Springfield family build boomerang business

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — He hasn't quit his day job yet, but a Springfield engineer is hoping to grow his grass roots boomerang business. Jeffrey LeBeau, an engineer who started Big Daddy Boomerangs about a year ago, has involved his whole family in his business, with his three sons testing out his new designs and his wife, Kari LeBeau, painting designs on them.

Jeffrey LeBeau said he first discovered boomerangs, the curved-shaped lightweight devices that return to the thrower if thrown just right, when he was a teenager. He was in a science museum in Canada when he discovered a book on making boomerangs in the gift shop.

"I started dabbling in it, making some cross stick-type boomerangs," he said. "I got them to work, and shared them with my friends at that time."

He then didn't pick up a boomerang for years, until he was married with three boys, and wanted to share his love for boomerangs with his children.

"My kids (ages 11, 12 and 14) called me 'Big Daddy' growing up, so that's how I got the name for the business," LeBeau said. "They are my product testers. They'll help me design different shapes and colors. It's a family business."

The boys and their mother paint the wooden boomerangs after LeBeau carves them and tests them.

"The kids help out with some new ideas for shapes," he said.

Kari LeBeau helps with painting. Big Daddy will create custom paint designs by request for customers.

Kari, whose passion is throwing pottery, said she doesn't love boomerangs quite as much as her husband does, but she enjoys contributing to the artistic aspect of the boomerangs he produces.

"I love painting and being a part of that process," she said. "And he is a great role model for our boys. With every fair, with every order, with every minute he spends in his 'boom shop,' he shows our children it's never too late to chase your passions."

LeBeau's sport wooden boomerang is made out of Baltic birch plywood. He said it's a good material for beginner boomerangs, rather than competition level boomerangs, which he hasn't attempted yet.

"I really want to introduce people to the sport," he said. "Teaching them that they really work — that's part of the excitement."

LeBeau said a boomerang can be made out of almost any shape.

"The key is to have proper ratios of width to length for the wing, he said. "(There's also) the thickness of the wing and the air foil shape. There is a lot of science to it. "

He said there's a lot of trial and error.

"I've had a bunch that don't work," he said. "I either abandon it or I re-tool it. But for the models that do work, which give me results I'm happy with, I make a template of. I use power tools, but they're all hand shaped, unique and different."

In addition to Big Daddy's wooden boomerangs, LeBeau created a boomerang that folds up and fits in a pocket.

"I came up with the idea because I wanted portability," he said. "I had a different product line with plastic and I can't put it in my pocket. I wanted some to carry with me while I'm out hiking, at the beach or at the park."

He envisions the three-wing Pocket Boom as a popular, new, backyard game.

"Instead of playing Frisbee or lawn darts, let's play Pocket Boom," he said. "You have an instant game ready to go, and you don't have to worry about this thing breaking."

LeBeau has a patent pending on the Pocket Boom. He buys the plastic from Delaware and a company from Agawam laser cuts it for him. LeBeau and his wife do the post-processing of the wings. He said he tries to use only materials from the U.S.A.

Throwing a boomerang takes practice and skill, but LeBeau said he can teach anyone to throw one. He said kids as young as 5 or 6 can successfully throw the Pocket Boom, and kids 10 or 11 can handle the wooden boomerangs.

"You do need a little athletic ability," he said. "If you can throw a baseball or softball, you can do it. Boomerang is more of a finesse sport than a muscle sport. It takes practice."

How a thrower holds the boomerang, the way they throw it and the direction and speed of the wind are all factors in a boomerang's performance.

For now, LeBeau is marketing through his website, bdbooms.com, on Facebook and Twitter, and word of mouth. He's also attending craft and market fairs. He said he has attended nine such fairs in the past year. People seem to love the pocket boomerangs.

"I've sold close to 240 Pocket Booms, so I know there's traction there, which prompted me to pursue my passion," he said.

Eventually, he hopes to see his products in independently owned toy shops, and hopefully, sporting goods stores.

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Wash. leaders press for union vote on Boeing offer

SEATTLE — Political pressure is building in support of letting Puget Sound machinists vote on a Boeing contract proposal in high-stakes negotiations to keep thousands of jobs in Washington state.

Leaders in the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers publicly differed Friday on whether to bring Boeing's latest contract offer to a vote, exposing tensions within the union over how to proceed.

National, state and local political leaders called for a vote, even though local union leaders have already rejected the company's latest offer.

The contract would secure work on Boeing's new 777X airplane at a time when 22 states are competing for those jobs. Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement that union membership gives each worker a say in his or her future and workers should have the opportunity to exercise that right.

"That should happen soon, as I have become increasingly concerned that we are at a perilous point in our effort to bring the 777X to Washington state," said Inslee, who was endorsed by the local Machinists union in his campaign for governor last year.

U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen echoed those comments, expressing concern about the region's aerospace future if no labor agreement is in place and saying "the time to vote is now." Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson and Snohomish County Executive John Lovick also urged the Machinists in their area to hold a vote and also urged them to approve the contract.

State Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom, a Democrat, and Senate Republican Leader Mark Schoesler sent a joint letter Friday to a local union leader, urging a vote.

"We trust that your members will make the best decision," the two senators wrote. "We respectfully ask, however, that you allow them to make that choice for themselves."

National union spokesman Frank Larkin said Friday that officials were exploring the idea of a vote after hundreds of members demanded an opportunity to have a say on the contract to secure work on the 777X. Larkin said members have always had the final say and they have every right to vote on the terms of the offer.

But local union officials said Friday they don't see any point in bringing it to a vote because it's too similar to a contract the union rejected a month ago by a 2-to-1 margin.

"So, until Boeing changes its conditions, we don't have an offer to vote on," District 751 President Tom Wroblewski said in a statement.

The latest round of contract talks collapsed Thursday after local Machinists officials said they could not recommend Boeing's latest proposal to members. Local union spokesman Bryan Corliss said Boeing has withdrawn the contract offer.

Boeing Co. spokesman Doug Alder said, however, that the offer was rejected by the union, not withdrawn. He declined further comment Friday.

Local union officials have seemed to disagree with their national leaders in recent weeks on how to handle Boeing's offers. That division was clear last month, when local members voted to reject a contract negotiated by Machinists leadership.

Boeing made changes this week to its original contract offer, backing away from a proposal that would slow the rate at which employees rise up the pay scale and adding an additional $5,000 in bonus pay. The biggest sticking point appears to be the company's insistence that workers move from a traditional defined-benefit pension to a defined-contribution savings plan.

The local Machinists said the company's latest proposal was too high of a price to pay to secure the 777X.

"I think you'll agree these were very minor changes, and not nearly enough to offset the things Boeing was trying to take away from you, and for the Machinists who will join us in the future," Wroblewski wrote in a message to members Friday morning.

Looming over the talks is the prospect that the company could build the airplane elsewhere. Chicago-based Boeing said it has received proposals from 22 states eager for the 777X jobs, with some proposing multiple sites. The company said 54 sites are now being evaluated.

In its own bid to win the 777X jobs, Washington state recently approved tax breaks for Boeing valued at $9 billion over the coming years, along with legislation to improve aerospace training programs and the permitting process.

Boeing began offering the 777X in May, but it's still finalizing plans for the plane and aiming to deliver the first aircraft by the end of the decade. Boeing has said it is expected to carry as many as 400 passengers and be more fuel efficient than the current 777.

Boeing received orders for 225 such planes from three airlines at the Dubai Airshow last month.

___

Contact Mike Baker on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikebakerap

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Politics color governors' decisions on Medicaid

WASHINGTON — Partisan politics are coloring governors' decisions on whether to expand Medicaid in their states.

The question of whether more low-income people receive Medicaid coverage may have less to do with their need than with how their states vote in governors' races.

Medicaid is the government health insurance program for the poor. Every Democratic governor has called for accepting larger-than-usual federal subsidies to expand coverage.

But the nation's 30 Republican governors are split. Eight agreed to expand Medicaid — and most of them are from states President Barack Obama won.

At least 20 GOP governors have declined the offer. In doing so, at least one rejected advice from the commission he assigned to study the question.

Critics say some governors fear a tea party challenger in next year's Republican primaries.

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Appeals court allows horse slaughterhouses to open

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Companies in New Mexico and Missouri could begin slaughtering horses within a few weeks after a federal appeals court removed a temporary ban that was preventing domestic horse slaughter from resuming for the first time since 2007.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver lifted an emergency injunction Friday that it had issued in November after animal protection groups appealed the ruling of a federal judge in Albuquerque. The judge said the U.S. Department of Agriculture followed proper procedure in issuing permits to Valley Meat Co. in Roswell, N.M., Rains Natural Meats of Gallatin, Mo., and Responsible Transportation in Sigourney, Iowa.

The appeals court's order Friday said the groups "failed to meet their burden for an injunction pending appeal."

Blair Dunn, an attorney for Valley Meat and Rains Natural Meats, said the order lifts the emergency status of the case, meaning it will likely be months before a final decision is issued.

Dunn said the plants are ready to open, although they could agree to remain shuttered if the plaintiffs agree to post a sufficient bond to cover the companies' losses should they ultimately prevail.

"They are getting ready to go as quickly as they can. It shouldn't take too long. Not more than two weeks," he said.

The Humane Society of the United States said, however, that "the fight for America's horses is not over."

"We will press for a quick resolution of the merits of our claims in the 10th Circuit," said Jonathan R. Lovvorn, the group's senior vice president of animal protection litigation and investigations.

The plants would become the first horse slaughterhouses to operate in the U.S. since Congress effectively banned horse slaughter by eliminating funding for inspections at the plants. Congress restored that funding in 2011, but the USDA did not approve the first permits for horse slaughterhouses until this summer.

The issue has divided horse rescue and animal welfare groups, ranchers, politicians and Indian tribes about what is the most humane way to deal with the country's horse overpopulation, and what rescue groups have said are a rising number of neglected and starving horses as the West deals with persistent drought.

The companies want to ship horse meat to countries where it is consumed by humans or used as animal feed.

Valley Meat and Responsible Transportation were set to begin horse slaughter operations in August, but U.S. District Judge Christina Armijo blocked their plans while she heard the lawsuit by The Humane Society of the United States, Front Range Equine Rescue and others. The groups claimed the plants should have been forced to undergo environmental reviews under provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act.

Responsible Transportation abandoned its horse slaughter plans and converted its plant to cattle before Armijo dismissed the lawsuit in November.

Attorneys for the plants have argued that the plaintiffs are simply in court because they are morally opposed to horse slaughter and are looking for a way to delay the plants while they lobby Congress for a ban.

Proponents of a return to domestic horse slaughter point to a 2011 report from the federal Government Accountability Office that shows horse abuse and abandonment have increased since domestic horse slaughter was banned. They say it is better to slaughter the animals in humane, federally regulated facilities than have them abandoned to starve across the drought-stricken West or shipped to inhumane facilities in Mexico.

Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, calls the practice barbaric and has said blocking a return to domestic horse slaughter "is an issue of national importance and scale."

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RV users help Amazon keep up with holiday rush

CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. — Twinkling lights, decorated trees and bustling campgrounds. Those are signs of the Christmas season in Campbellsville, Ky., where the Amazon.com distribution center recruits an armada of RV owners as seasonal workers to help fill holiday orders.

They're dubbed the "CamperForce" by the world's largest online retailer. The hundreds of temporary workers are assigned packing, sorting and collection duties at Amazon facilities in Kentucky, Kansas and Nevada, roles meant to keep orders flowing during the yuletide rush.

Swarms of workers take up temporary residence in campgrounds. For many, it's another short-term stint on a nonstop journey. It's a lifestyle and mindset for the retirees, empty nesters and younger parents who shuck traditions of home and work to roam from campsite to campsite, job to job.

The stints last about three months.

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Retail sales ring up hikes

Retail sales nationally rose each of the past two months, according to figures released yesterday, but a snowstorm forecast for this weekend has Massachusetts retailers worried they could lose critical holiday sales.

The Commerce Department said November retail sales rose 0.7 percent — the biggest gain in five months — and October's figure was revised higher to 
0.6 percent. But although two straight months of healthy sales suggest steady hiring is encouraging Americans to spend more this holiday season, this weekend's storm is raising concerns, particularly at small businesses.

"It's worrisome," said Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. "We have three weekends before Christmas this year, compared to four last year, and that's where most of the sales occur. And the closer you get to Christmas, the more important those weekends become."

National Weather Service meteorologist Charlie Foley said this weekend's storm is expected to dump two to four inches on the Boston area, one to three inches on the Cape and islands, and five to eight inches on the Merrimack Valley into northern Worcester County.

"It won't be a blockbuster, but it'll be the first significant snowstorm of the season," Foley said.

Alissa Eck, owner of Exclusive Jewels on Beacon Hill, worried that even a light snowfall in Boston might keep people home.

"Right now, it's so close to Christmas," said Eck. "It will definitely hinder how many people come out."

Herald wire services
contributed to this 
report.

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Boutique buildings fill Boston niche 
with distinction

While a lot of attention has been given to the larger residential projects in the Hub, there are a number of new, smaller boutique buildings that promise buyers and tenants something more distinctive.

"In a smaller-scale building you can pay much more attention to the quality of the design and the details," said Damian Szary, a principal at Boston-based Redgate Real Estate Advisors, whose Gate Residential unit is developing a nine-story condo complex along Congress and Farnsworth streets in the booming Seaport District. With its floor-to-ceiling glass windows all around, Zero Farnsworth will be strikingly contemporary in an area of brick warehouses.

"We are pushing our architects (Boston-based CBT Architects) to go above and beyond in terms of design and style," added Szary, who expects construction to begin in the second half of next year. "Our goal is to create a product that Boston hasn't seen before."

There's no question that new units in boutique buildings elsewhere in the city are selling for a premium. The five-unit Chevron on Tremont in the South End sold out in preconstruction, commanding $3-million-plus prices. And three units have sold in a six-condo complex above a Chanel store at 
4-6 Newbury St., dubbed Chanel No. 6, with prices ranging from $5.5 million to almost $8 million.

"Some buyers and renters would rather be one of 10 people in a building rather than one of 250," said Szary, whose company also developed the 184-unit Maxwell's Green luxury rental complex in Somerville.

A high-end rental project at 22-26 West Broadway in Southie looks like it was designed for a European city. The three mini-tower complex is the brainchild of local developer Jason Cincotta and architect Michael LeBlanc of Hub-based Utile.

"We want to provide a different kind of rental experience, something not mass-produced, that creates a feeling of a small community," said Cincotta, owner of Evergreen Property Group, adding that the 31 units in the floor-to-ceiling glass-faced towers will have 16 different floor plans, luxury condo finishes and common spaces that will encourage residents to get to know one another.

LeBlanc, whose firm also designed the successful First & First 23-unit townhouse condo development, thinks there is a pent-up demand for high-design units in smaller buildings.

"And with a thoughtful use of space and materials and attention to design, you can provide a great residential experience without a lot of added cost," LeBlanc said.

With some 6,000 new rental units expected to come on line in the city over the next several years, boutique buildings differentiate themselves from larger projects designed to appeal to a wider segment of renters.

Take the Fox Residences, a 14-unit rental building that for many years housed the Strawberries record store on Washington Street downtown. Before that it was the Art Deco design headquarters of furrier I.J. Fox. An affiliate of Hub developer Core Investments is refinishing the building's two-story black granite exterior that's framed by a brass ziggurat. And they have uncovered and are refinishing an interior vestibule that features a fox head in relief on bronze panels, brass moldings as well as a stylish Art Deco skylight. Upstairs are 14 two- to four-bedroom units with Brazilian cherrywood floors and Silestone counters, priced from $2,650 to $5,600 a month, many with great downtown views through large windows.

"It's unique," said Alicia Ingalls, a principal at Bulfinch Boston Realty. "It doesn't feel like a vanilla box or a hotel. Boutique buildings like this feel more personable."

Broker Ralph Aucella of Keliher Real Estate, who is handling rentals for the Fox building that opens next month, said boutique buildings are popular for other reasons, too.

"They have a little more character and a little more privacy," Aucella said. "They're good places to be if you don't want a concierge in your business 24 hours a day."

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Southie hall hotels under way

The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority yesterday heralded a groundbreaking for two "mid-priced" hotels on D Street as the kickoff to its proposed $1 billion expansion of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.

CV Properties and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide will build a 330-room Aloft Hotel and a 180-room extended-stay Element Hotel across from the convention center in the South Boston waterfront.

Starwood created the two hotel brands a few years ago based on a "democratization of design" that incorporates qualities of luxury hotels, according to Allison Reid, senior vice president of North American development. Room rates at the D Street properties will be at least 10 percent below prevailing rates of nearby four-star hotels. Both hotels will be "flagships" for their respective brands, Reid said.

The $140 million project is part of a larger MCCA effort to spur development of more hotels near the convention center, from which there are 1,690 rooms within walking distance, compared to an average 7,584 rooms for competing centers in other cities, according to the MCCA. It's also eyeing a 1,200- to 1,500-room "headquarters hotel" near the BCEC.

The next step in the 
MCCA's expansion plan would be passage of the proposed legislation, filed in October, to expand the nine-year-old BCEC by 60 percent, according to executive director James Rooney.

"Our hope is that we can see action from the House and Senate and get it to the governor's desk in the first quarter of next year," Rooney said.

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Orange County Register owner plans daily LA paper

LOS ANGELES — The parent company of the Orange County Register plans to expand with a daily paper in Los Angeles, looking to further stretch its regional reach to nearly all of Southern California.

The new, seven-days-a-week paper will be known as the Los Angeles Register, Freedom Communications CEO Aaron Kushner told The Associated Press on Thursday night, a few hours after announcing the move to his staff in the Orange County Register's newsroom.

Kushner didn't give many specifics about plans for the paper but said it will be launched "quickly" and will be widely distributed in print in Los Angeles County. The Register's story on the launch said it would come early next year.

Kushner said the paper will share Orange County Register content in sports and other areas with regional relevance, but he emphasized it will be a distinct entity with a Los Angeles office and a staff made up of existing Register employees and new hires.

"It will be the LA Register, not the Orange County Register," Kushner said in a phone interview. "We're not a national paper, we are a local community-building paper, so that means having local people in the community they're covering."

Shortly after the announcement, Orange County Register staffers received an email asking about their interest in covering Los Angeles.

The move represents the first time in years that a newspaper has sought to challenge the area's dominant daily, the Los Angeles Times.

The Times' last citywide daily competitor, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, folded in 1989, and plans for startups have been frequently proposed since, but all have faltered. Los Angeles County's other newspapers have largely chosen to focus on their local area instead of the region.

Kushner said he believes there is a place for a paper with a different emphasis and perspective.

"We think the LA Times is a great national newspaper. We are a very different kind of newspaper," Kushner said. "Obviously, we have a very different political perspective. We're not liberal and we're not reactionary. We believe in free markets."

Asked to respond, Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan said in an email, "Our first and foremost mission is serving Southern California, as we have for 132 years."

Last month, Freedom Communications Inc. bought the Riverside Press-Enterprise, the region's biggest inland newspaper, for $27.2 million from Dallas-based A.H. Belo Corp., a month after the deal was announced.

That acquisition combined with a new Long Beach daily and the move into Los Angeles means Freedom's papers will have vast reach in a heavily populated region.

But it means an increasingly large gamble that the millions of potential readers will turn into lots of actual customers at a time when the newspaper business is generally shrinking.

Ken Doctor, a newspaper industry analyst with Outsell Inc., said the move may be an attempt to find new revenue to cover Freedom's fast-growing costs, but it's bold nonetheless.

"Aaron Kushner and Freedom Communications are making the most contrarian play in American newspapers," Doctor said. "While newspapers overall are receding and retracting and cutting, he is in expansionist mode."

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B.R.A. to give ‘blighted’ tax break to Garden complex

The Boston Redevelopment Authority is set to approve a $950 million redevelopment of the former Boston Garden site next week — including $7.8 million in tax breaks for the city-designated "blighted" area — despite neighborhood objections to a 600-foot tower among the three-building complex.

The Menino administration confirmed a 15-year tax deal yesterday and that a Star Market supermarket will be part of Boston Properties and Delaware North's project near the TD Garden.

The tax deal was reached to "secure the critical tenant and create tax certainty" during the first phase of the 1.87 million-square-foot mixed-use project, the announcement said.

"It's a mistake to offer any tax breaks for economic development purposes," said David Tuerck, executive director of the Beacon Hill Institute. "The better policy would be to have a tax rate that is low enough to encourage economic development without having to provide special favors to every supplicant who comes along wanting a subsidy."

The project includes a 497-unit, 600-foot residential tower; a 20-story, 306-room hotel; a 25-story office building; 235,000 square feet of retail space; a 40,000-square-foot TD Garden expansion; and an expansion of the North Station parking garage.

"The tax certainty provided by the 121A agreement will benefit our tenants, securing the mix of uses and public benefits long desired by the community," Boston Properties senior vice president Bryan Koop said in a statement.

Menino and BRA director Peter Meade weren't made available for comment. Meade met with the Boston Garden Impact Advisory Group yesterday to inform the neighborhood stakeholders of the news.

Six of 13 members who favor a 400-foot tower instead of a 600-foot tower and object to the "blighted" status wrote to Menino this week, alleging their concerns weren't given serious consideration. Member James Zahka said he still feels ignored. "If you live near a transportation node, get ready for 600-foot buildings," he said.

The project will generate $32.3 million in revenue over 15 years, versus 
$5 million in property taxes should the land, vacant since the 1990s demolition of the old Boston Garden, remain undeveloped, BRA spokeswoman Melina Schuler said. "This is an opportunity to have a signature building in this part of the city," she said. "We feel that a tower up to 600 feet would be appropriate."

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Economic growth could net $1B for state

The slowly improving economy could pump $1 billion in new revenue into the state system next fiscal year — but watchdogs warn the cash could be eaten up by debt, Medicaid and pension costs.

Growth is projected to be between 4.3 percent and 5.2 percent over what was expected, Department of Revenue Commissioner Amy Pitter told lawmakers. Other projections went as high as 7.9 percent.

The housing market and other improved economic fundamentals and investment decisions in response to federal tax law changes caused tax collections to improve "significantly" in fiscal year 2013 and the first five months of fiscal 2014, Pitter said.

The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation urged the governor to use the extra cash to stabilize the pension system and warned the economy could slow again next year and transportation costs could add up fast.

State House News Service contributed to this report.

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The Ticker

U.S. budget deficit $135.2B in November

The U.S. government ran a much smaller deficit through the first two months of the budget year than the same period last year, signaling further improvement in the nation's finances.

The November deficit — the gap between what the government takes in and what it spends — totaled $135.2 billion, the Treasury Department said yesterday. That's 21.4 percent lower than November 2012.

Red Sox propose 'street furniture'

The Red Sox will seek city approval next week to provide and maintain "street furniture" — illuminated retired numbers of former players — on the Yawkey Way extension from the MBTA's commuter rail station to Fenway Park.

"We hope this will enhance the experience as fans walk from the newly improved commuter rail station to the ballpark, and that the gesture helps encourage fans to use public transportation on game days and throughout the year," Red Sox spokeswoman Zineb Curran said.

Comcast Center gets new name

The concert venue in Mansfield formerly known as the Comcast Center will now be the Xfinity Center, the company said. Comcast says the name change "reflects the Xfinity brand's strong awareness and resonance with consumers."

Bids in on Schilling co.'s assets

Bidders made their final offers yesterday on the intellectual property of former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's bankrupt video game company. The results of the telephone auction of 38 Studios' assets will
be released in the coming days, according to Nick
Jimenez, executive vice president at the Heritage Global Partners auction house.

TODAY

• Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims.
• Commerce Department releases retail sales data for November.
• The global airline industry issues its annual profit forecast and outlook for the coming year and reports on its financial condition, including what's expected to be a modest improvement in global net profits to $10.6 billion for 2013.
• Financial Planning Association of Massachusetts announced that member Daniel J. Galli, left, has been named as its president and will assume responsibilities on Jan. 1. Galli will help guide the policy and direction of the 900-member association that seeks to foster the value of financial planning and advance the profession within Massachusetts.

THE SHUFFLE

• Highland Capital Partners, a venture capital firm, announced consumer media and technology expert Walt Doyle has joined the firm as a Venture Partner in its Cambridge office.

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Boston credit card data theft bigger than thought

BOSTON — Boston police say the credit card data theft that affected about 300 people who attended conventions in the city in the fall is more widespread than at first thought.

Detective Steven Blair says the thefts were not limited to people who attended conferences at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, and extends through other areas of the city.

He tells The Boston Globe that based on interviews with credit card companies, the tally of victims could be "hundreds" more than those who have already reported unauthorized or fraudulent charges on their credit cards.

Blair says the scope of the crime suggests the thieves hacked into the computer system of a business or businesses.

The convention center and several nearby hotels and restaurants have denied being the source of the breach.

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Fears of Fed tapering weighs on world markets

LONDON — Growing expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut its monetary stimulus as early as next week weighed on markets Thursday, a day after U.S. shares had one of their worst days in weeks.

Signs that U.S. lawmakers are poised to agree on a U.S. budget deal reinforced those expectations that the Fed will decide to start reducing its $85 billion worth of financial asset purchases at next week's policy meeting.

"Coupled with the better economic data emanating from the U.S. recently, this does tend to cement the viewpoint that asset purchasing could be scaled back this month," said Brenda Kelly, senior market strategist at IG.

Since the U.S. stimulus has helped buoy stocks over the past few years, its potential reduction has jolted markets periodically in recent months. However, any tapering is expected to be accompanied by a renewed commitment by the Fed to keep interest rates low. That, analysts say, helps explain why stock markets are still trading at relative highs and why bond markets aren't getting too excited.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 1.1 percent at 6,438 while Germany's DAX fell 1 percent to 8,890. The CAC-40 in France was 0.8 percent lower at 4,056.

Wall Street was poised for a steadier opening following Wednesday when the S&P 500 fell 1.1 percent. Both Dow futures and the broader S&P 500 futures were 0.1 percent lower.

The focus will likely remain on the Fed until that decision next Wednesday. The future of the Fed's stimulus has been the main driver in markets since May, when chairman Ben Bernanke first mooted the possibility.

"Between now and the meeting next week, the moves in the markets are going to continue to be largely driven by investors' interpretation of what the Fed will do next week," said Craig Erlam, market analyst at Alpari.

The negative tone was set earlier in Asia, where Japan's Nikkei 225 lost 1.1 percent at 15,341.82 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 0.5 percent to 23,218.12. China's Shanghai Composite eased 0.1 percent to 2,202.80. Markets were also down in Australia, India, Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

Trading in currency markets was more muted. The euro was flat at $1.3782 and the dollar was 0.2 percent higher at 102.73 yen.

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US unemployment aid applications surge to 368,000

WASHINGTON — The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits rose 68,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 368,000, the largest increase in more than a year.

The surge in first-time applications could be a troubling sign if it lasts. But it likely reflects the difficulty adjusting for delays after the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Labor Department said Thursday that the less volatile four-week average rose 6,000 to 328,750. That is close to pre-recession levels and generally a positive sign for job gains.

Applications had tumbled in recent weeks to nearly six-year lows, partly because of a late Thanksgiving holiday that may have distorted the government's seasonal adjustments. Economists believe this week's jump in claims was a dose of payback.

"What the seasonals give in one month they have to take back the next, hence today's number," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Applications for unemployment aid are a proxy for layoffs. A steady decline over the past year suggests that fewer Americans have lost their jobs. Economists will track the next few weeks closely to see if that trend is reversing, or if the surge is a temporary blip caused by seasonal adjustments.

The recent drop in layoffs has coincided with a pickup in hiring. The economy has added an average of 204,000 jobs a month from August through November, up from an average of 146,000 in May through July.

Employers added 203,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate dropped to a five-year low of 7 percent, the government said Friday. Four straight months of robust hiring have raised hopes that 2014 will be the year the economy returns to normal. As more Americans draw a paycheck, incomes and consumer spending generally increase. About 70 percent of economic activity comes from consumer spending.

However, the unemployment rate remains above the historic averages of 5 percent to 6 percent that are associated strong job markets.

A healthier job market could make the Federal Reserve scale back its extraordinary economic stimulus programs. The Fed has been buying $85 billion in bonds each month to keep long-term interest rates low and encourage borrowing and spending.

More than 3.8 million people collected some form of unemployment benefits in the last full week of November.

However, 1.25 million of them could soon lose those benefits. They received aid under a special federal program for the long-term unemployed that is set to expire on Dec. 28.

The program extends aid that usually expires after six months for an additional 28 weeks. Congressional leaders have proposed a budget deal that would not preserve the additional benefits, meaning that as many as 2.1 million Americans will lose this assistance by March.

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How Volcker Rule would limit banks' risky bets

WASHINGTON — U.S. regulators have approved a rule that seeks to defuse the kind of risk-taking on Wall Street that helped trigger the 2008 financial crisis.

The Volcker Rule is expected to change the way the largest U.S. banks do business. It strives to limit banks' riskiest trading bets that could implode at taxpayers' expense. Some think the rule goes too far, others not far enough.

Here are questions and answers about the Volcker Rule:

Q: What is it?

A: The Volcker Rule is a key plank of a financial regulation law enacted in 2010 to try to reduce the likelihood of another crisis and a resulting government bailout. The rule is intended to bar banks from trading for their own profit. This activity is known as proprietary trading. It's become a huge money-making machine for mega Wall Street banks, like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. Under the rule, the banks will be required to trade mainly on their clients' behalf.

Still, if it were that simple, the final draft would be a lot shorter than its roughly 920 pages — about as long as Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov." The rule left to regulators the burden of finalizing the fine print.

Besides curbing proprietary trading, the Volcker Rule limits banks' investments in hedge funds and private equity funds, which are high-risk, lightly regulated investment pools.

The rule is named for Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who was an adviser to President Barack Obama during the financial crisis. Volcker urged a ban on high-risk trading by big banks to diminish the likelihood that taxpayers might have to rescue them, as they did after the financial crisis.

Q: Where are the complications?

A: The ban on proprietary trading isn't absolute. There are exemptions. One involves an important activity called market making. When big banks engage in market making, they use their own money to take the opposite side of a customer's trade: They buy or sell an investment to help execute the trade.

Q: Why does the Volcker Rule matter?

Because of the widely agreed-upon need to reduce the dangers that remain in the banking system. Proprietary trading has allowed big banks to tap depositors' money in federally insured bank accounts — essentially borrowing against that money and using it for investments, such as in mortgage-backed securities. When those bets soured during the crisis — especially after a wave of mortgage defaults — the banks were at risk of failing. Most survived only because of taxpayer-funded bailouts.

Q: So would banks be barred from investing the money I deposit?

A: The short answer is no. When people deposit money in a bank, they may expect the bank to use it for conventional safe investments, such as bonds. Those would still be allowed. But banks could no longer borrow against depositors' money to seek outsize returns on complex investments, like derivatives. Derivatives are investments based on the value of an underlying commodity or security, such as oil, mortgages, interest rates or currencies.

Q: How did the rule become so complicated?

A: Regulators found it hard to isolate what precisely distinguishes proprietary trading from, say, market-making. The line can be blurry.

Another challenge: No fewer than five agencies, including the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission, had to grapple with the rule and reach common ground.

If that weren't enough, industry lobbyists used their muscle to try to preserve the banks' trading operations. They won a round in 2011, when regulators approved a draft that exempted "portfolio hedging" from the trading ban. This meant banks could make trades for their own profit to offset the risks of either individual investments or a broader investment portfolio.

Q: What was the banks' argument?

A: They contended that a ban on proprietary trading could bar them from legitimate market-making on behalf of customers and from appropriately limiting their risks by hedging broader portfolios.

Q: But the final rule doesn't include such an exemption for "portfolio hedging." Why not?

A: An event in 2012 may have led regulators to rethink such an exemption. JPMorgan traders in London made huge trades on derivatives with the bank's money — an ill-conceived bet that cost the bank $6 billion. When the losses came to light, they damaged the bank's reputation. Experts believe the "London Whale" trades, as they became known, helped speed momentum toward a stricter rule. In its latest form, the rule does not exempt portfolio hedging.

Q: So did the banks end up losing on the rule?

A: Their lobbyists are "hugely influential" in crafting regulations, says Cornelius Hurley, a former counsel to the Federal Reserve who heads Boston University's Center for Finance, Law and Policy. "But they don't win every battle."

Q: Will the rule succeed?

A: Hard to know for sure. The final rule requires CEOs of major banks to personally certify once a year that their firms have strong compliance programs. Some big banks have already closed their proprietary trading operations in anticipation of the rule. Still, the rule won't take effect for the biggest banks until mid-2015 and not until 2016 for big banks below the top tier. Its complexity could make enforcement difficult.

"It's all in the details," says James Cox, a Duke University expert on financial regulation. "The longer it gets, the more holes it's got."

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Bipartisan budget deal sets off some grumbling

WASHINGTON — Backers of a narrowly drawn budget deal are selling it as a way to stabilize Congress' shaky fiscal practices and mute some of the partisan rancor that has helped send lawmakers' public approval ratings plummeting. But the bipartisan pact doesn't solve long-term tax and spending issues, leaving liberals and conservatives alike grumbling.

House and Senate floor votes are being sought on the plan announced Tuesday by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, and applauded by the White House, with the aim of securing passage before lawmakers go home for the holidays.

But skepticism surfaced in both the Democratic and Republican caucuses.

Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican and leading deficit hawk, panned the new deal in an interview Wednesday, saying it fails to address core issues of wasteful spending in Washington. He said it was probably "the best" that Ryan and Murray could get at this time. But said he was disappointed in its failure to address core fiscal issues such as duplication and wasteful spending in Washington.

The agreement, among other things, seeks to restore $63 billion in automatic spending cuts affecting programs ranging from parks to the Pentagon. The deal to ease those cuts for two years is aimed less at chipping away at the nation's $17 trillion national debt than it is at trying to help a dysfunctional Capitol stop lurching from crisis to crisis. It would set the stage for action in January on a $1 trillion-plus spending bill for the budget year that began in October.

The measure unveiled by Ryan, R-Wis., and Murray, D-Wash., blends $85 billion in spending cuts and revenue from new and extended fees — but no taxes or cuts to Medicare beneficiaries — to replace a significant amount of the mandated cuts to agency budgets over the coming two years.

The package would raise the Transportation Security Administration fee on a typical nonstop, round-trip airline ticket from $5 to $10; require newly hired federal workers to contribute 1.3 percentage points more of their salaries toward their pensions; and trim cost-of-living adjustments to the pensions of military retirees under the age of 62. Hospitals and other health care providers would have to absorb two additional years of a 2-percentage-point cut in their Medicare reimbursements.

The plan doesn't attempt to resuscitate earlier attempts at an accommodation that would have traded tax hikes for structural curbs to ever-growing benefit programs like Medicare and Social Security. But it would at least bring some stability on the budget to an institution — Congress — whose approval ratings are in the gutter.

"Our deal puts jobs and economic growth first by rolling back ... harmful cuts to education, medical research, infrastructure investments and defense jobs for the next two years," Murray said.

Ryan is set to pitch the measure to skeptical conservatives at a closed-door GOP meeting on Wednesday. Democrats are set to discuss it as well, but the measure won an immediate endorsement from President Barack Obama if only tepid approval from top Capitol Hill Democrats like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee.

"Tonight's agreement represents a step toward enacting a budget for the American people and preventing further manufactured crises that only harm our economy, destroy jobs and weaken our middle class," Pelosi said in a statement.

"This agreement makes sure that we don't have a government shutdown scenario in January. It makes sure that we don't have another government shutdown scenario in October," Ryan said. "It makes sure that we don't lurch from crisis to crisis."

The budget deal was one of a few major measures left on Congress' to-do list near the end of a bruising year that has produced a partial government shutdown, a flirtation with a first-ever federal default and gridlock on Obama's agenda.

In a blow to Democrats, the agreement omits an extension of benefits for workers unemployed longer than 26 weeks. The program expires Dec. 28, when payments will be cut off for an estimated 1.3 million individuals. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has agreed to stage a test vote on the measure this year, but it's not clear whether he'll get enough GOP support to advance it.

Aides predicted bipartisan approval in both houses in the next several days, despite grumbling from liberals over the omission of the unemployment extension and pressure from tea party-aligned groups that are pushing Republican conservatives to oppose the deal.

The agreement would increase the cap on so-called discretionary spending from the $967 billion mandated by Washington's failure to follow up a 2011 budget agreement with additional deficit cuts. The cap would rise to $1.012 trillion for the ongoing 2014 budget year and up to $1.014 trillion for 2015.

The relief to the Pentagon is relatively modest since the agency started out facing a cut of $20 billion below the harsh cuts it faced in 2013; the agreement replaces those cuts but doesn't bring the military's budget much above 2013 levels.

"While modest in scale, this agreement represents a positive step forward by replacing one-time spending cuts with permanent reforms to mandatory spending programs that will produce real, lasting savings," said Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Even before the deal was announced, conservative organizations were attacking the proposal as a betrayal of a 2011 agreement that reduced government spending and is counted as among the main accomplishments of tea party-aligned Republicans who came to power earlier the same year in the House.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., issued a statement opposing the measure and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was seen as likely to oppose it as well. But key Democrats lined up behind Obama, especially after Ryan eased demands on making federal workers contribute more to their pensions.

"This agreement isn't perfect, but it is certainly better than no agreement at all," said Van Hollen, the top House Budget Committee Democrat.

Coburn made his remarks in an appearance Wednesday on MSNBC.

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Slovenia says no need for EU bailout

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia — Slovenia said Wednesday it has enough funds to shore up its indebted banks, indicating the small European Union country will not be seeking an international bailout.

The central bank said in a statement "the government has enough means to carry out the recapitalization" of the banks "extremely swiftly."

It said it came to the conclusion after reviewing the EU-supervised "stress tests" conducted by international auditors for 10 mostly state-run banks.

The results of those health tests, designed to see if one of the smallest countries to use the euro currency would need outside financial assistance, will be made public this week.

Although the central bank did not reveal details of the stress tests, experts estimate Slovenia will need up to 5 billion euros ($6.8 billion) to heal its banks, which are nursing some 8 billion euros in bad loans, or about 23 percent of gross domestic product.

Slovenian Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek said ahead of the publication of the stress test results that her government has solved the main financial problem and will not be seeking a bailout.

"We extinguished the fire, but now we need to create a long-term strategy," Bratusek said.

Slovenia, once an Eastern European model of economic success, has been in recession for the past three years and only a slight recovery is expected in 2015, when the public deficit is set to fall below the 3 percent of GDP threshold set by the EU.

The central bank said that the recapitalization of banks alone will not be sufficient for a substantial economic recovery.

"This will above all require thorough changes in the domestic business environment, including improvements in the functioning of the rule of law and consistent respect for it on all levels of decision making," the central bank said.

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Associated Press writer Dusan Stojanovic contributed from Belgrade, Serbia.

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Health care signups pick up pace in November

WASHINGTON — Playing catch-up with a long way to go, President Barack Obama's new health insurance markets last month picked up the dismal pace of signups, the administration reported Wednesday.

Enrollment statistics from the Health and Human Services Department showed that 364,682 people have signed up for private coverage as of Nov. 30 under the federal health law. Although that's more than three times the October total, it's less than one-third of the 1.2 million people officials had originally projected would enroll nationwide by the end of November.

Crunch time is now for Obama's health care law, as consumers face a Dec. 23 enrollment deadline if they want to have coverage on Jan. 1. Yet HealthCare.gov, the revamped federal website serving 36 states, continues to have issues. Just Tuesday there was an extended maintenance outage. And some states running their own websites are also having problems.

That's created stress and uncertainty not only for the uninsured but also for consumers seeking to avoid an interruption in coverage in January. Those trying to preserve coverage include some or many of the more than 4 million people whose individual plans were canceled because they didn't measure up under the law, as well as hundreds of thousands in federal and state programs for people with serious health problems, from cancer to heart disease to AIDS.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a blog post early Wednesday that she is asking the department's inspector general to investigate the contracting process, management, performance and payment issues that may have contributed to the flawed launch of HealthCare.gov.

The administration report found a total of 137,204 people enrolled in the states served by the federal website by the end of November, up from 26,794 in October.

The 14 states running their own websites enrolled 227,478 people, up from 79,391 in October.

California, which is running its own program, led the nation, with more than 107,000 signups. Oregon, also running its own market, had the lowest total, with just 44 people enrolled. Florida was the leader among states with federally run markets, with nearly 18,000 signups.

Nationally, an additional 803,077 people have been determined to be eligible for Medicaid, the safety-net program shaping up as the health overhaul's early success story. That's about double the number for October. Nonetheless, state Medicaid directors are reporting accuracy problems with information on prospective enrollees that the federal government is sending them.

The administration report comes as Sebelius returns to the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday morning for another grilling from Republicans committed to repealing the law, not to mention Democrats angry over a rollout Sebelius herself called a debacle.

Lawmakers have questions about how and why HealthCare.gov did not work as advertised, whether the federal website meets government security standards and how much all the repairs are costing.

Although Republicans have called for Sebelius to resign, and some Democrats have urged Obama to fire those responsible, the White House has given no indication that a house-cleaning is coming. The secretary's unusual pre-dawn announcement of an inspector general probe indicates that she realizes she has some explaining to do.

"I believe strongly in the need for accountability, and in the importance of being good stewards of taxpayer dollars," Sebelius said in her announcement. The website has cost taxpayers more than $600 million so far, according to the congressional Government Accountability Office.

In addition to the inspector general review, Sebelius said she has ordered the hiring of a new "chief risk officer" at the Medicare agency, which also oversees the new programs created to expand health insurance coverage under Obama's law. That official will focus on making sure technology programs work as advertised.

Sebelius also said she's ordered a retraining of her department on best practices for outside contracting.

The site went live on Oct. 1 and immediately turned into an impenetrable maze for most consumers. A two-month program of fixes directed by White House troubleshooter Jeffrey Zients stabilized the site and made it more workable, resolving hundreds of software glitches and adding more hardware to handle high demand from consumers.

Zients also found that the technical problems were compounded by inadequate oversight and coordination among teams working for the government and its contractors. That raises questions about how Sebelius and her subordinates have managed the complex program. Through the summer and into the fall, the secretary had repeatedly assured Congress and the public that the insurance markets would open for business on schedule Oct. 1.

With his poll ratings in a dive, Obama not only accepted the blame for website woes, but personally apologized for the canceled individual insurance policies. The cancellations issue is highly sensitive politically because it contradicts Obama's promise that if you like your coverage you would be able to keep it.

The president sought to calm the backlash by allowing states and insurers to extend existing plans for another year. Thirty-eight have done so, according to analysis by the consulting firm Avalere Health. But it's unclear to what extent insurers have taken advantage of the leeway granted by state regulators.

The administration had set a goal of signing up 7 million people by the end of open enrollment season March 31. HHS health reform director Mike Hash says they're still "on track" to meet it. Uninsured people who procrastinate beyond that date will face tax penalties when they file their returns for the 2014 tax year.

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Stocks open little changed

NEW YORK — The stock market is little changed in early trading as investors weigh a budget deal out of Washington and a batch of corporate news.

The Dow Jones industrial average eased 20 points to 15,951 shortly after the market opened Wednesday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell four points to 1,797. The Nasdaq fell 10 points to 4,049.

Congress reached a modest U.S. budget agreement that restores about $63 billion in across-the-board automatic spending cuts.

Food Network operator Scripps Networks Interactive jumped $4.97, or 7 percent, to $80.22 after a report that the board of Discovery Communications discussed a bid for the company.

MasterCard rose $36.79, or 5 percent, to $800.40 after it announced a 10-for-1 stock split, raised its quarterly and launched a $3.5 billion stock buyback.

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US ban on high-risk bank trades set for approval

WASHINGTON — U.S. banks will be barred in most cases from trading for their own profit under a federal rule set to be approved Tuesday.

Five U.S. regulatory agencies are voting on the so-called Volcker Rule, a major step toward preventing extreme risk-taking on Wall Street that helped trigger the 2008 financial crisis.

Congress instructed regulators to draft the rule under the 2010 financial overhaul law.

The rule seeks to ban banks from proprietary trading. It's a practice that has been lucrative for banks. In addition to banning trades for their own profit, the rule limits banks' investments in hedge funds.

There is an exemption for proprietary trades when they are to facilitate buying and selling investment for customers.

The largest U.S. banks will be required to comply by July 2015.

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GM names Mary Barra CEO, 1st woman to head car co.

DETROIT — General Motors product development chief Mary Barra has been named the company's new CEO, the first female head of a U.S. car company.

Barra, 51, will replace Dan Akerson on Jan. 15. Akerson, chairman and CEO, moved up his retirement plans by several months because his wife, Karin, is battling advanced cancer, the company said in a statement Tuesday.

With the decision, the GM board separated the board chairman and CEO positions. Barra will get a seat on the board, but Director Theodore (Tim) Solso will succeed Akerson as chairman. Solso formerly was chairman and CEO of engine maker Cummins Inc., and has been on GM's board since June of 2012.

"I will leave with great satisfaction in what we have accomplished, great optimism over what is ahead and great pride that we are restoring General Motors as America's standard bearer in the global auto industry," Akerson said Tuesday morning in a message to employees.

Barra currently holds what many say is the most important job in the company — senior vice president for global product development. She's in charge of design, engineering and quality of all of GM's vehicles across the globe and has shepherded most of the company's recent new vehicle introductions.

Under her command, GM rolled out brawny new full-size pickup trucks, the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, and the Chevrolet Impala full-size car, which earned the highest score for a sedan in testing by Consumer Reports magazine. Its quality scores also rose in surveys conducted by J.D. Power and Associates.

Barra also heads purchasing and had previously ran the company's human resources operations.

She started with GM as an electrical engineering co-op student in 1980 when she attended what is now Kettering University in nearby Flint. She also served as a plant manager and executive director of engineering. She holds a master's degree in business administration from Stanford University.

Barra had been among four internal candidates for the position, including Chief Financial Officer Dan Ammann, North American President Mark Reuss and Vice Chairman Steve Girsky.

Ammann, 41, was named GM president and will manage its regional operations worldwide. He'll also head up the global Cadillac and Chevrolet brands, as well as GM Financial, the company's auto loan arm.

Shares of GM fell 8 cents, or 0.2 percent, to $40.82 in Tuesday morning trading after the announcement.

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Natick store guard charged in shoplifting scheme

NATICK, Mass. — Police say a man hired to provide security at a Natick Mall department store was actually a member of a shoplifting ring who looked the other way while his associates tried to steal merchandise.

Kurt Hampe was released on $200 bail after pleading not guilty Monday to charges of larceny and conspiracy to commit a crime.

The MetroWest Daily News (http://bit.ly/18RHFNp ) reports that the 23-year-old Quincy man was arrested last week after Macy's security was tipped off to his alleged scheme. Police say four people entered the store and loaded up carriages with $7,000 worth of merchandise, including men's shirts, women's suits and a cellphone, while Hampe walked around ignoring them.

He was tied to the alleged shoplifters through Facebook and cellphone texting records. The other four will be summoned to court.

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Information from: MetroWest Daily News (Framingham, Mass.), http://www.metrowestdailynews.com

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EU fines pharmaceutical giants $22 million

AMSTERDAM — The European Commission has fined pharmaceuticals giants Johnson & Johnson and Novartis a combined $22 million for colluding to delay the entrance of a cheap generic form of a pain killer to the Dutch market.

In a statement, the Commission's antitrust chief, Joaquin Almunia, said the two companies "shockingly deprived patients in the Netherlands, including people suffering from cancer, from access to a cheaper version of this medicine."

The Commission found that after Johnson & Johnson's patent on a patch containing the drug Fentanyl expired in 2005, it paid Novartis to delay launching a generic version. The delay lasted 17 months, and was more profitable for both companies than competing honestly would have been.

J&J's fine was 10.7 million euros ($14.7 million), and Novartis' was 5.5 million euros.

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NY Times columnist Carr joins Boston U. faculty

BOSTON — Boston University has landed New York Times media columnist David Carr to fill a new endowed chair dedicated to exploring creative business models to support journalism.

Carr, who starts in January, will keep writing for the Times but will spend two days a week at the university, where he will teach one class each semester in the College of Communication.

The post appears to be among the first professorships dedicated to evaluating how media organizations can sustain themselves financially as readers and advertisers migrate to digital platforms, something Carr has written about extensively.

Carr tells The Boston Globe (http://b.globe.com/1bzREFP ) he has some ideas about how he might help young journalists, encouraging them to use all types of media to show who they are and what they can do.

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Information from: The Boston Globe, http://www.bostonglobe.com

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Hackers get crack at DOT traffic data

Members of the tech community will come together next weekend to sift through a trove of data from the state Department of Transportation, and brainstorm ideas focusing on how people get to their destinations.

"We recognize the immense potential the tech community in the commonwealth could bring to us," said Rachel Bain, project manager for big data in transportation for MassDOT.

The two-day hackathon, starting Friday and hosted by MassDOT at Cambridge tech event space Hack/Reduce, will give the 100-plus coders and developers expected to sign up a chance to turn raw transportation data into a usable visualization — an image, or interactive application, for example. The focus is on travel behavior, road and rail comparisons, and the energy, environmental, and social impacts of the method of transportation people choose, according to organizers who include Massachusetts Big Data and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

Participants will have access to some of the data DOT has collected, including real-time traffic information, fare and ridership information for the commuter rail and accident data.

"We hope the visualizations that people are able to produce will help inform us better about what is going on in our transportation system, about traffic in general and the way people move around the state," Bain said.

Marcela Rodriguez, an independent web developer, says she plans to participate in the hackathon because of the possibility of producing something that could have an impact on how people live their lives.

"There's a lot of opportunities to contribute and make a difference," she said. "Transportation and travel are just very interesting fields."

Rodriguez said she has a couple ideas for what she will produce, likely related to train routes.

Three prizes of $2,000 — provided by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative — will be awarded, one each to the project that best uses the DOT data, the project that is the most visually compelling and the crowd favorite.

Adriane Cochrane, executive director of Hack/Reduce, said hackathons that have a beneficial theme are more popular.

"Anything that is civic in nature definitely excites people," she said.

More than a week before the hackathon, spots were more than half full, she said.

"People aren't coming out for the prizes, it's about learning and collaborating and finding peers with the same interests," Cochrane said.

The state hopes to come away from the hackathon with new information about transportation trends, Bain said. "The hacker community could have a really positive impact in transportation planning," she said.

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Maine seeks to revive sea urchin fishery

AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine lawmakers are examining ways to hasten the recovery of Maine's long-struggling sea urchin fishery.

Members of Maine's Marine Resources Committee are reviewing a bill carried over from last session that some say could help the fishery rebound.

The fishery peaked in 1993 with a harvest of more than 41 million pounds. Last year, fewer than 2 million pounds of urchins were harvested in Maine.

Democratic Rep. Michael Devin of Newcastle tells Maine Public Broadcasting Network that  the state's two-zone concept may be hindering the fishery's recovery.

He's introduced a bill that would create small-scale urchin zones. He says smaller zones that take into account population dynamics may help manage the fishery better and encourage a speedy rebound.

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Information from: WMEA-FM, http://www.mpbn.net/index.html

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Camry keeps on humming along — and not in a good way

My wife's Camry is making a humming noise when in motion, not impacted by wheel turns or by brake application. It gets louder as you go faster. I have a feeling that I know what it is, but would appreciate another opinion.

Is this a setup? If you think you know, why not share it? So, to make sure I'm unlikely to miss, I'd suspect — in this order — tire noise, wheel bearing howl, air leak buzz around windshield or doors, serpentine belt/idler pulley/alternator or power steering pump whine, torque converter drone, transaxle/differential bearing howl, RF static from the audio system and last but not least, happy in-laws humming Christmas carols in the back seat!

We found a 2009 Honda Odyssey that had 14,000 miles on it. The previous owner had four cars and the van wasn't used much so he decided to sell it. The Carfax was clean and it's in excellent shape. We will probably put about 15K to 20K miles a year on it, meaning it will be driven more in the next 12 months than it was in its first four years. Would this van be a candidate for synthetic motor oil? The Honda onboard oil life monitoring system seems to be recommending changes at about 7,500 miles or so.

Yes, absolutely. In my opinion, virtually every automotive engine is a candidate for synthetic oil. Synthetics offer better performance over a wider range of operating temperatures and better viscosity stability over its service life. These benefits are small and the higher cost of synthetics is a very, very small increment of the overall cost of ownership, operation, maintenance and repair over the life of the vehicle. To me, that makes the decision to use synthetic lubricants an easy one.

But I'd be hard-pressed to go more than roughly 5,000 miles between oil changes. Call me old-fashioned, but I'm just not comfortable with longer intervals for my personal vehicles.

I drive a 2002 Honda CRV with 97,000 miles on it. A "Check engine" light diagnostic indicated an oxygen sensor heater was working intermittently and the recommendation was to replace the "b1s1o2." Neither an independent auto shop nor a Honda dealer could really explain why I should spend $500 ($350 parts, $150 labor) if the only issue is slightly decreased gas mileage. I drive less than 4,000 miles a year and 99 percent is city driving so my mileage hasn't been great. What is the worst downside of doing nothing and what would you recommend?

Honda recommends inspecting/cleaning/repairing any faults in the connectors, harness or circuit from the ECM to the "bank 1, sensor 1, oxygen" — the front oxygen sensor. Then have the DTC fault code cleared. If it comes back, I'd replace the O2 sensor. My Alldata database confirmed the cost for the OE sensor at over $350, but a quick Internet search found reputable brand name replacement sensors for your vehicle in the $50-$150 range. These units require harness splicing, but are significantly less expensive. Installation should take about 30 minutes.

The function of the electrical heater is to stabilize the sensor's operating temperature, allowing the engine management system to read and adjust the air/fuel ratio more accurately. This reduces the burden on the catalytic converter — an even more expensive component — and optimizes engine performance and economy.

Your question is valid. Since the sensor is heated by the exhaust it still may be supplying A/F ratio data, but because it triggered a fault code the data may not be accurate or the ECM may be substituting a default value, meaning less efficient operation and potentially more unburned fuel for the converter to catalyze.

Paul Brand, author of "How to Repair Your Car," is an automotive troubleshooter, driving instructor and former race-car driver. Readers may write to him at: Star Tribune, 425 Portland Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn., 55488 or via email at paulbrand@startribune.com.

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Mass. panel considers casino firms' Macau dealings

BOSTON — Few Massachusetts residents may be familiar with Macau, but the Chinese administrative region that has become the most lucrative gambling market in the world has caught the eye of state regulators as they complete background checks on two casino companies.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission is considering whether MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts are suitable casino businesses for the state. The Gaming Commission has scheduled a hearing for MGM on Monday and for Wynn Resorts on Dec. 16.

The two companies have already won approval from their host communities — Wynn in Everett in June and MGM in Springfield in July. Their operations in Macau also have been scrutinized by New Jersey or U.S. regulatory agencies in instances unrelated to Massachusetts.

But as American companies have rushed to capitalize in Macau — where total gambling revenues are expected to easily top $40 billion this year, more than six times that of the Las Vegas Strip — regulators in the U.S. have raised questions about these businesses' compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

"It says U.S. companies have to act like they are in America when they are dealing in foreign countries," said Steve Norton, an Indiana-based gambling consultant and former casino executive.

Norton said the Massachusetts commission will have to decide how any issues it might find in a company's Macau operations would relate to casino operations in the state, but he doubts the regulators will find either Wynn or MGM unsuitable.

"If there is a major problem, then I think the commission would go to them and say, 'This is an issue. You have to get rid of it,'" Norton said.

The two companies were the first resort casino developers in Massachusetts to win approval from their host communities. The background checks, by the commission's investigative arm, and the panel's "suitability" decision are among the final hurdles for the few casino applicants that remain viable in Massachusetts.

The panel has already spent considerable time debating the issue: It convened a meeting that focused on Macau in October and discussed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act at an informational session last week.

In New Jersey, regulators in 2010 found MGM's partnership with Pansy Ho in Macau unsuitable. Ho is the daughter of a gambling kingpin with alleged ties to Chinese gangs, and MGM was forced to divest its stake in an Atlantic City casino.

The company denied doing anything inappropriate and continues its relationship with Ho, though she is now a minority stakeholder in the Macau casino. Meanwhile, New Jersey has agreed to consider allowing MGM to re-enter Atlantic City.

In Massachusetts, MGM is confident of clearing its background check.

"We are looking forward to that suitability hearing on Monday. I have every reason to expect that we will be found suitable," MGM Chief Executive James Murren said in an emailed statement.

Wynn officials told the commission in October that the company's Macau casino has more than a dozen so-called junket operators, all licensed and all subject to criminal background checks by the government, along with additional background investigations by the company.

Junket operators recruit well-heeled gamblers from the mainland for Baccarat in VIP rooms in Macau casinos, often providing credit to players. In general, they have gotten the attention of regulators because of alleged connections to organized crime.

But Steve Wynn, chief executive of Wynn Resorts, cautioned the commission against overzealous regulation. He told the panel at the October meeting that he was in compliance with all rules in Macau and that the firm should not be penalized for overseas operations.

In July, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it was concluding an investigation into a $135 million donation Wynn Resorts made to a university in Macau, without pursuing enforcement action. A former business partner who had a falling out with Wynn had suggested the donation may have been an attempt to curry favor with government officials.

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Insurance agents feeling left out of "Obamacare"

MIAMI — When insurance agent Kelly Fristoe recently spent 30 minutes helping a client pick a mid-level health plan and the federal marketplace website froze, he called the government's hotline and tried to finish the application. But the operator refused to credit Fristoe as an agent on the application, meaning he wouldn't get the commission or be listed as the follow-up contact if his client needed help again later.

The Wichita Falls, Texas, insurance agent is one of many brokers around the country finding frustration as they try to help customers navigate the Affordable Care Act's marketplaces while earning the commissions they've long built their businesses around. Some insurers and insurance agents are calling on President Barack Obama's administration to allow them to bypass healthcare.gov and enroll consumers directly amid growing complaints about problems with enrollment information generated from the website.

The so-called 'back-end' problems could mean that consumers who think they've successfully signed up for a health plan, may find themselves unable to access their coverage come January. The problems include enrollment information that's rendered practically useless by errors, duplication or garbles. Efforts to fix the issues are underway.

Nearly 70,000 agents and brokers have been certified nationwide to sell health insurance on the federal exchange. Many say they could be the troubled health law's best ambassadors with the potential to boost lackluster enrollment figures — only about 27,000 had enrolled via the federal website nationwide in the first month. But instead, many agents said they're continually met by obstacles.

"You look at this dismal number they have of how many people have enrolled on healthcare.gov," said Fristoe. "If they would just relax and loosen up, because me and all of my associates across this nation want to help these consumers get enrolled into the market."

Federal health officials announced on Nov. 22 that they'd fixed some portions of the website to allow more insurers and insurance agents to enroll consumers directly. The feds are asking roughly 16 insurers, agents and brokers in Florida, Texas and Ohio to test it out and give detailed feedback about the fixes, hoping to expand it to other states in the coming weeks. Health officials have been vague about the scope of the botched applications insurers are receiving and what steps they're taking to fix the problems. One bug related to Social Security numbers, which federal health officials said accounted for more than 80 percent of insurers' problems, was fixed last weekend.

But the problems have persisted, prompting the head of the National Association of Health Underwriters to write the president Tuesday, urging him to make additional fixes a priority, saying agents have a significant backlog of clients with incomplete applications.

"We want to make it clear that a number of back-end technical obstacles still exist for health insurance agents and brokers trying to actively support the federal marketplace," said CEO Janet Trautwein.

Insurance industry executives also met with Obama last month and encouraged him to let them take a more active role in enrolling consumers in the 36 states relying on the federal website. Brokers' frustrations with the website are amplified by the pressure they face to add customers to offset reductions in their commissions under the law.

Among the complaints, agents say the website isn't always crediting brokers when they help enroll consumers — meaning they're losing out on commissions. Once an application is started, consumers can't go back in and add a broker's name if they help midway through the process. Federal health officials said there are 975,000 customers who have started an application but not selected a plan.

Agents say they're also still waiting on the federal government to add a promised feature on the website that would easily connect consumers with local insurance brokers.

Insurers and insurance agents are allowed to sign consumers up for health plans through a "direct enrollment" process. Even though the process may start on the insurer's website, at some point it's redirected to the technology-plagued healthcare.gov website to determine if customers are eligible for subsidies, and then ideally transferred back to the insurer's site. But various points in the process have been mired in glitches. Federal health officials said they've fixed some of the problems, but skeptics fear the improvements still won't allow for a smooth shopping experience and are pushing for a way to bypass the website.

Brokers face similar problems in some of the states that are running their own exchanges, such as Oregon. It's easy for insurers to enroll customers who want a health plan and don't qualify for a subsidy. The trouble comes when insurers and agents need to sync to federal data hubs to verify income, citizenship and other personal information. Democratic Florida state Rep. Richard Stark, who is also an insurance agent, said many of his clients have received inaccurate subsidy estimates from the federal government for clients. For example, a client with twin children was told one is eligible for a subsidy, but not the other.

Like others stymied by website malfunctions, Ken Statz and other agents at his firm in Brecksville, Ohio, filled out paper applications and mailed them, but it was taking time to hear back from the federal government about whether clients are eligible for a subsidy. Then they tried to get creative, planning to fill out the applications with clients during the day and hire someone to input the information into healthcare.gov during off-hours after 11 p.m. But that didn't work either because the site asks personal identification questions that only the user would know.

"We don't have a clear pathway to get them enrolled into the plan. (The federal government) hasn't given us the ability to do that. They're kind of missing the mark on this. They need to realize that we are the best pathway," he said.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, recently sent a letter to federal health officials urging them to fix the barriers hampering brokers and possibly create a way to bypass the healthcare.gov site. She suggested a dedicated call-center line or mailing locations for paper applications.

Stark has noticed a chilly reception toward his industry when he's attended local outreach organizations on the health overhaul.

"They basically didn't want to work with insurance agents because they felt agents were going to steer a customer toward (a plan) where they think they will make the most money," said Stark. "If I steer someone incorrectly to a plan that doesn't meet their needs, there's a lot of hell to pay as an agent."

Navigators will likely be gone when enrollment ends in March. That's why Statz said it's important for federal health officials to empower agents to "help people now, but help them make decisions on their accounts moving forward."

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Follow Kelli Kennedy on Twitter at twitter.com/kkennedyAP

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