Today in Globe Business

A welcome return

Retailers are hoping the state’s sales tax holiday will draw customers into their stores, but will they take the bait?

Massachusetts has not had a sales tax holiday since August 2008, just before the start of the financial crisis. Now, some retailers are gearing up for the tax-free weekend of Aug. 14 and 15, planning to offer additional discounts and launch advertising campaigns in anticipation that the weekend will be one of their best during the year.

Jordan’s Furniture in Taunton, for example, is planning to advertise two sales it launched last week ahead of the tax holiday: a package for a queen-size memory foam mattress and 32-inch television for $799, and a living room set and television for $1,999.
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Small firms urge Brown to back credit bill

A leading Massachusetts small-business group is urging Republican US Senator Scott Brown to support a bill designed to make credit more widely available to small companies and to help break a partisan deadlock that is bottling up the measure.

The bill, which calls for the expansion of Small Business Administration loan programs and the creation of a $30 billion fund for small-business lending by community banks, stalled in the Senate last week. Democrats were unable to break a filibuster by Republicans, including Brown.

In a letter sent to Brown Monday, the Smaller Business Association of New England said the bill could “immediately retain and create jobs in Massachusetts’’ and deserves to be brought to a vote in the Senate.
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Time ran out for wind power plan, but it's likely to be back soon

Despite repeated support from Massachusetts legislators, in the end there simply was not enough time to pass a bill to streamline the permitting process for wind energy projects.

The bill failed at the close of the legislative session, said Robert Keough, spokesman for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. Though it received final approval from the state House of Representatives near midnight, he said, the bill was still short of the approval it needed from the Senate.

“The clock ran out,’’ Keough said. “The bill [previously] passed both houses by substantial margins, and we have confidence that the bill will become law in due course.’’
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Lawsuit challenges airport full-body scanners

A privacy advocacy group is suing the Department of Homeland Security to suspend the use of the controversial full-body scanners employed at airports across the country, including at every major checkpoint at Logan International Airport.

The machines, which use X-rays or radio frequency energy to detect weapons and explosives beneath passengers’ clothing, have been much criticized because of privacy concerns.

In the lawsuit, filed last month, the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., said the slightly blurred but accurate pictures of passengers’ naked bodies produced by the machines are the equivalent of a “digital strip search.’’