Today in Globe Business

Chiofaro taking fight with mayor to the public

The battle between developer Don Chiofaro and Mayor Thomas M. Menino — an unusually public standoff between two strong-willed, proud men — is ratcheting up today as Chiofaro begins a campaign to recruit city residents to lobby for his proposed project.

Calling the city’s development process “compromised and flawed,’’ Chiofaro is planning a news conference today where he will loudly challenge the mayor’s new building height limits for the area between Boston Harbor and the new Greenway. That is where Chiofaro wants to build two skyscrapers, one 45 stories and the other 50. Menino wants to limit buildings there to 200 feet — less than a third of the 625-foot high complex Chiofaro wants to build.

So the developer is hoping to sway Menino by running advertisements that urge residents to call or write City Hall in support of his proposal.

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Boston Scientific plea deal rejected

A judge in Minnesota rejected a plea deal yesterday between Boston Scientific Corp. and the US Justice Department and ordered it to be revised, in a surprise move that prolongs the Natick company’s efforts to resolve problems at its heart-device business.

The ruling by Judge Donovan Frank at US District Court in St. Paul called on the government to put Boston Scientific on probation for actions by Guidant Corp., a company it bought in 2006, which concealed safety defects in defibrillators.

The implantable devices deliver electrical pulses to the hearts of patients in danger of sudden cardiac death. Executives at Guidant learned as early as 2002 that some of its devices short-circuited and could cause deaths but didn’t disclose its findings to regulators for three years, according to prosecutors in the case.

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$30m is feeding a quest for nonfossil fuels

Alternative fuel maker Joule Unlimited Inc. has raised $30 million in venture funding, the largest such deal this year for a clean technology company in New England, according to the National Venture Capital Association.

The company, which is based in Cambridge, declined to name the investors, but said the money will be used to help produce its fossil fuel substitutes in larger quantities.

Formerly known as Joule Biotechnologies, the firm said it will also begin making what chief executive Bill Sims described as a “high quality’’ diesel fuel. Joule also plans to use the money to accelerate work on a pilot plant in Texas, which the company hopes to have running this summer.