The Boston Globe rolled out a new digital edition Monday that allows subscribers to read the newspaper electronically exactly as they would the print version, but on a laptop, tablet, or mobile phone.

The Globe’s new ePaper is formatted the same as the print version, with the sections, articles, and photographs laid out just as in the paper, meaning readers will be able to browse through it in the same familiar fashion but using digital scroll features. It is free for all online and print subscribers and can be accessed on BostonGlobe.com. It is also available on iTunes as a standalone iPad and iPhone app.

The ePaper is part of the Globe’s effort to cater to a growing online audience by combining the sensation of reading the print newspaper with the convenience of mobile communication. The ePaper replaces the Globe’s first replica edition and adds several new features, including the capability to read the full newspaper offline.

“Part of the strategy is to introduce additional digital products that allow our readers to connect with our journalism in a variety of ways,’’ said Christopher M. Mayer, publisher of the Globe. “We’re constantly looking at ways to increase the value of a Boston Globe subscription.’’

Mayer said the ePaper is meant to complement the Globe’s existing digital products, including its subscription website, BostonGlobe.com; the GlobeReader; and Boston.com. Subscribers to the previous e-version of the paper, the Libre Replica edition, will have full access to BostonGlobe.com and the Boston Globe ePaper.

Media companies around the world have begun using replica digital editions as a way to reach readers who want the full scope and context of the daily newspaper, but in an electronic format they can access anywhere. The offline reading capability of the Globe’s ePaper makes it accessible to subscribers who want to read it during a flight or in locations where they do not have Internet connectivity.

The ePaper is powered by technology from NewspaperDirect, whose products are also used to produce replica editions of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and dozens of other newspapers in the United States and abroad. The company’s PressReader product is widely used to download newspapers to cellphones and tablets.

“This technology helps newspapers reach the consumer where the consumer is going,’’ said Thomas Fiedler, dean of Boston University’s College of Communications. “We’re in an era where people want to have access to the news when it’s convenient for them.’’

The ePaper features digital page-turning and bookmarking tools, a navigation bar to scroll through sections, and a text-to-speech feature that allows subscribers to have articles, or the entire paper, read aloud to them.

Subscribers can also receive the ePaper early in the morning just as they would the physical newspaper. Readers can have it delivered directly to their phones and other devices at 5 a.m.

For nonsubscribers, single-copy purchase of the app is available on iTunes for 99 cents per issue or $14.99 a month. The Globe plans to introduce apps compatible for Android phones later this year.

Summary: The Boston Globe rolled out a new digital edition Monday that allows subscribers to get the full experience of reading the Globe in print, but on a laptop, tablet or mobile device. The Globe’s ePaper is formatted exactly like the print version, so that readers will be able to scroll through the same sections, articles and photographs using digital features. It is free for all online and print subscribers and can be accessed on BostonGlobe.com; It is also available on iTunes as a standalone iPad and iPhone app.


The Christmas story in art is a rich epic with different moods and tones that speak to different emotional needs. The adoration of the Magi offers artists a spectacle of rich clothes, long cavalcades, rare gifts. The adoration of the shepherds is humbler and more spiritual. But the most introspective and mysterious moment in the story is the annunciation – the appearance of the archangel Gabriel to Mary to tell her she will give birth to the son of God.

Medieval and Renaissance artists painted the annunciation again and again. It was popular in art long before the Renaissance dwelt on all those glitzy Magi. Annunciation scenes are profound moments of enigma in which a woman encounters the divine in the quiet of her home. They include some of the most powerful visionary paintings of all time.

Leonardo da Vinci heads the top five annunciations with a dreamlike youthful masterpiece. The angel has wings with incredibly realistic feathers: it looks as if, in this early painting that he did in Florence in around 1472-1475 when he was still in his 20s, Leonardo is already thinking about the possibility of human flight. His angel is a bird-man. But it is also an angel, and Mary shows her perturbation and awe at the message she receives. Her garden and bedroom are painted in miniscule, hallucinatory detail: a view past tall Tuscan trees reveals misty mountains in a world that hums with portent.

Second in the annunciation top five is a daring and unexpected take on the tale. In his Virgin Annunciate, painted in about 1476, Antonello da Messina does not show the angel at all. Instead, he concentrates on an intimate portrait of Mary as she absorbs the holy information. The leaves of her book seem ruffled by a divine breath: the holy spirit agitates the air. Mary is reserved, modest and contemplative. This is a shatteringly intense painting.

Simone Martini's annunciation uses far simpler methods than Leonardo and Antonello. Painted around 1333, with Lippo Memmi creating a gothic structure for his panel, he does not have the other artists' Renaissance mastery of perspective and depth. Yet it could be argued that this sets him free to be truly spiritual. The narrow Gothic eyes of Mary and Gabriel lock, in a moment of revelation and truth. Mary arcs her body with feeling against the golden ether.

Two great religious artists with very different personalities complete this mystical top five. Fra Angelico was a true holy man whose greatest achievement was his decoration of the religious house of San Marco in Florence. Each monastic cell has its own eerie painting. A highlight of the scheme is a perfectly poised annunciation. Mary sits humbly, profoundly aware of her task, in a loggia whose architecture is brilliantly delineated in depth. This a supernatural moment in a very solid three-dimensional space.

Fra Filippo Lippi was – like the saintly Fra Angelico – in holy orders, but by contrast he was a bad friar. It was said that his patron Cosimo de' Medici had to lock him in a room at the Medici palace to get him to stay away from lovers long enough to work. Perhaps the painting he was finishing under house arrest was his Annunciation in the National Gallery in London.

Whatever his sins, this is a holy work. Mary is lost in an inner world of prayer and vision. The angel reveres her, even as she reveres the power of God. The annunciation is art's most sacred moment.

Summary: The annunciation is a favourite Christmas story scene among artists. Here are the top five


Renzo Piano has a new honorific and the very sound of it makes him guffaw incredulously, his laugh echoing around the lofty ceilings of his grand office in Rome's 16th-century Palazzo Giustiniani. In his native Italy, the man who designed London's Shard, co-created Paris's Pompidou, brought the New York Times skyscraper to Manhattan and Kansai airport to Japan is no longer addressed simply as architetto. He is senatore, too – and, for that matter, a senator for life. "I still prefer architect," he admits, chuckling. "Not because I don't like senatore. It's a great honour. I'm just surprised."

Appointed by the president for their "outstanding patriotic merits", Italian life senators of the past have included such towering figures as seven-time prime minister Giulio Andreotti and Fiat boss Giovanni Agnelli. Many have been former presidents. When Piano, who is a debonair 76, got the call late last summer in the back of a New York cab, his immediate reaction was an endearing, almost indignant, disbelief. "I said, 'But I'm too young for this!' And he [president Giorgio Napolitano] said, 'No, you're not.'"

Several months on, Piano appears still to be grappling with the idea that he – the son of a builder from Genoa, the architectural rebel who came of age in restive 1960s Milan – is now a fully paid-up member of the establishment. Gallingly, the elevation has also exposed him to the mirth of his old friend Richard Rogers, whose own life peerage he had previously enjoyed teasing. "Now he is making the same joke with me," he smiles. "We were young 'bad boys' only some years ago. Now we are finding ourselves like wise old men."

What does a wise old man do, then, when he finds himself transformed into a senior political figure and recipient of an additional net salary of €170,000 per year? In Piano's case, the answer is clear, and he has wasted no time in setting it in motion. He is using all the money to employ a different group of young people every year – and, with their help, is leading a project that will prove his long-standing belief that "architecture is by definition a political job".

Piano, who is conscious of having grown up in a generation that fought to preserve Italy's exquisite historical town centres from the bulldozing zeal of modernisers, is grateful that crucial battle was waged and – to a certain extent – won. Now, though, he wants to turn his attention to the less lovely parts of Il Bel Paese, far from the Colosseum and the Rialto bridge: the suburbs. For a man who is already working on a new Palais de Justice on the northern edge of Paris and a campus for Columbia University in Harlem, it feels a natural progression. Piano has always believed that architecture is a kind of "civic poetry".

"I'm very happy about the beauty that was given to us by our ancestors," he says. "But that's by them. What I want to do with these young people is to build the beauty of tomorrow, to say, 'Can we transform the peripheries?'" He already has his six employees for 2014: three men and three women, all Italians under 40, who responded to an ad Piano's team placed anonymously to avoid publicity. It feels, he says, as if he is embarking on a marathon. But he has the rest of his days to get it done. "I don't know how long my life will be, but this is what I have in mind," he says. "Thank you for giving us such a beautiful country – but let's try now to transform what is not beautiful."

Born in 1937 in Pegli, on the western outskirts of Genoa, Piano lives a firmly international existence. He graduated from Milan's Politecnico university in 1964 but left the country soon after to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting citizens of Paris, London and beyond. Now, his legacy is writ large in structures across the globe – from the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco to the Parco della Musica complex in Rome, and the Potsdamer Platz development in Berlin. His base is in Paris, with his wife, Milly, and their teenage son, but he travels widely and his firm, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, has around 150 employees and offices in the French capital, Genoa and New York. (He also has three grown-up children from his previous marriage.)

The gravity of his new role in Rome, however, appears to have struck Piano forcefully and, inevitably, has redirected a lot of his attention back home. When he was taken to see his senate seat for the first time last year (and reminded that, while others were occupied on a transitory basis, his was for life), he "got that sense of pride. It's not personal pride, it's not national pride – it's more like institutional pride." And just in case he hadn't intimidated himself enough, he took a trip to the Roman Forum to inspect the senate building where votes were won and lost in Julius Caesar's day. "It's a long story," he says thoughtfully. "You feel part of that."

Some might say the senate that sits in Rome today suffers by comparison with its ancient equivalent: Italy's contemporary political debate is often drowned in invective and inglorious spats, a fact Piano experienced firsthand when he arrived to vote for the first time – on the day of Silvio Berlusconi's dramatic expulsion from the senate in November. The billionaire former prime minister's henchmen launched an attack on him for choosing that day for his debut. "I am used to being attacked by builders who don't like my work," Piano reportedly quipped, adding that he found being targeted by Sandro Bondi and Maurizio Gasparri, two of Berlusconi's allies, "sublime, pure bliss".

Piano is far more interested in examining how to "refertilise" the suburbs than attending every vote or immersing himself in Italy's fraught and frequently farcical party political scene. Moreover, he says, eyes glinting through spectacles, "It's the only thing I'm quite good at." One idea would be to give the suburbs more public buildings – structures that, in Italy's fragile terrain, are seismically safe as well as green and civic-spirited.

Although many want him to declare his political colours, Piano claims to be "independent but not indifferent". When news of his appointment first spread, he was hailed by some as a Grillino – a supporter of ex-comedian Beppe Grillo's rambunctious Five Star Movement. Incidentally, it was Grillo, Piano's old friend, who started the rumour that the Pritzker prizewinner had dreamed up the idea of the Shard from a wedge of parmesan the pair had once eaten at dinner. "He went to sell the English a piece of cheese!" he said. "He's a real genius."

Piano's periferie project goes beyond party divides – and is, many would argue, rather more noble in its own quiet way than much of the fudged policy-making and furious rhetoric that passes for politics in 21st-century Italy. "This is not left or right or Grillo," says Piano. "This is reality. The reality of a beautiful country that must be defended."

Summary: The creator of the Pompidou and the Shard is used to being 'attacked by builders'. But will he be able to hold his own in the bearpit of Italian politics? Lizzy Davies meets senatore Renzo Piano


I’m an advocate for just about anything that will help people save for retirement. These days we are pretty much on our own, so I am hopeful that a new starter savings account will help people jump-start their retirement savings.

Experts used to talk about the sources of retirement income — employer-provided pensions, Social Security, and personal savings — as a three-legged stool. Now it is more like a bicycle. People are going to have to balance most of their retirement income on their personal savings and whatever they may get from Social Security.

For years now, employers have been eliminating traditional pensions, which had helped liberate people from the worry of figuring out how to invest money for retirement.

In an analysis, the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute determined that, assuming Social Security benefits are not reduced and people save for at least 30 years in a 401(k) account, they could have an annual income of at least 60 percent of their preretirement pay on an inflation-adjusted basis.

But here’s the thing. When left alone, many people won’t set up retirement accounts. Having retirement plans initiated by employers encourages people to save. But only about half of all workers have access to an employer-based retirement plan such as a 401(k), according to the Treasury Department.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama said he was authorizing the Treasury Department to create a starter savings account. It’s got a cute name, “myRA,” short for My Retirement Account. It’s targeted to low- and middle-income workers and will be simple to set up through a payroll deduction. Treasury is looking at a mix of small, medium, and large companies for a pilot program, which should be in place by the end of this year.

Although myRAs will be targeted toward workers who do not have access to an employer-sponsored retirement savings, they will also be available to anyone — with income restrictions — who has a 401(k) plan at work.

Many of the rules for myRAs will be the same as for a Roth IRA, in which you pay taxes on the money before you invest. When you withdraw your funds, including any earnings, they are not taxed.

Unlike a Roth, however, the way a myRA earns a return will be more like a savings bond and will be backed by the US government. People would contribute after-tax dollars. It could take as little as $25 to open an account, and contributions could be as low as $5.

Here are some of the other features of myRA:

■ Unlike a Roth, overall contributions are limited. Account holders can build savings for 30 years or until their myRA reaches just $15,000 — whichever comes first.

■ Participants will be subject to the same income limits as a Roth IRA, which right now is annual income of $129,000 or less for individuals and $191,000 for couples. Earn above those limits and you are shut out from contributing to a myRA.

■ Contributions can be withdrawn tax-free at any time. But earnings taken before someone is 59½ will be taxed.

■ The money invested in a myRA will earn the same interest rate that is available to federal employees in the Thrift Savings Plan Government Securities Investment Fund, which in 2012 had a return of 2.24 percent over three years.

■ The plan is portable. People can change jobs and continue to contribute to an existing myRA through any employer that offers payroll direct deposit.

I’m cautiously optimistic about myRA. I appreciate the effort of getting people started in saving something — anything — for retirement. But my cautiousness comes from concern about two things: the emphasis on low contributions and low returns.

I’m concerned that folks may think that saving $5, $10, or even $20 every paycheck will be enough even over 30 years. It won’t be. If workers get used to saving small amounts of money, they may not stretch themselves to do more. They may fall victim to the set-it-and-forget-it syndrome.

I’m also troubled about the low returns on the Government Securities Investment Fund. Yes, it’s safe. But your investment dollars have to at least keep pace with inflation. If you want to get a higher return, you have to take some risk with your investments.

Here’s my advice to Treasury. The starter savings accounts have to be paired with a really good financial education program. Don’t just hand out the information about myRA, but work with employers to offer financial classes in the workplace that focus on realistic retirement planning.

It’s not enough to open the door to a starter savings account. You have to show people how to overcome the issues that keep them down financially and unable to save. You have to push them — without scaring them with big numbers — to get in the habit of saving, and then save much, much more.

Summary: I’m an advocate for just about anything that will help people save for retirement. These days we are pretty much on our own, so I am hopeful that a new starter savings account will help people jump-start their retirement savings. Experts used to talk about the sources of retirement income — employer-provided pensions, Social Security, and personal savings — as a three-legged stool. Now it is more like a bicycle. People are going to have to balance most of their retirement income on their personal savings and whatever they may get from Social Security. But here’s the thing. When left alone, many people won’t set up retirement accounts. Having retirement plans initiated by employers encourages people to save. But only about half of all workers have access to an employer-based retirement plan such as a 401(k), according to the Treasury Department.


You can now read 10 articles each month for free on BostonGlobe.com.

| Globe Staff April 10, 2014

Photo taken from company website.

New Balance, the Boston-based company known for athletic footwear and apparel, has launched a “Love Boston” campaign that pays respects to the company’s hometown city and to the thousands of runners who run its streets.

This photo was included in the New Balance press release.

The campaign features limited edition footwear, a special Runners for Boston T-shirt, out-of-home advertising, and social media elements “designed to engage and inspire,” the company said.

“As a Boston-based company with a strong heritage in running, we recognize the power of the sport to inspire and bring people together,” Hilary Keates, director of marketing at New Balance, said in a statement. “We developed this campaign to celebrate all of the runners from Boston and around the world who love our home city and are proud to run its streets.”

One element of the campaign is a special Runners for Boston T-shirt with the state map and a heart marking Boston’s city center. New Balance said it will donate $10 from the sale of each T-shirt to the One Fund Boston Inc., which seeks to help those most affected by the Boston Marathon bombings. The shirt has a suggested retail price of $25.

© 2014 Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC

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Summary: New Balance has launched a “Love Boston” campaign that pays respects to the company’s hometown city and the runners who run its streets.


One Kissinger is currently worth two Brzezinskis. A George Will or an Al Haig outweighs a dozen liberal columnists or a cloakroom of Democratic senators.

Suddenly, 77-year-old Senator Strom Thurmond, the upcoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is one of the most sought-after men in town. Senator Howard Baker, the new majority leader, could show up at the opening of a car wash and the Washington papers would dis-patch a photographer and two social reporters to cover him.

Even now, the courtiers are pressing at the White House gates. Forget Jody Powell and Gerry Rafshoon. Does anyone here know Betsy Bloomingdale? In the Washington social power game, it is never too early to begin one's moves.

Richard Nixon knows it. He reappeared on the Washington party circuit two days after the election, for the first time in six years. Embassy social secretaries know it, too. On Nov. 5, they relisted Henry Kissinger's telephone number on their Rolodexes. Reagan transition staff members are learning it. Instant stellar attractions in Washington society, they find that partygoers hang on their words, laugh at their jokes and attribute Einsteinlike wisdom to everything they say.

Washington is always preoccupied with the social power game, but never more so than at the onset of a new Ad-ministration. The game is crucial to how the city operates, from court appointments to foreign aid. Henry Kissinger flourished during the Nixon years, in part, by playing the game well. Zbigniew Brzezinski tried but was clumsy. Jimmy Carter never even understood the rules. But Ronald Reagan. Ah, Mr. Reagan! On his very first full evening in town after the election, he wooed the souls of 50 of Washington's most influential leaders over veal piccata at the exclusive F Street Club.

What Mr. Reagan understands is that court and courtiers need each other. If The Washington Post's publisher, Katharine Graham, gets to know President-elect Ronald Reagan at the home of the conservative columnist George Will, can anyone lose? If Ronald Reagan telephones the society writer Betty Beale to smooth over a misunderstanding about his stand on women's rights, can it but help?

Looks, charm, wealth, intellect -alone they count for little in Washington. Power is all. What really matters is: Whom do you know? What have you done? And what can you do for me? Guests don't get invited out in Washington because they've got twinkly blue eyes.

One can disapprove of the game. One can laugh at it. One can, as Mr. Reagan's speechwriter Anthony R. Dolan did recently, term it ''pagan.'' But if one wants to succeed in Washington, one cannot dismiss it. Nobody among the 2,500 men and women who make up the inner village of political-social Washington goes anywhere just for fun. ''It's really a continuation of a day's work,'' says Lorraine Cooper, a veteran hostess and wife of former Senator John Sherman Cooper. The advantages of parties and the ac-quaintances made there are substantial and particular: Senator Claiborne Pell: ''You can better perceive where areas of compromise might be on a difficult issue than you can in a general meeting.''

Joan Braden, lobbyist and hostess: ''When you go to testify, it is much easier to get your point of view across if you know someone (on a Congressional committee).''

Alejandro Orfila, secretary general of the Organization of American States: ''You can advance the goals of your country.'' Clark M. Clifford, attorney and adviser to Presidents: ''It makes it so much easier to work with the men you have to work with.'' Some Washington figures have exercised power for years without ever going out at all. Senate majority leader Robert C. Byrd and the conservative columnist James J. Kilpatrick, to name two, are rarely seen on the social circuit. But they are exceptions. Few can afford to do without the sometimes dramatic opportunities parties offer.

ITEM: At a dinner at the Austrian Embassy last July, Presidential counsel Lloyd N. Cutler took Attorney General Benjamin R. Civiletti aside and told him the President had misremembered a conversation with Mr. Civiletti concerning Billy Carter's relationship with Libya. The following day, Mr. Civiletti disclosed the new information at a press conference.

ITEM: At a dinner party given in 1977 by Barbara Walters, who though based in New York is a regular on the Washington social scene, the Israeli and Egyptian Ambassadors chatted cordially about their countries' mutual efforts toward peace. They had never before officially acknowledged each others' existence.

ITEM: At a dinner given by the columnist Joseph Alsop in 1962, President John F. Kennedy relentlessly questioned Charles E. Bohlen, who had been Ambassador to the Soviet Union during the late 1950's, and the historian Isaiah Berlin about how the Russians react to military pressure. Two days later, the United States responded to the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba with a shipping ''quarantine.'' uch historic moments are, however, less typical of the social power game than the night-in, night-out collective judgments that are rendered regarding Washington's leaders. Who's O.K.? Who's not O.K.? Who's moving up? Who's on his way out?


AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Inside the headquarters of BurgerFuel Worldwide is a spray-painted mural of a skull wearing a combat helmet emblazoned with the slogan “Born to Grill.”

Executives at BurgerFuel, a New Zealand fast-food chain, say the image — a takeoff on the film “Full Metal Jacket” — reflects the company’s attitude. This year, BurgerFuel, a relatively small player, is undertaking an ambitious expansion plan in the crowded US market through a partnership with Subway restaurants.

The partnership is unique, according to BurgerFuel’s group chief executive, Josef Roberts. “I don’t know of anyone else who’s got this sort of opportunity to hitch their wagon to such a huge freight train,” he said.

Subway is the world’s largest fast-food chain by number of stores, with revenue of $12.05 billion in 2012, according to the research firm Euromonitor International.

BurgerFuel is small fry, with about $10.3 million in revenue in its 2013 annual report.

BurgerFuel hopes to use Subway’s scale in the United States by signing up some of its franchisees to open BurgerFuel stores. The company has been taking registrations from interested Subway franchise owners.

BurgerFuel began selling burgers in 1995 with a single restaurant in Ponsonby. Since then, it has expanded to 57 outlets in New Zealand and overseas.

The burgers are marketed as having high-quality ingredients, including fresh vegetables and aioli sauce, New Zealand beef from grass-fed cows, and vegetarian options. Recently the company announced it would use only free-range chicken in its New Zealand restaurants. And although Roberts said he could not commit to doing the same in the United States, he said attracting ethical and health-conscious consumers was important.

“We don’t upsize,” Roberts said. “We’re not about filling up a liter of Coca-Cola to go with the product; you know, I’d much prefer people to have a bottled water.”

He added, “We’re about not wanting to put out a regret meal; it’s really about a meal that you can go in and you can feel good about.”

The United States presents challenges for BurgerFuel. The fast-food business is crowded, with 256,000 outlets, according to Euromonitor International figures from 2012, the most recent data available.

Elizabeth Friend, a senior research analyst at Euromonitor International, said there was still room in the upscale hamburger industry, which BurgerFuel is aiming at. But she said the company would have to distinguish itself from brands like Five Guys and Epic Burger.

Summary: BurgerFuel, a relatively small player, is undertaking an ambitious expansion plan in the crowded US market through a partnership with Subway restaurants. The partnership is unique, BurgerFuel’s group chief executive, Josef Roberts, said. “I don’t know of anyone else who’s got this sort of opportunity to hitch their wagon to such a huge freight train.” Subway is the world’s largest fast-food chain by number of stores, with revenue of $12.05 billion in 2012, according to the research firm Euromonitor International. BurgerFuel is small fry, with 12 million New Zealand dollars, or about $10.3 million, in revenue in its 2013 annual report.


05/15/2014 at 08:00 AM EDT

Jimmy Roseman encounters a great white shark while diving

"Harrowing" doesn't even begin to describe it.

Jimmy Roseman was diving at Florida's Bethel Shoal when he saw

appear a disturbingly short distance away.

It was a 12-ft.-long great white shark, and at 90 feet deep with just a spear gun, Roseman was not in the ideal situation to enjoy its majesty.

This video achieves a near-perfect level of pacing: First you (Roseman) see the shark from a distance, then a convenient cloud of sand obscures the view, then it returns, closer each time, until jabs from Roseman's spear gun drive it away long enough for him to make an escape.

The fact that uploader Chris Saunders decided to soundtrack the footage with the theme from

Summary: Diver Jimmy Roseman filmed this harrowing footage off the coast of Florida


It’s almost over for Sookie Stackhouse and company, as the first full trailer for HBO’s final season of True Blood makes its debut.

The one-and-a-half minute teaser features Anna Paquin’s Sookie facing judgment from the citizens of Bon Temps as their town comes under siege, as well as flashbacks to the first season. And, of course, there’s also plenty of bloody violence and sex that True fans have come to expect from the vampire drama. The ominous trailer—set to the tune of The Wright Brothers’ “Blood on My Name”—also offers glimpses of Stephen Moyer’s Bill Compton and Sam Trammell‘s Sam Merlotte, though there’s no sign of Alexander Skarsgard’s Eric Northman, who is set to return.

The seventh and final season of True Blood kicks off June 22.

Summary: The seventh season trailer for HBO's vampire drama is filled with plenty of blood, sex and fear


U.S. Open tennis fans may not see many big changes at the event as they watch Roger Federer and Serena Williams battle on court. But over the past few years, organizers have made a number of subtle adjustments like giving visitors recyclable cutlery at the tennis center’s restaurants.

Why? Because like many other sporting events, the U.S. Open is going green.

A behind-the-scenes tour of the sprawling Billie Jean King National Tennis Center showed the environmental efforts at the world’s biggest tennis tournament. It’s a huge undertaking that involves hundreds of tennis players and workers, along with 700,000 fans.

Lauren Kittelstad Tracy, a senior manager for strategic initiatives with the United States Tennis Association (USTA) who heads up environmental efforts at the Open, led the tour around the grounds under a blazing New York City sun. The first stop – Arthur Ashe stadium with its over 20,000 seats, before the morning’s play.

She showed off trash and recycling chutes that are accessible from all three levels of the stadium. They funnel recyclables and compostables to compactors on the ground level.

“The program has been a tremendous success on all fronts for the USTA,” Tracy said about the overall green initiative. “We find the true value in being a good corporate citizen and environmental steward.”

To meet its mission, the USTA has partnered up with a number of environmental organizations. Chief among them is New Jersey-based LEED consultancy firm “eco evolutions.” Bina Indelicato, the firm’s CEO, “is the brain” behind the programming, according to Tracy. There’s also the Green Sports Alliance, a group of 230 sports teams and venues from 20 different sports, that the USTA joined in 2012.

From an internal, human resources standpoint, the USTA uses an “it takes a village” approach. Throughout the year and also during the event, the heads of departments like player transportation and food services meet to discuss ways to be more environmentally-friendly and get training, Tracy said.

The USTA isn’t alone in its green efforts. It works with the organizers of the other Grand Slam tournaments — the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the French Open — on best practices.

“We’re finding ways to make tennis more sustainable globally,” Tracy said.

In sports, going green is all the rage. In July, the NHL issued its first sustainability report, a first for a North American pro sports league. More recently, the San Francisco 49ers’ have built what its owners describe as the greenest stadium in the U.S., including the most extensive use of recycled water on the field.

Studies like one from the Harvard Business School have shown that going green helps businesses. Wayne Balta, environmental affairs vice president for tech giant IBM IBM , said in an article: “Thankfully, business leaders have come to realize that decisions about environmental sustainability have to reflect an unambiguous, long-term commitment. The reason is simple: it makes good business sense.” Notably, IBM helps provides match stats for the Open and has a control center inside Arthur Ashe.

The U.S. Open does indeed save money, according to Tracy.

“For instance, our boiler in Arthur Ashe Stadium was changed from electric to gas-fired reducing the ecological impact while providing a projected savings of over $100,000 per year,” Tracy said. She declined to disclose the cost of the boiler, which provides heating within the stadium.

From 2008 to 2012, the USTA says it’s reduced waste from sources like food by as much as 850 tons, cut greenhouse gas emissions by 1,100 tons, and recycled over 1.5 million plastic bottles. Additionally, the USTA buys carbon offsets for the emissions from 2.2 million miles of air and local transportation by player travel.

Of course, despite the efforts, the U.S. Open still creates a big environmental impact. How much, exactly, is unclear.

Making the tournament green has been — and will likely continue to be — a long process. Most new initiatives need to be phased in. Because the event only runs only two weeks annually, extensive planning is necessary during the rest of the year. With perhaps a tinge of jealousy, Tracy said that other sports like the NHL or the MLB have seasons spanning months during which they can push environmentally-friendliness and make tweaks to their initiatives more efficiently.

In terms of tennis, the tournament collects used balls and donates them to junior tennis programs. Officials also collect aluminum lids from ball cans for recycling.

This year, first the time time, the tournament can compost organic waste from everywhere on site including kitchens, from fans in the food court and restaurants in the stadiums.

“As a result of this program, we have collected 425 tons of waste and turned it into compost for landscape and farming uses,” Tracy said.

From a branding perspective, getting fans to understand the arrays of offerings can be tough, especially with so much taken for granted. The USTA used social media this year in an attempt to “engage our fans in our green program” and to get them “excited to make environmentally friendly decisions while on site,” Tracy said.

But in the end, fans pay more attention to a well-struck backhand than a tiny green sign in a flowerbed announcing the dirt is composted material from the last year’s food court waste. Signs inevitably go unread, bottles are flung into incorrect bins or left in the stands for someone else to throw away.

On the final stop of the tour — the food court — Tracy mentioned what she’s most proud of this year. Like many of the programs, it’s no surprise she picks something subtle: Signage in the corporate suites in Arthur Ashe Stadium that quote legendary tennis champion Arthur Ashe.

“Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can,” the signs say.

Summary: A tour of the U.S. Open tennis tournament's efforts to reduce its environmental impact as sporting events push recycling, more efficient heating and install flower beds filled with composted soil.


The world’s largest brewers appear to be angling to get even bigger, with reports saying Anheuser-Busch InBev is in talks with banks to finance a deal to buy SABMiller PLC, which itself sought to buy Dutch brewer Heineken NV in a deal that was rejected.

AB InBev is reportedly talking to banks about financing what could be a roughly $122 billion deal to buy SABMiller, The Wall Street Journal reported, a deal that would combine the globe’s top two beer makers. A potential merger between those two giants has been rumored for years, a deal that would join the AB InBev’s portfolio, which includes Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona, with SABMiller’s Coors, Miller, and Leinenkugel’s.

AB InBev’s reported talks with banks comes a day after media reports said SABMiller’s bid to buy Heineken failed to gain traction, as the Dutch-based brewer confirmed to Bloomberg it had turned down the offer and said it wanted to remain independent.

There have been a few notable deals in the alcoholics beverage industry in recent years, including AB InBev’s $20.1 billion deal to buy Corona Extra maker Grupo Modelo SA and Japan-based beer and soft-drinks maker Suntory Holdings Ltd’s $13.6 billion acquisition of Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark maker Beam Inc. AB InBev’s deal gave it greater exposure to emerging markets including Mexico, while Suntory bought Beam to get exposure to the hot bourbon whiskey category, which has performed well in the U.S. and many markets abroad.

A new round of consolidation would come as global beer makers continue to face challenges in many Western markets where consumer spending has been muted. They’ve also been challenged by a shifting preference to wine and spirits over beer. In the U.S., for example, Millennials have especially gravitated to flavorful offerings from the spirits and wine industry, as well as to beers sold by craft brewers.

Summary: Anheuser-Busch InBev reportedly is in talks with banks to finance a deal to buy SABMiller PLC.


Golden spoon ... S&M in Islington, formerly Alfredo's Cafe, which has been Grade II-listed. Photograph: Roger Tooth

There is no greater call to arms during this year's Architecture Week (June 17-26) than that of saving the old-style Italian cafes from the 1950s, often disparaged as greasy spoons or working men's caffs. Adrian Maddox, author of the definitive book on the subject, Classic Cafes, has compiled a "last chance to see" tour of around 30 of them in London (see www.classiccafes.co.uk for details).

Maddox's concern is with the design and ambience of these cafes, which he finds "bracingly Pinteresque, seedy and despairing". The pictures in his book are part Edward Hopper, part Martin Parr. I met Maddox at the New Piccadilly cafe, the "cathedral of cafes", in a side street by Piccadilly Circus. "Everything here is original, apart from the mirrors," he says. He's soon enthusing about the Thonet chairs, the three shades of Formica and the extremely rare horseshoe menu. This Saturday, the cafe can be seen on BBC1 in the new Richard Curtis film, The Girl in the Cafe, with Kelly MacDonald and Bill Nighy.

For Maddox, it's a war against the big coffee chains whose "policy of extermination" is forcing these cafes out of business. He reckons that there are only 500 classic cafes left in the UK. Two London cafes, Pellici's in Bethnal Green and Alfredo's (now S&M) in Islington, have been grade II listed by English Heritage, but most, if not all, will be gone in a few months or years, he claims.

Is listing the answer? Catherine Croft, director of the Twentieth Century Society, says: "A lot of the charm is in the furniture and the menus and what's on the tables. It's popular art, not high architecture. Listing them can only protect the building elements."

In fact, the owner of the New Piccadilly, Lorenzo Marioni, is glad that English Heritage didn't recommend it for listing last September, as this would have diminished his potential for selling it, which he still might have to do. With his landlord demanding ever higher rent, he's never going to be able to compete with the big chains. "I'd just love to be here at a reasonable rent, serving the local community at a reasonable price," he says.

Summary: Architecture: A rearguard action is being fought to preserve the "classic" 1950s Italian cafés from the predations of the big chains. Chris Hall reports.


Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient PersiaBritish Museum, London WC1until January 2006

The first thing you see is a headless statue of a king. This is Darius I, self-styled son of the gods, sculpted in grey limestone and having suffered the familiar fate of despots. The second thing you see is a beautiful cut-stone box and, from within it, a dazzling silver tablet inscribed with curious cuneiform. This script, Old Persian, is decoded as the title deed to Darius's empire that once stretched from the Indus almost to the Danube. The pairing tells you all you need to know about power and its passing. 'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair ...'

The British Museum's wonderful exhumation of the rule of the great Persian kings, of 550 to 330 BC, is pointedly titled 'Forgotten Empire'. Its range of sculpture and objects appear, subtly lit, out of a gloom, and together illuminate a period of history of which most of us know little. Beside the more familiar civilisations of Egypt and Greece, the Persian empire, based at Persepolis, has been neglected by Western scholarship. There are at least two good reasons for this. The first is that our record of the history of this era comes largely from the rival civilisation of Athens, and latterly from Ptolemy and Herodotus (and Colin Farrell and Oliver Stone), who framed the Persian dynasty in terms of its overthrow by Alexander the Great.We know it from the point of view of its enemies and, therefore, for its barbarities and ultimate humiliation rather than for its achievements. The second is that the physical evidence of this great empire, the monuments of Persepolis and Susa, are in the heart of contemporary Iran and not widely accessible.

It is testament to the diplomatic skills and vision of the British Museum's director, Neil MacGregor, and his curatorial team led by John Curtis that this virtual gap in our knowledge is now addressed. The exhibition invigorates the museum with a proper sense of purpose. I remember talking to MacGregor a couple of years ago when he was opening negotiations with Tehran for the loan of many of the objects here. The Persian show, he believed, should be emblematic of the museum's commitment to be alive to current events, 'not in a newsy way, but to offer a depth of history to what we see going on around us'.

You only have to glance at some of the place names on the map of Darius's empire - Kabul and Kirkuk, Mosul and Basra - to understand how this might be the case. 'It is only when you see the objects of that first empire,' MacGregor explained to me then, 'and the subsequent seats of power that have always occupied that land that you begin to see the current situation in a proper context.'

Given the political sensitivities, the loan was almost scuppered at the last by the Iranian elections in June which delayed the rubber-stamping of the transportation. In the event, however, there were enough people in the Tehran administration and beyond who could understand the educational advantage of having these things in London at this time.

In part, the exhibition demonstrates how the Persians maintained stability in this vast region for nearly 200 years. This stability was enforced by military might and sustained by a sophisticated, if oligarchical, culture. You get a flavour of the mass of imperial muscle in the great, polished stone bull mastiff at the centre of the main room here, or the vast clawed lion's foot from Persepolis which escaped Alexander's sack of the ancient city. You see it also in casts of bas reliefs from the walls of royal palaces showing kings wrestling surprisingly orderly demons and monsters, or in the depicted chaingangs of overthrown monarchs offering obeisance to the Persian throne.

There is a sometimes terrifying discipline and a rigour in every line of these carved stones, an absolute precision matched in the screeds of cuneiform that embellish pillars and statuary. The Persian rulers clearly enjoyed their mastery; you could almost begin to reconstruct the tenor of an entire elite from one of the extraordinary gold drinking vessels decorated with ferocious winged lions and bulls from which royalty drank to their providence.

Alongside this power, however, there is evidence that the civilisation was capable of great lightness and charm. The Persians imbibed much of their aesthetic from Egypt, but they made it their own. There are ceramics and architectural details of profound delicacy, many in a remarkably preserved, near-Wedgwood blue, while the impossible filigree gold work of necklaces and earrings defies received notions of craftsmanship.

There is, within this collection, no particular headline act, no Tutenkhamen mask, but both cumulatively and in its detail, it builds into a picture of a time and a geography that has seldom found a proper place in our ancient histories and that begins to cast light on the layered depth of civilisation in places whose names are nightly on the lips of newsreaders.

I remembered, walking round this exhibition, having asked Neil MacGregor a couple of years ago whether he thought President Bush might be persuaded to wander round when the show opened, if only for him better to visualise some of the places he had been bombing. MacGregor paused for a moment, then burst into his infectious laughter, and declined to comment. Given his evident powers of persuasion, however, perhaps it is a visit that could still be arranged.

Summary: Art: The British Museum's stunning new exhibition reveals the power, magnificence and sophistication of the ancient Middle-Eastern kings, says Tim Adams.


Few American motorists realize that Fiat is an acronym, much less that it stands for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino. If they think acronym at all, it’s “Fix It Again, Tony,” a derisive reference to the Italian automaker’s legendary reputation for substandard quality.

Which wouldn’t matter, except that Fiat Chrysler Automobile N.V. FCA is toiling hard to revive the brand in the U.S. following a 25-year hiatus.

FCA began importing its sarcastically tiny Fiat 500 minicar to the U.S. in 2007 to mostly respectful reviews and tepid sales. Since then the automaker has added souped-up versions, slightly larger versions and now the 500X, a mini-SUV based on original. The time clearly has arrived to improve quality, and perhaps address the “Fix It Again, Tony” disgrace.

Olivier Francois, FCA’s marketing chief for Fiat and Chrysler, said at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November: “We need to let our customers know that FIAT—NOW—has a perfect fit for America,” the 500X.

To underscore the point that Fiat is a “sexy” and legitimate brand, Francois has decided to take on the brand’s baggage directly, hiring Wieden & Kennedy to produce “Fix It Again, Tony.” In the witty and engaging video, a squad of Italian mechanics “fix” a Honda Civic with a broken mirror by turning the vehicle into a new 500X.

The mechanics speak in fractured English and offer to make the owner of the Civic an espresso while he waits for the repair.

As Francois remarked about the 84-second video: “Really, it doesn’t just feature a new car, it features a skeleton. The skeleton in the closet, the elephant in the room. His name was Tony, and he had to go.” He noted that the Melfi, Italy plant where the 500X is built has been redesigned. The vehicle embodies 2.5 million hours of engineering and three million miles of testing, he said.

In terms of comparators, Fiat still brings up the rear in terms of quality ratings – which doesn’t mean that its quality isn’t sufficient to attract buyers.

Through October, Fiat’s U.S. sales topped 39,000 up 7.7% compared with the first ten months of last year. Fiat returned to the U.S. in 2009, following Chrysler’s bankruptcy, after exiting the market in 1983, part of a multi-prong strategy to join Fiat Chrysler into a global automaking enterprise. In the past year, FCA also reintroduced Alfa Romeo, FCA’s European luxury brand to the U.S.

Francois and FCA haven’t said whether “Fix It Again, Tony” will be aired on television. For now the automaker is satisfied to disseminate the video on social media and gauge the reaction. One potential trouble spot is the video’s potential propagating an anti-Italian ethnic slur. Another is the video’s insinuation that Honda sells boring cars that needs to be fixed.

The subcompact SUV segment is very hot in the U.S. and worldwide, providing lots of shoppers as well as lots of competition for 500X. My guess is that Tony will soon be playing to bigger audience on the wide screen.

Summary: Italian automaker pokes fun at its old reputation in new ad campaign.


Ryan Seacrest arrives for the 72d annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Calif.

For Monday night’s College Football Playoff title game between Ohio State and Oregon, ESPN is taking the idea of “wall to wall” coverage to a living-room crowded level.

The sports outpost is offering no fewer than 12 viewing options during Monday night’s “Megacast,” which will be spread out over its broadcast offerings and online.

ESPN2 will host “Film Room,” in which college coaches will provide real-time chalkboard analysis of each play. ESPN Classic will air “Sounds of the Game,” broadcasting the action — as picked up by 100 microphones — happening inside AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and not the broadcast booth. There will be a Spanish-language broadcast on ESPN Deportes, simulcasts of each team’s radio feed on the streaming service ESPN3, and the “Taco Bell Student Section,” which will likely showcase lots of painted faces and over-the-top reactions. (A commenter at the sports-news site SBNation posted a photograph of his Megacast-viewing setup from last year, during which he split his attention between six screens.)

And, finally, those who just want to watch the game the old-fashioned way — with a team of analysts and reporters calling the action live from the booth and the sidelines — can do so on ESPN’s flagship channel.

Sports have long been at the leading edge of figuring out multiple ways to consume a single event. In 2004, in the very early days of streaming video, Major League Baseball decided to amp up its All-Star Game coverage by inserting lipstick-sized cameras into the diamond as a way of offering up-close angles on the game’s action. The Megacast’s combination of in-stadium action and on-the-fly analysis, though, is more in tune with peoples’ fractured, distracted, social-media-immersed involvement with television. Indeed, a viewer can watch multiple channels of ESPN’s offerings without even focusing primarily on the game.

A parade of gorgeous metallic gowns gave the Golden Globes’ red carpet an unmistakable shine.

Blanket coverage of a different sort was on view with Sunday night’s Golden Globes, as the gossip-and-Kardashian network E! once again commandeered the red carpet. The network has tackled its mission from an increasing number of angles over the years. In 2009, E! launched Glam Cam 360, which offered views of stars’ outfits “from top to bottom and front to back in a complete seamless 360 degree motion.” Three years later it added cameras that offered extreme close-ups of celebrities’ hands and feet. Add to that an army of fashion commentators and the celebrity finessing of Ryan Seacrest and Giuliana Rancic, and you’ve got enough raw material to fill at least five or six separate channels.

The red carpet, formerly a low-key prelude in which celebrities and media would work together to create day-after photos or soundbites broadcast on local news channels, has now become entertainment in its own right. The only aspect of E!’s coverage that is surprising is that there isn’t more of it; even the archival videos on its site the day after the Golden Globes are mostly repurposed TV clips.

The increased focus on tiny details like nail polish color or looks shot between awards-show attendees allows for more opportunities for the masses watching at home to have opinions. Which is where the phenomenon known as awards show Twitter comes in. In a way, Twitter and other social media offer opportunities for blanket coverage of another sort, magnifying and refracting what the broadcast channels present.

On Monday, Nielsen released statistics in an attempt to prove that activity on Twitter could be used as an indicator for new shows’ popularity among certain demographics. The metrics company notes that Twitter activity alone doesn’t necessarily serve as a predictor for larger audiences, but that it can “help networks and agencies make superior, data-driven advertising and program marketing decisions.”

There’s a good reason why Twitter popularity doesn’t necessarily correlate with the type of wide-ranging audiences on which television’s ad models rely; a recent study by the Pew Research Center showed that only 23 percent of online adults used the service in 2014, a much smaller fraction than that of Facebook (71 percent) and lower than those of LinkedIn (28 percent) and Pinterest (28 percent). But it does help explain why, say, SyFy decided to invest in “Sharknado 2: The Second One,” the sequel to the pulpy social-media hit that set a ratings record for the channel when it drew in 3.9 million viewers when it aired last summer. The Ian Ziering/Vivica A. Fox vehicle also generated approximately 581,000 tweets.

Perhaps Twitter’s utility as a leading indicator of audience interest is rooted in its immediacy, which is highlighted by both its space constraints (quick thinking and the ability to heavily edit oneself on the fly are both rewarded) and the mostly reverse-chronological way in which it displays users’ messages. Live metacommentary on Facebook — which uses an algorithm to determine which stories are most important to each individual user — just doesn’t have the same feel to it when messages show up in friends’ feeds days after their initial posting, often out of order.

As cable and broadcast networks try to wring attention out of their audiences, they will probably experiment with more comprehensive coverage of live events, whether it comes in the form of corporately brainstormed hashtags or multiple live streams of cameras. But while the technology might be new, the end result is a funhouse-mirror throwback to the days when the Big Three broadcast networks ruled the roost: Initiatives like the Megacast and phenomena like awards-show Twitter have the peculiar effect of both intensifying attention and dispersing it, allowing people to take in the same spectacle while having their own increasingly individualized experiences of it.

• Gasper: Oregon football needs to fashion one more win

• Ohio State’s defense no longer a weakness

• On Globes’ red carpet, Hollywood lets it shine

• Hosts were the highlight at Golden Globes

• Photos: Memorable onstage moments

• ‘Boyhood’ leads Golden Globes

• Recap: Globe writers weighed in

Summary: ESPN has no fewer than a dozen options for people who want to immerse themselves in Monday’s College Football Playoff championship.


02/18/2015 AT 11:20 AM EST

When he had the chance to audition for the role of Chandler Bing, he narrowly avoided having to skip the

audition because he was committed to another series called

that even FOX, the show's own network, called "the worst thing we've ever seen in our lives," Perry joked.

The show was about "baggage handlers at the [Los Angeles] airport in the year 2194," Perry, 45, revealed to

on Tuesday. "I was wearing a futuristic shirt, and little people played the aliens. I had to sort out the aliens' luggage. That was basically the show."

(You'd think that, even in 1994, casting little people to play aliens would raise a red flag prior to the pilot stage, but you'd be wrong.)

When Perry came across the script for what was then called

, he was "losing my mind" over not being able to audition because of his commitment to

Luckily, someone at FOX agreed that what they had on their hands was the worst thing to happen to television, says the actor, and they let Perry try out for "your little show called

We'd do terrible things to take a look at that pilot and catch a glimpse of Perry in his "futuristic shirt."

Summary: Even FOX called the never-ran LAX 2194 "the worst thing we've ever seen in our lives"


Julia Jackson wired components for a Connecticut electronics manufacturer for a decade, qualifying for its pension plan. Some 30 years later, when she turned 65 and sought her benefits, Jackson was told there was no record she had ever worked for the company.

For Jackson, of Norwalk, Conn., it wasn’t a lot of money, about $80 a month, but it was enough to cover the monthly electric bill for her and her disabled daughter. More important to Jackson, the pension recognized the 10 years she had given to the company.

Jackson turned for help to the Pension Action Center at the University of Massachusetts Boston, beginning an odyssey of more than two years through corporate mergers, federal bureaucracies, and mounds of records. It took seven months of phone calls and letters to track down just one in the chain of companies that held Jackson’s pension money.

Such persistence is the hallmark of the Pension Action Center, a nonprofit that for more than 20 years has helped people find and claim the benefits due them. Since its founding in 1994, the center has helped recover more than $50 million owed to 7,500 retirees.

They include people like a merchant seaman whose initial benefit was sharply lower than it should have been, and a widow denied survivor benefits under her husband’s pension plan. For many, the monthly check has meant the difference between living on the edge and finding security in their later years.

“We’re just keeping the companies honest,” said Jeanne M. Medeiros, the center’s director and managing attorney. “They made these people promises.”

At any given time the center’s staff — Medeiros, another lawyer, four volunteers, and a legal intern — are juggling more than 100 cases. Funded by federal grants, the center provides free services to New England residents. It also covers Illinois under a foundation grant.

When you leave a job, the employer must report to the government retirement benefits owed you or your surviving spouse. In many cases, people aren’t aware they are eligible until they file for Social Security and receive a notice that they may be due benefits.

No single agency keeps track of all the nation’s pension plans or how much money Americans leave on the table. Medeiros, who joined the UMass center in 1998, estimated that one-third of the nonprofit’s cases involved firms that changed hands, went out of business, or unloaded pension obligations by purchasing group annuities from insurance companies.

Such was the case with Jackson, who worked for T-Bar Corp. in Wilton, Conn., from 1974 to 1983 and sought her pension benefits in February 2010, only to be denied.

Jackson started with one big advantage: She was a meticulous record keeper, saving pay slips that dated back decades. Key among her records were a 1988 letter from T-Bar announcing it was purchasing an annuity to cover its pension plan and a subsequent notice that the annuity had been bought by United Pacific Life, a division of Philadelphia-based Reliance Insurance Co.

The pension center assigned Jackson’s case to Mollie Feeney, a retired state worker who has volunteered as a counselor for 12 years. After seven months of phone calls and letters, Feeney learned that United Pacific Life had been bought by GE Capital, which then sold its insurance unit to Genworth Financial, a Richmond insurer. None of the companies had any record of Jackson working for T-Bar.

Next stop: the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., a government agency that boasts on its website that it protects the pensions of 44 million American workers. In this case, it entangled Jackson and Feeney in a thicket of red tape.

The agency first questioned whether Jackson had taken a lump sum in lieu of monthly benefits. Jackson produced tax forms from 1988 through 1990, none showing a pension distribution. She also signed an affidavit declaring she had not received a payout.

The agency then asked to examine her tax forms for 1983 through 1985. Jackson sent those, too.

The Pension Action Center at UMass Boston has recovered $50 million since its founding in 1994.

By January 2011, when it appeared Jackson had cleared all obstacles, the pension agency posed two more. First, it questioned whether Jackson had worked the full 10 years required for vesting, since she worked only part of her 10th year. Jackson, with Feeney’s help, obtained Social Security records showing she worked more than 1,000 hours in her final year, exceeding the threshold to vest.

The agency then demanded the pension’s Summary Plan Description, which is necessary to calculate benefits. It was perhaps the only document Jackson had misplaced, but it shouldn’t have been a problem because employers must file copies with the US Department of Labor. No copy, however, was found.

Genworth, the company administering the T-Bar annuity, refused to disclose what it was paying other pensioners without a court order. The pension agency refused to calculate an estimate without such information.

The stalemate was broken in the fall of 2011 when the Labor Department finally turned up the pension plan statement. Still, it took several more months of wrangling — including a last-minute demand by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. for her birth certificate — before Jackson, on April 26, 2012, received her first check for $79.

“It wasn’t a lot of money. It was the idea that it was almost 10 years of my life,” Jackson said. “I didn’t think it was fair that they didn’t recognize me.”

Reacting to cases like Jackson’s, Congress established a new position at the pension agency in 2012: Participant and Plan Sponsor Advocate.

In her inaugural report last year, the advocate, Constance A. Donovan, cited the experiences of the Pension Action Center, writing, “It is unacceptable for individuals to wait weeks, months, and sometimes literally years for responses to their requests.”

Jackson’s is not the only case the UMass center pursued for more than a year. In the summer of 2012, a retired merchant seaman contacted the center with a fistful of W-2s that showed his monthly pension benefit was lower than his earnings reflected. The pension center didn’t disclose his name because he requested to remain anonymous.

The seaman’s union, the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association in Baltimore, administered the pension. It was calculated based on information supplied to the union by shipping companies.

After repeated requests by the Pension Action Center, the union agreed in fall 2012 to audit the employer’s logbooks. The company initially balked at the request, but under threat of a union lawsuit released them over the course of 2013.

In January 2014, the union sent a 40-plus-page summary to the pension center. Brian Reilly, the legal intern, discovered the company had failed to report to the union 198 days in which the seaman had worked, earnings that would increase the pension.

In March 2014 — 18 months after the case was initiated — the union boosted the monthly benefit by $443 to $2,283, and paid the seaman more than $15,000 in retroactive benefits.

Medeiros, the niece of the late Boston Cardinal Humberto Medeiros, estimated about a quarter of the center’s clients are widows trying to obtain survivor benefits. In one case, the widow was living apart from her husband when he died. The pension administrator claimed the widow had signed a form waiving benefits. The signature, however, looked nothing like that of the widow’s. Ultimately, the widow received a pension with a cash value of $45,000 after the center showed the waiver was improperly notarized.

Maureen Eagan, a retired computer programmer, has volunteered at the center since 2010 and pursued cases that have taken as long as four years. When, for example, one department of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. said it had no record of a client’s former employer, she discovered that another agency department did.

Through such doggedness, Eagan has recovered more than $3 million in benefits for 50 clients.

“You feel like there’s an injustice,” she said “Many of these people desperately need the money.”

Summary: The Pension Action Center, over more than 20 years, has helped recover more than $50 million in pension benefits owed to 7,500 retirees.


updated 03/18/2015 AT 10:00 AM EDT

•originally published 03/18/2015 AT 07:55 AM EDT

sits on the couch in his living room,

Paisley to sleep in one arm while giving a bottle to Carlos Jr. In the background, his two other babies, Tracy and Erica, are crying in their bassinets in his Phoenix home.

The only thing missing is his wife, Erica, whom Carlos calls "the love of my life."

The couple's long-held dream came true in the early morning hours of Jan. 16 when they welcomed

into their lives. They had tried for years to conceive unsuccessfully and had been through one devastating miscarriage. By Erica's side in the hospital, where she was not yet awake from anesthesia she had been given for her C-section, Carlos couldn't contain his excitement.

"It was the best day of my life," Carlos, 29, says in an exclusive interview in this week's issue of PEOPLE. "Nothing in my life had ever made me this happy."

But then, just a few hours later, that best day of his life turned into the worst.

After initially seeming fine, Erica, 36, went into hypovolemic shock, an emergency condition involving massive blood loss. She died at 1:20 a.m.

Carlos, a soft-spoken warehouse supervisor, brought the last two babies home from the hospital on March 11. And, with the help of Erica's mom, Sondra Bridges, and a tight-knit circle of family and friends, he is learning to be both mother and father to his newborns.

"These babies don't know yet what blessings they have given me. They have given me four reasons to live," Carlos says.

A friend has set up a GoFundMe site for Carlos and the babies. To donate,

Summary: "I take it minute by minute or else it's too overwhelming," Morales tells PEOPLE


04/12/2015 AT 02:00 PM EDT

, working out is about a whole lot more than looking good.

"Promised myself I would not let exercise be the first thing to go by the wayside when I got busy with

Season 5 and here is why: it has helped with my anxiety in ways I never dreamed possible," the actress, 28,

of herself in a sports bra and printed leggings on Saturday.

– which is also popular among stars like

– for kick-starting her love of fitness and she is encouraging others to get on board.

"To those struggling with anxiety, OCD, depression: I know it's mad annoying when people tell you to exercise, and it took me about 16 medicated years to listen," she wrote on

. "I'm glad I did. It ain't about the a--, it's about the brain."

In addition to the Tracy Anderson Method, the

she is doing "a variety of things" as part of her new "physical fitness kick," including acro-yoga, which combines acrobatics and yoga movements.

"Part of the reason I wanted to do it was I was losing my breath when I walked up [a] stair," Dunham told the late-night host. "And also, both my parents, who are 65, [â¦] they're both really exercise fiends. They look really hot, and I was just starting to feel like I was really dragging behind, and I was like, 'You're more than twice my age and I look like a bag of trash next to you.' "

Summary: The actress says working out has helped with her anxiety "in ways I never dreamed possible"


The Beehive, 541 Tremont St., Wednesday, 6:30 p.m.-11:30 p.m. No cover, cash bar, dinner reservations recommended. 617-423-0069. www.beehiveboston.com

The deal: As part of its Sting! series, the Beehive hosts Street Study. Coordinated by Beehive co-owner and curator Jennifer Epstein with guest curator Kate Gilbert, Street Study, 6:30-8:30 p.m., features artists who use Boston’s streets as their venue. Walls will be adorned with work by street artists Cyrille Conan, Bug Davidson, Faile, Joe Wardwell, and more, available for appreciation and purchase.

The music: Starting halfway through the street-artist exhibition, singer-songwriter Aly Tadros will take the stage to perform 7:30 to 11:30 p.m. With both Egyptian and Irish heritage, Tadros explored the world before teaching herself to play the guitar, then moved to Austin at 21 to find a launch pad for her career. She’s known for her fusion of folk, pop, and Mexican and Middle Eastern influences.

The crowd: The Beehive typically expects everyone from twenty-somethings to those in their 40s or older, including some industry folks and tourists looking for a fun place to visit.

The menu: Looking for popular items off the Beehive’s eclectic bar and kitchen menu? Try the Carrot Margarita, concocted with Milagro Silver Tequila, carrot, citrus, black salt-chili-lime rim ($12), and the Bohemian Platter, a chef’s selection of antipasti & mezze (for two, $16; for three to four, $26).

Summary: The work of various street artists will be featured in Sting! XIX: Street Study at the Beehive.


Google Inc. GOOG is shaking up its news service in Europe, in a move that may help beleaguered publishers, bolster its position vis-a-vis Facebook Inc. FB –and gain the company some allies in its battle against European Union antitrust charges.

The Mountain View, Ca.-based company said Tuesday it will give €150 million ($163 million) to European publishers over the next three years to help them develop their digital products in a “Digital News Initiative”, money that most badly need after seeing their traditional business model largely destroyed by the spread of free news on the internet–a trend that Google has driven more than most.

In particular, most publishers resent Google’s “First Click Free” policy, which requires them to allow Google users to see a minimum of five articles per day in return for them being indexed in its searches.

The new initiative comes after a series of rulings that have gone against the company in Europe. Earlier in April, the E.U. accused it of abusing its dominant 85% market share in internet search, in a move that could lead to a multi-billion dollar fine. It’s also looking at similar charges for abusing its position as the owner of the Android operating system. And last year, the E.U.’s top court has ordered it to allow a “right to be forgotten” in its searches.

At national level, too, it has had problems, especially with Google News, which has been widely accused of diverting readers away from content behind firewalls, undermining the ability of publishers to monetize their products. Google closed down the service in Spain last year after a new law forced it to pay for publishing even small amounts of copyrighted information. It has had an uneasy truce with the French journalism industry since 2013 after setting up a fund to compensate publishers for news it culled from their sites.

Among the titles embracing the Digital News Initiative are the Financial Times, Spain’s El Pais, Germany’s Die Zeit and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, France’s Les Echos, the Netherlands’ NEC and Italy’s La Stampa.

However, neither Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp NEWS nor Germany’s Axel Springer SE AXELF , two of the companies most skeptical about Google’s market power, have taken up the offer to join. Neither company was immediately reachable for comment.

Google’s initiative comes as Facebook is also starting to court publishers with a plan to share revenue with them for content hosted on its own site. Facebook’s initiative is in part a response to the fact that many publishers’ mobile sites load content too slowly for the tastes of consumers.

Summary: The move is an olive branch to an industry ravaged by the 'scraping' of exclusive content, but two of Europe's biggest publishers are conspicuously absent.


HARTFORD IF the first floor fights in both houses of the General Assembly are any guide, this legislative session promises to be more difficult and unpredictable than some lawmakers expected. The Democrats hold a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but the fragile nature of that majority quickly became apparent when both houses took up Governor O'Neill's request to cancel $23.8 million in state grants to the cities and towns.

In the House, a coalition of urban Democrats aligned themselves with the Republican minority and managed to attach a couple of amendments to the measure over the objections of the Democratic leaders. The House eventually passed the bill Jan. 28, but it took Republican votes to do it.

In the Senate the next day, a similar coalition of urban Democrats and the Republican minority also got together but this time to reject the Governor's proposal and to bounce the issue back to the House.

The Democratic leaders managed to regroup last Wednesday to pass in both houses a compromise version, which would cut the state grants by 50 percent, or $11.9 million, and give the Governor the authority to trim other state spending by up to 10 percent to close an anticipated deficit of $21.7 million in the state budget for the fiscal year ending June 30.

The Democratic majorities went solidly for the compromise and easily turned back Republican amendments in both houses that would have altered it.

Some legislators said there were lessons to be drawn from these first skirmishes. One was that the Republican minority was a more potent force than last year and that Democratic leaders could not rely on Republican votes to get politically difficult measures through the General Assembly.

This could be an important factor later in the session when the legislators consider some of the proposals outlined by Mr. O'Neill in his budget message last Wednesday night, such as the imposition of a 10 percent tax on the profits of many unincorporated businesses and a cut in state school aid to some of the state's wealthier towns.

After the House passed the compromise measure cutting urban grants on Wednesday, the Republican minority leader of the House, R.E. Van Norstrand of Darien, told the legislators:

''The majority has carried the day today. I hope the majority can carry the day when it comes to raising taxes because I will not be with you.''

Another lesson was that the Democratic leaders might have to do a better job of building a consensus in party caucuses to avoid embarrassing defeats on the floor.

''I think we sent a signal,'' a Democratic Senator said after the first Senate vote rejecting Mr. O'Neill's proposal. ''There has to be more consultation.''

Republican gains in the elections last November reduced the Democratic margins in both houses - to 83 to 68 in the House and 23 to 13 in the Senate. Because the Governor's request to eliminate the grants would hurt the larger cities more than the smaller towns, Democratic leaders figured they would lose the votes of some of the urban Democrats but could pick up enough votes from Republicans who have long advocated reduced state spending to put over the Governor's proposal .

That strategy worked in getting the measure out of the Appropriations Committee and through the House. In the first House vote, for example, 46 Republicans joined with 44 Democrats to approve the Governor's request.

However, the Republicans and the urban Democrats began to flex their combined muscle by winning approval of two amendments. One would reduce mandated programs for the cities and towns to make up for the loss of the grants. The other would provide that if the state ended its fiscal year on June 30 with a surplus, which is highly unlikely, some of the lost grant money would be paid to the localities. Democratic leaders argued against the amendments, but after they were adopted, said they were meaningless.

The Senate took up the measure Jan. 29, and the Democratic leaders appeared to have things under control until Senator Philip S. Robertson, Republican of Cheshire, called up his amendment, which would have preserved the grants and given the Governor the authority to close an anticipated budget deficit by cutting state spending by up to 10 percent.

The Democrats caucused and discovered that at least seven of their members, mostly from the larger cities, would support the Republican proposal. That set off meetings with Democratic leaders and the Governor and ultimately a series of parliamentary maneuvers on the Senate floor.

When Mr. Robertson withdrew his amendment to make an alteration to insure that all 13 Republicans would support it, the Democratic majority leader, Senator Richard F. Schneller of Essex, jumped in with a counterproposal that would have eliminated the grants, as the Governor wanted, but would have embraced Mr. Robertson's proposal to give the Governor additional authority to cut spending by 10 percent.

Mr. Schneller's strategy was to woo some Republican votes for his amendment and to foreclose a vote on Mr. Robertson's proposal. It didn't work. Mr. Schneller's amendment was defeated.

The Senate's presiding officer, Lieut. Gov. Joseph J. Fauliso, ruled Mr. Robertson's amendment out of order, but that ruling was overturned, 19 to 16, and the Robertson proposal eventually passed, 21 to 14.

Eight Democrats, mostly from urban areas, joined the 13 Republican Senators in adopting Mr. Robertson's amendment and rejecting the Governor's proposal.

As the dust began to settle a few days later, Mr. Schneller said that maybe it was better that the episode had happened so early in the legislative session.

It demonstrated, he said, the need to develop a consensus within the Democratic caucus. Without that consensus, the Democratic majority and the Governor may find themselves outmaneuvered by minority Republicans and a few dissident Democrats.


WASHINGTON, June 18— The House of Representatives voted today to keep the Legal Services Corporation alive but to slash its funds drastically and impose stringent restrictions on the activities of lawyers financed by the corporation.

The 245-to-137 vote to continue the independent, federally financed program for two years represented a rebuff for the Reagan Administration, which wants to abolish the program. But the corporation's supporters said that the reduction of funds, to $241 million a year from the current level of $321 million and some of the restrictions would make it more difficult to serve the needs of the poor.

Before the final vote late this afternoon, the House amended the bill reported by the Judiciary Committee to tighten existing restrictions on the representation of illegal aliens and homosexuals. The House voted yesterday to bar federally financed lawyers from bringing class action lawsuits against Federal, state or local government agencies and severely restrict their lobbying activities in Congress and state legislatures.

The White House lobbied actively against the bill this week and Edwin Meese 3d, counselor to the President, said in a letter circulated to Republican House members this week that he would recommend that President Reagan veto it if it passed both houses of Congress.

Dan J. Bradley, president of the corporation, said after the vote that he had ''mixed feelings'' about the House action, which followed three days of debate.

''Under the circumstances I think we did extremely well,'' he said, alluding to the ''heavy pressure'' from the White House and some conservative groups. But he said the cutbacks and the restrictions on class action lawsuits and lobbying ''will diminish our ability to provide a full range of representation to our clients.'' 'More Palatable' Bill

Representative M. Caldwell Butler, a Virginia Republican who supported continuation of the program, said the restrictions on class actions and lobbying were ''appropriate'' curbs and ''made the bill more palatable to some people.''

Mr. Butler said he thought the President could muster enough votes to sustain a veto but that he hoped a veto could be averted. ''It's the stuff of which compromise is made,'' he said.

Advocates of these restrictions said they were needed to help control politically motivated suits by legal services lawyers and save the taxpayers money.

Although fewer than 1 percent of all lawsuits brought by legal services lawyers are class actions, some have resulted in sweeping court orders, requiring payment of legally mandated welfare benefits, free public education for children of illegal aliens and the like.

The Legal Services Corporation, which distributes Federal funds to hundreds of legal aid programs around the country that provide free representation to poor people in noncriminal cases, was created as an independent body in 1974, but the program it administers dates back to 1965. Began in Johnson Years

The Reagan Administration's effort to abolish this vestige of President Johnson's ''war on poverty'' has generated one of the most bitter political controversies of the year, prompting strong opposition from the American Bar Association and numerous groups of lawyers and judges as well as advocates of liberal social programs.

The Administration has proposed letting the states decide whether to allocate a portion of their Federal block grants to provide legal aid, and has accused the legal profession of failing to fulfill its responsibility to provide more free legal assistance on a voluntary basis.

One of the opponents, Robert S. Walker, Republican of Pennsylvania, said that state and local governments ''can realize what the needs of the poor are better than we can here in Washington.'' Access to Legal System

Supporters of the program have said that the corporation and the more than 6,000 lawyers who receive the Federal funds are essential to give poor people meaningful access to the legal system. Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, sounded a familiar note today when he denounced the Reagan plan as an effort to deny poor people rights and benefits to which they are legally entitled.

Voting for the bill were virtually all the liberals in both parties and a number of moderate and conservative Republicans such as Mr. Butler and Tom Railsback of Illinois, the leading Republican champion of the bill in the Judiciary Committee and on the floor. The opponents were mostly conservative Republicans and Southern Democrats.

All members of the Connecticut delegation voted for the bill, as did all New Jersey Representatives except Marge Roukema and Christopher H. Smith, both Republicans. All New York Democrats voted for the bill. New York Republicans who voted no were Gregory W. Carman, William Carney, Barber B. Conable Jr., Jack F. Kemp, John LeBoutillier, Gary A. Lee, David O'B. Martin, Raymond J. McGrath, Garald B. Solomon and George C. Wortley.

Mr. Bradley said he was ''confident'' that a bill to continue the legal services corporation would be reported out in the next week or so by the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee and would pass in the Senate.

The Senate committee has allocated only $100 million for the program, however, and prospects for final passage are uncertain, according to other observers.

The amendment on aliens added by the House today is designed to exclude such categories as Haitian boat people and Mexicans who came across the Rio Grande seeking work. The law already forbids the use of Legal Services Corporation funds to represent ''known illegal aliens,'' but this provision has been interpreted as applying only to aliens whose presence has been ruled illegal by a court.

The amendment barring legal aid lawyers from pressing a claim in which homosexuality is an issue, which passed by 281-to-124, is more sweeping than the provision in the current law, which bars legal aid lawyers from bringing lawsuits challenging statutes that criminalize homosexual activity.


TRENTON ONE of the antiques treasures of New Jersey has returned from a tour of the southern United States and Canada. It is a collection of soup tureens, ladles, spoons, plates and ecuelles from the Campbell Museum in Camden, and it will be on view at the State Museum here through Aug. 23.

There are tureens made of silver, gilt bronze, faience, salt-andlead-glazed earthenware and soft- and hard-paste porcelain. Most were made in the 18th century and come from China, Continental Europe, England, Mexico and the United States

The collection is on tour six to eight months a year, and Ralph Collier, president of the Campbell Museum, considers it to be one of the finest of its type.

''The tureen was the centerpiece of dining elegance in the 18th century,'' Mr. Collier said. ''It became a status symbol for the very rich.

''Such items were referred to as 'prunk-stucke,' or 'pomposity pieces,' by the Germans and as 'V.I.P.'s,' or 'Very Important Pieces,' by the English. Porcelain was one of the 18th century's chief accomplishments, with kings and emperors vying with each other in maintaining factories and producing elegant china wares.''

One of the porcelains in the collection is a tureen from Meissen, Germany, that is beautifully painted with harbor and country scenes. The trim was made of ground gold leaf added to honey and then painted on the piece. Light firing affixed it, and then the gilding was delicately tooled and chased, making a brilliant gold surface.

This tureen dates to about 1735. Another Meissen piece from about 1730 is a bowl four inches high and seven inches wide that is unusual because it has survived with its gold-tooled leather carrying case.

Still another tureen is in the shape of a swan. This piece - it is 14 inches high - demonstrates the work of Johann Joachim Kaendler, the Meissen modellmeister who helped make to Meissen the leader in its field.

The Meissen tureens are all of hard-paste porcelain, the secret of which was discovered by a Meissen resident, Johann Friedrich Bottger. In China, hard-paste porcelains date to sometime before the 10th century.

Two beautiful Chinese tureens from the years 1760-70 also are on view. One portrays the head of a tan water buffalo with brown nostrils and soulful eyes. The other is in an ornate European form, having scroll-and-mask handles, ribbing and leaf decoration in green and rose on a white background.

The Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory in London listed tureens in the shape of rabbits, hens, fighting cocks, pigeons, boars' heads, swans and ducks in its 1755-56 catalogues. In this period, Chelsea softpaste porcelain was without peer in England.

On view are a brown and white hen with a chick on her back, a pair of rabbits and a boar's head, all realistically portrayed. There are other soft-paste porcelain tureens from Worcester and Derby in England. Tureens in faience, a tin-enameled earthenware, come from France, Portugal, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Sweden and Norway. There also are tureens of both Irish and Dutch delft, another form of faience.

A tureen from Vincennes, France is painted with roses and gilded on backgrounds of white and green. This is round in a shape called ''pot-a-oille,'' and was designed for a stew, not soup. It was made in the early 1750's.

A Berlin tureen was produced in the early 1820's for the marriage of Prince Frederick of the Netherlands to Princess Louise of Prussia. The ornate piece is painted with scenes of Berlin, and includes draperies of flowers and much gold trim.

A set of rare porcelain spoons, made in Copenhagen about 1780, are decorated with Danish wildflowers, a forerunner of the popular Flora Danica service. Part of a service of 1,600 pieces ordered by Catherine the Great of Russia, the spoons and the rest were retained by the King of Denmark when the Empress died before its completion.

The exhibition includes other fine porcelain tureens from Sevres, France; Staffordshire, England; Doccia, Italy, and St. Petersburg, Russia.

The tureen of the 18th century had its antecedents in small covered soup bowls made of silver. Called ecueller, they were round and shallow, and had small handles on the sides so that they could be lifted to the lips. A pair made by David Willaume of London about 1721 are on view.

There are 18 silver tureens in the show, mostly English and European, but also several from the United States and one from Mexico. The English pieces include tureens made by such noted silversmiths as Paul DeLamerie, who received commissions in London from the Imperial Russian Court; Thomas Heming, principal goldsmith to the King of England, and Robert Gerrard Jr.

One of the most handsome of the metal tureens is of gilt bronze. It was made in France or Italy in the first half of the 18th century, and is said to have been owned by the Viceroy of Tuscany.

A fine catalogue has pictures of each item, with the ceramics in full color. The price is $6.75, or $5.50 for museum members. At 3 P.M. on July 12, there will be a slide-lecture by Carl Dauterman, curator emeritus of decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a consultant to and trustee of the Campbell Museum.

The State Museum is at 205 West State Street. It is open Monday through Friday from 9 A.M. to 4:45 P.M. and Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 P.M. Admission is free. For information, call (609) 292-5421.

Illustrations: photo of a faience tureen from France about 1760 photo of a silver tureen by Paul DeLameroe of London, 1738-39 photo of a silver tureen from Paris, resting on sculpured mermaids photo of a tureen of hand-paste porcelain in the shape of a swan by


AUSTIN, Tex., March 30— A Texas district court judge has ordered the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company to stop preparations for consumer testing of its Electronic Information Service, a computerized home information retrieval system.

Southwestern Bell, a subsidiary of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, said today that its lawyers were studying the March 20 decision by Judge Charles Mathews and had not yet decided whether to appeal it.

Judge Mathews agreed with the Texas Public Utility Commission that Bell should take no further action with regard to testing of the electronic service until the commission could hold a public hearing. He said the commission had the authority to grant or deny a certificate to carry out the project.

In Washington, meanwhile, the American Newspaper Publishers Association announced it was joining a legal battle to keep A.T.& T., the world's largest telephone company, out of the information business.

The association said it would seek to intervene formally April 13 when A.T.& T asks for United States District Court permission to enter the field of electronic news delivery.

The Texas Daily Newspaper Association challenged the Austin experiment and won the utility commission's decision to hold full public hearings before allowing it to proceed. 700 Participants

More than 700 homes and businesses would take part in the experiment, free of charge, if the commission approves it, Bell said.

Computer terminals would be installed in businesses and homes, and users could call up on their screens such information as telephone numbers and advertising by about 2,400 merchants.

The Texcas newsapaper group contends Bell's monopoly control over telephone lines and equipment would give Bell an unfair advantage over possible competitors in the fledgling computerized home information business. Among the possible competitors are Reader's Digest, American Express, H.& R. Block and the A.H. Belo Corporation, parent company of The Dallas Morning News.

During the hearing before Judge Mathews, Dennis Sullivan, an assistant vice president of A.T.& T., said the company had no intention of producing news, weather and sports.

Mr. Sullivan said ''billions of dollars'' in revenue would be realized if the home information service succeeded. He said Bell had invested $20 million testing the service, including $6.2 million preparing for the Austin experiment. A.T.& T has also run tests in Albany, N.Y., and Coral Gables, Fla.


Just when you might have thought there were no more crazy things Olive Garden could do with breadsticks, the restaurant chain is back to assure us it has at least one more dough-based creation in the tank.

The Associated Press reports Olive Garden’s next bread-in-stick-form invention will be call the “breadstick crostini.” The new offering is essentially sliced toasted bread and will be part of an appetizer, to be added to the menu in August.

The move comes just weeks after the restaurant announced a breadstick sandwich, scheduled to debut on June 1. However, more breadsticks should come as no surprise as Olive Garden revamps its menu to play up its core competencies.

“The flavor profile of the breadstick is powerful,” said Jose Duenas, Olive Garden’s executive vice president of marketing, in an interview with the AP.

So powerful, in fact, that Olive Garden customers are demanding even more breadstick innovation. Jim Nuetzi, executive chef for Olive Garden, explained that “he has been getting other suggestions for dishes that incorporate breadsticks” ever since the breadstick sandwich was revealed.

Summary: Because Breadstick Sandwiches just aren't enough


07/01/2015 AT 05:30 PM EDT

is not the type to play games. Or so we thought â¦

In fact, that's exactly what she'll be doing in her first gig booked after exiting

. Leakes is headed to ABC's

– a reboot of the 1960s hit in which three people all claim to be the same person while celebrity panelists try to figure out who's the real deal.

Leakes – who announced to PEOPLE on Monday that she is quitting

– will serve as a panelist on the show alongside

The new gig is "something different that you guys have never seen me do before," Leakes, 48, tells PEOPLE. "Fans will get to see me be really happy, witty and funny and tell all of those one-liners that I have said on [

This won't be her only new undertaking. Leakes recently

's mobile game app, announced a

and says, "I have a new home now, and I love decorating, so I'll be launching a home line soon."

Leakes adds, "My hands are really full right now."

Summary: The former Real Housewives of Atlanta star's next project is an old game show reboot