The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce will honor local small businesses at an awards lunch Thursday. The chamber’s Small Business of the Year is Meridian Associates Inc., a Beverly-based consulting firm offering civil engineering, 3D laser scanning and survey, landscape architecture, and renewable energy and sustainability consulting services. “Innovation is one of Meridian’s most critical attributes,” the chamber said. “The firm has more installed megawatts of projects in Massachusetts than any other large or small scale civil engineering firm and is one of the few firms to offer consulting Continue reading >>>

Charles Chieppo is a research fellow at the Ash Center of the Harvard Kennedy School.

E-mail: Charlie_Chieppo@hks.harvard.edu

A sex sting the city has nabbed about a “half dozen men from the Greater Boston area” who are accused of trolling for sex from girls under the age of 18, the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office has announced.

Those suspected Johns are set to be arraigned today in Boston Municipal Court. Authorities say they will release the names of the accused men later today.

Sarah Perrin recently learned she's going to spend the next several months learning the ins and outs of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and receive some personal instruction from a BSO mentor. Perrin, a junior at Peabody Veterans Memorial High School and a member of the high school concert band and chorale, applied to the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Teen Council and was accepted. It is a paid program for high school student-musicians in the Greater Boston area. "As a member of the BSO Teen Council, Sarah can look forward to becoming fully integrated into the Boston Symphony Orchestra family and Continue reading >>>

Of course, the way Trulia tracks the suburban/urban divide is rather nontraditional, by population density rather than location within a particular city limit. When the issue is looked at through this lens, it really becomes a referendum on density more than anything else. Here's what Jed Kolko, chief economist for Trulia, wrote in an email the other day: Are cities making a comeback? No. Even after the housing bust, Americans continue to move to the suburbs. This morning we posted a report based on Postal Service data - which are current, detailed, and actual counts rather than estimates -- Continue reading >>>

Boston’s new hack/reduce collaborative is looking for big data hackers. The goal of this non-profit organization is to foster a bigger, um, big data community in the Cambridge-Boston nexus. Applications to join are due Oct. 14. “We want to build a community and innovation around big data to make Boston a leader there,” founding executive director Abby Fichtner told me. Hackers with expertise in biotech, medical devices, consumer web, energy, IT, telecommunications, music and art are all welcome to apply. Boston locals see big data as a way to recapture some the high-tech glory that faded Continue reading >>>

State health officials confirmed two new human cases of West Nile Virus Tuesday. Both cases were found in residents of Greater Boston, one in a woman in her 60s who has since recovered, and the other in a man in his 70s who is recovering. Threat levels for the disease will remain as they are, according to the press release the Department of Public Health sent out Tuesday afternoon. Health officials continue to urge residents throughout the Greater Boston area and Massachusetts to use bug spray. “It’s important to note that mosquitoes continue to be present in our environment Continue reading >>>

Galway fiddler Larry Reynolds, widely credited for keeping Irish traditional music vibrant in greater Boston over the past sixty years, died last Tuesday, October 3, from Amyloidosis, a rare disease that caused congestive heart failure. He was 80 years old. He is survived by his wife Phyllis, six children, nineteen grandchildren and twogreat-grandchildren, and by his sister Eleanor Courier of Orange, CA, and brother, Sean Reynolds of Ahascragh, Co. Galway, along with dozens of nieces and nephews. One of thirteen children born and raised in Ahascragh, County Galway, Continue reading >>>

BOSTON (AP) -- Massachusetts health officials say two more human cases of mosquito-borne West Nile virus have been confirmed, bringing the season total to 22. The Department of Public Health said Tuesday the new cases are a woman in her 60s and a man in his 70s, both recovering. Both are from the greater Boston area. One person has died of West Nile this year. Last year there were six human cases. People are urged to continue precautions until the first hard frost. West Nile mosquitoes have been found in 109 communities in 9 counties, and the state is on track to have more infected mosquitoes Continue reading >>>

Despite cooler weather, West Nile virus infections continue to crop up at a record-breaking pace, as state health officials today announced two more human cases of the mosquito-borne illness. A man in his 70s and a woman in her 60s, both of whom live in the Greater Boston area, are the 21st and 22nd cases in the state this year, according to a statement from the Department of Public Health. The woman has already recovered from her illness, while the man is still recovering. “Mosquitoes continue to be present in our environment even as temperatures have dropped,” said DPH epidemiologist Dr. Continue reading >>>