Judge upholds ride-share rules

A bid by taxi medallion owners to halt regulations that have legalized transportation companies including Uber and Lyft has been rejected by a federal judge.

"Plaintiffs have failed to convince this court that medallion owners have a protected property interest in the market value of their medallions," U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton said yesterday in a court order. "Purchasing a taxicab medallion does not entitle the buyer to 'an unalterable monopoly' over the taxicab market or the overall for-hire transportation market,"

Gorton said the Boston Taxi Owners Association was not convincing in its argument for a preliminary injunction, rejecting its claims of violation of equal protection and "unconstitutional taking of their property."

The association has sued both Boston and the state in an effort to halt state regulations for Uber and Lyft that it sees as unfair. Initial statewide regulations for so-called transportation network companies went into effect last month, but require legislative approval.

"In order for Massachusetts' economy to thrive, we must continue to embrace technology and innovation as a means for growth," Gov. Charlie Baker said in a statement.

Boston is in the middle of its own regulatory process, with a Taxi Advisory Committee that has been looking at the issue for months. A spokeswoman for Mayor Martin J. Walsh said the city is pleased with the decision.

A lawyer for the Taxi Owners Association did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

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Audi A4 earns a high grade

The efficient 2015 Audi A4 with go-anywhere, all-wheel-drive is a solid choice for the New Englander not willing to compromise on performance or craftsmanship.

Audi's quattro all-wheel-drive system intuitively sends power to the wheels with the most grip. Although our tester had 19-inch, low-profile summer tires, I found the sedan provided superb traction on both wet and snow-covered roads.

The quattro system, which has been around for more than 35 years, was equally impressive on dry roads, giving the A4 sharp handling with a decent amount of feedback and providing the driver with an intimate connection to the road. The A4's sport-tuned suspension settled through bumps on the corners and the sedan's electronic, speed-sensitive steering had a heavy, precision feel.

Under the hood, the A4 packs a turbocharged 2.0- liter, inline four-cylinder engine that cranks out 220 horsepower. Audi offers three transmission choices with the A4: a six-speed manual, a continuously variable automatic, and an eight-speed automatic with manual override. My tester had the eight speed with paddle shifters, which allowed me to take control of the sedan, especially through the corners and on steep highway ramps. The multitude of gears allowed for smooth downshifting and maximized the transfer of power from the efficient engine. The A4 balances a respectable amount power with decent fuel economy for an all-wheel-drive sedan. The A4 did 21 miles per gallon in the city and 30 mpg on highway.

Silver and gray trim highlighted my A4's black interior. Leather heated front seats were firm and supportive. The centerpiece of the A4's cockpit was a distinctive flat bottom steering wheel, which was part of the $1,500 sport plus package that included the paddle shifters, a black headliner, and 19-inch, 5-arm aluminum wheels with a titanium finish. Three-zone climate controls allowed driver and passengers to individualize the cabin temperature. While the A4 is listed as a five-seater, my children looked cramped in the backseat for the lift to school. The rear seats fold down with a 60/40 split.

Red backlighting on switches and buttons played well against the dark interior. A 7-inch display screen was neatly integrated into the A4's dashboard. Navigation, stereo, cellphone, and vehicle settings were controlled with a joystick knob surrounded by an array of buttons on the center console. While the center stack was imposing at first glance, I found operating the A4's infotainment features intuitive and straightforward. The cluster of controls reduced the need to drill down through layers of menus. A push-button ignition button was located beside a conveniently placed electronic parking brake control.

My only dislike with the A4 was the location of the cruise control stalk behind the steering wheel. I guess it's just a distinctive quirk with Audi, but cruise control is much easier to use when located on the steering wheel.

The solidly built Audi A4 starts at $37,600 and my tester topped out just over $46,000, which puts it in the mix with the other premium sedans from Germany, such as the BMW 3-series or Mercedes-Benz C300. The A4 is also worth a test drive when considering the Cadillac ATS, Lexus IS, or Infiniti Q50.

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Cambridge condo mixes style, comfort

This stylish new condo is one of three carved out of a long, narrow stucco house in North Cambridge that features a long front porch topped with private decks.

The end Unit 1 at 130 Rindge Ave. is the last of the condos for sale, on the market for $975,000, and it features three bedrooms and three levels of living space.

There's not much yard space around the 1875-built property, but the rebuilt front porch does overlook a large, open green space in front of the upscale Wyeth apartments next door. The house's exterior has been completely restored, with new black mullion windows and white trim.

The front porch leads into a foyer, with dark-stained red oak floors that are featured throughout the property, along with 9-foot ceilings with crown molding on the first floor.

To the left of the foyer sits a stylish recessed-lit kitchen,­ with 22 white-­painted wood cabinets and Carrara marble-topped counters with a white beadboard back­splash. There's also a separate Carrara-­topped gray-painted island with a breakfast bar that seats three as well as a double-doored pantry/storage closet. High-end stainless-steel appliances include a Bosch refrigerator and dishwasher as well as a professional-grade Viking gas stove and a matching microwave above.

Adjacent is a dining area, with glass doors that open out to a back porch and down to a private fenced-in patio.

Back inside, to the right of the foyer sits a good-sized recessed-lit living room with crown molding and four six-over-six windows on three sides.

Oak stairs lead up to three oak-floored bedrooms on the second floor with a window at the top of the landing.

The master suite covers half the second floor, with oak flooring, crown molding and recessed lighting. Two front windows bring in light and a pair of glass doors lead out to a private deck over the front porch with views of the open space next door.

The master suite has four closets, all with built-in shelving. The stylish en-suite bathroom is completely marble finished — from its small tile floors to gray tile around a deep soaking tub and shower. And there's a Carrara-topped double-sink wood vanity.

The second bedroom features two windows, two closets and an overhead light/fan. Across the hall sits a small third bedroom best suited as a home office or nursery. It has one deep closet.

The second full bathroom on this floor is equally stylish, with green-and-white small tile marble floors and white marble tile surround with small green tile inlay around a deep soaking tub and a shower. This bathroom also has a Carrara marble-topped wood vanity.

The unit has a fully finished basement, with oak stairs leading down to a carpeted family room.

The large family room has one window and two closets. One holds the unit's two-zone high-efficiency heating and cooling system, and the other has a washer-dryer hookup as well as a Navien tankless water heater.

There's a full bathroom on this level, with small white ceramic tile floors and white ceramic tile surround for a deep soaking tub and shower.

The condo comes with two outdoor parking spaces on a long shared driveway.

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NBC launches internal probe on Brian Williams claims

NEW YORK — NBC News has assigned the head of its own investigative unit to look into statements that anchor Brian Williams made about his reporting in Iraq a dozen years ago, an episode that's ballooned into a full-blown credibility crisis for the network.

NBC News President Deborah Turness announced the probe in an internal memo on Friday. Williams has apologized for falsely saying on the air that he was in a helicopter hit by a rocket-propelled grenade while in Iraq in 2003, and Turness said Friday the anchor expressed his regrets to his colleagues for the impact the episode has had.

"As you would expect, we have a team dedicated to gathering the facts to help us make sense of all that has transpired," Turness wrote. "We're working on what the best next steps are."

Richard Esposito, who has worked at the New York Daily News, New York Newsday and ABC and is now at NBC, is leading the investigation.

Williams anchored "Nightly News" from New York on Friday, making no mention of the criticisms of his work.

Questions were also raised about statements Williams made on coverage of Hurricane Katrina, which was one of his proudest moments at NBC. In a 2006 interview with former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Williams twice referenced seeing a body float down a street in New Orleans.

"When you look out of your hotel room window in the French Quarter and watch a man float by face down, when you see bodies that you last saw in Banda Aceh, Indonesia and swore to yourself that you would never see in your country," Williams said.

Several minutes later, Williams again talked about seeing the body as he discussed how it felt to cover the storm.

"I felt something get dislodged that changes the usual arm's length relationship between me and the stories I cover. These are Americans. These are my brothers and sisters. And one of them was floating by."

The remarks drew suspicion because during Katrina, there was relatively little flooding in New Orleans' French Quarter.

Williams was staying at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in New Orleans, according to an NBC source who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak on personnel matters.

Capt. James Scott, who was a police commander in the downtown area at the time of Katrina, said he saw a body floating along Rampart Street on the edge of the French Quarter. "It was floating with the water," he said.

The body Scott saw was about four blocks from the Ritz-Carlton, which was surrounded by up to three feet of water, he said.

Alex Brandon, a Washington-based photographer for The Associated Press, was working in New Orleans during Katrina and said there was enough water to launch a flat-bottomed boat from in front of the Ritz. He also said he photographed a dead body floating on Canal Street a few blocks from the Ritz.

The story originally called into question about Williams' wartime reporting experience has made him a subject of mockery, including a New York Post front cover that depicted him with a long Pinocchio's nose, over the headline "A Nose for News."

He's the leading man at the network's news division, whose nightly newscast has topped its rivals in ratings for the better part of a decade. As a frequent talk show guest and one-time "Saturday Night Live" host, his celebrity transcended the news division.

He apologized on the air Wednesday for telling his story about the supposed grenade attack as recently as last Friday on "Nightly News." He admitted that his helicopter was not hit by a grenade after war veterans had come forward to question the account, some even disputing whether Williams' helicopter was in a group that came under direct attack.

NBC News needs to look at not only Williams' story about the helicopter, which has changed in details as he's talked about it over the years, but whether anybody else at the network knew that he was spreading a falsehood and did anything about it, said Kelly McBride, an expert on ethics for the journalism think tank the Poynter Institute.

"He is the front man of 'Nightly News' and is seen as the primary arbiter of the facts," McBride said. "For him to get something wrong on something he was involved in casts doubt on his ability to get any facts right."

NBC News must also weigh his importance to the news division and the work he has done since taking over as top anchor from Tom Brokaw in 2004, she said. Brokaw, for his part, on Friday denied a published report that he had suggested Williams be dismissed.

"Brian's future will be decided by him and the executives of NBC News," Brokaw said.

That would be Turness and her immediate supervisor, Pat Fili-Krushel, who had seen "Nightly News" as a bright spot for the network as they tried to correct ratings problems at the "Today" show and "Meet the Press." NBC's corporate parents at Comcast would likely weigh in as well.

Meanwhile Friday, CNN said it was stepping back from its own report Thursday, quoting Rich Krell, a veteran who claimed to pilot Williams' helicopter in Iraq. Krell had said Thursday that the helicopter had taken small arms fire — if not a grenade attack — but said Friday that he was questioning his own recollections after being contradicted by other veterans.

____

Associated Press writer Cain Burdeau in New Orleans contributed to this story.

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Staples merger to cut stores

Hundreds to as many as a thousand Staples and Office Depot store closings are expected if federal regulators sign off on the planned $6.3 billion merger of the nation's two largest office supplies chains.

With about half of their combined 3,200-plus U.S. stores within five miles of each other, Citi analyst Kate McShane estimates more than 500 locations could be closed. "We think store closings are likely to be announced down the road, once the deal is approved by the (Federal Trade Commission) and closed," McShane said.

Those closings would be on top of ones already planned by the individual companies, which are downsizing their retail footprint as they struggle to compete with online rivals. Staples has about 55 stores slated to be closed out of 225 it previously announced as part of its retail "reinvention." Office Depot has about 235 stores remaining to be shuttered out of 400 planned closures, according to McShane.

The store closings would be a small part of the estimated $1 billion-plus in annual cost savings that the two companies expect by the end of the third year after a merger closed.

"Store closings and real estate optimization as well as sales initiatives may bear fruit over time, but for now sales and margins continue to decline," said Carol Levenson, director of research, at Gimme Credit, a corporate bond research service.

About 1,000 store closings — either voluntary or forced by the FTC — are expected by Janney Capital Markets analyst David Strasser. That would save the merged company 
$350 million-plus in rent expenses, he said.

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Data of 80M Anthem customers stolen

The computer breach at the country's second-largest insurer is the latest attack on a health care company as hackers aim their sights at valuable information found in medical records, one expert said.

"Everyone in health care knows it's a problem; everyone in health care is taking it very seriously," said John Halamka, chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "Protecting patient data is our mission, but the problem is getting harder to solve than ever."

Yesterday, Anthem Inc., which covers more than 37 million people throughout the country, said data for about 80 million customers were stolen, including names, Social Security numbers, birthdates and street addresses, in a "very sophisticated" attack. Bloomberg reported the company is eyeing Chinese state-sponsored hackers.

Halamka said medical records are an inviting target to hackers. On the black market, medical records go for about $150 each, compared to a dollar for a credit card.

"What we're talking about with medical identity theft is a health care shopping spree; I can get the surgery I need, the health care I can't afford," he said.

Halamka said Beth Israel is spending roughly $3 million a year to keep patient data safe.

"Every day when I wake up, security is one of the first things that I think of," he said.

Anthem does not write policies in Massachusetts, but residents who work for companies based in other states may be affected, according to the state Division of Insurance. Attorney General Maura Healey's office plans to investigate the scope of the data breach in Massachusetts.

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Brian Williams and the lost art of the public apology

Brian Williams is sorry. The NBC anchor said so on his nightly newscast, on Facebook and in the pages of Stars and Stripes, the magazine that first unearthed his repeated lies about flying in a helicopter struck by an RPG over a decade ago in Iraq.

And yet it's not enough.

It's not that being apologetic isn't adequate repentance for Williams' sin. What isn't enough is the nature of the apology he is offering. Like so many wayward public figures who aren't getting the right damage-control advice, Williams seems to believe apologizing early and often will take care of the problem without giving sufficient attention to how they say they are sorry.

Williams and NBC Universal - which may be sweating even more than the anchor is about his future as the face of its news division-probably think they did their best just by addressing the situation head-on in multiple outlets. To make such an apology from the very anchor desk where so many Americans trust him to be unfailingly honest was intended to acknowledge the gravity of his fabrication.

But the substance of what Williams said, and the absence of even feigned contrition in his delivery, only made his predicament worse.

Let's start with the wording of his statement. First, the utterance "I made a mistake" should be retired by all crisis-PR experts for the rest of eternity. It is a sentence intended to sound forthright and remorseful in all its unambiguous pithiness. But overuse over the years has turned "I made a mistake" into the opposite of what it should be; it's such a stock phrase, it basically signifies nothing beyond doing what shamed public figures feel they have to do.

In situations where household names like Williams shock us with their misdeeds, people are more interested in hearing some sense of why the sinner in question did what they did than just blurting out "I'm sorry." Williams attempted to do this by offering what seems like a unbelievable excuse: the "fog of memory" led him to confuse the unharmed helicopter he was actually in with another helicopter that took fire.

Really?

It doesn't take a four-star general to remember correctly whether the aircraft they were in was struck by a missile.

But perhaps Williams could have even garnered some forgiveness for even such a far-fetched alibi had he squeezed even a scintilla of emotion into his written and oral apologies. This is where Williams and so many celebrities have gone wrong when the right words could actually do a lot to pull their feet out of the fire.

From Paula Deen to Amy Pascal, it's amazing how many public apologies are such bloodless, over-calculated nothingburgers that they do more harm than good.

Imagine had Williams spent more than just a minute at an anchor desk-perhaps even a good 10 minutes in a YouTube video, or even a whole hour on "Dateline NBC"-really speaking from the heart (or faking such sincerity).

Be authentic, even vulnerable. Agonize a little. Don't cry if it doesn't come naturally, but emote as if your career depends on it because-guess what?-it does.

Last year provided a decent example of a star who managed to do this correctly. Recall the accusations of homophobia Jonah Hill faced when he uttered some unfortunate epithets in a TMZ video. He went on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" and either gave a performance even better than his role in "Moneyball" or resembled an actual choked-up, torn-up human being.

What if Williams had dropped the robo-anchor persona and, rather than saying he got confused, spoke at length on camera about what really happened that day. The sight of a genuinely repentant individual could go a long way to repairing his reputation.

All this criticism of Williams may sound unsympathetic, but to the contrary: If he makes the right moves, a man who by all other indications is a good person who, like all of us sometimes, made an unfortunate mistake can turn this around. It's not too late to save his career.

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

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Brian Williams' self-inflicted wound helps arm NBC's critics

Brian Williams is inevitably going to be criticized by lots of couch-bound observers who have never reported from a war zone (including yours truly), but given the forces eager to pounce on any slip by the news organization he represents, he has committed perhaps the worst kind of self-inflicted wound.

The NBC anchor's faulty and seemingly self-aggrandizing "memory" about his stint reporting from Iraq in 2003 pushes enough hot buttons to create a perfect storm of bad publicity. And NBC News has once again looked tardy, at best, in formulating a PR strategy in response to bad news, as it was during transitions at "Today" and "Meet the Press."

Williams has benefited from coming across as a likable anchor - as comfortable throwing out one-liners on a talkshow as he is delivering the news. But he has stepped into the proverbial hornets' nest, for reasons both of his own making and beyond his control.

Williams' embellishment of his experience is particularly damaging coming from a journalist. Essentially, his account has reduced him to the role of unreliable witness, somebody whose version of an event was exposed as being significantly at odds with the facts.

But the real problem is that the story itself - dealing with the military - hands a cudgel to those already inclined to hold a grudge against or distrust NBC News, which explains the almost-gleeful tone of the coverage on Websites like The Drudge Report and Breitbart.com.

Part of that has nothing to do with Williams. NBC happens to be affiliated with MSNBC, whose liberal profile and politics has made it a favorite target of conservatives. Although the two operate separately, they are part of the same corporate family and share talent, allowing many to conflate NBC and MSNBC into a single entity, feeding the perception of a liberal "mainstream media" that can't be trusted.

Those same quadrants were positively overjoyed when Dan Rather was involved in a report about then-President George W. Bush's National Guard service that hastened his exit from CBS News. And while Williams is unlikely to experience anything that serious in terms of the fallout, there's no doubt this cloud will linger over him for a while and be used to discredit or diminish both NBC News and its anchorman the next time the division is involved in something that irks the usual suspects.

Thus far, Williams' explanation of why he would foul up the story sounds like more of an evasion than a response, which won't hasten making the controversy go away. Certainly, the 12-year time lapse hardly covers mixing up something as memorable as being aboard a helicopter that was actually forced to land after having been struck by ground fire.

Finally, there's NBC News, which after awkwardly mishandling baton passes at "Meet the Press" and "Today" needed to look decisive in either disciplining Williams or giving him a vote of confidence. Admittedly, the story keeps changing -- with a helicopter pilot backing up part of what Williams has said on Thursday -- but either way, a guy who looked like the least of the division's problems has now added to its woes.

There's an old saying that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that people aren't out to get you. But in this case, the reverse also applies: Just because people are out to get you doesn't mean that they're automatically wrong. On that score, Williams' Iraq war story is the epitome of an unforced error by providing his critics, even the unfair ones, legitimate ammunition.

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

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Bridj-ing gap between Uber costs, T woes

The pop-up bus service Bridj is offering free rides in the Boston area through tomorrow night, a stark contrast to the ride-sharing service Uber, which capitalized on long MBTA delays this week by more than tripling fares at times.

Bridj's payment processor requires the company to list trips — which ordinarily cost between $3 and $5, depending on the time of day — for at least 50 cents, but all trips are free this week when cus­tomers download Bridj's app and use the promo code "isitsummer," spokesman Ryan Kelly said.

"We lose thousands of dollars every day by doing this, but hopefully will gain new customers who've never tried our service before," said CEO Matthew George.

"And it's just the right thing to do. When you combine this unprecedented bout of terrible weather with the T's aging infrastructure, that really disrupts transit service. For some people, that's just an inconvenience; for others, not being able to get to work can mean not being able to pay their rent."

But during the evening commute Tuesday, many commuters who hadn't heard of Bridj, which opened in Boston only last June, and tried to get around via Uber received an unwelcome surprise: Fares had climbed 3.2 times the normal rates.

"Dynamic pricing ensures a reliable ride at the push of a button, whenever and wherever you need it, especially at times when other transportation options aren't available," Uber spokesman Matthew Wing said in an email. "And remember that when the weather's bad, you can use our in-app Fare Split feature to share your ride and cut the fare in half."

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Staples seeks approval for Office Depot deal

Changes in the competitive landscape could pave the way for Framingham-based Staples to get a regulatory OK for its proposed $6.3 billion takeover of Office Depot — nearly two decades after the Federal Trade Commission nixed a merger of the No. 1 and 2 office supplies chains over concerns about higher prices for consumers.

Office Depot ended up merging with OfficeMax in 2013 in a $1.2 billion deal that took seven months for the FTC to approve. In its decision, the FTC noted the broader array of companies that sell office supplies, including Wal-Mart, Target, Costco and Sam's Club, and the office supplies chains' substantial loss of in-store sales to online competitors like Amazon.

"Both Staples and Office Depot have really carefully considered the anti-trust risk associated with the deal in concert with our respective legal advisers," Staples CEO Ron Sargent said yesterday. "We agree with (the FTC's) public statement following the closure of the (Office) Depot and (Office) Max investigation in 2013 (that) the market for the sale of consumable office supplies has changed significantly since 1997."

Still, Staples founder Tom Stemberg, who resigned as chairman in 2005, expects a "potentially long and nasty legal skirmish" with the FTC after it "created what's probably one of the biggest legal precedents in their history" with its 1997 decision.

"What's going to be curious is if they can walk away from that precedent by approving this deal or whether they'll probably figure out a way to fight it," he said on CNBC. "I think they have to fight it, and they'll jury-rig the market."

B. Riley & Co. analyst R. Scott Tilghman expects greater FTC scrutiny of the proposed merger given its sheer size. The FTC review likely also will put greater focus on the companies' commercial contract business, said Tilghman, but he expects the feds to sign off on the retail side of the merger.

"While some may argue that commercial office supplies is a highly fragmented business, we think large enterprise customers, large wholesalers like United Stationers and S.P. Richards, and the office supplies manufacturers are less enthusiastic about seeing significantly increased market share for the largest office supplies retailer," Citi analyst Kate McShane said in a research note yesterday.

Staples will pay Office Depot $250 million if the deal is terminated due to antitrust requirements.

The combined company would continue to be headquartered in Framingham and be led by Sargent.

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