REAL ESTATE

Summer rental bookings surge

Real estate agents report a surge in bookings for summer vacation homes this year on Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket, with the number of signed weekly home leases running nearly 10 percent higher than for 2015. Some property owners are jacking up rates by nearly 15 percent over last year’s prices as the economy continues to improve, gasoline prices fall, and people have more money in their pockets to spend for sailing along the coast, chowing down on lobster rolls, and frolicking on the beaches, real estate companies say. Other New England vacation spots are also seeing stronger demand and higher prices.

LIFE SCIENCES

IPO market cools

Biotech stocks, which powered the initial public offering boom of the past three years, were supposed to be a harbinger of the 2016 IPO market. The early signs point to disappointment. Only four companies, all biotechs, have completed IPOs this year. All four were trading below their issue prices early last week, buffeted in large part by the broad sell-off in financial markets that has pushed major US stock indexes down 8 percent since the beginning of 2016. Whether to move forward with an IPO is “a grueling decision to make right now,’’ Lexington life sciences consultant Harry Glorikian said.

TECHNOLOGY

IBM Watson building analytical muscle

IBM Corp. is building the analytical muscle of its Watson Health unit with a $2.6 billion acquisition of medical data company Truven Health Analytics of Ann Arbor, Mich. The headquarters of Watson Health will open in the spring at 75 Binney St. in Cambridge. About 950 employees are expected to be based there. IBM has announced three other acquisitions of companies that gather, store, or analyze data that will be incorporated into Watson Health. Those include Phytel, a Dallas firm that makes software to manage electronic health records, Chicago medical imaging company Merge Healthcare; and Cleveland Clinic data analytics spinoff Explorys.

HEALTH CARE

Amid probe, agency lays off workers

A Worcester home health care agency that is the target of a fraud investigation said it has laid off most of its workers, disrupting services for hundreds of patients after the state cut off payments. The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office is investigating Compassionate Homecare Inc. for allegedly filing false claims and defrauding the state’s Medicaid program, the Globe reported this month. In December, MassHealth officials suspended payments to the company because of fraud allegations. Compassionate, which filed a lawsuit against the state over the actions, said it can’t defend itself because neither state officials nor the AG have detailed the specific allegations.

ECONOMY

Darker outlook at Federal Reserve

Federal Reserve officials, such as Chair Janet Yellen (left), grew uncertain about the fate of the nation’s economic recovery in January, as global turmoil threw into question forecasts they had made just six weeks earlier. Minutes of the central bank’s policy meeting in January showed officials acknowledged that the continued ­decline in energy prices and the ongoing strength of the dollar have resulted in prices rising more slowly than they expected. Many analysts believe the Fed won’t raise rates again when it meets in March. Some have even predicted the central bank will not hike rates again this year.

TECHNOLOGY

Data breaches rise sharply

More than 1.3 million Massachusetts residents had their personal data compromised last year by sophisticated computer hackers, careless workers, and old-fashioned crooks. The number of state residents affected by data breaches in 2015 represented a nearly four-fold increase from the previous year when 351,190 residents had personal information inappropriately released, according to the Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs & Business Regulation. Last year’s breaches also outpaced 2013 when nearly 1.2 million state consumers had personal information exposed, largely because of the massive breach at Target stores.

TECHNOLOGY

Apple fights government on unlocking terrorist’s phone

Apple Inc. said it would oppose and challenge a federal court order to help the FBI unlock an iPhone used by Syed Farook (right), one of the two attackers who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., in December. The move sets up a legal showdown between the company, which says it wants to protect the privacy of its customers, and law enforcement authorities, who say encryption technologies hamper their ability to prevent and solve crime. In a significant victory for the government, Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym of the US District Court for the District of Central California ordered Apple to bypass security functions on an iPhone 5c. Chief executive Tim Cook said Apple would not comply.

REAL ESTATE

Rent increases projected to moderate

A new report holds some good news for Boston-area renters: The steady increases in apartment prices are projected to slow. After climbing 4 percent last year, rents will grow at an average annual rate of 2.5 percent over the next four years, according to the online real estate marketplace Ten-X. But don’t get too excited. Boston will still be very expensive, with average rents reaching nearly $2,200 a month by 2019, compared to less than $2,000 today, Ten-X said.

NONPROFITS

Meisner leaves Boston Foundation

Mary Jo Meisner (left), who helped transform the Boston Foundation from a sleepy nonprofit to a muscular civic force, has stepped down as the vice president of communications, community relations, and public affairs. In an e-mail to her colleagues, Meisner said she was ready for something new after 15 years at the foundation. Meisner, who according to the organization’s most recent tax filings earned nearly $337,000 in the fiscal year that ended in June 2014, will stay on as an adviser through March 18. Meisner and Boston Foundation president Paul Grogan are credited with reinventing the organization as an influential research and policy advocacy group.

TECHNOLOGY

Dell’s takeover of EMC still on track

Dell Inc.’s sale of nearly $50 billion in debt to fund its buyout of EMC Corp. is proceeding as planned, a top Dell executive said in a letter to employees. Rory Read, Dell’s chief integration officer, said he was responding to “chatter over the past few weeks about possible financing headwinds’’ in the proposed purchase of Hopkinton-based EMC. Read’s letter, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, dismissed the notion that Dell’s debt sale was in trouble. He said the financing “remains on track, as planned,’’ and the company still expects to complete the $67 billion merger by October.