Today in Globe Business

Fidelity may cut bonuses, merit pay

Fidelity Investments, the Boston mutual fund giant, warned employees yesterday that it might scale back bonuses and merit pay to cope with the economic meltdown.

In a memo, president Rodger Lawson said Fidelity expects "somewhat lower" financial results this year and is cutting compensation, even though it has fared better than some other financial firms.

Fidelity warned that annual profit sharing and year-end bonuses might be reduced.

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Greenway site draws three more proposals

A food market and art galleries, 78 units of rental housing, and a 137,000-square-foot office and retail building are among the proposals the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority has received from developers seeking to build on a key sliver of land along the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.

The authority said four companies have submitted proposals to develop a 29,400-square-foot parcel that Boston officials want to use as the centerpiece for an arts and culture district near Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

The first of the bids was announced last week, when the group known as Boston Museum made public its plan to build a $120 million food market and museum on the site, at the corner of North and Blackstone streets and adjacent to the weekend gathering spot for the Haymarket pushcart vendors.

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Front page blues

The financial troubles swamping the Globe washed into the newsrooms of other local newspapers long ago, leading to painful staff cuts and shriveling news operations at the Boston Herald and GateHouse Media Inc., owner of more than 100 daily and weekly newspapers in New England.

The Herald, which had a 265-person editorial staff about a decade ago, now has roughly half that, according to Sunday editor Tom Mashberg. With fewer reporters, the Herald has been forced to scale back coverage, gutting its arts and entertainment staff, investigative team, and business and metro desks.

There are now roughly 10 metro reporters covering the city - once the Herald's bread and butter. In-depth stories, former staffers complain, have been replaced by short stories and news briefs. Despite all the cutbacks - including the decision last year to eliminate pressmen in Boston and outsource the printing of the newspaper - staff cuts still loom. In late March, shortly before the New York Times Co. threatened to shut down the Globe due to financial losses, the Herald shed another 24 jobs - mostly in non-newsroom functions.

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For Garden, another new label

Once the Garden, always the Garden. For now.

The Boston sports arena will be officially rebranded TD Garden, shedding its Banknorth middle name in July.

It's the fourth moniker for the venue since 1995, and the move comes as banking giant TD Banknorth prepares to change its New England operations to TD Bank. The new name for the Garden, home turf for the Celtics basketball team and the Bruins hockey franchise, is supposed to stick through 2025.

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TECH LAB: There's no need to settle on just one Internet browser

Ready for a new Web browser? I've been having second thoughts about Firefox lately and have been toying with the new version of Internet Explorer from Microsoft Corp. And thanks to a wonderful little tool that runs on both these browsers, it has become easy to hop back and forth.

Firefox, of course, is the upstart browser that has snatched more than 20 percent of the global market since its debut five years ago. People downloaded Firefox to get away from the security bugs that plagued Microsoft's IE at the time. But they kept on using it because it ran well and offered hundreds of exclusive add-on programs, from news and weather updates to filters that block unwanted Internet ads.

Meanwhile, a humbled Microsoft has overhauled its browser. The new version, IE 8, delivers faster performance and a bunch of innovative features.

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