BOSTON (Reuters) – Criminal defense attorney J. W. Carney Jr, named on Thursday to defend former mob kingpin and alleged murderer James “Whitey” Bulger, is no stranger to difficult or controversial cases.

A federal judge ruled that Bulger, 81, captured last week in California after 16 years on the run, was entitled to a taxpayer-funded defense. And Carney got the call.

“I was asked to represent him. And I said I would,” said Carney, who is tall and bald with a white beard and glasses — an odd echo of the appearance of his older, infamous new client. “It’s a daunting task.”

Carney, speaking outside the South Boston courthouse, said he would immediately move to have his partner Janice Bassil appointed as co-counsel on the Bulger case.

The pair, who founded Carney & Bassil in Boston in 1989, have been involved in some of the city’s most explosive cases.

“Janice Bassil and I started as state court public defenders here in Boston in 1978. This is why we became criminal defense lawyers — to represent people who are in trouble. As my partner Janice would say: ‘This is who we are,’” Carney said.

Carney spent six years as a full-time public defender after graduating from Boston College Law School in 1978.

CONCORD, New Hampshire (Reuters) – Mitt Romney, the early front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, on Monday said he would want people with extensive private sector experience in his Cabinet, defended his work at a private equity firm and touted the need for lower corporate tax rates.

“In a Cabinet, I would hope that people had worked in the private sector for at least half of their careers,” Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, told workers at financial services company Lincoln Financial Group in Concord, New Hampshire.

“I like the idea that people would come to the government knowing how the private sector works.”

Romney met with potential voters in the key early primary state of New Hampshire for the third time since launching his 2012 White House run in the state on June 2.

He defended the tactics used by Bain Capital, the private equity firm he co-founded in the 1980s, which often instituted large layoffs when turning around struggling companies.

“We were able to start a number of businesses. When it gets all totaled up, on a net-net basis we helped create tens of thousands of jobs,” Romney said.

“We invested in some settings where businesses were heading down in a big way. Sometimes you have to carry out surgery to turn them around,” he said.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Former Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger, one of America’s most wanted criminals, quietly walked into a dragnet thanks to a tip from the public that led police to his apartment hide-out.

Bulger, 81, fell for a ruse that lured him out of his apartment in Santa Monica, California, and was arrested without a fight, federal agents said at a news conference after Bulger and his long-time companion, on the run together since 1995, were apprehended.

Inside Bulger’s apartment, located only blocks from the Pacific Ocean, agents said they found a significant amount of money and a cache of guns and other firearms.

A fresh media campaign launched only on Tuesday and designed to find Bulger’s much younger girlfriend, Catherine Greig, 60, paid off quickly with a tip, agents said.

Authorities will now seek to have Bulger and Greig extradited to Massachusetts, where Bulger will face life in prison if convicted, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said at the news conference.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard DesLauriers said the media campaign that was directly responsible for the critical break in a case that had long stumped and embarrassed law enforcement. He praised an unidentified person for having had the courage to call the FBI’s Los Angeles office with the information that led to the pair’s arrest.

Agents from the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department staked out the three-storey apartment building on Wednesday afternoon.

BOSTON (Reuters) – He has been on the run since 1994 and is one of America’s most wanted criminals. Now, the FBI is launching a new publicity campaign to find 81-year-old James “Whitey” Bulger, the mobster indicted for 19 murders in the 1970s and 1980s.

Authorities are focused on finding Bulger’s long-time girlfriend, Catherine Elizabeth Greig, in the hopes she will lead them to the former Boston crime boss.

The FBI has produced a 30-second public service announcement that will begin airing on Tuesday on daytime television programs in ten states and is aimed at female viewers in the same age group as Greig, 60.

The FBI hopes a hair-stylist, manicurist, doctor or other acquaintance might recognize Greig.

“We are trying to reach a different audience that will produce new leads in the case,” said Richard Teahan, who leads the Boston FBI task force searching for Bulger and has been tracking the crime boss since 2006.

Greig and Bulger’s images will also be placed on a digital billboard in New York’s Times Square and at multiple other locations across the United States.

The last credible sighting of the pair was in London in 2002, but Bulger is thought to have traveled extensively in the United States, Europe, Canada, and Latin America.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of jubilant hockey fans are expected to pack downtown Boston on Saturday for a parade in honor of the new NHL Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins.

The Bruins brought hockey’s prized trophy back to Boston for the first time since 1972 with their 4-0 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday in the series-deciding seventh game.

Since then, the team has acknowledged the support of its loyal and long-suffering fans, many of whom were not born the last time Boston held the Cup.

On Thursday, after a celebratory charter flight from Vancouver, team-members took the 35-pound trophy on an impromptu tour from the TD Garden arena, through Boston’s historic North End and to other city hot spots.

Captain Zdeno Chara was photographed holding the trophy aloft on the roof of his condominium. The cup was taken to lunch at a waterfront restaurant, and spent time at other eateries and bars into the early hours of Friday morning.

At one point Chara and fellow defenseman Andrew Ference loaded the revered trophy into a baby stroller and wheeled it through the streets, delighting local residents.

Bruins players and coaches will ride amphibious Duck Boats on a 2-mile route from their stadium to Copley Square in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood on Saturday. Giant monitors have been set up on the historic Boston Common and on the Square so fans can watch the entire parade.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney solidified his standing as the early front-runner in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination after Monday’s seven-candidate debate, polls released on Thursday showed.

A survey by Public Policy Polling showed Romney with 22 percent support among Republicans. Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, new to the field and seen as a strong performer in Monday’s debate, had 19 percent.

Businessman Herman Cain had 17 percent, and Sarah Palin, still not an announced candidate, 15 percent.

A Rasmussen Reports poll showed Romney at 33 percent support in a survey of 1,000 voters taken on Monday night after the debate.

Dean Debman, president of the Public Policy group, said Cain’s jump showed the field is still fluid, but that many Republicans are valuing perceived electability over ideology.

Romney has consistently polled as the best, or even the only, Republican currently in the race with a chance to beat Obama in the November 2012 general election.

PPP surveyed voters from Jun 9 to 12. Their poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points. The Rasmussen poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

BOSTON (Reuters) – The triumphant Boston Bruins returned home on Thursday to cheers from jubilant fans after winning their first Stanley Cup in 39 years by beating the Vancouver Canucks in the decisive game of the NHL final.

The city will hold a Bruins victory parade on Saturday to celebrate a championship season that was capped by Wednesday’s 4-0 Game Seven victory in Vancouver.

Captain Zdeno Chara hoisted the 35-pound trophy over his head when the Bruins’ flight arrived at Logan International Airport, and again when the team arrived by bus at the TD Garden arena in Boston’s North End to cheers from waiting fans.

“It’s awesome. It’s an amazing feeling. We are so happy and thrilled. It’s unbelievable. I’m so happy for the whole city and the whole organization,” said Chara, who at six-foot-nine is the tallest player ever to play in the NHL.

Bruins fans, starved of a victory for decades, poured onto the streets around the stadium and in other downtown areas late on Wednesday after Boston clinched the cup.

The huge crowds were boisterous but mostly good-natured. Police reported seven arrests for trespassing and disorderly conduct — in contrast to the rioting in downtown Vancouver after the Canucks’ defeat.

“It feels great. It’s a little surreal and I don’t think it’s totally set in yet,” said a tired-looking Tim Thomas, the Boston goalie who became only the second U.S.-born player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Communities that now rely almost solely on automobiles will face problems as today’s baby boomers turn into tomorrow’s seniors and have limited public transit options.

A new study says more than 15.5 million seniors, aged 65 to 79, will have poor or nonexistent access to public transportation by 2015.

Many outlying suburbs and “exurbs” simply have few options for getting around for those who do not drive.

“The baby boom generation grew up and reared their own children in communities that for the first time in human history, were built on the assumption that everyone would be able to drive,” said John Robert Smith, co-chair of Transportation for America, a coalition pushing for better public transportation.

Access to public transit can be an issue for quality of life, or even a matter of life and death.

Without affordable travel options, seniors 65 and older who no longer drive make 15 percent fewer trips to the doctor and 65 percent fewer trips to see family and friends.

Among large metropolitan areas, 90 percent of seniors in metro Atlanta will live in neighborhoods with poor access to options other than driving, said the Center for Neighborhood Technology.