SOUTH BOSTON, Mass. — If you’re the type of person who associates lobster with big, celebratory events, then you’re in luck. With prices lower than they’ve been in decades, something as simple as — well, a Tuesday night can be reason to celebrate.
 
It’s 6 a.m. at Medeiros Dock in South Boston. The sun is just coming up as lobsterman Steven Holler gets his boat, the November Gale, ready for a day at sea. He steps into his bright orange bib pants, slips on his galoshes and then effortlessly glides his boat to the bait dock.
 
He loads $700 worth of fish on to the deck. And by 6:15, Holler and his crew of one set off to haul lobster traps in the waters off Boston’s Harbor Islands.
 
Lobsters, lobsters everywhere
 
In 35 years in the business, Holler says he’s never seen a lobster season quite like this one. It all started this spring.
 
“We came out to haul that gear expecting to get 30 or 40 pounds and what we saw was just totally off the charts. Something we’ve never seen before. There were just lobsters everywhere,” he says.
 
Plentiful catches came early, flooding the lobster market up the East Coast. And since it was May, there weren’t enough tourists to eat them up.
 
And if there’s one thing we all learned in economics class: Surpluses make prices plummet.
 
Lobstermen in the Boston area are getting $3 - $3.50 a pound right now. Retail prices are a bit higher at around $5, which means that the price is running pretty equal to a bologna sandwich.
 
“I looked at a slip from last year and it was anywhere between $4.50 - $4.75 per pound,” says Holler. "The price we’re getting is something like you’d get in the '80s — mid-'80s. And we’re paying 2012 fuel prices, bait prices and labor prices.”
 
The problem in a nut lobster shell
 
Lobster is even cheaper further north: The Wall Street Journal reports that some lobstermen in Maine are getting as low as $1.25 a pound. And it doesn’t seem to be going up anytime soon, because now there’s another factor dragging prices down: soft-shells. Those are lobsters that have just shed their shells and are growing into new, bigger ones.
 
The shedding process usually doesn’t start until mid-July, but lobstermen this year have been catching soft-shells since May.
 
“A soft-shell lobster is veal in the lobster world,” says Holler. “It is tender. It is sweet.”
 
Sweet, but fragile — too fragile to ship long distances, which puts even more lobsters in the Northeast supply chain.
 
A solution: Eat up
 
“The public has to know: there’s a lot of lobsters out there,” says Holler. “So the more lobster people buy, hopefully it will be better for the industry and hopefully that trickles down to the fisherman.”
 
There’s one more big factor playing in this perfect storm: Canadian processing plants, which usually buy up any extra lobsters, aren’t. They had strong catches this season too and already have their own backlog of lobsters.
 
Still, Holler says he will keep setting his traps, even if it means catching too much of a good thing.
 

Shark sightings: reason to smile? (@ChathamShark/Facebook)

 
BOSTON — Maybe you've seen the photo or video: a kayaker just 100 feet off the shore of Orleans, Mass. … followed by a fin. And yet the recent shark sighting appears to be triggering more excitement than fear. We asked some experts to explain the phenomenon.
 
The business perspective
 
Paul Pronovost, editor-in-chief of The Cape Cod Times, said the tourism industry was doing its best to capitalize on the interest.

"A lot of merchants have T-shirts and hats and books and little souvenirs — all shark-related because that's what people are coming in and looking for," he said. "It's been fascinating, people coming down to the shorelines, some even brave enough to put their toe in the water, some putting even more than their toes in the water, and really being into this phenomenon — it's created quite a buzz on the Cape."
 
He didn't see any unusual rise in Cape tourism due to the fascination with sharks but he did think vacationers already there were heading to beaches where sightings have occurred.
 
The science perspective
 
While the shark sightings are fascinating to beach bums, they're even more exciting for marine scientists. Technology like acoustic and satellite tags are helping scientists track sharks and better understand the animals' behavior.
 
"Historically, all we really knew about white sharks was based on sightings," said John Mandelman, a researcher at the New England Aquarium. "But now with this new technology we're starting to learn a lot more about where these sharks are going … and that's very exciting, because [for] the Atlantic there's been an absence of information on white sharks, whereas other areas around the world have been able to gain a lot of information about their population."
 
Does climate change have anything to do with sharks swimming close to our shore?
 
"Theoretically, climate change will have an effect on various levels, not just on the sharks … I think in this case, though, sharks are still coming up here based on water temperature," Mandelman said. "I don't think anything is going to happen in a 4- or 5-year period that could be attributable to climate change."
 
Marine scientists think the warmer water temperature is why we have more seals appearing on our beaches and it's those seals … not kayakers … that are attracting the hungry sharks looking for their next meal.
 
The shark's perspective
 
We've heard what the experts say. But what does the shark think? What drove him to pursue that particular kayak? Well, the shark — and June's Massachusetts celebrity animal, the black bear — has taken to social media to explain what he's all about ... without the intermediaries. Here's a rundown.
 

Ads, ads, everywhere. (Jumptap)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — There’s a lot of activity in mobile advertising again. Jumptap, a Boston-area mobile tech company, has raised a new venture round that brings its total funding to over $120 million. The rumor around town is that the company will either go public or get acquired by someone like Amazon.com. In the past 5 years, Boston has seen a number of big mobile-ad acquisitions, such as AOL buying Third Screen Media, Apple buying Quattro Wireless and PayPal buying Where.
 
Speaking of mobile ads, we’re keeping an eye on a new crop of local startups in the sector, including Session M, Adelphic Mobile, Celtra and CraveLabs, which helps businesses create mobile ads through Facebook status updates.
 
Our two deals of the week have to do with building the data center of the future. Burlington-based DynamicOps, an IT spinout from Credit Suisse, is being acquired by virtualization giant VMware. And on the networking side, Nashua, N.H.– and Cambridge-based startup Plexxi has raised a total of almost $50 million in VC funding as it goes after big players like Cisco and HP.
 
Finally, Avid, the Burlington audio and video tech firm, is selling off its consumer product lines to companies in R.I. and Canada. Counting a round of layoffs, Avid will lose 20 percent of its staff, or about 350 employees.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

BOSTON — David D’Alessandro rose from humble roots in upstate New York to become one of Boston’s most respected business leaders. His flair for business battle is highlighted in his three bestselling books: "Brand Warfare," "Career Warfare" and "Executive Warfare."
 
In Greater Boston’s 1 Guest series, the former CEO of John Hancock Financial Services opened up to host Emily Rooney about growing up in Utica, his father’s gambling addiction and run-in with the mob and his early work history.
 
Childhood in Utica
 
D’Alessandro was born in Utica, New York. East Utica, to be precise.
 
“When you’re from Utica, you have to be distinctive about where you’re from,” he said. “Kind of like when you’re from New York, you’re from Brooklyn, not the Bronx.”
 
From an early age, D’Alessandro said, he had an aversion to authority figures. His own mother was no exception. “My mom told me I couldn’t go fishing. I was 4 or 5 years old,” he said. Undeterred by his mother’s orders, he constructed a fishing line out with a piece of string and a nail and proceeded to fish from the family goldfish bowl. Unfortunately for him, the goldfish just weren’t biting.
 
“Perhaps because the nail was bigger than the fish. And there was no bait on it,” he said.
 
D’Alessandro moved on to Plan B and scooped the fish out with a large pasta spoon then left them on the kitchen counter. His mother noticed them immediately when she came home.
 
“It didn’t work out so well,” said D’Alessandro. “I had them for dinner.”
 
Gambling
 
D’Alessandro said his father was the smartest person in the family, boasting an IQ of 165 and speaking five languages, including Japanese. Unfortunately, he also struggled with compulsive gambling, a habit that “put the family through hell.”
 
“He was addicted to horses,” said D’Alessandro about his father. “He played every day. Every day, including the day he died.”
 
His father’s gambling habits also got him into trouble with some of the neighborhood’s more notorious characters. As a child, D’Alessandro remembers witnessing a terrifying encounter between his father and a group of gangsters at the family’s grocery store.
 
“Some henchmen came in and we had a big chopping block,” said D’Alessandro. “They made my dad put his hand down and they kept plunging a knife between his fingers because he owed a few hundred dollars.”
 
On casinos in Massachusetts
 
Given his own family’s troubled history with gambling, it’s not surprising that D’Alessandro was disappointed by the recent legalization of casino gambling in Massachusetts.
 
“Gambling is an addiction,” said D’Alessandro. “For the legislature to push so hard for casino gambling knowing they are going to addict people … it’s anathema to me because I thought the state knew better.”
 
He added, dryly, “Why don’t we just open up crack cocaine parlors and take the tax off of that?”
 
Early jobs
 
It’s hard to believe one of Boston’s most respected businessmen was ever fired from a job. But D’Alessandro admitted his first job at a movie theater was not his biggest success.
 
“I got fired because the owner of the theater insisted I walk around with a flashlight … telling people to stop cuddling and making out with each other,” he said. “I didn't think it was good for my physical health in an Italian American neighborhood to be breaking up young people from cuddling.”
 
 

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Companies are going public in Massachusetts. In fact, the first IPOs to list on the Nasdaq since Facebook are Bay State companies Tesaro, a cancer drug developer, and Exa, a maker of design software for vehicles. Both had modest debuts this week. But meanwhile, another recently minted public company is trying to create the future of retail. Burlington-based Demandware makes software designed to help brands and retailers reach more shoppers online. The company, which is valued at over $700 million, is going after fashion and luxury brands — avoiding low-end commodities, where Amazon is dominant.
 
In other innovation news …
 
A new report shows that in the first quarter of 2012, venture investing by corporations hit its lowest dollar sum in over a year. Massachusetts saw the majority of corporate VC money go to its health care startups.
 
Our deal of the week goes to Cambridge-based Seaside Therapeutics. The company has a new partnership with Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche to develop drugs for autism spectrum disorders.
 
And fellow Cambridge startup Nara Logics has launched a website that’s designed to work like the human brain. It adapts to consumers’ preferences to help them discover new restaurants. Sounds like it could ­help us all branch out a bit this weekend.
 

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

Crews set up for the conference on June 14, 2012. (BIO)

BOSTON — Boston is the hub of biotech, says Geoff MacKay, president and CEO of Organogenesis. But as the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) International Convention starts on June 18, some people are expressing doubts as to whether the sector is really creating jobs in the region and whether other parts of the world are catching up.

MacKay talked to WGBH News about the convention, innovative developments in biotech, potential job growth and how Boston can stay on top in the industry.
 
On why the convention is returning to Boston after 5 years
 
"Each year they go to a different city. It hasn’t been too long since they were in Boston. The reason for the quick return is just that it is the city that is the most successful for the event. We anticipate over 15,000 industry leaders and representation from almost every state in the country and 65 other countries. When you compare that to some of the previous states it just hasn’t been as big a draw."
 
On how biotech has created jobs
 
"Today we have 48,000 employees that come from 500 companies in the state working in the biotech industry … over the last decade, that’s a 50 percent increase in job growth. The ecosystem … is vibrant. It includes world-class academic institutions, medical centers and a venture capital community that puts hundreds of millions of dollars back into the community, investing in risky, innovative adventures every year."
 
On the problems faced when bringing new drugs to the market
 
"There are always challenges bringing these to market. If you look at the cost of getting a new drug to market, depending on the methodology of how you evaluate it, it’s anywhere from $500 million to $2 billion to get a drug candidate through the incredibly arduous pre-clinical, clinical and regulatory process just to demonstrate safety efficacy and tolerability to the satisfaction of the FDA. And that can take 10 to 15 years."
 
On innovative developments
 
"The thing that excites me more than anything is finally the arrival of personalized medicine — targeted treatments in cancer and other areas. The second area, which is more near and dear to my heart, is stem cells and regenerative medicine, which is what as an Organogenesis employee is what I focus on."
 
On Boston maintaining its prominent position in biotech
 
"The most important way it can hold on is to realize just how critical it is to the Massachusetts state system…It’s important that the message isn’t lost, we are in an ultra-competitive industry, biotechnology life science, and that we’re winning — by any measure, Massachusetts is the winner…We’re winning but it’s so fragile and the root cause of why Massachusetts is in the lead is because it’s the healthy cross section between industry, venture capital, academia, and government. And so what can we do? We have to foster that interaction."
 
On why the biotech industry is “fragile”
"It’s fragile because of the competition…I think some of the infrastructure that exists isn’t going to go away —the best schools, the best hospitals, the critical mass of industry… So I think we have to really look at the value proposition offered by Massachusetts and ask ourselves how can we continue to be the most competitive environment for young high-growth companies. The flattening of the world is and opportunity but it’s also a risk for us because the companies are more mobile than they’ve ever been before."
 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Can anyone make a battery that’s durable and lasts longer than the status quo? A123 Systems thinks it can — and just in time. The Boston-area cleantech company has been struggling with layoffs and lost revenues, but says it has a new lithium-ion battery that is better and cheaper for electric vehicles. The technology could also be used to store energy for the electric grid. A123 plans to hire 400 new workers in Michigan, as it ramps up production in a tough climate for energy companies.
 
In other innovation news…
 
Waltham-based Constant Contact is expanding in Web marketing with its acquisition of New York startup SinglePlatform, which helps restaurants and businesses list their menus and products online. The acquisition could be worth up to $100 million including earn-outs.
 
Our deal of the week goes to Boston-based Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, a developer of drugs for diabetes and obesity. The two-year-old company has raised $25 million in new venture funding.
 
And Ministry of Supply, a startup out of MIT, has launched a campaign on the Kickstarter website to support production of its high-tech, thermal-regulating dress shirts. It joins Blank Label as another local apparel company using crowd-sourced funding to roll out new products. 
 

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

ROXBURY, Mass. — The quest to rejuvenate Roxbury’s Dudley Square neighborhood just got a major boost. The city has okayed $95 million in new development along Melnea Cass Boulevard, which could transform that stretch from an afterthought to a destination. But while many in Dudley Square welcomed the project — not everyone was on board.
 
Today they’re a couple of scruffy empty lots bracketing Melnea Cass Boulevard, which thousands of commuters use every day to get on and off Interstate 93. But as Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts head Darnell Williams looked around — he saw potential.
 
 “Boston is such a walkable city — right now I’m looking at the shadows of the Prudential, the Hancock Building, Jim Rice Field. Fenway Park is 8 minutes from here. We’re really centrally located and it just makes sense,” Williams said.
 
The city seemed to agree. Boston gave the go-ahead to two developers who plan to transform this area by building a hotel, restaurants and residencesand expanding the popular Tropical Foods supermarket. If all those cars driving past started to stop, the project and the neighborhood could thrive.
 
“Very few of those cars stop to get birthday candles or birthday cards or to have a bite to eat. If we can change that, then that will be a very good thing for Roxbury,” Williams said.
 
The new development was part of a bigger effort to rejuvenate Dudley Square, which used to be a thriving retail hub but has struggled for decades. While there was plenty of local enthusiasm for the current development push, there was also skepticism.
 
Kathy Kim, the daughter of a local business owner, worried that new development won’thelp the average man and woman on the street.
 
“We want developers that understand our community and the struggles we’ve been facing in this community for the last 40 to 50 years ... we need to have CORI-friendly jobs,” Kim said. “We need to have jobs for the residents who’ve been in the community, who have built the foundation of Dudley Square.”
 
Andy Finkel, whose brother owns a local clothing shop, said the new plans might not be ambitious enough.
 
“Anything in the Dudley Station Roxbury community is great given the huge unemployment problem and lack of money and business in the community,” Finkel said. “The BRA needs to have some sort of a master plan that has a hub here in Dudley Station, where it used to be really, really vibrant."
 
But others like Roxbury resident Anjail Mohammed said that on balance — Dudley Square seems to be on the right track.
 
“I think it’s going in a positive direction,” she said. “The only thing I’d like to see removed is the strip club down the street.”
 
For his part Williams was happy to accentuate the positive including the promise of much-needed jobs.
 
“I don’t know if I have definite numbers, I don’t want to speculate,” said Williams. “We’ve got a lot of jobs that should happen on the construction side, post-construction, post-management, that should benefit folks who live here.”
 
Big plans for a neighborhood that could use a boost.
 

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
BOSTON — Food trucks have come to Paris and they've come to Boston. Next up? If Paris wasn't unexpected enough, the food world's hottest phenomenon is moving into the suburbs.

A trend in the city

Stroll through the Financial District, Kendall Square or Cleveland Circle at lunchtime and you will see long lines forming around trucks pulled up to the curbs. The queue of people reflects the diverse, multi-ethnic menus scrawled on the chalkboards. Suits stand behind foreign students in well-worn T-shirts and moms balance their takeout containers on the hoods of strollers while fishing for change.

“I love them," said one customer. "There used to be the fear of the 'roach coach' but these places are really high-quality and they’re also generally cheaper than any of the offerings around here.”

On any given day food trucks line up on city streets, offering a bold variety that competes with brick-and-mortar counterparts. At one truck, for $5, you can get Sichuan asparagus with a slow-poached egg. At another truck, for $3, you can chow down on a taco filled with Chinese sausage, fried rice and black bean mayo.

Yes, gourmet cuisine has gone mobile — and now other cities and towns in Massachusetts want a bite. The Town of Brookline just launched a pilot program for food trucks offering more lunchtime options for workers and residents, and if all goes well, food trucks will shift into park permanently.

“I think the public is fascinated by food trucks,” said Anne-Marie Aigner. So fascinated that it’s going above and beyond the city limits.

Truckin' past the city line

Aigner is the founder of the Food Truck Festivals of New England. A couple of years ago, she saw how the food truck phenomenon was barreling its way over from Los Angeles and thought: Why not make a destination event out of it? Instead of having food trucks pulled up at events like the Head of the Charles or outdoor concerts, you could flip that around and make the food trucks the main event. That means a caravan of food trucks will amble their way to towns like Framingham, Falmouth, Salem, N.H., and Newport, R.I.

“People are interested in the fact that you don’t have to go into a restaurant and sit down to have a good bite," said Aigner.

People like Rick Rushton.
 
A plan in central Mass.

“I look at what’s happened over the past 4 to 5 years with urban cuisine on the go — to the desktop, to the laptop and now to the iPad. And people’s accessibility to food, and to good food, has really transformed itself,” he said.

Rushton is a Worcester city councilor. In this city, food trucks were banned a few years ago, after a heated battle between the brick-and-mortar restaurant and food truck industries resulted in a 6-5 City Council vote that left food trucks packing. Rushton is hoping that by bringing the Food Truck Festival to Worcester on July 14, fellow councilors will warm up to the idea of getting rid of the ban.

“I’m hoping that most of the city councilors are going to head down to the festival, see where the food truck revolution has gone," he said.

If you can't beat them …

Tension between food trucks and brick-and-mortar restaurants is nothing new. Some restaurants see food trucks as a threat, especially if they’re parked a little too close by for comfort. But one Somerville restaurant saw the competition as an opportunity.

“My initial take was hey, we want to get in on that action," said Rob Gregory, co-owner of the landmark barbecue restaurant Redbones in Davis Square. Redbones wheeled out its own truck when Gregory saw that this was not just a flash in the pan.

“Competition is good," Gregory said. "It keeps us all on our toes and keeps the quality of food up and quality of service for the customer. It’s all about trying to have something that people want. This is one of the most exciting times for experiments in the food service business. You can innovate and if it doesn’t work, you can try something else.”

Other restaurants are hitting the pavement as well. Even fast food chains like Burger King have launched their own fleets of trucks across the country.

“The word is getting out," Aigner said. "It’s becoming increasingly popular with existing brick-and-mortar restaurants, and the flip of that is it’s a great entry point for somebody who’s interested in getting into the restaurant business, but can’t afford $300,000 – $400,000 to build a restaurant." It takes more like $25,000 – $50,000 to start a restaurant on wheels.

Starting from the street up

Mei Li of Mei Mei Street Kitchen agreed. "The idea is to start small with the food truck and experiment with the different ingredients and have a rotating menu so we try lots of new things and let our customers try new food," she said.

Mei and her siblings Andy and Irene bought their truck this spring as their first entrepreneurial step into the food service business. The Mei Mei Street Kitchen menu exemplifies the diverse palate of second-generation Asian Americans with items like a scallion pancake sandwich with braised beef and blue cheese. She even joked about their food being Chinese food with cheese.

“We think that it’s a unique opportunity to be able to bring real food to areas that sometimes don’t often offer that for people who work everyday and are faced with the same choices," Li said. "If you’ve got a different food truck every day in front of your office, you get to try new things and have real food brought to your doorstep. We think that’s really cool.”

Next stop?

Other cities and towns think it’s cool, too. And they’ll get a taste of the food truck experience en masse throughout the summer in various towns and cities in the New England area. For a $30 entry ticket, people will be able to eat from over 20 trucks.

“Somebody out west of Worcester called and yelled at us," Aigner said. "We get calls every day. Why did you stop in Worcester? How come you didn’t come to Springfield? What about the Berkshires? How about West Hartford?”

The downside of success is that everyone wants a piece of it … or a plate.

There are 10 food truck festivals scheduled for this year, starting with an event at the UMass Boston campus on Sunday, June 10. Get the complete list. 

 
In 1 Guest, Greater Boston host Emily Rooney spends an entire show interviewing a prominent Bostonian with a story to tell. The series kicked off June 4 with Chris Stevens of Keurig.
 
BOSTON — Admit it: There’s nothing grosser than coffee from the office coffee pot. How long has it been sitting there? When's the last time it was cleaned? Apricot-cream-flavored coffee … again?!
 
Those were the questions behind the multimillion-dollar company Keurig.
 
A venture takes off
 
“People were leaving the office despite that the coffee was given for free and going to Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts because they could get freshness and convenience and variety,” said Chris Stevens, Keurig vice president of corporate relations and one of the four original team members that developed and launched the Reading, Mass.–based company in 1998.
 
The single-cup coffeemakers first became popular in the workplace — they can now be found in 13 percent of offices — and have quickly spread to the home. “It is now the No. 1–selling coffee brewer in America in terms of dollar sales,” said Stevens.
 
Stevens’ tremendous success at Keurig is just the tip of his seemingly boundless resume: he co-owns three commercial websites, a real estate business and a production company in Hollywood and is the author of “Fighting to Give,” a book chronicling a friend’s battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
 
But at home ...
 
But while Stevens’ career was soaring, his personal life was hitting heartbreaking lows. In 2004, in the span of just 12 months, Stevens lost both his brothers to Huntington’s disease and his wife to lung cancer.
 
All three diagnoses came as a shock.
 
Growing up as foster kids, neither Stevens nor his brothers Ned and Jeff knew they were disposed to Huntington’s, or that their mother had died of it years earlier.
 
“She was institutionalized and when she got sick and passed away, we didn’t realize it was from Huntington’s disease until both my brothers got sick,” said Stevens. “If you get the gene you have a 50-50 shot of getting the disease.”
 
Initially, Stevens said he didn’t want to get tested to see if he too carried the gene. But then, he had a change of heart.
 
“I have five children and finally I said, 'You know what? If something tragic should happen to me, my kids wouldn’t know,’" said Stevens. “I need to give them that peace of mind.”
 
His test came back negative.
 
Another blow
 
Also in 2004, Stevens’ wife of 27 years, Marian McBride Stevens, died from a rare form of lung cancer.
 
“She was a marathon runner, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, very spiritual — did all the right things in life — and one day she couldn’t finish a run,” said Stevens.
 
After a few more weeks of unfinished runs and difficulty breathing, Marian went to the doctors. She was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer.
 
“There wasn’t much they could do. We brought her home and about 8 weeks later she passed away,” said Stevens.
 
Since the deaths of his wife and brothers, Stevens has become a writer and motivational speaker, sharing his story of success and loss to help raise awareness of Huntington’s disease and Lou Gehrig’s.

Have ideas for other people Emily should interview for 1 Guest? Leave a comment here or let us know on Facebook.
 

Curt Schilling exits the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation headquarters on May 16. (Steven Senne/AP)

 
BOSTON — According to The Providence Journal, Curt Schilling blames Rhode Island officials for his gaming company’s floundering finances — saying the state had promised to approve tax credits and defer a payment due May 1.
 
The former Boston Red Sox pitcher also said Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s public remarks about 38 Studios’ finances have scared off potential investors.
 
The week of May 21, Chafee chastised the $75 million taxpayer-funded deal that brought 38 Studios to Rhode Island in 2010. In exchange for the money, Schilling promised to hire 450 employees and bring in millions in tax revenues.
 
“It’s the wrong business for the state to be in,” Chafee said at a press conference. “It defies imagination that the state would risk so much money in this kind of venture.”
 
Chafee has now called for an audit, saying the company has been mum on where and how the money has been spent.
 
“The taxpayers have tens of millions of dollars invested in this company and it’s been difficult getting answers from them,” he said. “We hear different things and what we hear is different then what we can so far document.”
 
The company laid off its entire Providence staff of 300 on May 24. Another 100 employees were let go in Maryland.
 
“I’m sad,” said one former employee. “It was a great place to work and I’m going to miss coming into work.”
 
Still, Schilling said it’s not "game over" quite yet. And he took to Facebook to thank supporters and fans, saying, “Your passion helped us pursue this amazing journey, and for that, we’re grateful. May you soon discover a new world worth saving.”
 
Whether 38 Studios is worth saving depends on who you ask.
 

BOSTON — Massachusetts’ top securities regulator has subpoenaed Morgan Stanley related to allegations that it misled most shareholders about the value of Facebook's IPO.
 
State Secretary William Galvin said his office is investigating whether Morgan Stanley told selected investors — but not all of them — that Facebook was facing weaker revenues than previously expected before trading started on May 18.
 
“I’m very concerned about the impact on Massachusetts investors to make sure they were treated fairly," he said. "The bigger issue here is to make sure that average investors who the market is desperately trying to get back in the marketplace are treated the same as institutional investors.”
 
Galvin said that if the allegations are true, then privileged Wall Street insiders were in a position to cut back on Facebook stock or dump shares while the average person who bought Facebook stock on May 18 lost money as the stock retreated from its initial price.
 
“We don’t know what the subpoena is going to reveal and I’m not going to prejudice Morgan Stanley’s situation by saying ‘I expect to find this or I expect to find that,'" Galvin said. "But if it’s true than it means that average investors were losers at the expense of the winners who got inside information.”
 
Morgan Stanley is also being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and is being hit with several class-action lawsuits. The company defended itself in a statement, saying it acted "in compliance with all regulations."
 

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Line up at a Whole Foods fish counter these days and you might notice something missing …
 
Fish!
 
Whole Foods has become the first national grocer to stop selling “red-rated” fish. The designation means the species is overfished or caught in a way that harms other marine life.
 
Whole Foods seafood coordinator Matt Mello rattled off the list of local losses: “Grey sole, octopus, Atlantic cod and halibut.”
 
> > What's a "red-rated" fish? Check the SeafoodWatch guide.
 
The demand for fish
 
Mello said this is the latest step in Whole Foods' long commitment to ocean conservation.
 
“There’s been a timeline in our seafood departments, such as the lobsters — moving away from the lobsters,” said Mello. “We were the first retailer to come out with a rating system. Now we’re the first retailer to stop selling red rated fish.”
 
The first, but not the only: BJ’s and Target have made similar commitments. And the trend has only picked up steam after the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization reported that 80 percent of fisheries were fully exploited, overfished or recovering from depletion.
 
“I always say: if you enjoy the ocean and you want it here for future generations, and you want the bounty that the ocean provides for future generations, you really should care,” said Mello.
 
It’s something avid fish consumer Terry Drucker cares about. He said he wouldn’tgo to another supermarket if Whole Foods stopped selling certain fish.
 
“I guess if they’re pulling it, I’d guess there’d be a good reason for that and I’d try to avoid it — like I didn’t eat swordfish for a long time when I thought they were endangered,” he said.
 
The supply side
 
But Gloucester fisherman Russell Sherman wasn’t taking the bait.

 
“This is a corporate move out of Texas. And to me, it’s basically pandering to their customers,” he said.
 
Sherman has been fishing the waters off Gloucester for 41 years. And he’s been selling his catch to Whole Foods for the past 6 years.  He thought Whole Foods’ decision to stop selling “unsustainable” fish was nothing more than a marketing scheme.
 
“The government has just issued a statement where five more stocks have become sustainable. And I believe that all of our stocks are on the upward trend,” said Sherman.
 
Sherman said sustainability is at the forefront of every fisher’s mind, because fish are their livelihood. Plus, he said the U.S. already has the most stringent fishing regulations in the world.  
 
“I think Whole Foods should hold our industry up as a model to the world. We believe in sustainability,” said Sherman. “Each one of us are small businessmen, small entrepreneurs, who depend on the ocean. And I believe that we are the real conservationists in the world.”
 
The checkout line
 
Since launching the program on Earth Day, Whole Foods has pulled more than a dozen species fish nationwide. Those fish include sturgeon, turbot, some rockfish and swordfish and tuna from certain fisheries.  
 
Four types are missing from the colorful fish displays locally: trawl-caught Atlantic cod, Atlantic halibut, octopus and grey sole. But Mello said most can be easily substituted.
 
“Something like grey sole, we’ll get a lot of requests for, so we have a wide variety of fish, different types of sole. One of the types we offer is Pacific Dover sole. Comes from the West Coast and we’ll offer that,” he said.

BOSTON — As WGBH News reported on May 21, the Casella Waste Materials Recovery Facility in Charlestown takes in 100 tons of plastic a day. Much of that material is separated out by the type of plastic and then recycled in facilities in the U.S. However, some does get sent abroad — mostly mixed batches of plastic that aren't cost-effective to separate for recycling here. Those bales of plastic get packed into shipping containers and loaded at the Port of Boston on to the proverbial "slow boat in China."

Nearly all the plastic scrap that leaves the Port of Boston goes to China: In 2011, 11,869 tons went to that country out of a total of 12,782 tons. That makes Boston 13th in the nation for plastic scrap exports. Los Angeles tops the list with 49,486 tons exported in 2011.

Once it crosses the ocean, the plastic is processed. Most re-emerges as agricultural sheets, stools and other implements of Chinese daily life.

Data provided by Massport.

Port of Boston: Plastic Scrap Export Data

BOSTON — The plastic water bottle has become a symbol of waste. In April, Concord, Mass., banned the sale of single-serving bottles altogether. But the recycling industry can't get enough of those bottles — and all the other plastic detritus of modern life — to turn into new products. WGBH News examined recent developments in recycling and learned that the conventional wisdom about water bottles might be wrong.

Plastic everywhere
 
Let’s begin where we see plastic the most: the supermarket. Up and down the aisles of Trucchi’s in Taunton, there are all kinds of plastic packaging — bread, butter, tortilla chips, those clear boxes from the bakery, juice, soda, laundry detergent. Plastic is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget how often we come into contact with it. But there’s one man who really knows his plastics.
 
“English muffins, OK? You got English muffins. This bag is imminently recyclable,” says Steve Alexander, who heads the Association of Post-Consumer Plastic Recyclers. We see English muffins. He sees the polypropylene resin they’re wrapped in.
 
“Most people tend to take the carton and recycle it, the bag they don’t necessarily know what to do with,” he says.
 
Adding to the confusion, different towns have different recycling rules. Maybe you have curbside pickup or perhaps you have to deliver your recyclables somewhere. Either way, what you see as a random bottle or a bag, others are lining up to cash in on.
 
Bottles in bales
 
Your plastic garbage throwaways could end up at the Casella Waste Materials Recovery Facility in Charlestown. A stale, sour air hangs in the air as the dust swirls each time the bulldozer pushes another pile into the towering peaks of paper, plastic, glass and aluminum.
 
“We see 100 tons of plastic come through the facility a day,” says Bob Cappadona.
 
He's in charge of all the recycled stuff Casella manages in New England. And when he sees plastic — soda bottles, yogurt cups, anything — he sees a commodity he can profit from.
 
“They’re separated into various commodities," says Cappadona, leading a tour of the facility. "Each plastic. A milk jug will go to one mill, then detergent bottles will go to a separate mill."
 
At the Casella facility, a freeway of conveyor belts zips around as water and soda bottles go out one chute, and milk jugs go out another. Blue detergent bottles go down their own tunnel while red bottles go through another portal. They all get compacted into large squares, like bales of hay, and in the back of the warehouse, 1,800-pound bales are stacked so high into the smelly air that they dwarf people.
 
Now, long out of your mind, these compacted, stacks of former plastic bottles, jugs and containers are ready for sale. But who buys them?
 
“Recyclers are actually the end user for what they’re made into. It will go down to Georgia at Mohawk industries. This rug right here was made by Mohawk,” says Cappadona.
 
That’s right, your plastic recyclables are turned into carpets,home siding and lawn chairs. Much of your garbage stays here at home — but you might be surprised where some of it goes.

The slow boat to China
 
At Massport’s Conley Terminal in South Boston, I watch as crane operators load containers onto a cargo ship that’s heading back to China. Cargo ships make a weekly round to the Boston port, and we are regular exporters of recycled plastic scrap.
 
“The idea that we’re shipping 50 percent of the soda bottles to China is just mind-boggling and makes us bang our heads against the wall,” Alexander says.
 
Another reason for U.S. businesses to bang their heads against the wall has nothing to do with exports to China. It has to do with us.
 
“The recycling rate is not as high as it could be," says Patty Moore, CEO of Moore Recycling Associates, based in California.
 
She says part of the problem is that the U.S. doesn’t have the infrastructure needed to collect all of our plastic. Consider this: When you’re on a road trip and you stop at a gas station to clear your car out, chances are — unless you’re planning on taking it home with you — you will throw your plastic bottles in the trash because there’s no recycle bin.
 
“It’s either not being put in the right bins or lost in the infrastructure through collection. We don’t have a high enough collection rate for these materials,” says Moore.
 
And as a result, too much plastic ends up in landfills and the ocean, which is bad for the planet and bad for recyclers. Is there anything … maybe an innovation ... that can solve this?
 
Legal and business solutions
 
“We’d like to see a system where by law companies like us would add a little bit to the price of the product and pay for the recycling of the package after the consumer uses it,” says Michael Washburn.
 
He heads sustainability at Nestle Waters North America, which owns Poland Springs, among other bottled water brands. That means they produce 20 billion plastic bottles a year — and it looks bad when their brands end up in places they shouldn’t be, like on the sides of streets and beaches. Washburn wants to change that by making all companies that make products that come in recyclable packaging to take full responsibility of recycling it. It’s called Extended Producer Responsibility. The concept is not without its critics; Washburn has seen pushback from other big companies, private haulers and municipalities.
 
“We want to move to much higher rates of collection so that there is a greater supply of recycled material. We can have better infrastructure and less expensive processing to turn this material back into a less expensive material for us," says Washburn. That would create a "lower-cost, more robust and more efficient recycling system."
 
The financing mechanism would be a built-in cost of the package. Washburn says it would be miniscule — about .4 cents more for a bottle of water. If you extend it to every kind of recyclable packaging, it would pay for a streamlined recycling infrastructure … one in which you would see recycle bins at every storefront, gas station, park and airport. The slight added cost of what we buy would also pay for the hauling and sorting of this new bounty away.
 
Which brings us back to the supermarket. Remember that package of English muffins that Steve Alexander was holding, with the plastic bag that he says most people wouldn’t know what to do with? It could come back in its next life as …
 
“Could be a deck, could be a railroad tie, the trim and fascia board on your house. Typically stuff with a long second life — 20, 30 years," says Alexander.
 
And not end up in a landfill, a gutter and the ocean. It could even improve the economy and increase the number of jobs. But first you need to recycle it. Imagine that.
 

> > EXTRA: Steve Alexander of the National Association of Post-Consumer Plastic Recyclers talks about the Concord ban.

 
BOSTON — It's a persistent thorn in the Bay State tech community's side: Mark Zuckerberg moved away. With Friday's Facebook IPO in the headlines, Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo put together his own sales pitch Wednesday — to get Zuckerberg to move back. He published his plea in an open letter on the Menlo Park, Calif., Patch website on May 16.
 
"To see a gentleman such as Mark Zuckerberg who started here in Massachusetts and is now in California, you know, it bothers me. It bothers me in the sense that he should be here," DeLeo said at the State House later that day.
 
The letter claims that the state has become a far more welcoming place for innovative companies in the 8 years since Zuckerberg left and touts an economic development bill the House unveiled on May 14.
 
Massachusetts, DeLeo said, has it all over the Golden State — at least in terms of stability. "Do I want to go to a state that has a $16 billion deficit that is going to have to lay off all kinds of people and cut services, or do I want to go to a state that's been hailed as one of the best-run states fiscally?" he asked (rhetorically).
 
That said, he acknowledged that the move would be good for the Commonwealth as well. "Having Facebook here is, again, another part of economic growth," DeLeo said. "We want to see all parts of our economy grow, and that would just be another example of people coming here to Massachusetts because see they see Massachusetts as a great place to live and to work."
 
In November 2011, speaking at Harvard for the first time since he left, Zuckerberg said he had no plans to open a Boston office in the foreseeable future. And flouting predictions, he did not join a Facebook team that recently visited Cambridge to pitch the IPO to prospective investors.
 
Nonetheless, DeLeo was optimistic: "I think we can convince him that Massachusetts is the place to be."
 
> > READ: DeLeo's letter to Zuckerberg