BOSTON/Dorchester - Standing before a home on Potosi Street in Dorchester, flanked by State officials and representatives of the electrical and gas utility companies that serve Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino yesterday announced that a city sponsored effort to increase commercial and residential energy efficiency would start accepting applications from homeowners and landlords.

BOSTON/North End – Despite steady rain, approximately 40 people came out Sunday afternoon to the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration’s Society 5th annual rally and march to commemorate the 83rd anniversary of the 1927 executions of Italian immigrant anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.

BOSTON/Back Bay - After announcing his appearance on short notice, Linden Lab founder and CEO Philip Rosedale addressed over 300 attendees - all of whom are active participants in the Second Life virtual world - at the morning plenary session of the Second Life Community Convention at the Park Plaza Hotel on Saturday.

Rosedale's talk touched on a number of issues. Some technical. Most related to calming the rumors that Linden Lab - and Second Life itself - are in trouble in the wake of the layoff of 30 percent of their staff in June. Just before his return to the company's leadership.

When asked if he expected any more layoffs over the next year, Rosedale was succinct, "No. We don't. We're profitable right now and we think we're staffed right for what we're doing. So, no, we don't expect to have additional rounds of layoffs."

BOSTON/Back Bay - This weekend, over 300 people from all over the nation and world will be descending on the Park Plaza Hotel "to network, build friendships and to discuss Second Life in a common forum" according to the leaders of AvaCon, Inc. - the non-profit behind the Second Life Community Convention 2010. This year's SLCC is the sixth since 2005 and like its predecessors is entirely organized by active residents of the Second Life virtual world.

The event is open to the public, and day passes are available for those who'd like to dip their toe in the digital waters of a sometimes exotic online universe.

BOSTON/Downtown Crossing - Over 200 people attended a protest picket outside the Hyatt Regency Boston hotel on Thurs. July 22nd to demand that the Hyatt Corporation reinstate the jobs of 98 former members of their housekeeping staff. The event was part of a nationwide day of protest by the UNITE HERE hotel workers union. Similar protests were held in several other cities.

BOSTON/Chinatown - Student Immigrant Movement organizers and supporters held a press conference at the encuentro 5 movement space last Wednesday to announce their participation in a national campaign to push for passage of the DREAM Act - a bipartisan bill that would grant some undocumented immigrant students conditional legal status and a path to citizenship. Currently, students of undocumented immigrant parents in many states - including Massachusetts - are not eligible for government financial aid or in-state tuition rates at state colleges. Even if they excelled in public K-12 schools.

BOSTON/Back Bay - Hundreds of immigrant advocates and supporters held a rally in Copley Square on Saturday to protest the controversial Arizona anti-immigrant law SB 1070 and a local appearance by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer at the annual meeting of the National Governors Association. Following speeches by several activists, the attendees marched in sometimes driving rain to the Sheraton Boston where they picketed outside the governors' meeting for a short time - surrounded by heavy security.

BOSTON - A federal judge in Boston yesterday struck down a major section of the 14 year old federal Defense of Marriage Act, declaring it unconstitutional to deny financial benefits to same-sex married couples.

U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro had two cases before him; both of which challenged section three of the 1996 measure. Referred to as DOMA, the bill mandates that only heterosexual married couples are eligible for federal health and other benefits.

BOSTON/Back Bay - Five women active in local, state and national election campaigns appeared for a political roundtable on Saturday, where they urged their audience to run for office and take back the “F-word” in 2010. That’s F for Feminist, and there were dozens of them seated in Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel during a conference hosted by the National Organization for Women.

“We’ve heard Palin’s brand of feminism,” said Adrienne Kimmel, the panel’s moderator and political director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, “and felt the anti-incumbent sentiment” that she said should prompt everyone in the room to become politically active this term.

BOSTON/State House - A jubilant group of over 50 activists from the Student Immigrant Movement and allied organizations held a press conference on Friday to announce a victory in their campaign to get the Mass. legislature to overturn several provisions of an amendment to the Senate budget proposal for FY 2011 that they believe was an assault on immigrant rights.

The event was called on short notice after the Conference Committee - made up on an equal number of state representatives and senators - released its budget proposal on Thursday. Immigrant advocates quickly discovered that some of the contested provisions of Senate budget amendment 172.1 - including the proposed language that would have made it illegal for the children of undocumented immigrants that had grown up in the Commonwealth to ever qualify to attend Mass. public colleges at the in-state resident tuition rate - had been removed from the Conference Committee budget proposal.