Boston Globe

New York Times Co. executives have threatened to shut down the Boston Globe if the newspaper's employees don't agree quickly to $20 million in concessions, union leaders said Friday. Executives from the New York company, which owns the Globe, met this week with leaders of the newspaper's 13 unions, the Globe reported. Boston Newspaper Guild President Daniel Totten said the concessions could include pay cuts, the end of company pension contributions and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees.

Much of Boston lost power Tuesday night after a three-alarm fire in a transformer sent noxious smoke billowing into the streets, officials said. The blaze, around the corner from the posh Back Bay Hilton, was reported at 6:27 p.m. Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald told the Boston Globe that it was unclear how the fire had started, but that to fight it firefighters had to shut off electricity to thousands of people. Affected areas included "Back Bay, Chinatown, the Theater District, Kenmore Square and parts of the South End," NStar utility spokesman Mike Durand said.

The Boston Globe said Monday that it would impose a 23% wage cut next week after its largest union narrowly rejected $10 million in annual pay and benefit concessions that parent company New York Times Co. said were needed to keep the paper from shutting down.

The rivalry that has produced the Curse of the Bambino, Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, David Tyree's catch and disagreeing forms of clam chowder — exposing the nastiness of arrogance and an inferiority complex along the way — has returned. In the Super Bowl, no less. New York and Boston's vitriol might not be on the level of Yankees-Red Sox as the New York Giants and New England Patriots prepare for Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis on Feb. 5, but the deeply ingrained disdain between the Eastern corridor metropolises is in play.

The New York Times Co. appears interested in getting rid of the Boston Globe, hiring investment bank Goldman Sachs to manage a potential sale of a newspaper that has plummeted in value since its purchase in 1993, the Globe reported Wednesday. The Globe, citing two potential buyers it did not name, said Goldman Sachs would request bids for the 137-year-old newspaper in the next couple of weeks. The Times Co. previously announced it had hired the investment bank to sell its 17.

The management of the Boston Globe threatened late Sunday to begin the process of shutting down the newspaper in a dispute with its unions over $20 million in cuts. The Globe's owner, New York Times Co., gave its biggest union a copy of a notice it was prepared to file Monday if it was unable to agree on concessions by midnight Sunday. A 60-day shutdown notice is required under federal law. The deadline passed without word from either side.

Beverly Hills investment firm Platinum Equity, which recently bought the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper, has emerged as a possible buyer of the Boston Globe. Platinum Equity has submitted a "preliminary bid" for the paper, according to a person with knowledge of the proposal. The firm is offering to pay $35 million for the paper and assume $59 million in pension liabilities, according to published reports. The New York Times Co. said in a regulatory filing last week that it was considering putting its New England Media Group, which includes the Globe, up for sale.

A group including retired General Electric Co. Chief Executive Jack Welch and advertising executive Jack Connors may offer to buy the Boston Globe from New York Times Co., Connors said. But Connors cautioned that no deal may materialize. The company has said the Globe, despite its continued weak financial results, is not for sale.

Though a tentative agreement between the owner of the Boston Globe and its largest employees union may keep the newspaper alive for now, the long-term future of the 137-year-old Globe is uncertain. The Globe said Wednesday that the proposal called for employees in the Boston Newspaper Guild to take an 8.3% wage cut and a five-day unpaid furlough, for a total pay cut of roughly 10%.

Affiliated Publications, parent of the Boston Globe, has agreed to pay $100 million for Billboard Publications, which produces the weekly trade paper considered the bible of the recording industry. Boston Ventures Limited Partnership, a Boston-based investment capital firm, is selling the Billboard firm, which also publishes 7 other specialty magazines, including Back Stage, Musician, American Artist, Photo Business and a European news weekly called Music & Media.

In its endorsement of Jon Huntsman, the Boston Globe made largely the same case for the Utah governor's candidacy that the candidate himself has to New Hampshire voters -- that he is the rare GOP candidate prioritizing the national interest over ideology. The Globe, which has a reach into many southern New Hampshire homes, snubbed former home state Gov. Mitt Romney for the second time in its endorsement for the first-in-the-nation primary, after backing John McCain in the 2008 vote.

2. ORLANDO VS. NO. 4 BOSTON Season series: Orlando, 3-1. Key stat: The Magic held the Celtics to 88 points a game this season. The Boston Globe's Bob Ryan ranks the upset of the Cavaliers among the Celtics' greatest feats, noting they have rarely been such underdogs. Of course, now they're more like bacteria you can see only under a microscope than underdogs against the Magic, which is younger, hotter, better-rested and sounder, with its powerful inside-outside game built on Dwight Howard and all the shooters surrounding him. Orlando would have been hotter than any team that got here, including Cleveland, having won 31 of 39, counting the playoffs in which it swept the Bobcats and Hawks.

A common response to media questions after NFL games is, "I have to wait to see the film." Times NFL writer Sam Farmer devotes this week's installment to Bill Belichick's fourth-down call against Indianapolis: Bill Belichick, when asked if he would make the same decision again: "You only get one chance." :: :: Rodney Harrison, NBC analyst and former star safety for the Patriots: "[It was] the worst coaching decision I've ever seen Bill Belichick make." :: Jim Caldwell, Indianapolis coach: "There are things that you have to weigh, you have to take into account, and things that are not readily available to the public.

New York Times Co. says it won't sell the Boston Globe after all as the result of "careful consideration and analysis." Company executives said recently that the newspaper's finances had improved significantly and that a sale was no certainty.

For the Red Sox faithful, the mood here Saturday was as dark and depressing as the heavy clouds hanging over Logan Airport. "Silenced Sox Limp Home," read the front-page headline in the Boston Globe. "Sox in Deep," said the Boston Herald. In the Boston clubhouse, the situation didn't seem so dire. "It's not the end of the world, like somebody said," second baseman Dustin Pedroia said with a grin. That somebody would be Manny Ramirez , who, in his final postseason with the Red Sox, made that proclamation with Boston a loss away from elimination in the 2007 American League Championship Series against Cleveland.

WGBH, the Boston media company that produces more than one-third of PBS' prime-time lineup -- including "Frontline," "Nova" and "Antiques Roadshow" -- must reduce its budget this year by about $7 million, the Boston Globe reported Tuesday. The newspaper said that WGBH is suffering from the same economic forces squeezing many other public television stations: reduced contributions from foundations, corporations and individuals. Its endowment has eroded because of the recession and it owes millions in loans for the construction of its headquarters that opened two years ago, the Globe said.

Elizabeth Neuffer, an award-winning correspondent for the Boston Globe who covered some of the most complex international stories of the last decade, has died. She was 46. Neuffer died Thursday of injuries sustained in an automobile accident in Iraq, the Globe reported. The car she was riding in apparently struck a guardrail near Samarra, about halfway between Baghdad and Tikrit. Her translator was also killed in the accident. The driver of the vehicle survived.

The Boston Globe has proposed that wages for the newspaper's largest union be slashed 23% to keep the newspaper from closing. Management made what it called its "last best offer" as negotiations resumed between Globe parent New York Times Co. and the Boston Newspaper Guild, according to the Globe's website and a person familiar with the talks. The Guild on Sunday offered a 3.5% pay cut for the 700 editorial, advertising and business workers it represents, plus three unpaid furlough days.

Beverly Hills investment firm Platinum Equity, which recently bought the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper, has emerged as a possible buyer of the Boston Globe. Platinum Equity has submitted a "preliminary bid" for the paper, according to a person with knowledge of the proposal. The firm is offering to pay $35 million for the paper and assume $59 million in pension liabilities, according to published reports. The New York Times Co. said in a regulatory filing last week that it was considering putting its New England Media Group, which includes the Globe, up for sale.