EXTRA...

Gannett may buy Times; New whale dedection system; Rita is coming to Cape Cod; National consensus on energy; New state-wide survey on Cape Wind

Rita's Cape Cod Italian Ice

Gannett, Lee may buy Cape Cod Times
Gannett Co, Lee Enterprises and Gatehouse Media may be the most likely buyers for the 22 local newspapers News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch plans to sell after completing his purchase of Dow Jones & Co later this year. Potential bidders may pay as much as $660 million, according to Larry Grimes, who buys and sells newspapers for media investment bank WB Grimes & Co, and Edward Atorino, an industry analyst at Benchmark Co. in New York. Atorino said Hearst Corp and Advance Publications Inc, both closely held, might also bid for the assets. “The size and breadth of these properties would be tantalizing,” said Grimes, who is based in Gaithersburg, Maryland. “These are well run newspapers that are the No. 1 media buy in each of their markets.”  Dow Jones's Ottaway Community newspapers include eight daily and 14 weekly publications in New York, California and five other states. Murdoch, who is buying Dow Jones to gain control of the Wall Street Journal, said earlier this week that he planned to sell the local newspapers “fairly quickly” once his $5.2 billion purchase is completed in the fourth quarter... Ottaway newspapers are likely to sell for 10 to 12 times their annual cash flow of about $55 million... “These newspapers simply don't meet with Murdoch's game plan for Dow Jones,” Atorino said. “He wants to grow the Wall Street Journal and compete with the New York Times.”  
Economic Times of India. The nation's largest Italian ice store is expanding into the Bay State. Rita's Water Ice Franchise Company has signed deals for six Massachusetts locations within three years. The stores are expected to open on the North Shore and Cape Cod. The Trevose, Pennsylvania company already has about 470 stores in 17 states.
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Consensus Emerges on Energy
Foreign Oil Will Be Spurned; Alternative Fuel Is Unclear

In America's highly polarized political debate, a rare consensus is emerging among presidential candidates that America needs to stop using foreign oil and move on, instead, to other energy sources. "Energy independence, I think, is the single most important thing that's going to face us in the next four or five years aside from the terrorist war on us," the candidate leading the Republicans in nationwide polls, Mayor Giuliani, has said.

Senator Clinton, who polls indicate is leading the Democratic field, describes her support of policies that would "increase our energy independence, create jobs, and provide cleaner, more reliable energy." Another Democratic contender, Senator Obama of Illinois, has said, "If we hope to strengthen our security and control our own foreign policy, we can offer no less of a commitment to energy independence" than the national effort to defeat the Soviets in space.

Mayor Bloomberg, a possible independent candidate for president, in a radio address said, "This constant dependence on oil is something that leaves this country vulnerable every day."  Politicians and advocates say that getting America off of imported foreign oil would have a foreign policy advantage by cutting the flow of funds to regimes such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela that are seen as anti-American, un-democratic, or supportive of terrorists... 

Mr. Adler said, "If we can't site windmills off Cape Cod, how are we going to site a nuclear plant?" He was referring Cape Wind, a proposed offshore wind ...  New York SUN. 
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LNG company funding whale detection system
One of the companies building a liquefied natural gas terminal off Gloucester is paying for a new system that will help detect whales and avoid strikes by its massive tankers. Environmentalists and marine biologists hope it could dramatically reduce the number of whales killed by vessel strikes. Two whales that washed up dead on Cape Ann shores this summer died as a result of being hit by large vessels, officials from the New England Aquarium determined. The system, designed by biologists from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., was originally intended for research and has been deployed to monitor whale activity from Cape Cod Bay all the way up to the Bay of Fundy, the body of water that separates Nova Scotia from New Brunswick.  Gloucester Times. Clean Power Survey to show vast support for State leadership role, Cape Wind
Data Breakouts for Statewide, Cape/Islands to Gauge Support for Wind Project; Should Gov. Deval Patrick be “Schwarzenegger of East Coast” on Global Warming Fixes?

Do Bay State residents want Massachusetts to emerge as a national leader in the development and use of clean power?  Do Cape/Islands residents support the Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound?  Should Gov. Patrick and other state and local officials mount a major push to make Massachusetts the U.S. hub of clean-power solutions to the global warming crisis?

These and other questions will be answered by a new, in-depth survey to be released at 1:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday (August 15, 2007) by the Newton-based Civil Society Institute, a nonprofit think tank.  Conducted by Opinion Research Corporation (ORC), the survey features detailed breakouts by political affiliation, 2008 voting intentions and home location (including separate findings for the Cape/Islands).  The new CSI survey updates a June 2006 poll from the group about Massachusetts views on increased use of wind power, solar energy, nuclear power and more stringent conservation measures.

News event speakers will be Civil Society Institute President and Founder Pam Solo,  Opinion Research Corporation Senior Researcher Graham Hueber and Barbara Hill, executive director, Clean Power Now, Hyannis.

TO PARTICIPATE:  You can join this live, phone-based news conference (with full, two-way Q&A) at 1:30 p.m. EDT on August 15, 2007 by dialing 1 (800) 860-2442. Ask for the "Massachusetts clean power survey" news event.

CAN’T PARTICIPATE?:  A streaming audio replay of the news event will be available on the Web at as of 6 p.m. EDT on August 15, 2007.
The nonprofit and nonpartisan Civil Society Institute is a Newton, MA.-based think tank that serves as a catalyst for change by creating problem-solving interactions among people, and between communities, government and business that can help to improve society. CSI has conducted more than 15 major national and state-level surveys since 2003 on energy and global warming issues.  CSI is the parent organization of 40MPG.org  and the Hybrid Owners of America.