Latest news with #Boston-based
Time of India
9 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Boston College gives first official look at new football uniforms for 2025 season
Image Source: Getty Boston College finally unveiled its new uniforms for 2025, ushering in a new era in its football history. The reveal, part of a promotional video released through a series of photos, features a design that honors the past while bringing some touches of modernity. This is the first football uniform release since the Eagles came under 100 percent full benefit of New Balance, unifying all of the varsity sports teams under one apparel umbrella. Classic Boston College football uniform design returns with fresh elements Boston College fans have always favored a little tradition with their maroon and white, and the 2025 uniforms will lean heavily on that style with gold piping accents. You can see one identifiable design change, however, reflecting the shoulder stripes that were not seen in last year's Adidas kits. These stripes bring a fresh and contemporary look to the design without straying away from the school's tradition-filled past. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Boston College Football (@bcfootball) Also, one of the solid gold helmets will be worn, a fan favorite, but the clean, stripe-free option. Much more prominent gold detailing on the pants, similar to the uniforms from the Doug Flutie era. It's a time-honored yet modern view of the Eagles as they are ready to get going with a new season. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giao dịch xu hướng AUD/USD? IC Markets Đăng ký Undo New Balance football gear deal brings full branding shift for Boston College This uniform drop is the last step in Boston College's complete transition to New Balance, which has been outfitting all other BC sports since 2021. BC's football program had been with Adidas until this point, but New Balance fully takes hold of football apparel with this deal, meaning BC is the only Power Five school with a football deal exclusive to New Balance, at least through the 2025 season. Also Read: 'Gotta create some type of balance': Notre Dame boss Marcus Freeman shares solution to growing challenges Athletic director Blake James pointed to the importance of the partnership because it delivers premium gear while deepening local connections with the Boston-based company. The complete uniform ensemble consists of the jersey, gloves, cleats, and sideline apparel to showcase a style combining tradition and performance-based attributes. For Boston College, this is not a makeover, but rather an overhaul stamped with local pride. Game On Season 1 kicks off with Sakshi Malik's inspiring story. Watch Episode 1 here
Boston Globe
11 hours ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
For Boston's budding biotechs, an uncertain future amid funding cuts
Early stage startups, operating without much financial cushion, are feeling the impact sooner than better-established companies. Advertisement Dépis, and many entrepreneurs like him, are looking for ways to get their science funded. For example, LabCentral, a biotech startup incubator, has a program that allows big pharmaceutical companies to invest in cutting-edge science without making long-term commitments. Pharma companies cover the costs of lab space for individual scientists for a year, providing an easy exit if the research doesn't prove promising. In its recent five-year strategic plan, the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council pitched the idea of a seed fund to support companies that graduate from the trade group's incubator program. Discussions are underway with MassBio's partners such as LabCentral and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, a quasi-public state agency. Advertisement 'What's happened this year just validated our plans,' said MassBio CEO Kendalle Burlin O'Connell. 'We knew that we needed to support these early stage companies. We really, really feel it's imperative for Massachusetts to be an entrepreneur, founder-centric ecosystem.' Dépis — who is researching techniques to better deliver drugs to treat immune diseases — says such support is sorely needed. Earlier this year, he applied for a federal Small Business Innovation Research grant; then the government employee responsible for his application was laid off. Two weeks later, the employee was reinstated, but Dépis's application remains in limbo. 'I'm in a position where time is critical,' Dépis said. 'For me that translates into a higher chance to not have the funding in time that I need to survive.' And Dépis is not alone. Before the post-COVID biotech slump, companies accepted at LabCentral could typically secure funding and move into the space in a few weeks. Now, startups are taking six months to a year to move in — if they move in at all, said LabCentral CEO Maggie O'Toole. Startups at LabCentral are staying longer, unable to raise the money needed to grow their companies and expand into their own facilities, O'Toole said. The average length of tenancy doubled to about 36 months from 18 months, Some startups, affected by the Trump administration's grant cuts, have had to give up their LabCentral benches because they can't pay the rent. 'It was nothing to do with the promise of their science,' O'Toole said. 'They had received [approval for] funding that never came through.' Advertisement Robert Coughlin, a managing director at the commercial real estate firm JLL and former MassBio CEO, said the biotech industry is going through a downturn reminiscent of the Great Recession of 2008. Layoffs have spread across the sector. Earlier this month, Boston-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals said it would Moderna, the Cambridge biotech that soared with the success of its COVID vaccine, has gone through recent layoffs. In 2024, employment across Massachusetts' life sciences sector stagnated for the first time in more than 10 years, according to a report from the Massachusetts Biotechnology Education Foundation. Boston's commercial real estate sector has been hurt by the biotech slump. The vacancy rate for lab space has reached 32 percent, the highest among major metropolitan areas, according to JLL's most recent US Life Sciences Property Report. While conditions seem dismal, Coughlin said, he noticed a sense of optimism at the BIO conference. The annual convention not only attracted big crowds from established biotech centers, but also representatives from states and countries looking to invest in and build their own life sciences sectors. 'People want to get together,' Coughlin said. 'They want to collaborate, they want to talk about these challenges.' Marin Wolf can be reached at
Boston Globe
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
‘I would not have left': An Indian student went home after the US terminated his status. Now he can't come back.
'A lot of people got scared,' said the student, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal. Some foreign students made the wrenching decision to drop everything and leave. The PhD student was among them. He bought a one-way ticket from Boston to Mumbai, and left April 5. Advertisement What these students couldn't have known: The federal government would soon restore most international students' statuses in its Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) The problem, immigration lawyers said, is that the State Department did not automatically restore their visas, which allow international travel. With a revoked visa, anyone who leaves and tries to come back could be stopped by airport officers and barred from reentering the United States, or risk getting stuck abroad because of security delays. Back in India, the PhD student applied for a new visa May 9, but got denied two weeks later. He has an 'active' status in the SEVIS database, 'as though the termination did not happen,' according to a notice sent by ICE in June and reviewed by the Globe. But without a valid visa he is physically locked out of the country. Advertisement While the story of a PhD marooned in Mumbai may seem distant, it illustrates how compliance with the letter of the law doesn't always ensure protection. It also shows how difficult it is to bring people back once they've removed themselves from the country, said immigration lawyers. 'I did all the things right. I was compliant. They asked me to leave. I left the country,' said the PhD student. In doing so, 'I became a statistic to their self-deportation [initiative].' If he had to do it all over again, he said, 'I would not have left.' Lawyers said they generally advised students who had their statuses terminated this spring to stay in the United States, or made sure students at least knew their options. 'We know of cases where individuals did decide that 'I'm not going to fight,' for whatever reason,' said Boston-based attorney Elizabeth Goss. It's hard to know how many students left, or where they ended up. A sizable number seem to hail from India, which The State Department, in an email to the Globe, said that 'whenever an individual's visa is revoked, he or she may reapply at one of our consulates or embassies overseas at any time.' Advertisement But some students have been denied authorization for reentry, and in late May, the US The way Cambridge-based lawyer Stephanie Marzouk sees it, the Trump administration 'doesn't want foreign students here' and is 'pursuing this scorched-earth strategy of doing everything they can to dissuade people from coming to the US to study.' The Indian PhD student, who didn't want to identify his school, applied for his visa before the United States suspended new interviews, but he was rejected under Immigration and Nationality Act's Section 214(b) because he didn't sufficiently demonstrate 'strong ties' to his native country that would compel him to return home. He questioned why that concern was never flagged previously: 'I've done two visas before this [one], and I've presented my strong ties to them successfully.' 'My dad is a heart patient while my mother is a breast cancer patient,' he added. 'I'm not interested in leaving them.' Soon after his rejection, he created a poll in his WhatsApp chat group of Indian students and found at least 14 others denied for the same reason. Dahlia French, an immigration lawyer based in Texas, has met with around 11 students and heard of another 25 or so rejected on these grounds. 'Almost all are Indian,' she said. Charles Kuck, a lawyer based in Atlanta, , said he's only heard of two students who have been approved for new visas since they returned home, 'but I've got at least 60 who have been denied' for 214(b), and 'they were all from India.' Advertisement Reversing a visa denial is practically unheard of because of the judicial doctrine of Kuck advised clients who left not to reapply for a visa. 'If the revocations were illegal, which we believe they were, then these students don't need to go back to the consulate; they can just come in on their current visas,' he said. Simii, who asked to be identified by her first name only to protect her privacy, is a 30-year-old who graduated from Northeastern in 2022. The software engineer was in her third year of employment related to her field of study when she learned her SEVIS status was terminated and her visa revoked. She returned to India, only to learn her SEVIS record had been reactivated. But with only a few months left before her student status runs out, she doubts the government will grant her another visa. The PhD candidate had been studying neurodevelopmental disorders in his university lab in Boston when he found out ICE terminated his record. The reason he was given, he said, was 'otherwise failing to maintain status -- Individual identified in criminal records check and/or has had VISA revoked.' Around five years ago, he was picked up in New York state for driving while ability impaired, Advertisement 'I was 21 at the time, and that was definitely a stupid mistake,' he said. When he applied for a visa for his PhD program, he declared the prior DWAI conviction, then completed another round of medical and psychological evaluations before it was approved. After his recent visa rejection, he's struggling to find a lawyer. For these students, 'all that can be done is they can be better prepared to go back on a second consular interview,' and try to prove they do maintain strong ties to their country, said Kuck. Simii, the Northeastern graduate, said she no longer sees the point in reapplying. Instead, she's traveling around India before looking for a job. 'I didn't leave because I gave up. I left because I refused to live in fear, uncertainty, and anxiety created by the immigration system,' she wrote in an email. 'I am sharing my story so that other students who feel scared, stuck, or ashamed because of a system that failed them can feel seen and heard.' Globe correspondent Jade Lozada contributed to this report. Brooke Hauser can be reached at
Mint
a day ago
- Business
- Mint
Mutual Fund Giant Wellington Looks to Break Into Business of Buying, Selling PE Stakes
(Bloomberg) -- Wellington Management Co., which is best-known for traditional stockpicking funds, is plotting a move into the fast-growing business of buying and selling private equity stakes. The money manager is in talks with potential hires to start a so-called secondaries arm to acquire illiquid positions from other investors, according to people familiar with the matter. The firm is working with an executive recruiter and told candidates about its plans, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information isn't public. A Wellington spokeswoman declined to comment. The firm, which oversees more than $1 trillion of assets, has its roots in managing mutual funds. Like other money managers, it's increasingly drawn to the $13 trillion private markets industry as the pool of publicly traded US firms shrinks. Traditional asset managers are also grappling with outflows and squeezed margins as clients leave mutual funds for cheaper index products. That shift — and the allure of higher fees — is reshaping managers that are best known for picking stocks and bonds. Wellington, which has a large institutional client base, has been investing in private equity for at least a decade and has also backed unicorns such as WeWork and Airbnb. In recent years, it has made a more aggressive push into private markets. The Boston-based firm hired a team of four fund managers from Pacific Investment Management Co. this year to start a private real estate credit platform as it aims to grow in private credit. By entering the secondaries market, Wellington would provide relief to investors that need cash because of a prolonged lull in deal exits. President Donald Trump's tariff war has further hobbled dealmaking, forcing yield-starved pensions to offload their stakes to secondhand buyers at discounts for cash. Meanwhile, elite universities are selling private-fund stakes to shore up cash in the face of threats to their tax-exempt status. New buyers are now stepping into the arena, betting that the secondaries industry could top past records. Exchange-traded fund giant BlackRock Inc., which struck deals to buy three private-markets firms in the space of a year, said in a recent report that it predicts that the secondaries market growth will accelerate. More stories like this are available on
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
MassDOT board approves Applegreen to redo service plazas, over local bidder's objections
Advertisement Global's employees and other supporters flooded the board with emails in support in recent days, underscoring its community involvement and its management across four generations of the Slifka family. On Wednesday, Global also packed the boardroom at MassDOT's Park Plaza headquarters, with some supporters holding signs with messages such as 'Keep It Local' and 'Something Is Fishy at MassDOT.' 'Global isn't just the highest bidder, we are the stronger, safer, proven operator,' Mark Romaine, chief operating officer at Global, told the board before the vote. 'The people of Massachusetts should be outraged and, quite frankly, the administration should be ashamed.' In a statement after the vote, Romaine said the 'fight for Massachusetts is not over,' and that Global executives hope MassDOT weighs the risks and reconsiders before signing the Applegreen lease. Advertisement Applegreen, backed by private equity giant Blackstone, pledged to invest $750 million in capital improvements, including the complete replacement of buildings at nine plazas and major renovations of the others, over the life of the 35-year lease. MassDOT staff also expects average rent payments to the state of up to $28.4 million a year, based on a percentage of revenue — or nearly $1 billion over the life of the lease, although bid documents show the cumulative rent could be as low as $623 million. In contrast, Global says it guaranteed $1.5 billion in rent over the 35-year term, along with $650 million in capital improvements. Scott Bosworth, chief development officer at MassDOT, told the board that revenue represented only 25 percent of the selection committee's scoring criteria. The quality of the redevelopment plan represented another 25 percent, for example, and the transition plan from the current operator represented 15 percent. Boston-based Suffolk Construction is Applegreen's general contractor for the project. All construction is expected to be done by sometime in 2028, with no two consecutive plazas on the Pike shut down at the same time. 'They are ready to go, ready to hit the ground running,' Bosworth said. Executives from Applegreen, Blackstone, and Suffolk attended the board meeting to make their case, in part by saying they'll hire locally and purchase from local vendors. Over the past decade, Applegreen has been rapidly growing its service plaza business in the US, an expansion that gained steam after Advertisement 'We are ready to commence construction in January 2026 to deliver state-of-the-art, sustainable, world-class buildings for the commonwealth,' said Ronan Ryan, Applegreen's chief investments officer. The lease will involve redoing the 11 service plazas on the Mass. Turnpike, along with seven others. McDonald's is the lead food vendor and Gulf is the lead fuel vendor along the turnpike, though Global is a subtenant of McDonald's to operate the convenience stores on the Pike and an agent of Gulf running the gas stations on its behalf. Global also is the state's direct concessionaire for four highway rest areas: two in Bridgewater, one in Barnstable, and one in Beverly. Applegreen is slated to take over those leases in mid-2027, while the rest come up for renewal in six months. MassDOT board member Lisa Iezzoni expressed reservations about picking Applegreen during the board's public comments, and she abstained from the actual vote. 'When I got the outpouring of emails about the comments from the Global Partners advocates, I was overwhelmed by that,' Iezzoni said. 'I had not realized some of the concerns that they raised.' Global's supporters pointed to The Global crowd put an even greater emphasis on the responsiveness and economic impact that would come with picking an operator with strong local ties. 'This is not just about the brand of coffee that gets served on the Pike,' said Global's Catie Kerns. 'We are the best ambassadors for this state.' Advertisement Jon Chesto can be reached at
