New York Times

Shares of the publisher of the company's namesake newspaper, The Boston Globe, and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette jumped for a second day yesterday after the Mexican telecommunications billionaire Carlos Slim boosted his stake in the company. Inmobiliaria Carso SA, controlled by the Slim family, bought 553,000 class A common shares Aug. 18, boosting his stake to 7.2 percent, from 6.9 percent. The Sulzberger family controls the Times Co. via a special class of stock. Additional purchases by a key investor often stimulate demand for a company's shares and lift the price.

A man murdered during a business meeting in New York City was a top official in a Florida dietary supplement company that has been the target of thousands of consumer complaints. Brian Weiss died Thursday in a mysterious shooting at a hotel near Kennedy Airport. He was meeting with five other men in the lobby, when one of them stood up and shot him five times. The shooter, Gary Zalevsky, then killed himself. The New York Times reports ( http://nyti.ms/J7hZZV) that Weiss was an officer at FWM Laboratories, a company once ordered by Florida's attorney general to return $34...

. PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES Directed by: Andrew Rossi Written by: Andrew Rossi and Kate Novack Starring: David Carr At: Kendall Square Running time: 90 minutes Rated: R (language, including some sexual references) The dirty little secret about newspapers is that they can be desperately dull places to work. A cubicle farm full of well-mannered wordsmiths peering into computers is not exactly a visual grabber, and the upper editorial ranks are even less given to melodramatic fits.

The New York Times Co. said Friday it has sold its remaining share of Fenway Sports Group, which includes the Boston Red Sox, for $63 million. The sale, to undisclosed buyers believed to be current minority owners of the team, ends the Times Co.'s ownership stake in the Red Sox. Over 10 years, the company tripled its investment, having originally purchased a 17.5 percent stake in the team for $75 million in 2002. In recent years it has sold off portions of that share, for a total of $225 million.

New York Times Co., struggling with declining advertising sales, said it is in talks to sell its regional-newspaper unit to Halifax Media Holdings LLC. Times Co.'s Regional Media Group unit consists of 16 newspapers, other print publications, and related businesses, the company said today in a statement. The unit is managed by chief operating officer Michael Golden, a cousin of chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. (Times Co. owns The Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

The New York Times Co. will sell its 16 regional newspapers and related businesses to Halifax Media Holdings LLC for $143 million, the company said yesterday. The sale is part of a broader strategy to become a more digitally focused media outlet. The transaction is expected to close in a few weeks and net proceeds, including a tax benefit, are expected to be $150 million. The Boston Globe and the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester were not part of the sale. Founded in 2010, Halifax owns the Daytona Beach News-Journal and is headquartered in that Florida city.

The New York Times Co. said Friday it has sold its remaining share of Fenway Sports Group, which includes the Boston Red Sox, for $63 million. The sale, to undisclosed buyers believed to be current minority owners of the team, ends the Times Co.'s ownership stake in the Red Sox. Over 10 years, the company tripled its investment, having originally purchased a 17.5 percent stake in the team for $75 million in 2002. In recent years it has sold off portions of that share, for a total of $225 million.

New York Times Co., publisher of the namesake newspaper and of The Boston Globe, reported a more than sevenfold rise in first-quarter profit after reaping gains on the sale of regional publications. Net income rose to $42.1 million, or 28 cents a share, from $5.42 million, or 4 cents, a year earlier, the New York based company said today in a statement. Excluding some items, profit was 8 cents a share, beating the 2-cent average of seven analysts' estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

The New York Times Co. said Thursday that net income fell 12 percent in the last three months of 2011, though excluding one-time items the results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The company earned $58.9 million, or 39 cents per share, compared with $67.1 million, or 44 cents, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, the company earned $68.1 million, or 45 cents, surpassing analysts' estimates by four cents. A year ago, the company had adjusted earnings of $69.9 million, or 46 cents.

If hypocrisy had a face, a look, a certain familiar strut, it would be that of old favorite Curt Schilling as he pushed his way through a swirling collection of reporters and photographers in Providence this week with absolutely nothing of consequence to say. Curt Schilling, mute, the one time he actually owed an explanation. Perfect. But that's a minor point, really. There's a larger hypocrisy in his failing video game venture, the one that Rhode Island state officials giddily backed to the tune of $75 million in loan guarantees, which seems to be a fancy...

The New York Times is reporting that the NCAA is looking into Nerlens Noel, a top prep recruit who has committed to play at national champion Kentucky next season. The newspaper said Tuesday that two members of the NCAA enforcement staff went to Everett, Mass., this week to inquire about the 6-foot-10 Noel, who attended Everett High School for two years but is now at the Tilton School in New Hampshire. Everett High principal Louis Baldi told the newspaper (http://nyti.ms/IWMR5J)

NEW YORK — The NCAA is looking into Nerlens Noel, a top prep recruit who has committed to play at national champion Kentucky next season, the New York Times reported. The newspaper said Tuesday that two members of the NCAA enforcement staff went to Everett this week to inquire about the 6-foot-10 Noel, who attended Everett High School for two years but is now at the Tilton School in New Hampshire. Everett High principal Louis Baldi told the newspaper he met with NCAA investigators for 75 minutes.

U.S. newspapers reported a slight increase in circulation the past year as more readers purchased digital subscriptions, according to a media industry group. Average daily circulation in the six months that ended on March 31, rose nearly 1 percent for the 618 newspapers that participated in the Audit Bureau of Circulations semi-annual study, which was released Tuesday. Digital circulation, which includes subscribers who access content on tablet computers, smartphones, e-readers and websites, accounted for 14.2 percent of overall circulation.

NEW YORK - In Los Angeles, a Walmart building permit is getting a once-over. In New York, the City Council is investigating a possible land deal with the retailer's developer in Brooklyn. A state senator in California is pushing for a formal audit of a proposed Walmart in San Diego. And in Boston and its suburbs, residents are pressuring politicians to disclose whether they took contributions from the company. All of it in the past week. Walmart has worked hard to polish its reputation and give elected officials, community groups, and shoppers a reason to say yes to their...

NEW YORK - Virginia Spencer Carr, a literary scholar whose book "The Lonely Hunter" remains the standard biography of Carson McCullers, died April 10 at her home in Lynn, Mass. The cause was liver disease, her daughter Karen Carr Gale said. Ms. Carr, 82, also wrote respected lives of two other 20th-century American writers, John Dos Passos and Paul Bowles, but McCullers was her first writerly obsession and the subject who defined her career. Having written her doctoral dissertation on McCullers's work, Ms. Carr began "The...

The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded significantly smaller grants to established PBS programs this year. "Live From Lincoln Center" received no funding under the 2012 Arts in Media grants. Last year it received $100,000. The Metropolitan Opera received $50,000 for its "Great Performances at the Met" telecasts. That's $100,000 less than last year. WNET in New York received $50,000 for "American Masters," compared to $400,000 in 2011. PBS President Paula Kerger tells The New York Times ( http://nyti.ms/IdBtzK)

SPOKANE, Wash. — Allison Stacey Cowles, a longtime trustee of Wellesley College, a member of a Spokane family with large media holdings, and the wife of retired New York Times patriarch Arthur “Punch’’ Sulzberger, has died at the age of 75. The Spokesman-Review of Spokane said Ms. Cowles died late Saturday from pancreatic cancer. Ms. Cowles married Sulzberger in 1996, four years after her first husband, William H. Cowles III, died of a heart attack while jogging. Sulzberger was chairman and chief executive officer of The New York Times...

‘By the way," the magazine journalist says to the newspaper reporter two decades his junior. "Congratulations. On the Prize. " "It's all downhill from here," the reporter replies. "I doubt that very much," the older man says. "I've always . . . coveted it. " It's a simple exchange, and in someone else's play it might slip by unnoticed. But in David Auburn's "The Columnist," this moment between two characters from relatively recent history — Stewart Alsop, of The Saturday Evening Post, and the young David Halberstam, of The New York Times — is overlaid with poignancy.

NEW YORK - Teddy Charles, a gifted vibraphonist who teamed with many of the musicians who revolutionized jazz in the 1940s and '50s and then literally sailed away to become a sea captain, died April 16 in Riverhead, N.Y. He was 84. The cause was heart failure, his niece Gail Aronow said. Mr. Charles, a native of Springfield, Mass., played with Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Max Roach and, he said, at least once with the legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker.