision's "Skylanders" and "Disney Infinity," the characters' virtual histories will be stored on the plastic figures and transmitted through the Wii U GamePad, the controller for its slow-selling Wii U console that features a touchscreen and NFC capabilities.

"There's a special chip that's embedded in every figure," said Fils-Aime. "Any Wii U system will recognize the figure by touching them on the Wii U GamePad, and when that happens, they spring to life in compatible games in cool new ways."

The "amiibo" figures, the first of which are due out later this year, will include characters from well-known Nintendo franchises, such as the Villager from "Animal Crossing"; the "Wii Fit" trainer; sword-wielding Link from "The Legend of Zelda"; intergalactic solider Samus Aran from "Metroid"; Pikachu from "Pokemon"; iconic gorilla Donkey Kong; pink shape-shifter Kirby; and Mario, Princess Peach and Yoshi from "Super Mario Bros."

The company said the figures would be compatible with the upcoming Wii U fighting game "Super Smash Bros." and would eventually work with other games, including the recently released racing title "Mario Kart 8" and the forthcoming platformers "Yoshi's Woolly World" and "Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker."

Bill Trinen, product marketing director at Nintendo of America, said the company was working on a peripheral reader scheduled for release next year that would connect the figures to its hand-held Nintendo 3DS system. He said other "amiibo" figures and games are "in the works." The price of the figures and details on which characters would initially be available wasn't announced.

"Combining 'amiibo' with our games opens up a whole range of potential new gameplay experiences," Trinen said. "It's one of the most exciting things that Nintendo is announcing at E3."

For the second year in a row, Nintendo opted against hosting a flashy E3 presentation in Los Angeles and instead streamed videos showcasing the "amiibo" figures and other upcoming games.

"For us, what we want to do is find great ways to tell our stories," said Fils-Aime. "So much of our content is created by our Japanese developers. We wanted to make sure we could provide consumers a full backstory. A digital event is much more effective than trying to do it in a live press conference."

Nintendo hyped several upcoming games due out later this year for the Wii U and 3DS, including "The Legend of Zelda" battle game "Hyrule Warriors," hack-and-slash sequel "Bayonetta 2," and the "Omega Ruby" and "Alpha Sapphire" installments of the "Pokemon" series.

Other games teased for release in 2015 included the "Super Mario" level-designing game "Mario Maker," online paint shoot-'em-up "Splatoon," sci-fi role-playing game "Xenoblade Chronicles X," cutesy platformer "Kirby and the Rainbow Curse" and a "Legend of Zelda" game for the Wii U set in an open world.

Nintendo Co. could use a boost from new toys and games. Sales of Nintendo's Wii U console have lagged behind the newer PlayStation 4 and Xbox One systems released by Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp., respectively, last November. Nintendo has sold 6 million consoles since the Wii U was released in 2012, while Microsoft has sold 5 million, and Sony has sold 7 million units in the past six months.

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang .

___

Online:

http://www.nintendo.com

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Facebook, Twitter brace for World Cup fever

NEW YORK — This year's World Cup will play out on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and messaging apps like WhatsApp just as it progresses in stadiums from Sao Paulo to Rio De Janeiro.

Nearly 40 percent of Facebook's 1.28 billion users are fans of soccer, better known as football outside of the U.S. and Australia. On Tuesday, the world's biggest online social network is adding new features to help fans follow the World Cup — the world's most widely viewed sporting event — which takes place in Brazil from June 12 to July 13.

Facebook users will be able to keep track of their favorite teams and players throughout the tournament in a special World Cup section, called "Trending World Cup." Available on the Web as well as mobile devices, the hub will include the latest scores, game highlights as well as a feed with tournament-related posts from friends, players and teams. In addition, an interactive map will show where the fans of top players are located around the world. The company is also launching a page called FacebookRef, where fans can see commentary about the matches from "The Ref," Facebook's official tournament commentator.

Social media activity during big sporting events such as the Olympics and the Super Bowl has soared in recent years and should continue as user numbers grow. In 2010, when the last World Cup took place in Johannesburg, South Africa, Facebook had just 500 million users. Now there are just that many soccer fans (people who have "liked" a team or a player) on the site, the company says.

Facebook has recently focused on making its mobile app usable on simple phones that use slower data speeds since many of its newest users are in developing countries. As a result, Rebecca Van Dyck, head of consumer marketing at Facebook, said the World Cup hub will also be available on so-called "feature phones." Here the section will be "little less graphical" than what's shown on smartphones and on the Web, she said, but will include the same information.

Users can get to the World Cup hub by clicking on "World Cup" in the list of trending topics on the site.

In a nod to Twitter, Facebook, earlier this year, began displaying trending topics to show users the most popular topics at any given moment. The feature is currently available in the U.S., U.K., India, Canada and Australia.

"This is our first foray into this, especially for a big sporting event like this," Van Dyck said. "We're going to see how this goes. If people enjoy the experience it's something we'd like to push on."

Facebook, which counts 81 percent of its users outside the U.S. and Canada, is unveiling its World Cup features at a time when the company is working to become a place for more real-time, public conversations about big events— a la Twitter. Such events attract big advertising dollars, though the company is not saying how much money it expects to make from World Cup-related ads.

Not to be outdone, Twitter touted in a blog post last week that the "the only real-time #WorldCup global viewing party will be on Twitter, where you can track all 64 matches, experience every goal and love every second, both on and off the pitch."

Fans can follow individual teams or players and use the hashtags #WorldCup to tweet about the matches, and follow official accounts such as @FIFAWorldCup, @ussoccer for the United States team and @CBF_Futebol for Brazil's soccer governing body, for example. Clicking on the #WorldCup or #WorldCup2014 hashtags, meanwhile, will take you to Twitter's hubs for the event.

Twitter is also bringing back the "hashflags" it introduced in the 2010 World Cup. Users who tweet three-letter country codes for participating nations — such as BRA for Brazil or ESP for Spain — will see the country's flag appear in their tweet. Twitter says it will then tally the mentions in its "World Cup of tweets."

The World Cup is the planet's most widely viewed sporting event. According to FIFA, which organizes the tournament, an estimated 909.6 million viewers watched at least one minute of the final 2010 game when Spain beat the Netherlands. In comparison, nearly 900 million people watched at least part of the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics. On Twitter, more than 24.9 million tweets were sent out during this year's Super Bowl, up from 13.7 million just two years earlier.

Because it takes place over several weeks, marketers are gearing up for "a marathon, not a sprint," said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst for research firm eMarketer.

"Developing countries will be a key target for global brands," she said. "They will work hard to capture the attention of soccer fans in Latin America, Asia, Africa. The challenges (include the fact) that all the games are taking place in one place and the customers and marketers are in multiple time zones. This will require around the clock marketing."

For fans traveling to Brazil for the game and hoping to tweet and post about it on Facebook, the country's mobile communications services might pose their own challenge. Dropped voice calls are common even without the hundreds of thousands of soccer fans descending on the country. Accessing the Internet can be incredibly slow, and there's even some worry about network blackouts.

"World Cup visitors won't be able to communicate the way they want to," Christopher Gaffney, a visiting professor at Rio de Janeiro's Federal Fluminense University whose research focuses on Brazil's preparations for the World Cup and Olympics. "Instagram, Twitter, social media will not function at world class levels but at Brazilian levels, so people visiting Brazil will experience the frustrations we face every day."

___

Online:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worldcup and www.facebook.com/FacebookRef

Twitter: https://blog.twitter.com/2014/follow-the-worldcup-action-on-twitter and https://blog.twitter.com/2014/gearing-up-for-all-things-worldcup

Associated Press writer Luis Andres Henao contributed to this story from Rio De Janeiro.

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Idenix stock soars after Merck buy

Merck & Co.'s announcement yesterday that it will acquire Cambridge-based Idenix Pharmaceuticals for $3.85 billion could be a four-way coup — for the two companies, as well as the Boston hedge fund that backed Idenix and the tens of millions of people afflicted with hepatitis C.

Idenix's hepatitis C drugs, combined with Merck's experimental medicines, could amount to a lucrative, faster, more effective cure of the blood-borne virus.

"Idenix has a nucleotide (antiviral) that Merck doesn't," said Jason Kolbert, an analyst at Maxim Group. "If you're a hepatitis C company and you don't have a nucleotide, you really need one."

Merck spokeswoman Pamela Eisele said Idenix will retain its name, "but with regard to its employees and facilities, no decisions have been made."

Merck is willing to pay a "significant premium" — a per-share bid more than triple Friday's closing price for Idenix — because the hepatitis C market is so large, Kolbert said, and pharmaceutical companies are willing to invest billions of dollars in drugs that look promising because the returns can be so lucrative.

Gilead Sciences' groundbreaking new drug Sovaldi, for example, has already made back billions of dollars for that company.

The hope, he said, is that any combo drug from Idenix and Merck will be equal to Sovaldi, a once-a-day pill that cures 80 to 90 percent of patients, without the need for interferon injections and without side effects.

Yesterday's announcement caused shares of Idenix to close at $23.79, up 229 percent, and also was a big win for Baupost Group, which owns a 35 percent stake in the company.

The hedge fund did not return a phone call seeking comment. But by the end of the first quarter, it reportedly had more than 53 million shares, which could translate into a profit of more than $900 million.

New Jersey-based Merck has been a major player in hepatitis C since acquiring Schering-Plough in 2009. In 2011, the FDA approved two drugs in a class called protease inhibitors, Merck's Victrelis and Incivek from Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Those work by blocking an enzyme needed for copying the virus, and boost the cure rate to about 75 percent. But they require patients to take a dozen pills a day and still endure flu-like side effects, making the race to develop a combination therapy without injections and debilitating side effects a high priority.

Herald wire services contributed 
to this report.

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Zogenix contests Mass. regulation

A federal judge will consider whether the state's latest attempt to restrict a powerful new painkiller violates the U.S. Constitution.

Zogenix, the San 
Diego-based manufacturer of Zohydro, is asking the court to temporarily halt enforcement of Gov. Deval Patrick's restrictions until the case is decided on its merits.

Zohydro is a 
hydrocodone-based prescription drug that comes in higher doses than Vicodin and other comparable drugs. Some restrictions on the drug took effect mid-April and others in early May.

The company argues that the restrictions are pre-empted by federal law because they represent a "de-facto ban" on a drug already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in cases of severe and chronic pain. It also claims that the rules improperly single out 
Zohydro.

Attorney General Martha Coakley wants U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel to dismiss the case entirely, arguing that states have the right to regulate the medical and pharmacy professions within their borders.

State public health 
officials have said the new regulations, which are similar to ones already in place in Vermont, do not run counter to the FDA approval process. They allow qualified patients to access the drug, but help prescribers better evaluate a patient's likelihood of abuse, officials say.

Patrick has declared a public health emergency around prescription drug abuse and has said he does not want Zohydro to exacerbate the epidemic. A federal judge has ruled the state's previous attempt to ban the drug outright was likely unconstitutional.

Under the new rules, doctors, dentists and other prescribers are required to examine a patient's substance-abuse history and current medications before submitting a "letter of medical necessity" to a patient's pharmacist explaining the diagnoses and treatment plan. Pharmacists, meanwhile, cannot dispense the drug if they do not receive the medical need letter. They also must go over the drug's precautions and warnings with the patient.

Meanwhile, Patrick is expected to unveil a plan today for addressing opiate drug abuse, which he declared a public health emergency in Massachusetts in March. Patrick established a 36-member "Opiate Task Force" that in May issued recommendations calling for $10 million to help recovering addicts transition from detoxification centers to residential treatment programs and from prison back into the community.

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Adidas, Nike face off at World Cup

Nike is challenging Adidas for global soccer dominance in this year's FIFA World Cup that starts Thursday in Brazil.

This year's monthlong quadrennial tournament — the world's largest sporting event — marks the first time official FIFA partner Adidas isn't sponsoring the most teams.

"It's going to be very interesting how it all plays out," said Matt Powell of Princeton Retail Analysis. "Obviously with the team that wins, whoever has the license to make those jerseys sells millions."

Powell predicts Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike will overtake Adidas.

As a sponsor, Adidas is supplying the official 
"Brazuca" match ball and benefits from souvenir sales. But Nike is outfitting 10 teams to Adidas' nine. And Brazil — a favorite to win — is in Nike's stable.

Nike also isn't spending millions as a sponsor and got an early marketing bump with its "Winner Stays" video with Cristiano Ronaldo and other soccer legends, which launched in April and has more than 73 million views.

Locally, Gillette — a longtime World Cup sponsor from 1970 to 2006 — will be a major advertiser on 
Univision and ESPN's coverage, promoting its new Fusion ProGlide razor with FlexBall technology. Three of the Boston razor company's global ambassadors are playing in the tournament: Argentina's Lionel Messi, England's Joe Hart and Germany's Thomas Muller. Gillette launched special-edition country 
razors in soccer teams' national colors in February.

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'Uncharted,' 'LittleBigPlanet' coming to PS4

LOS ANGELES — Sony Corp. announced Monday that it's bringing new installments of the popular video-game franchises "Uncharted" and "LittleBigPlanet" to the PlayStation 4 as it celebrated the 6-month-old game console's marketplace triumph.

Sony also premiered "Abzu," an undersea odyssey from the creators of the award-winning "Journey" and "Entwined," a psychedelic 3-D flying game. And it showed new highlights from the steampunk thriller "The Order: 1886" during its annual presentation at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.

On the hardware side, the company said it will bring PlayStation TV, its video- and game-streaming device, to North America and Europe this fall. The $99 device lets users stream video, older PlayStation titles and games for Sony's hand-held Vita system to any TV. The "micro-console," which debuted in November in Japan as PSVita TV, also lets PlayStation 4 players send the action to a second TV.

On July 31, Sony will launch the open beta of its cloud-based PlayStation Now service, which will allow players to stream classic games from Sony's older consoles onto newer devices such as the PS4, the hand-held Vita, Xperia cellphones and Bravia TVs.

Sony is also demonstrating Project Morpheus, its virtual reality headset, at E3. That project, however, won't be available to consumers for at least another year.

Sony has led Microsoft Corp. since both companies began selling their latest consoles in November. Sony has sold 7 million PlayStation 4 consoles to Microsoft's 5 million Xbox One units. However, both companies have outpaced the sales of their predecessor consoles — the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 — during the same amount of time. And Sony's lead is far from insurmountable.

That makes exclusive titles like the just-announced "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End" and "LittleBigPlanet 3" more important. But one much-hyped PS4 exclusive, the racing game "DriveClub," was conspicuously absent at this year's E3 presentation. Many of the games Sony showcased Monday — including Ubisoft's "Far Cry 4," Warner Bros.' "Batman: Arkham Knight" and Deep Silver's "Dead Island 2" — will also be available on the Xbox One, although Sony promised exclusive content or early beta access for each.

One exclusive that will appeal to comic book fans: A live-action drama based on Brian Michael Bendis' popular series "Powers" will begin airing on Sony's PlayStation Network in December.

___

Online

http://www.playstation.com

___

Follow Lou Kesten on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lkesten

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Low-wage protests planned in Massachusetts cities

SPRINGFIELD  — Hundreds of low-wage workers from various industries are planning to gather in three Massachusetts cities to demonstrate for higher wages and protest wage inequality.

The protests will be held Thursday in Boston, Springfield and Worcester.

Workers in the fast food, retail, transportation, home care and health care fields are expected to attend.

In Boston, a rally is planned at Copley Square, followed by a downtown march and protests.

In Worcester, organizers are planning a protest at Wal-Mart. In Springfield, a rally is planned at Mc. Calvary Church followed by a protest at McDonald's.

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Springfield site may sway issue

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission's anticipated vote Friday to license the state's first casino in Springfield may spur economic activity experts say could boost public confidence in expanded gaming and counter the negative view pushed by the repeal campaign.

"We've heard a lot of discussion about the potential negative impacts, but we haven't seen any of the benefits," said Clyde Barrow, a gaming expert at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. "It's been an asymmetrical debate up to this point. I think it becomes very important to see some of the benefits starting to occur, with construction jobs and hiring. It will certainly shift it back to the direction of where it was two years ago, when most of the discussion was about the benefits."

The commission will decide whether to license MGM, the only player left for a western Massachusetts casino after four others shifted sites or pulled out of the state. Chairman Stephen Crosby called the upcoming vote the culmination of "a tremendous amount of work" that "was required to take this several-page law and turn it into an industry."

"It's very exciting," Crosby said. "This is the beginning of the jobs and the revenue, and that's what it's all about."

MGM says it can break ground in Springfield as early as July if it receives approval Friday. The company expects to generate $500 million annually — a quarter of which will flow to the state — and pay $25 million a year to Springfield. The project, which has a 2017 completion date, is expected to create 3,000 permanent jobs and 2,000 construction jobs.

"The MGM team and the City of Springfield have worked cooperatively and diligently to reach this point in the licensing process," MGM President Michael Mathis said in a statement. "Springfield and its people have earned this moment, and MGM looks forward to sharing this milestone with them."

The casino repeal campaign — which is awaiting the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling on if a repeal question will be allowed on the November ballot — says "momentum is clearly on the side of repealing this wrong-headed law" and "investing instead in sustainable economic development for Springfield and the rest of Massachusetts."

"Springfield is struggling and we know it can do better than a casino to sap local jobs, kill local businesses and profit on the backs of local residents," a repeal spokesman said. "MGM is obviously worried about our momentum — their local leaders sat in on the SJC arguments and they have asked for a delay in the awarding of their license until voters have a chance to vote on repeal."

But Boston College professor and gaming expert Richard McGowan said construction in Springfield will provide a powerful example of the stimulating effect a casino can have in a community that wants it.

"I think it's going to make it even harder for the repeal to go through to be quite blunt, especially in the western part of the state," 
McGowan said of Friday's vote. "What might change things is if MGM doesn't deliver on what they say they're going to do out there. That would hurt."

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