Cape Wind Associates faces yet another hurdle to cross in the developer’s effort to secure federal approval for a proposed 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound. The executive director of the state historical commission has ruled in favor of the Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag tribes’ request to have the sound listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a “traditional cultural property.” The decision isn’t a fatal blow for the project, but it will certainly add to the delays.

Nurses and hospital executives faced off yet again at the State House in the recurring battle over whether the state should impose mandatory nurse-patient staffing ratios for hospitals. Nurses argue that the ratios would provide for a life-saving extra level of patient care, while hospital managers argue that such a mandate would limit their staffing flexibility and hurt hospitals financially at a time when they are already struggling.

Rumors were crossing the Atlantic that New England’s second largest bank, Citizens Bank, would be sold as its parent company, The Royal Bank of Scotland, grapples with financial problems and a British government bailout. In the end, however, Citizens announced that it is not part of the assets that RBS needs to sell off as part of its bailout agreement.

The state’s two dog tracks may continue to operate after live racing ends on Jan. 1 now that the state Legislature is advancing a bill that would allow the tracks to continue simulcasting races that take place at other tracks. Massachusetts voters put an end to greyhound races by approving the ban in a ballot initiative that passed a year ago, but continued simulcasting would save some jobs at the tracks.

The goal, of course, is to draw attention to the athletic designs used to craft DresSports shoes to make them more comfortable for everyday wear (Rockport, by the way, “run tests” all its shoes). The thinking goes, if you can run a marathon in them, they must feel really good just walking around the office. Rockport also is helping ING’s Orange Laces campaign by selling limited edition DresSports to help raise money for the financial company’s effort to combat childhood obesity.

So how effective were the shoes on race day? The Rockport team – a mix of Rockport executives and avid runners – didn’t exactly beat out the elites. But they weren’t slouches either. The first runner in Rockport dress shoes was Luan Ye Mao, an IT specialist from China: He didn’t run his best time, but still finished respectably, breaking 3:17. Rockport’s more athletically-inclined sister company, Reebok, had better watch out.

MetroPCS, one of Boost’s big prepaid rivals in the Boston area, reported staggeringly slow growth on Thursday: It saw a net gain of about 66,000 new subscribers in the third quarter, down from nearly 206,000 in the second quarter and 684,000 in the first quarter. Sure, Boost’s growth is slowing too, but only marginally. It reported a net gain of 666,000 new customers (ten times the net gain over at MetroPCS) in the third quarter, compared with 777,000 in the second and 674,000 in the first.

The reason? Boost President Matt Carter tells me more customers are not relying on price alone to make their decisions. MetroPCS usually undercuts Boost on the monthly price for an unlimited calling plan. But Irvine, Calif.-based Boost has a much more extensive coverage area (piggybacking on the old Nextel system). Carter, a Dorchester native, also says his company’s customer service is much stronger.

Price is still often the main reason consumers opt for a prepaid service – which allows them to avoid being locked in a long-term contract – in the first place. The relatively recent explosion of all-you-can-talk plans as well as an improvement in phone technology have drawn a much wider variety of customers into the prepaid market.

Boost doesn’t provide specific subscriber figures for each region in the country, but a spokesman says Boost has increased its customers in the Boston market by 44 percent from the first quarter to the third quarter.

Boost has been aggressively marketing itself in the Boston area lately, and it brought Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo to Mattapan in September to herald the opening of its first corporate store in Massachusetts.

Boost’s rapid growth this year represents an important success story for Sprint Nextel as it struggles to keep up with industry leaders AT&T and Verizon. Sprint found a niche where it can excel by betting on prepaid phones with its investment in Boost. These prepaid phones were once the province of kids, people with bad credit, and seniors who just wanted a car phone for emergencies. But Boost’s efforts to expand beyond an urban audience appear to be paying off.

MassChallenge will hold these “MassAccess” speed networking events on Nov. 17 in Cambridge and Nov. 18 in Amherst, giving entrepreneurs a shot at convening with experienced businesspeople and investors. David Constantine, one of the co-founders of the organization, says people who register will indicate their interests, allowing the MassChallenge folks to match up the participants for nine-minute, one-on-one meetings throughout the day.

MassAccess is an intriguing prelude to the main event: MassChallenge’s namesake contest, which will be launched in 2010, to see who can deliver the best business plans. Contestants will be grouped in several tracks – such as energy, life sciences and social impact – and winners will get significant cash prizes and access to potential investors. The goal is to help bring the many technical innovations dreamed up in Massachusetts into viable, commercial forms.

When Google CEO Eric Schmidt met with journalists in Cambridge yesterday, I asked him what he saw as the differences in culture and talent between his home base of Silicon Valley and the Boston area. Schmidt responded by saying, essentially, that he couldn’t see any substantial differences and that the next great IT company could just as easily come out of Cambridge as it could come out of California.

During Schmidt’s response, another reporter interrupted, saying what we really want to know is why there aren’t any Googles here in Massachusetts - a sentiment that was probably on the minds of other local journalists in the room. If organizations such as MassChallenge are successful, maybe we won’t be wondering about that issue for much longer.

It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s true. The bureau in Boston’s Post Office Square is among the paper’s most heavily-staffed offices outside of New York. If the Journal didn’t have so many reporters in Boston, its top managers probably wouldn’t have been tempted to shut the bureau down in the first place.

I called Dow Jones spokesman Robert Christie to find out why the Journal is closing the 12-person bureau at the end of the year (a move that will eliminate nine positions). The widely quoted memo from Journal managing editor Robert Thomson announcing the closure cited the need to cut costs in a profound downturn in ad revenue. But the memo gave no reason why Boston was singled out among the Journal’s 13 U.S. bureaus outside of New York for closure.

I saw Christie quoted in The Boston Globe saying one reason that the Boston bureau was targeted was because many companies that Journal reporters in Boston used to cover had moved away from the Boston area.

The truth is, most of the Boston region’s top 20 public companies that were around in the thick of the state’s last recession are still here today. Yes, a few big ones have been acquired – John Hancock, Reebok, Fleet and Gillette. But Hancock, Reebok and Gillette still maintain a major presence in the area, despite their loss of autonomy.

Christie told me he couldn’t point to any specific companies that had moved out of town, and clarified that he was talking about a trend that has taken place over several decades.

The same trend has occurred in many of the other cities where the Journal has bureaus. But Christie says the cost savings at those bureaus would be minimal if they were shut down. He says fewer than five people work in the Atlanta bureau, for example, and only two work in the Pittsburgh bureau.

In fact, after the Washington bureau, Christie says the Boston bureau is among the most heavily-staffed bureaus outside of New York, essentially tied in size with the Los Angeles and San Francisco bureaus behind Washington. The tech industry is heavily concentrated in Silicon Valley, and the entertainment industry is heavily concentrated in L.A. So among those cities, Boston was viewed as the least valuable place to maintain a bureau.

There are major industries in Boston, too – biotech, mutual funds, education, to name a few. But the key players in those sectors aren’t as heavily concentrated in one place as Silicon Valley’s and Los Angeles’ flagship industries. The Journal simply decided Boston’s sectors could easily be covered out of New York, and the paper could save more money in one clean cut by closing the Boston bureau than it could by closing just about any of its other U.S. bureaus (It’s worth noting that it hurts to read today that the Journal might add staff in New York to focus on metro issues, in light of the Boston cuts).

It’s easy to chalk up the Journal’s Boston closure as an example of the city’s growing irrelevance as a business hub. But the bureau’s pending demise is really more indicative of another worrying trend: the need for newspapers to quickly react to the disappearance of ad dollars that may never return.

First, we heard about the bankruptcy filing of Erickson Retirement Communities, the developer of the Linden Ponds retirement complex in Hingham. The issue of whether the project was eligible for Chapter 40B – the law allows developers to sidestep local zoning limits if a certain portion of a project is deemed to be affordable – was resolved in Erickson’s favor by the state Supreme Judicial Court in January 2003.

But the bankruptcy filing raises an important question: Was Erickson allowed to build too many units in Hingham? The company was permitted for more than 1,700 units, but has only been able to build roughly half that amount as a slowdown in the housing market has curbed Linden Ponds’ efforts to bring in new residents (who bring with them average deposits of $280,000 apiece). At least there aren’t many units that are sitting vacant: The occupancy rate is nearly 90 percent, partly because Erickson and its not-for-profit partner had halted any new construction at the site.

Then there was the news that the developers behind the Turtle Crossing condo complex in Braintree agreed to pay $2.25 million to settle an investigation with Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office. Coakley was investigating whether the developers used some financial tricks to keep their reported profits under a cap of 20 percent on the profits they could make for the 201-unit complex.

It’s important to note that the development firm – which is affiliated with local developers Edward A. Fish and Francis X. Messina – did sell  roughly 50 units at below-market rate prices to some very happy home buyers in 2004. But the fact that Chapter 40B helped bring some affordable homes to Braintree has now been overshadowed by reports that the developers allegedly downplayed their reported profits to stay within that mandated cap.

Chapter 40B continues to play an important role in ensuring that the new homes that are built in this state aren’t just for wealthy people. But the law has allowed some developers to take advantage of suburban towns by, among other things, shoehorning in projects that are too big for their proposed locations. A grass roots efforts to repeal key sections of Chapter 40B has been revived after the law’s critics failed to get enough signatures to put the question on the ballot two years ago. The latest stories involving Linden Ponds and Turtle Crossing will inevitably provide extra ammunition for the law’s critics as they try to get the signatures they need this time around.

The developers behind the Turtle Crossing condo project in Braintree agreed to pay nearly $2.3 million to resolve an investigation into whether they abused the state’s Chapter 40B affordable housing law. State investigators claimed the developers downplayed their profits to keep within a 20 percent cap on their profit margins. The case brings new attention to the controversial law’s potential shortcomings.

The state’s housing market showed more signs of life, with sales activity rising 4.5 percent last month compared to the same time a year ago. Much of the increase was attributed to the federal tax credit for first-time home buyers – a tax credit that’s set to expire after Nov. 30 if Congress doesn’t renew it.

Gov. Deval Patrick brought together many of the state’s business and political leaders for a summit to discuss ways to address the state’s sluggish economy. The need for improvement remains strong: A UMass report released two days later showed the state’s economy shrinking at an annualized rate of 1.1 percent in the past quarter even as the national economy grew by 3.5 percent.

Gambling foes and friends faced off at the State House as lawmakers held a daylong hearing on a number of bills that would expand gaming options in the state. Legislative leaders plan to have a bill ready for a floor vote next year that could pave the way for casino gambling in Massachusetts.

Reporters in the office won a Pulitzer Prize, but that didn’t prevent The Wall Street Journal from deciding to shut down its Boston bureau as the company, like most newspaper publishers, tries to trim expenses to adjust to declining ad sales.

While BCBS is a nonprofit, Day says the state’s largest health insurer often acts like a for-profit company, with pricey executive salaries and joining with the rest of the Blue Cross network to lobby against health care reform in Washington. Day’s group is pushing for a public health care option to be included in whatever health care package Congress approves.

Among the speakers at the rally was a zombie who grunted his reasons for attending (Day says the zombie used a translator to explain that he ended up dead because he was denied coverage). Day, in turn, played the part of an insurance executive. Day says the zombies apparently let his character speak his mind before exacting their revenge by pretending to eat him.

Powderhouse Productions is one of the few firms in the state that tripled the size of its work force in the past three years, from 35 people in 2006 to about 115 today. The Somerville company’s success lately has been tied to its shows on Animal Planet and other Discovery channels, such as the “SuperFetch” show that debuted earlier this month. But its success has also been tied to the state’s film and TV production tax credits.

Powderhouse president and co-founder Tug Yourgrau likes to say the state’s tax credit program – which provides a 25 percent credit for qualified production work done within the state – has been like “Miracle-Gro” for local production companies such as his firm. He says his annual revenue has doubled in the past three years, and his firm now occupies 14,000 square feet in Davis Square – up from 4,500 in 2006.

Yourgrau says his company uses the tax credits to pay off the firm’s corporate taxes, and it converts some of the credits to cash (the credits can be sold through brokers, or monetized directly through the state government at a discount) for capital purchases such as a massive Avid video editing and storage device that allows his employees to do more work remotely. He has also invested in expanding the company’s development team.

Yourgrau understands why politicians on Beacon Hill are giving the tax credits another look, in light of the state’s current budget woes. But Yourgrau hopes they realize that the tax credits – which can cost the state more than $100 million a year – represent an important investment in one of the state’s few growing industries.

A show featuring a dog learning to help change a child’s diaper may not be as glamorous as a big-budget action movie featuring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. But shows like “SuperFetch” are playing a crucial part in the state’s film and TV industry just the same.

Like many people, I’ve been wondering how many new jobs the federal economic stimulus package has created in Massachusetts since it was passed in February. After checking out the Patrick administration’s latest report, I’m still wondering.

That’s not to say that the money has been wasted. Far from it. The money has played a crucial role in plugging a massive state budget cap, preventing far worse state cuts than what has taken place so far. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the economy rebounds significantly by the time the flow of stimulus dollars from Washington runs dry over the next two years.

The money has also helped cover the costs of unemployment checks – an expense that has been adding up quickly as the state’s jobless rate continues to rise (it’s 9.3 percent, the highest in 33 years, by the way).

But the Patrick administration’s report provides little evidence of tangible job growth that can be tied to the stimulus money.

The Patrick administration says it “created or retained” 8,792 full-time equivalent jobs (affectionately known by bean counters as FTEs). The administration doesn’t include, in that figure, an amorphous estimate of 3,800 state jobs that were supposedly protected by avoiding deep Medicaid cuts (the administration also boasts  that an estimated 23,533 total jobs were affected by the stimulus money, but the FTE estimate is the more meaningful number).

So 8,792 full-time jobs may seem like a lot. It’s actually not that much when you realize our state’s work force includes more than 3 million people – or when you learn that the state’s employers cut roughly that many jobs from their payrolls in September alone.

But I’m willing to celebrate any job growth, no matter how small. The real problem is we don’t know how many of those FTEs were “created,” and how many were “retained” – i.e. jobs that the administration says could have been lost if the stimulus bill wasn’t passed.

It’s not just the Patrick administration that has this “created” versus “retained” problem. This is the way the federal government requires states to report the economic impact of stimulus dollars, according to Patrick administration spokeswoman Alethea Pieters. She says most of those 8,792 full-time positions are considered “retained” jobs, but she couldn’t provide a breakdown between the two.

Of those jobs, the biggest impact was seen in public school classrooms: The Patrick administration estimates about 6,400 full-time jobs in education were “created or retained.” Patrick’s labor and workforce agencies accounted for much of the remaining full-time jobs, adding the equivalent of about 1,100 full-time positions – and many of those FTEs represent summer jobs for teens.

Fortunately, we should have more data coming soon. The Patrick administration’s report just deals with the $4 billion in stimulus money that the administration has received. Pieters says stimulus funds that went directly to cities and towns, as well as the private sector, will be made public by the federal government on Friday.

Unfortunately, you shouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the data is also cloaked in this mysterious “created or retained” language. How many jobs actually have been created in Massachusetts with this stimulus money? We may never really know the answer to that one.