Five things: Southie power plant, Fast 50 event, Harvard cuts and what caused Tatum's injury
1. Southie project plans shift as market slows
Grant Welker reports that the old Edison power plant in South Boston and its developers face a very different real estate market from when planning started in 2016. Now, the developer is considering changing the order in which it plans to build the six-building, 1.7-million-square-foot project.
GET TO KNOW YOUR CITY
Find Local Events Near You
Connect with a community of local professionals.
Explore All Events
2. Trump slashes another $450M in Harvard grants
Welker also reports that the Trump administration yesterday said it is terminating roughly $450 million in grants to Harvard, on top of the $2.2 billion in funding already cut.
3. Mass. biotech leaders say drug pricing order 'not the solution'
The executive order that President Donald Trump signed Monday — which he says will reduce prescription drug prices — was met with opposition from Massachusetts' life sciences trade group, Hannah Green reports.
On the calendar: Join the Boston Business Journal for our 9th annual Business of Pride event, featuring our 2025 LGBT Corporate Ally Award and LGBT Trailblazer Award honorees.
4. Fastest-growing companies feted
The No. 1 fastest-growing company in Massachusetts over the three-year period from 2021-2024 is mental health and wellness company Uwill of Natick. Uwill was among several awardees recognized last night at the BBJ's annual Fast 50 event, including an architecture firm that grew revenue 136% and a 30-year-old facilities-services business that grew 73% in just the past three years.
5. Cambridge cancer biotech halves workforce
Green also reports that cash-strapped Leap Therapeutics is making significant job cuts as it navigates a 'difficult market environment.'
What else you need to know
By the numbers
600 — housing units that could start as soon as next year at the former Edison power plant in Southie (see above), instead of the 860,000 — square feet of office and R&D that had been planned initially
could start as soon as next year 1,000 (approximately) — Aramark union workers at Fenway Park and MGM Music Hall who are planning a strike vote in June to advocate for higher wages.
planning a strike vote 52
— employees at Leap Therapeutics, half of which are expected to be laid off
What's going on?
The Charles River Regional Chamber's annual Spring Business Breakfast: 2025 Economic Outlook is this morning at the Needham Sheraton Hotel, featuring Ashley Stolba, the interim state Secretary of Economic Development, and Mary Burke, a principal economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. See you there?
En español
The number of people in Massachusetts identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender is growing — and a new study shows significant differences across age groups. This article is also available in Spanish in partnership with El Planeta Media. Este informe está disponible en español, traducido por El Planeta Media.
Today in history
On this day in 1984, lawyer Jan Schlichtmann filed the first motion in the Woburn case made famous by the book and film "A Civil Action." (Read more at MassMoments.org)
What's good on WERS-FM
Most Wanted Man, by Lucy Dacus
What I'm listening to
Carrigan & Co. podcast
What I'm watching
Celtics City, on HBO/Max
Who's at fault for Tatum's injury?
The news Monday night about Celtics star Jayson Tatum's ruptured his achilles tendon came as a shock to everyone. As a 'non-contact' injury, every Celtics fan is looking around helplessly and wondering, 'how did this happen?'
I have the answer.
I discovered that a member of the Business Journal newsroom who hails from Los Angeles and is an avowed Lakers fan — along with four friends — cursed the Celtics at the start of the playoff series against the Knicks. It wasn't an ordinary curse. No run-of-the-mill hex. They pooled their money and purchased a bad luck spell from a witch who sells such curses on Etsy.
This is not a joke. They really did this.
I have no proof that their purchased curse — which could also be to blame for the Celtics choking so badly in Games 1 and 2 — was powerful enough to do the damage done to Tatum. I'm told they spent $3 each. But it was a bad-luck spell they purchased, and there's no worse luck than what happened to Tatum on the court Monday night.
I'm not revealing the name of this particular employee, to protect him from any ill-intentioned Celtics fans who may read this. But I have suggested he start wearing an Italian horn necklace and carrying a Mexican milagro or a rabbit's foot if he knows what's good for him.
PARTING SHOT
Speaking of basketball, how many times have you passed by public courts in rough shape, full of cracks, weeds and divots? This New York artist resurfaces public courts and turns them into pieces of art:
Subscribe to the Morning Edition or Afternoon Edition for the business news you need to know, all free.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
21 minutes ago
- The Hill
Watch live: Trump touts new AI framework, signs executive orders
President Trump will deliver the keynote address at a White House artificial intelligence summit, just hours after the administration unveiled a new framework for its AI policy. The 28-page ' AI Action Plan ' places a heavy emphasis on boosting U.S. innovation, building out data center infrastructure and promoting American technology abroad. The president is also expected to sign executive orders from the White House. The event is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. EDT. Watch the live video above.
The Hill
21 minutes ago
- The Hill
Supreme Court lets Trump fire federal product safety commissioners, liberal justices dissent
The Supreme Court on Wednesday paved the way for President Trump to fire three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) — the second time the justices have allowed Trump's terminations at independent agencies to go into effect. The emergency order lifts a lower court's ruling that determined the firings were unlawful and effectively ordered the reinstatement of commissioners Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Trumka Jr. as the litigation progresses. The majority pointed to its May emergency ruling greenlighting Trump firing members of two other independent agencies, saying the CPSC did not differ in 'any pertinent respect.' 'Although our interim orders are not conclusive as to the merits, they inform how a court should exercise its equitable discretion in like cases,' the unsigned order reads. The three justices appointed by Democratic presidents publicly dissented, saying their colleagues had 'negated Congress's choice of agency bipartisanship and independence.' 'By means of such actions, this Court may facilitate the permanent transfer of authority, piece by piece by piece, from one branch of Government to another. Respectfully, I dissent,' wrote Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The decision marks an immediate victory for the Trump administration, which has looked to vastly expand executive power since Trump returned to the White House. The administration has sought to eviscerate removal protections for members of independent agencies throughout the government, pushing back on a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent that cleared the way for Congress to establish those protections. The new order marks the second time the justices have intervened to permit Trump's firings of independent agency leaders. In May, the justices cleared the way for Trump to fire National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox and Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said lower courts still haven't gotten the message, including when U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox later blocked Trump's termination of the three CPSC members. Sauer urged the Supreme Court to firmly settle the issue by leapfrogging the lower courts to take up the CPSC case on their normal docket. 'This case illustrates that the sooner this Court resolves the merits of this application and decides foundational questions about the scope of the President's removal authority, the better,' Sauer wrote in the application. The majority declined to do so, instead sending the case back to the lower courts. But Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's second appointee to the court, said he would've taken that additional step. He warned his colleagues may leave 'extended uncertainty and confusion' about whether the court will overrule the precedent. 'Moreover, when the question is whether to narrow or overrule one of this Court's precedents rather than how to resolve an open or disputed question of federal law, further percolation in the lower courts is not particularly useful,' Kavanaugh wrote. The CPSC commissioners, appointed by former President Biden, were let go earlier this year. Trump did not purport to have cause to fire them, despite federal law providing independent agencies across the federal bureaucracy with for-cause removal protections. CPSC commissioners cannot be fired by the president except for 'neglect of duty or malfeasance in office' under federal law. Similar setups exist for a handful of other agencies, providing a degree of independence from the political impulses of the White House. The commissioners, represented by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, urged the justices to stay out of the case. 'The government now asks this Court to disrupt the status quo and enter a stay that would prevent the Commissioners from serving in the roles that the district court held they are entitled to occupy and that they have in fact been occupying for the last month. The government cannot establish its entitlement to this extraordinary relief,' the group's attorneys wrote in court filings.
The Hill
21 minutes ago
- The Hill
DC has highest threshold for top 1 percent
The nation's capital emerged as the location with the highest threshold to be the top one percent of earners, a new study found. The new study by personal finance site SmartAsset analyzed households that bring in enough money annually to be considered among the top one percent of earners in each state and the nation's capital. The study was based on the 2022 tax return data, the latest available from the IRS, and adjusted for 2025 dollars. The study found the District of Columbia has the highest necessary threshold to rank as a top earner, where a household needs an income of about $1.07 million, according to SmartAsset. Only about 3,300 households in D.C. qualify. There's only one other location where it takes more than $1 million to fall under the category. Connecticut falls in a close second, whose residents must earn roughly $1.06 annually to be in the top 1 percent. Nationwide, there are about 1.5 million households that bring in enough income to be among the top one percent if earners in their state. The average threshold to rank among the nation's top earners is $731,000 — and in 11 states and the District of Columbia, you'll need more than that. West Virginia proved to be the state with the lowest income needed to be considered the top one percent of earners in the state. There, residents would need to earn $416,300 annually to fall under the category, and about 7,300 households fall into that category. Only three other states — Mississippi, New Mexico, and Kentucky — would have a household income under half a million dollars push a household into the top earners group. SmartAsset this year also found that a single person living in the nation's largest cities would need an income of at least $85,000 to 'live comfortably,' and a family of four would need about $200,000 to do the same. The data comes as inflation continues to put more pressure on households nationwide. While President Trump has pressed for lower interest rates, economists warn such a move could drive inflation higher. Trump insisted, though, that inflation has settled, and he is pressing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates. Still, Americans are largely happy with the way Trump has handled inflation as he marks six months into his second term, with 64 percent in a CBS News/YouGov poll released Sunday saying they disapprove of how the president is handling the issue.
