Blackstone asked to re-invest in community
 Toussaint Losier
The Blackstone Group LP is clearly awash in cash.
As one of the world’s largest private equity firms and the City of Boston’s largest commercial property owner, it recently offered a $20.1 billion cash buyout to Hilton Hotels Corp. If approved by Hilton’s board, the deal would make Blackstone one of the world’s largest hotel owners, as well.
While business analysts have praised these multibillion-dollar business deals, a coalition of Greater Boston labor and community activists have started a grassroots campaign of sorts to get Blackstone to acknowledge its role in widening the gap between rich and poor and, more important, to start investing in Boston and other cities where they do business. Full story
Patrick plans to aid subprime loan victims
Toussaint Losier
RIn an effort to provide help for homeowners facing foreclosures in the ongoing subprime loan crisis, Gov. Deval Patrick unveiled last week a new $250 million home mortgage assistance program that would provide counseling as well as fixed rate financing.
Rather than using taxpayer money, Patrick said funding for the program will mostly come from Fannie Mae, the federally sponsored housing corporation that provides mortgage assistance to low- and middle-income homeowners. Fannie Mae will provide roughly $190 million, while MassHousing, the state’s affordable housing bank, will supply $60 million. Full story
 Masterful ‘Marmalade’ anything but child’s play
Victoria Cheng
Any theatrical venture in which young children, sex, violence and drugs cross paths
is bound to court its share of controversy. Company One’s production of “Mr. Marmalade,” a play premised on the relationship between a four-year-old girl and her physically abusive, drug- and pornography-addicted imaginary friend, welcomes the debate with open arms.
The play’s opening scene sets the pace for a raucous show, as Lucy, a preternaturally articulate preschooler (played with bright-eyed effervescence by Bard College grad and Company One newcomer Rachael Hunt) demands of Mr. Marmalade, “Why don’t you touch me anymore? Is there somebody else?” Full story
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OPINION
President Bush needs to be a positive leader on child health care
—Marian Wright Edelman
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NEWS DIGEST
• Study: mortality rates higher for Wisconsin minorities
• Charlotte mayor stands by comments on black youth
• Little Rock School Board votes to mediate desegregation monitoring case
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CITY NOTES
• MIT professor resigns to protest colleague’s tenure denial
• Sheriff Cabral, leading Mass. legislators endorse Hillary Clinton
•State Dept. of Public Health devotes $600K in anti-crime funding to hospitals across Mass.
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BLACK HISTORY
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