Published December 14, 2010

The plaintiffs said Newport ads like this one targeted young, black smokers.

A Boston jury has found a cigarette maker liable for $71 million in a suit alleging the company targeted black children in Roxbury in the 1950s and ’60s.

The plaintiffs had showed jurors a video deposition of Marie Evans, recorded before she died eight years ago from lung cancer. Evans blamed Lorillard, Inc., for getting her and other children in the neighborhood addicted to Newport cigarettes.

Lorillard said it will appeal the decision.

WBUR’s David Boeri and Lisa Tobin covered the groundbreaking case last month:

On the school playground, next to the swings and jungle gyms, people would come to hand out free cigarettes to black children. At first, she would trade them to her sisters for candy. By age 13 — envying the woman handing them out — Evans had become a regular smoker.

“She was a very attractive woman,” Evans said. “Model look, look that every young girl wanted to have.” Evans said the woman was dressed “voluptuously … very sexy looking.”

A sexy look, a sexy package — the cigarettes were free and the image of glamorous black smokers offered hope in the dingy projects in Roxbury, Evans said.

The Globe is reporting Lorillard must pay $50 million of the award to Evans’ estate and $21 million to the smoker’s son, William Evans. A scheduled hearing this week could result in a higher cash award for punitive damages.

Update: A spokesman for Lorillard, the defendant, e-mailed me this statement:

Lorillard respectfully disagrees with the jury’s verdict and denies the plaintiff’s claim that the company sampled to children or adults at Orchard Park in the early 1960’s. The plaintiff’s 50-year-old memories were persuasively contradicted by testimony from several witnesses.  The company will appeal and is confident it will prevail once the Massachusetts Court of Appeals reviews this case.

Previous coverage:

• WBUR, 11/19: Lawsuit Says Tobacco Co. Targeted Roxbury Youth

Published December 13, 2010

In a world where the Big Ten conference can have 12 schools, and the Big 12 has 10 schools, why can’t New England have five states?

Discover New England, the “official” tourism bureau for New England, no longer lists Connecticut. The erstwhile state has been deleted from the bureau’s map of the region, which does include New York City and Montreal.

The Associated Press reports the state failed to pay its annual dues:

Discover New England … will no longer promote Connecticut and its attractions. The move comes after Connecticut eliminated its budget for tourism marketing, and was unable to come up with the annual $100,000 fee.

The story gets more complicated, though. According to CTvisit.com, the website for the state’s Commission on Culture and Tourism, Connecticut still exists and is “closer than you think.”

I’ve got calls out.

As an ode to Connecticut, we of the newsroom have compiled a short list of what Connecticut gave us:

• Roger Sherman, co-author, Constitution, Declaration of Independence
• Linda McMahon, executive, World Wrestling Entertainment
• UConn women’s basketball team, poised to break a consecutive win record
• Foxwoods Resort Casino
• George W. Bush
• Benedict Arnold
• John Mayer

WBUR continues to observe Connecticut as one of six New England states.

Published December 13, 2010

He says he played no part in “Operation Payback,” but Boston’s Gregg Housh is intimately aware of the recent cyberattacks on Visa, MasterCard, Amazon.com, PayPal and the Swedish government.

Housh has made himself the unofficial spokesman for Anonymous, a loosely organized group of hackers with a conscience — “hacktivists,” they call themselves. Housh is our guest today on Radio Boston.

Authorities already know his name, Housh tells the Christian Science Monitor, because he has worked with Anonymous before. He  spent three months in federal prison as a teenager for software piracy.

NPR grabbed this screen shot of the Twitter page affiliated with Anonymous last Wednesday afternoon.

Last week, Anonymous carried out distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on companies that have cut ties to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. The MasterCard and Visa websites crumbled within minutes; Amazon.com and PayPal remained standing.

“What we may be looking at is 15- and 16-year-old kids who do this … not as a prank but as a protest,” said Mark Rasch, who founded the Justice Department computer crimes unit, in an NPR interview.

“And do we really want to spend the time, the money, the energy and the resources to bring a bunch of these kids over from Belgium or Holland?”

In a DDoS attack, a network of computers, called a botnet, attempts to overwhelm a Web server with requests until the site becomes disabled. I asked people on Twitter for help explaining DDoS in plain English, and my favorite response was from  @jamespoling. I’ll adapt his analogy: Imagine 5,000 people drive on to the Pike and pay the toll in pennies, effectively shutting down the interstate.

Housh is the closest known connection to the shadowy group who will talk on the record. Listen to the show at 3 p.m. for our interview.

Published December 10, 2010

80 Windows (Jeremy Brooks/Flickr)

Today’s photo comes from Jeremy Brooks, who made this black-and-white picture in the West Fens. Great shot.

Submit your best work to WBUR’s Flickr group.

Published December 10, 2010

An empty chair represented Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, on Friday. (John McConnico/AP)

Liu Xiaobo was not in Oslo to receive his Nobel Peace Prize today; he was in a Chinese prison, serving an 11-year sentence for “subverting state power” after urging changes to Beijing’s one-party communist system.

A celebrated violinist from Newton, Lynn Chang, performed in Liu’s stead. As reported in the Boston Globe today, Chang’s decision to play was not easy.

So while Chang, whose father immigrated to America in 1949, was “thrilled and honored” to be invited to the Nobel ceremony, he was also aware that there might be repercussions: The Chinese government could bar him from visiting relatives still living in China, for example. Or it could forbid Chinese music students from studying at the schools with which Chang is affiliated, which include Harvard, MIT, Boston University, and the Boston and New England conservatories.

But when Chang consulted with family members and school officials, he says, the near-unanimous consensus was: “Absolutely, you should do this.”

I captured audio of Chang’s performance Friday, courtesy of The Associated Press:

Listen as the Nobel medal and diploma are presented to an absent Liu and placed on his chair. Chang’s performance follows, at 1:45 in.

• More from the Globe: Songs for an absent hero

Published December 10, 2010

The Pioneer Institute, a nonprofit public–policy research group in Boston, has released an illustrated guide to Beacon Hill spending for 2011. Gov. Deval Patrick signed the $27.6 billion budget back in July.

The map is so huge and so detailed that you won’t be able to make out most of it, even at full screen. You can zoom way in using your mouse wheel or by double-clicking on a section.

http://cdn.wbur.org/media/special/2010/wbur_1210_mass-budget-map

I would like clearer labels overlaid on the big dollar bubbles so I can see, at a glance, how the government prioritizes my tax dollars. But it’s an impressive creation overall.

Published December 10, 2010

What’s news on an “I’m moving to Florida” Friday in Boston:

The Boston Herald easily wins Front Page of the Day.

Sen. Scott Brown kept one of his promises — that he won’t approve any bill until Congress passes tax cuts. But that meant breaking the promise he would repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. (Globe)

Theo Epstein has saved the Red Sox. In securing Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, the S0x GM is “the most unstoppable force in baseball.” (Herald)

Court: Prosecutors can build a case on John Doe’s DNA. They discovered the DNA’s owner years after the statute of limitations expired on a double-rape case. But the man can still be tried, the high court ruled. (Universal Hub)

Beth Israel is moving swiftly toward “global payments.” Martha Bebinger explains the fundamental shift in the way we pay for health services. (WBUR)

Proceedings finally began to take down a federal prosecutor. David Boeri follows up on the extraordinary saga. (WBUR)

Published December 9, 2010

Carl Crawford reportedly agreed to a contract with the Red Sox today. (AP)

For years and years, Red Sox fans have complained their bombastic baseball neighbors to the south represent all that is wrong with pro sports. Yankees and their deep pockets buy championships and denigrate the game, we say.

With the additions of both Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, and assuming Gonzalez signs an extension, the Red Sox will have spent almost $300 million over about 80 hours. Suddenly the Sox look like the new spoiled brat with a black AmEx.

Epstein’s gigantic spending spree has many fans around the world thinking the Red Sox are baseball’s new “Evil Empire” — taking the mantle from the free-spending, win at all co$t$ New York Yankees.

That comparison, however, might not be so accurate.

[pullquote]Suddenly the Sox look like the new spoiled brat with a black AmEx.[/pullquote]

There’s no denying that spending $296 million to lock down just two players — in this economy, no less — is crazy. That, however, is the market baseball teams operate in.

The market, unfortunately, forces teams with less money, such as the San Diego Padres and the Tampa Bay Rays, to trade away talented players they have no chance of making a huge offer to. The Sox, as a big-market team with rabid fans and its own TV network, are in the enviable position of being able to capitalize on that market.

Both the Red Sox and the Yankees have huge payrolls and will for some time. The difference between the Red Sox and the Yankees is in the future.

Signing Carl Crawford to a seven-year, $142 million deal is a huge commitment. Known for his speed, Crawford will be 36 at the end of his contract and likely need to change his game to remain effective at that age.

The Yankees recently came to terms with team captain and icon Derek Jeter on a new, four-year contract. At 35, Jeter is in the twilight of his career. His new contact is worth at least $48 million.

The Sox have five of eight position players, all 31 or younger, locked up though 2013. Combine that with young pitchers Jon Lester and Clay Buccholz, the Sox are well-positioned to contend for the near future.