DC memorial for journalist Helen Thomas being held

WASHINGTON — A memorial is being held at the National Press Club in Washington for Helen Thomas, who died in July at the age of 92.

A memorial is being held Saturday for Thomas, who grilled 10 presidents as a White House reporter for United Press International and later as a columnist for Hearst.

She became the first female White House bureau chief for a wire service when UPI named her to the position in 1974. She was also the first female officer at the National Press Club, where women had once been barred as members.

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Mass. oyster beds reopened after contamination

BOSTON — Massachusetts health and fishery officials are reopening oyster beds that have been closed for several weeks because of naturally occurring bacterial contamination.

The state announced Friday that all the oyster beds will reopen Saturday. That includes Back River, Bluefish River, Duxbury Bay, Katama Bay, Kingston Bay and Plymouth Harbor in the towns of Duxbury, Edgartown, Kingston, Marshfield and Plymouth.

The beds had been closed beginning in late August and September after several cases of gastrointestinal illness were linked to oysters from those areas that were contaminated with the Vibrio parahaemolyticus (VIB'-ree-oh par-uh-hee-moh-LIT'ih-cus) bacteria.

The naturally-occurring bacteria are often found in oysters harvested in warm waters.

Officials said there have been no new cases since the closings, and water temperatures are now dropping with cooler fall weather.

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3 formally apply for sole Mass. slots license

BOSTON — Three companies have formally applied to operate a slots parlor, the first type of expanded gambling facility expected to open in Massachusetts, state gambling regulators said Friday.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission had set a 2 p.m. deadline for the companies to return the 236-page application forms. All three had already paid a $400,000 fee to the panel in January during an earlier phase of the application process.

The state's 2011 gambling laws allows for only one slots parlor along with three regional resort casinos.

The commission hopes to award the slots-only license in late December or early January, months before any of the resort casinos are licensed.

As anticipated, Friday's applicants included Cordish Cos., a Baltimore-based group which has proposed a slots parlor in Leominster; Penn National Gaming, which hopes to add slot machines at the Plainridge harness race track in Plainville; and Raynham Park, which hosted dog racing until it was outlawed in Massachusetts in 2009.

The five-member commission is scheduled to hear 90-minute presentations from each of the companies on Monday.

All were able to meet two key requirements before being allowed to submit final applications: They passed an extensive background check conducted by the commission, and they reached agreements with officials in their host communities that were later approved by voters.

The applicants must also negotiate with officials in neighboring towns and, if necessary, offer compensation for increased traffic or other impacts from a slots parlor. The commission on Thursday voted to extend the deadline for reaching surrounding community agreements from Oct. 15 to Oct. 31.

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US pushes Pacific trade agenda despite shutdown

BALI, Indonesia — Talks on a Pacific trade pact are forging ahead with hopes of meeting a year-end deadline still intact, officials said Saturday, despite President Barack Obama's absence due to the government shutdown.

Obama had intended to thrash out issues with leaders of the 11 other trans-Pacific Partnership member countries on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific regional summit in Bali on Monday and Tuesday.

Instead he ended up shelving the trip to focus on resolving the standoff over funding the U.S. government. Still, U.S. and other senior officials sought to downplay the potential loss of momentum in the trade talks known as TPP.

"I do want to make clear none of what is happening in Washington diminishes by one iota our commitment to our partners in Asia, including our efforts to promote trade and investment throughout the region," Secretary of State John Kerry, who is standing in for Obama, said Saturday.

Both Kerry and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said that ministers were determined to put together a framework for the U.S.-led pact, a trading bloc that Obama considers a vital part of the "rebalancing" of U.S. strategy toward Asia.

"The TPP countries are strongly committed to working to conclude negotiations this year," Froman said.

Senior economic ministers of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum finished talks on Saturday by urging the 21 member economies to work toward a longer-term goal of achieving a free trade area encompassing the entire region.

A draft declaration by the APEC leaders, obtained by The Associated Press, hewed to the usual formulations of such communiques in urging "renewed urgency" on negotiations for global trade rules.

With the Doha round of World Trade Organization talks stalled for years, countries have instead been opting for country to country deals and other arrangements narrower than the WTO's global mandate.

But a new commitment to WTO talks on information technology has raised hopes for progress in other areas at high-level WTO meetings planned for December in Bali.

"There is a hopeful sign this week of our ability to work creatively together to solve problems," Froman said. "We were happy to work with China and others to get the information technology talks back on track."

He said negotiators had made "significant progress" in Bali on the Pacific trade pact talks. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key agreed to chair the TPP leaders' meeting in Obama's stead.

The pact has been billed as a "21st century" trade agreement: an attempt not just to slash tariffs but also tackle nontariff barriers to trade, while protecting labor rights. Participants, which account for 40 percent of world trade, include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.

Complex hurdles remain both in reaching consensus among the 12 nations and in persuading citizens and businesses in each country that the agreement is in their national interest.

Japan, which only formally joined the negotiations in July, is under pressure from the U.S. to open up its auto and insurance industries. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, meanwhile, faces stiff domestic opposition, including from Japanese farmers who fear that foreign imports could drive them out of business.

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Health care website gets down time for repairs

WASHINGTON — It's not the sign that the Obama administration wants people to see on its health overhaul website: down for repairs.

Using overnight hours this weekend to debug the system, the Health and Human Service Department hoped to fix the technological problems that overwhelmed the launch of new health insurance markets. Glitches have frustrated millions of consumers unable to complete their applications.

Enrollment functions of the healthcare.gov site will be unavailable during off-peak hours this weekend, HHS said Friday. The department did not release a schedule for hours of operation, but a spokeswoman said the site would be taken down at 1 a.m. EDT each night for a few hours. The website will remain open for general information.

The enrollment function was back online at little before 8 a.m. EDT Saturday, but was working slowly because of heavy traffic.

"Please stay on this page," said a notice. "We're working to make the experience better, and we don't want you to lose your place in line. We'll send you to the login page as soon as we can."

There was no indication of how long the wait would be.

Credit card companies, banks and other online service providers regularly take down websites for repairs. That may also become a feature of the new insurance program.

An effort by congressional Republicans to defund or delay the health care law led to an impasse with Democrats over passing a budget bill, and that sparked a partial government shutdown Tuesday. Republicans quickly pointed to the website problems as another reason that the law they call "Obamacare" should be pulled back.

"Americans have seen once again that Obamacare is not ready for prime time," Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, said in a statement Friday. "A dysfunctional website is the least of that law's problems."

The administration put the best face on the situation, noting the unexpectedly strong interest from millions of consumers.

"Americans are excited to look at their options for health coverage, with record demand in the first days of the marketplaces," said the release announcing the planned fixes.

The statement was headlined: "Health Insurance Marketplace Open for Business - Week One Success."

The state-level markets were designed to be the gateway to health insurance for people who don't have access to coverage on the job. Middle-class consumers will be able to buy government-subsidized private plans, while the poor and near-poor will be steered to Medicaid in states agreeing to expand the program.

Federal and state websites experienced problems this week. Some states, including Maryland, have also announced they are scheduling repairs.

The federal site, which serves 36 states, drew millions of users, an indication of strong consumer interest. Yet many people were unable to get on the site. They encountered a screen that told them to wait, and they did, sometimes for hours. Refreshing the screen only sent them to the back of the line.

Quite a few got hung up trying to create security questions to protect their accounts. The drop-down menus providing the questions would not populate. As a result, consumers could not advance through the application process and learn if they were eligible for a tax credit to help pay premiums, much less pick a plan.

Some who did make it through were timed out because they took too long comparing plans.

At the end of the first day at most a handful of people had managed to successfully enroll through the federal site.

However, by Friday, enrollments seemed to be picking up — though not yet at desired levels. The administration is not releasing numbers.

"We are pleased that enrollment for health care coverage through the new marketplaces is picking up," the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association said in a statement. "We expect enrollment to continue to increase."

The so-called Blues are major players in the individual insurance market, but some smaller insurers have yet to see any new customers.

By Monday, "there will be significant improvements in the online consumer experience," HHS said.

The upgrades include extra capacity for more users to get into the system, more technicians working round-the-clock to fix problems, and new pathways to get to the application faster. No details were given. Call centers are also getting more staff and HHS said wait times are now down to less than a minute.

The administration previously announced it is adding equipment to handle the high volume of users. Now it looks like software fixes are also needed.

Consumers have until Dec. 15 to enroll for coverage that starts Jan. 1.

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Market Basket workers to protest

Market Basket employees will converge at the Waltham site of a stalled store Sunday for a protest against the grocery chain's board.

"The point of the rally is to bring attention to the board and the damage they're causing," said organizer Cindy Whelan, store manager at the Market Basket in Epping, N.H.

A June election left majority power with "A" shareholders led by Arthur S. Demoulas, a cousin of CEO Arthur T. Demoulas, whom they're trying to oust. The board's failure to make payments has put on hold stores in Waltham, Revere and Plymouth, said Scott Lang, the developer's attorney.

A board spokeswoman did not respond to Herald inquiries.

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No slots filled at Caesars’ jobs ‘forum’

As the state Gaming Commission cleared the way for three proposals to move forward yesterday, an "employment forum" Caesars Entertainment and Suffolk Downs said it held to tout job opportunities at their proposed resort casino appeared to be more of a get-out-the vote rally for their $1 billion project.

After a panel discussion during which a half-dozen Caesars employees from around the country gushed about the company's benefits and opportunities for advancement, Lynda Tocci, a lobbyist for the proposed casino, took the stage, asking for volunteers to take bumper stickers, canvass neighborhoods, plant lawn signs and man phone banks to urge East Boston and Revere residents to approve the project next month.

"I'm a little disappointed," said 50-year-old Elina Mushin of Marblehead, a recent law school graduate who came with her resume at the ready. "I thought it would be more of a job fair, but they're promoting the casino just to get people to vote."

Suffolk Downs officials said the casino will create 4,000 permanent jobs and 2,500 construction jobs and the average salary at the proposed casino would be $42,000, but they refused to say how much the lowest- and highest-paid workers would make.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission, meanwhile, yesterday granted the city a variance allowing East Boston residents to vote on the project on Nov. 5 even though the commission has not yet completed its background check on Caesars Entertainment and determined the proposed casino's suitability. If the commission finds the proposal unsuitable, that will bring the project to an end, even if voters approve it next month.

The commission unanimously determined Mohegan Sun's proposal for a resort casino in Palmer is qualified to take the next step in the process to secure the sole license in western Massachusetts, and announced that Penn National is qualified to pursue the state's single slots parlor license in Plainville after it completed a hearing and background check.

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The Ticker

Hacking group members indicted

A federal grand jury yesterday indicted 13 members of the Internet hacking group Anonymous for allegedly carrying out cyber-attacks worldwide, including against targets that refused to process payments for WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website founded by Julian Assange.

The U.S.-based members of Anonymous are accused of zeroing in on the computers of governments, trade associations, law firms, financial institutions and other institutions that oppose the philosophy of Anonymous to make all information free for everyone, regardless of copyright laws or national security considerations.

Twitter's IPO reveals it's losing money

Twitter revealed its confidential IPO filing yesterday, clearing the way for one of largest and most hyped IPOs since Facebook.

The filing reveals that the company is still growing, but is losing money. Twitter's revenue was $253.6 million in the first half of this year, up from $122.4 million in the year-ago period. However, the company had a net loss of $69.3 million in the first half, compared to a net loss of $49.1 million in the year-ago period.

Instagram to start sponsored ads

Instagram has decided to flick on its revenue engine, announcing plans to bring sponsored images and videos into the mix.

Facebook's popular app was widely expected to make the move to launch advertisements. The company plans to launch these sponsored images and videos in the coming months.

Data of 3 million Adobe Systems customers accessed by hackers

Adobe Systems said yesterday that hackers had accessed personal data for nearly 3 million of its customers.

Brad Arkin, Adobe's chief security officer, wrote in a blog post that the hackers had removed data including encrypted credit- and debit-card numbers, but that the company does not believe any decrypted numbers were taken.

The Shuffle

 Kristen Zemeitus, left, has joined the 451 Marketing consumer public relations team as account executive. Zemeitus brings seven years of public relations experience in the food, pet, fashion apparel, footwear and sporting equipment industries.

 J. Barrett & Company announced that Realtor Ann-Marie Ciaraldi has joined the agency in its Beverly Farms office. Ciaraldi's business background includes owning her own marketing company for three years.

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Twitter dishes tantalizing tidbits in IPO treatise

SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter, a privately held company built on blurbs, has finally laid itself bare in documents that read more like a treatise than a tweet.

The roughly 800-page filing Twitter Inc. released late Thursday on its way to an eagerly anticipated IPO contains tantalizing tidbits about its growth and its attempts to make money from its influential short messaging service.

Prospective investors and rivals alike will dissect and digest those morsels during the next few weeks leading up to the San Francisco company's Wall Street debut.

The suspense surrounding Twitter's IPO was heightened by the company's decision to take advantage of a law passed last year that allows companies with less than $1 billion in annual revenue to keep their IPO documents under seal until management is ready to make formal presentations to investors.

Thursday's lifting of the veil means Twitter can start pitching investors during a so-called "road show" as early as Oct. 24. The company's stock should begin trading under the ticker symbol "TWTR" before Thanksgiving, barring a market meltdown or regulatory hurdles.

Here are five key details revealed in Twitter's tome:

—TWITTER'S GOT GROWTH TO GET EXCITED ABOUT

After Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sent out the first tweet in March 2006, the company didn't even try to make money for its few years. Instead, management focused on attracting more users and making the service more reliable.

It looks like Twitter's patient approach is paying off. Since former Google executive Dick Costolo became Twitter's CEO in 2010, the company's annual revenue has soared from $28 million to $317 million last year. Through the first half of this year, Twitter's revenue totaled $254 million, more than doubling from last year. If Twitter maintains that growth pace through the second half, the company's revenue will surpass $656 million this year.

Twitter gets 87 percent of its revenue from advertising. The rest comes from licensing agreements that give other companies better access to the flow of tweeting activity on its service.

Meanwhile, Twitter ended June with 218 million users, up from 30 million in early 2010. More than three-quarters of those users, or 169 million people, are located outside the U.S. Twitter's fastest growing markets are in Argentina, France, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

—BUT THE COMPANY ISN'T PROFITABLE

It takes more than cultural heft to build a business of substance, as Twitter is learning. The company has suffered uninterrupted losses of $419 million since its inception. That's something Twitter has been able to afford because it has raised $759 million from investors. The company still had $375 million in the bank at the end of June and hopes to raise at least $1 billion more in its IPO.

But shareholders of publicly held companies don't tolerate losses for very long, and it could still be a while before Twitter turns a profit.

Twitter's losses widened during the first half of this year to $69 million, up from $49 million in the same period last year. In contrast, both social networking leader Facebook Inc. and professional networking leader LinkedIn Corp. were profitable when they went public.

To make money, Twitter will likely get more aggressive about showing ads.

In the three months ending in June, Twitter generated revenue of $139 million, or an average of just 64 cents per user. In contrast, Facebook generated second-quarter revenue of nearly $1.2 billion, or an average of $1.58 per user, while LinkedIn posted revenue of $364 million, or an average of $1.53 per user.

As Twitter cranks up its marketing machine, it runs the risk of alienating an audience accustomed to seeing relatively few ads in their news feeds. Beyond the U.S., Twitter is gearing to expand its advertising efforts in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom.

—TWITTER IS MORE "MOBILE" THAN FACEBOOK

Twitter appears tailor made for an age of increasing reliance on smartphones and tablet computers. Three-fourths of Twitter's users already use the service on mobile devices. Perhaps more important to investors, the company sells 65 percent of its ads on smartphones and tablets. Facebook gets 41 percent of its ad revenue from mobile devices.

—ITS MARKET VALUE COULD BE AS HIGH AS $20 BILLION

Twitter hasn't set a price target for its IPO yet, but its documents contain some clues about its recent market value. The company's stock last sold in a privately arranged swap nine months ago at $17 per share. That deal implied Twitter had a market value of $10 billion to $11 billion at the time. Last month, Twitter priced some of its employee stock options at $20.62, based on a third-party appraisal of the company's value.

Some analysts predict Twitter will seek $28 to $30 per share in its IPO. If those projections pan out, Twitter will have a market value of $17 billion to $20 billion, including stock options and restricted stock likely to be converted into common shares after the IPO. Facebook made its stock market debut with a market value of more than $100 billion, but its stock plummeted before making resounding comeback this year.

—CO-FOUNDER EVAN WILLIAMS IS IN LINE FOR THE BIGGEST JACKPOT

Williams, a Twitter co-founder who was CEO for two years until Costolo took over in 2010, owns a 12 percent stake in the company.

If Twitter turns out to be worth at least $17.60 per share in the IPO, Williams will be a billionaire at 41 years old. He remains on Twitter's board of directors.

Another board member, Peter Fenton, and his venture capital firm, Benchmark Capital, own a 6.7 percent stake.

Next in line with a 4.9 percent stake is Jack Dorsey, who came up for the idea for Twitter with Noah Glass and Biz Stone. The stakes of Glass and Stone aren't listed in the IPO documents, meaning they don't own enough stock to trigger legal disclosures.

Many of Twitter's 2,000 employees could become rich, too, if the company's stock fares well. They won't be allowed to sell their stock until Feb. 15, at the earliest.

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MBTA, union sue over arbitrator's pay award

BOSTON — MBTA management and the union representing some workers have filed dueling lawsuits in a dispute over an arbitrator's award that would increase T workers' salaries by an average of more than 10 percent.

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officials say the raises outlined in the arbitrator's decision would cost $62 million to $88 million, a sum that would put the transit agency in financial jeopardy.

An official with the Boston Carmen's Union said in a message to its 6,000 members, which include MBTA bus and subway operators and maintenance crew, that the T is trying to shortchange them in fighting the award.

A T spokesman tells The Boston Globe (http://b.globe.com/1bDBAS5 ) the arbitrator did not give due consideration to the MBTA's financial ability in her decision.

___

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

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