Federal judge dismisses latest Cape Wind lawsuit

BOSTON — A federal judge has dismissed latest efforts by opponents to derail a proposed offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound.

The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, the town of Barnstable and several Cape Cod businesses had argued in a lawsuit filed in January that the state overstepped its authority when it brokered an agreement for NStar to buy power from the project.

U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns on Friday dismissed the lawsuit, saying the federal court has no jurisdiction over claims in the case and because opponents of the wind farm failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted

Cape Wind President Jim Gordon said on Saturday that the court decision provides further momentum for the project to secure financing to launch a domestic offshore wind farm.

Opponents of the project did not immediately comment.

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Home Showcase: A contemporary spin on classic summer cottage

A dozen new cottage-style homes have been built on the site of the former Thomas Jefferson Coolidge mansion in Manchester-by-the-Sea.

Variations of classic summer cottages, with some affording ocean views, the homes at Summer Hill cluster around a central green, part of the subdivision's 11 acres of open space. There is also a walking path down to Magnolia Beach a quarter-mile away.

We took a look at 5 Blynman Circle, a three-bedroom, 3,678-square-foot home with views of Clark's Pond on the market for $1,626,000.

The beige-clapboard, cedar-shingled home has a mahogany-lined front porch and features high-end door, window and crown moldings and 4-inch white oak floors throughout.

A large open living/dining area with a gas fireplace and two walls of windows, including a bumpout nook, resides to the left of the entry foyer.

A French door leads down to a three-season porch.

The kitchen has white-painted maple cabinets, antique-white Silestone countertops and high-end Viking appliances, plus a second Fisher Paykel dishwasher and Marvel wine cooler.

The master bedroom suite at the rear of the first floor has a wall of windows and balcony overlooking Clark's Pond and interior windows overlooking the porch. There's a radiant-heat tiled floor in the master bathroom and walk-in closet.

A laundry room on this floor has a washer and dryer as well as a half-bathroom and a mudroom that opens to a two-car garage.

The second floor features two good-sized oak-floored bedrooms with a two-sink marble vanity bathroom connecting them.

The home's lower level features a large family room with a wet bar and wine cooler. The family room opens out to a small back yard. There's a full tiled bathroom here as well as the home's four-zone heating and central air conditioning systems and tankless hot water heater.

HOME SHOWCASE

• Address: 5 Blynman Circle, Manchester-by-the-Sea
• Bedrooms: Three
• Bathrooms: Three full, one half
• List price: $1,626,000
• Square feet: 3,678
• Price per square foot: $442
• Annual taxes: To be determined
• Monthly Homeowner Association Fee: $484 
(projected)
• Location: About a half-mile to shops and 
restaurants in Magnolia Village and a quarter mile to Magnolia Beach
• Built in: 2013-2014
• Broker: Sandy Carpentier and Lynne Saporito of J Barrett and Co. at 978-922-2700

Pros:

• Contemporary open plan with cottage feel
• Master bedroom overlooks Clark's Pond
• High-end Viking appliance kitchen package
• Large family room opens out to back yard

Cons:

• Houses in development are close together

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BC Law School gets Thomas More statue

Boston College Law School yesterday hosted a dedication ceremony for a newly installed sculpture of St. Thomas More that was donated by a family that is known for its generosity throughout the city of Boston.

The statue is the latest gift from the Privitera family who has given statues to the Dante Alighieri Cultural Society in Cambridge and the Sacred Heart Church in the North End. There is also a scholarship and award in their name at the law school.

The sculpture of St. Thomas More, who was a lawyer, author and councilor to Henry VIII of England, was made by Bolivian-born Pablo Eduardo, who now lives in Gloucester.

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Mass. ahead of U.S. rebound

Massachusetts employers increasingly have been more confident about hiring, reflecting the nearly 300,000 jobs added nationally last month — the most in two years.

"We're moving out of the post-recession into the post-recovery," said Andre Mayer, senior adviser at Associated Industries of Massachusetts. "We already have been seeing the improved hiring picture reflected in the latest national numbers."

U.S. employers added a robust 288,000 jobs in April, the strongest evidence to date that the economy is picking up after a brutal winter slowed growth.

The Labor Department also said yesterday that the national unemployment rate sank to 6.3 percent, its lowest level since September 2008, from 6.7 percent in March.

Massachusetts numbers for April have not yet been released. But in March, unemployment was already at 6.3 percent after falling for the third consecutive month, and employment hit a record high, with about 3.4 million people holding jobs.

Jon B. Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, said increasing consumer confidence and spending are fueling hiring.

"The challenge is that the job growth is still more concentrated in Greater Boston — other parts of the state are still seeing higher unemployment rates — and the unemployment rate masks the still large number of discouraged workers," said Daniel Hodge, director of economic and public policy research at the UMass Donahue Institute. "But in general, the economic news and trends appear to be quite positive for both the U.S. and Massachusetts."

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Booting Up: Let the twits tweet

It used to be that being a racist nitwit in public meant being told off by the closest good Samaritan and slithering back to your freakish KKK lair.

Now being a racist nitwit in public means getting called out by Bruins president Cam Neely, being dubbed "a disgrace" by Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh and being hit by a tidal wave of backlash from 17,000 angry members of cyberspace who will make it their mission to forever haunt you.

That's the real story surrounding the racist tweets — including references to the 
N-word — directed at P.K. Subban after the Montreal defenseman scored the game-winning goal in double overtime Thursday night against the Bruins. It's a story of a few idiots sparking a tsunami of backlash that they richly deserved. But it's not a story of mass racism within Bruins nation leaking into public view. Despite what some media outlets have reported.

The misinformation appears to have originated with a 
Canadian news outlet that reported that racist comments from Bruins fans "proliferated through social media." That same outlet claimed 17,000 tweets referenced the N-word. This narrative was picked up by local outlets as well. Several media outlets reported — and later corrected — that the N-word was trending on Twitter.

Yet the original Canadian news article itself notes that "the majority" of the 17,000 
N-word tweets were not negative — meaning they were actually condemning the racists, which last time I checked isn't racist. No number was given to quantify the truly racist tweets.

As of yesterday, I found seven documented cases of 
racist tweets using the N-word. I could find no evidence that there had been a proliferation of racist comments through the Twitterverse Thursday night. In fact, it seems that there was mass condemnation of a small number of racist fools.

Still, histrionics ensued. Some commentators called for Twitter to ban the N-word. They failed to note that nearly every racist tweet had been deleted through the system that allows users to flag comments as obscene or abusive. One local news outlet even seemed to dispense advice to the racists — urging people to think twice before they tweet. News you can use … for racists.

Looking for a sober perspective, I went to Rachel Poor, Boston-based social media consultant and president of Thread Communications. Her take: Don't censor the racists. Let them be racist. Let them feel the fallout. Or, ignore them as you would any child throwing a temper tantrum. "Social media is no longer new territory," Poor said. "It's another outlet for all people."

All people, including terrorists, porn stars and, in this case, the ignorant among us.

The lesson here isn't that there's a racist sleeper cell within the Bruins nation, but rather that a relatively small number of idiots can ignite an international "news" storm.

David Gerzof Richard, Digital Media and Marketing Professor at Emerson College, said that Twitter has a tendency to magnify the outrageous. And in this case, maybe that wasn't a bad thing.

"Now, it actually does get discussed," he said. "It forces us to deal with it."

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Cambridge co. seeks FDA OK for cancer drug

A Cambridge company plans to seek federal regulatory approval this year for a new drug to treat pancreatic cancer after positive late-stage trial results were announced this week.

Merrimack Pharmaceuticals said its MM-398 drug, used in combination with two chemotherapy drugs, improved the average survival rate of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. The rate extended to 6.1 months — 1.9 months longer than when the other two drugs were used alone — for those who previously received gemcitabine-based therapy.

"Given that there have only been a handful of successful Phase 3 trials in pancreatic cancer in the past 25 years, it is gratifying to have the first positive Phase 3 trial in the post-gemcitabine setting," CEO Robert Mulroy said in a statement.

There are only three FDA-approved treatments for pancreatic cancer, which is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States with a 6 percent five-year survival rate, according to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.

Shares of Merrimack fell 8 percent yesterday to $6.43, after soaring to a 52-week high of $7.65 on Thursday, when the company also reported a $27.8 million quarterly loss and said it has enough cash to get it into 2015.

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Boston getting gas reserve

The U.S. Department of Energy will create the nation's first federal regional gasoline reserves — one near Boston and another near New York Harbor — to hedge against fuel supply disruptions such as those experienced after Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Each location will store 500,000 barrels of gasoline to complement the 1-million-barrel Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve that was tapped for the first time in the wake of Sandy.

"This reserve is a step toward preventing another Sandy situation with regard to fuel," Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said. "This is part of a broader commitment to a more secure and resilient energy infrastructure."

The federal government plans to acquire the gas and store it at leased commercial terminals by late summer — in the middle of the Atlantic hurricane season that runs from June 1 through Nov. 30 — at a cost of about $200 million.

"Like sandbags and stockpiles of food and medicine, this gasoline reserve is what the Northeast needs to be ready for supercharged storms from climate change," Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Massachusetts), who joined Moniz and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) in making the announcement yesterday, said in a statement.

Sandy heavily damaged two refineries and forced the closure of 40-plus terminals in New York Harbor, leaving some New York gas stations without fuel for up to 30 days.

The reserves are probably long overdue, said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester.

"Compared to the strategic petroleum reserve on the Gulf Coast, it's a small thing, and it's not meant to somehow make our gasoline cheaper, but to deal with short-term logistical problems" he said.

It's possible that reserves also will be established in other parts of the country, according to Lynch.

"New England is kind of the farthest away from our oil supply and there's long been agitation about that," he said.

The state's Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs said the move would improve the region's "energy resiliency."

"As we work to prepare for and mitigate the impacts of climate change, it will be important to have a source of gasoline stored nearby to ensure we have an uninterrupted fuel supply," spokeswoman Krista Selmi said.

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White House reporters to honor black journalist

WASHINGTON — Harry McAlpin was standing outside the Oval Office, moments away from becoming the first black reporter to attend a presidential press conference, when one of his contemporaries approached with a deal.

Stay out here, the reporter told McAlpin. The other White House correspondents would share their notes, and McAlpin would have a chance to become an official member of the correspondents association. McAlpin marched into the Oval Office anyway. Afterward, President Franklin Roosevelt shook McAlpin's hand and said, "I'm glad to see you, McAlpin, and very happy to have you here."

McAlpin, who became a fixture at the White House during the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, never got a White House Correspondents' Association membership. But now, in its centennial year, the WHCA is honoring McAlpin with a scholarship bearing his name.

The scholarship will be presented Saturday night during the WHCA's annual dinner with President Barack Obama.

"Harry McAlpin is someone who should be recognized and shouldn't be forgotten," National Journal correspondent George Condon, the association's unofficial historian, said this week during a panel discussion about diversity and the White House press corps.

WHCA President Steven Thomma noted that the correspondents group is much more diverse now than in the days when it refused membership to blacks, thus excluding them from presidential press conferences.

"Not quite where this press corps probably ought to be to have the kind of voices and questions we want to hear, but I think we've made some progress," Thomma said.

Before McAlpin, minority reporters had been excluded from many official Washington news conferences.

That changed after the creation of the National Negro Publishers Association in 1941. John Sengstacke, the publisher of the Chicago Defender and one of the creators of the NNPA, opened a Washington bureau for the Defender and hired McAlpin, a lawyer, as a part-time correspondent. During a discussion with Attorney General Francis Biddle about the black press' war coverage, Sengstacke suggested the attorney general ask the White House to allow a black reporter into its news conferences.

In February 1944, Roosevelt invited 13 NNPA leaders to the White House, and three days later, McAlpin was standing outside the Oval Office, waiting for his first news conference as a White House reporter.

The breaking of that barrier did not mean that everything was now fine inside the White House for blacks. Roosevelt press secretary Stephen Early refused to introduce McAlpin to the president, as was customary at that time, leading McAlpin to walk up to Roosevelt alone, said Earnest L. Perry Jr., who wrote about the attempt to credential a black White House correspondent for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Although he tried using his White House press pass, McAlpin was never credentialed to cover Congress. Louis Lautier ended up being the first accredited African-American congressional reporter.

McAlpin eventually left Washington to practice law in Louisville, Kentucky, and later became the president of the local NAACP chapter. He died in 1985.

McAlpin's son Sherman, who lives in Maryland, will attend Saturday's WHCA dinner and meet with Obama.

___

Online:

Hear Harry S. McAlpin talk about his life at http://thisibelieve.org/essay/16794/

___

Follow Jesse J. Holland on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jessejholland

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Jury says Samsung infringed Apple patents

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California jury awarded Apple $119 million — far less than it demanded — in a patent battle with Samsung over alleged copying of smart phone features, and the jury made the victory even smaller by finding that Apple illegally used one of Samsung's patents.

The verdict was a far cry from the $2.2 billion Apple sought and the $930 million it won in a separate 2012 trial making similar patent infringement claims against older Samsung products, most of which are no longer for sale in the United States.

The jury found that Apple had infringed one of Samsung's patents in creating the iPhone 4 and 5. Jurors awarded Samsung $158,400, trimming that amount from the original $119.62 million verdict. Samsung had sought $6 million.

"Though this verdict is large by normal standards, it is hard to view this outcome as much of a victory for Apple," Santa Clara University law professor Brian Love said. "This amount is less than 10 percent of the amount Apple requested and probably doesn't surpass by too much the amount Apple spent litigating this case."

The award may be adjusted slightly in favor of Apple. Jurors were ordered to return to court Monday to continue deliberations on a minor matter that could result in a higher award for Apple. Because the jury was still empaneled, jurors were prevented from talking publicly about the case.

Samsung spokesman Lauren Restuccia declined comment, citing the ongoing deliberations.

Apple declared Friday's verdict a victory.

"Samsung willfully stole our ideas and copied our products," Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said. "We are fighting to defend the hard work that goes into beloved products like the iPhone, which our employees devote their lives to designing and delivering for our customers."

Unlike the first trial in San Jose federal court in 2012, Samsung lawyers made Google a central focus of their defense. Google makes the Android software that Samsung and other smartphone manufacturers use as their operating systems. Samsung argued that Google was Apple's real target.

More than 70 percent of smartphones run on Android, a mobile operating system that Google Inc. has given out for free to Samsung and other phone makers

Both companies will now try to urge the judge to remove the others products from store shelves in the United State. Love and other experts say that neither company is expected to succeed with those demands.

"So far Apple has been unsuccessful at doing so and, without a sales ban, this case is unlikely to move the needle on the larger battle between Apple and Android," Love said.

The verdict marked the latest intellectual property battle between the world's top two smartphone makers. Apple and Samsung have sued each other in courts and trade offices around the world.

Apple and Samsung are locked in a bitter struggle for dominance of the $330 billion worldwide smartphone market. Samsung has become the leader of the sector with a 31 percent share after being an also-ran with just 5 percent in 2007. Apple, meanwhile, has seen its market share slip to about 15 percent from a high of 27 percent three years ago.

The jury of four men and four women delivered its verdict in the latest case after beginning deliberations on April 29.

During the monthlong trial, Apple argued that many of the key functions and vital features of Samsung phones were invented by Apple. Samsung countered that its phones operate on the Google Android software system and that any legal complaint Apple has is with the search giant.

Google entered the smartphone market while its then-CEO Eric Schmidt was on Apple's board. The move infuriated Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who considered Android to be a blatant rip-off of iPhone innovations.

After removing Schmidt from Apple's board, Jobs vowed that Apple would resort to "thermonuclear war" to destroy Android and its allies. At the recent trial, Samsung attorneys produced an email Jobs sent to executives in 2010 urging them to wage a "holy war" against Android in 2011.

Early in deliberations, the jury wanted to know if Jobs had mentioned Google when considering the lawsuit that was eventually filed in 2012, several months after the Apple founder died of cancer.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh told jurors no additional evidence was available to them beyond what was presented during the trial.

Koh answered similarly to questions about Samsung's chief executive officer's reaction when informed that Apple executives had complained to executives at the South Korean company about alleged patent infringement.

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GM recalling 51,640 SUVs for defective fuel gauges

DETROIT — General Motors is recalling 51,640 SUVs because the fuel gauges may show inaccurate readings.

The recall involves the Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia from the 2014 model year. All of the affected SUVs were built between March 26 and Aug. 15 of 2013.

GM says the engine control module software may cause the fuel gauge to read inaccurately. If that happens, the vehicle might run out of fuel and stall without warning.

The company doesn't know of any crashes or injuries related to the problem.

GM says dealers will reprogram the software for free, starting immediately. The company will also notify owners by mail.

The recall was posted Saturday on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Web site.

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