The Daily Free Press reports on a forum for District 7 (Roxbury, Fenway) City Councilor Tito Jackson and challenger Sheneal Parker.

Both are running for a full term following Chuck Turner's federally sponsored exit from Massachusetts. Jackson was elected in a special election earlier this year.

Report from BNN:

The proposed state House and Senate redistricting maps are out (Boston-area House districts / Senate). The thing that hit me immediately, since, of course, I looked at our place on the map, is that a piece of Roslindale (specifically, ours) would get shifted from Mike Rush to Sonia Chang-Diaz.

For the second time this year, the Supreme Judicial Court has ruled against a bank that tried to sell off property it did not yet own the title to.

The state's highest court said that U.S. Bank improperly deeded a house to a buyer when it had not yet properly foreclosed on the previous owner. The ruling is yet another strike against lenders seeking shortcuts to dispose of property in Massachusetts - but also a potential issue for people who bought foreclosed property in recent years.

Francis Bevilacqua, who thought he was buying a foreclosed property from the bank in 2006, had sued to clear his title, after the court ruled earlier this year - also in a U.S. Bank case - that even banks had to follow the law in Massachusetts. Essentially, he issued a legal challenge to the previous owner, Pablo Rodriguez, to show why Bevilacqua shouldn't be awarded possession. The issue was complicated by the fact that nobody could find Rodriguez.

In its ruling the state's highest court said this "try title" argument wasn't good enough, in part because:

In addressing the first theory, that a single recorded deed purporting to transfer title is sufficient to establish record title, the Land Court judge made the trenchant observation that such a doctrine would render the "Brooklyn Bridge" problem insoluble. Specifically, the judge wrote that "in the classic example, a litigant could go to the registry, record a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge, commence suit, hope that the true owners ignored the suit or ... could not be readily located and [would thus] be defaulted, and secure a judgment." Leaving aside the fact that public property cannot be the subject of a try title action, see G.L. c. 240, § 5, an interpretation of the try title statute permitting such a result cannot be the law.

The court ruled that the very Registry of Deeds documents Bevilacqua used to support his case actually undermined it, because the order in which they were filed shows:

Bevilacqua must have attempted to purchase the property from U.S. Bank (in some capacity) either when the registry's records showed the bank to be a complete stranger to title, when the registry's records showed the bank to be no more than an assignee of the mortgage, or when the registry's records showed that the bank conducted the foreclosure sale before receiving assignment of the mortgage. In none of these circumstances could we conclude that Bevilacqua is a bona fide purchaser for value and without notice that U.S. Bank's title was doubtful.

• Complete ruling, Francis J. Bevilacqua vs. Pablo Rodriguez

Jeff Daniels acknowledges he walked out of his father's liquor store in Dudley Square holding an open bottle of beer on Aug. 12. But, he said, he was only going outside to dispose of the bottle - opened inside the store, he says, by a customer from whom he immediately grabbed the bottle and ordered out of the store.

Unfortunately for Daniels, two police officers on bikes happened to be riding by at that moment and they stopped to arrest him on a charge of drinking in public - and issue a citation to Daniels's father, Richard, longtime owner of Giant Liquors at 2371 Washington St.

The two Daniels appeared before the Boston Licensing Board today to plead their case that the board not punish them for the incident, and a similar one involving an allegedly drunk customer caught with an open beer outside a few days earlier.

The elder Daniels' lawyer, Jack Milgram, told the board his client, who once owned interests in five liquor stores in the area, has never before been in trouble with the licensing board - despite the challenges of operating in Dudley Square.

"It's a challenging location, being in the heart of Dudley Square and being across from the Dudley stop of the MBTA," he said.

Beyond his record, though, Milgram said Daniels went so far as to fire another son and a nephew, both of whom also worked in the store, along with some other employees, and posted signs warning people not to drink or loiter outside the store.

A police report says one of the bicycle officers observed Jeff Daniels exit the store and open a 12-ounce bottle of Guinness around 7:50 p.m. on Aug. 12. Later, officers observed numerous empties by the store's front window, the report says.

The younger Daniels, however, told a different story: A customer bought the beer and then, while still in the store, opened it. Daniels testified he told the customer he couldn't do that, that he was jeopardizing the store's license, then took the beer away from him and ordered him out. He said he was bringing the bottle to a trash can outside when he was spotted.

Daniels said he explained that to the two cops but that one said it didn't matter because "Boston Police had a lower tolerance level for the Dudley Square area." Neither of the officers attended today's hearing; their report was ready by a detective.

Daniels said there were no empties outside the store when the officers took him away for booking.

In the other incident, the elder Daniels acknowledged selling the man in question a can of beer, but said he did not appear at all drunk - he was steady on his feet, his eyes were not bloodshot, he wasn't slurring his words, he didn't smell of alcohol. A police report said he was in "a high state of intoxication."

The board decides Thursday what action, if any, to take against the store. It could do nothing, issue a warning or suspend the store's license to sell liquor for a certain number of days.

Meira Levinson of the Arborway explains the ice problem she and other parkway residents have.

MBTA officials told a City Council committee today they will commit resources this winter to shovel out bus stops in Boston - and the connections to the sidewalks behind them.

At a hearing called by City Councilor Matt O'Malley (West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain), a T official said the authority will have at least 72 people dedicated to keeping bus stops clear during and after storms - with some additional help from more than 200 subway-station workers. The T is not technically responsible for bus-stop clearing, but pitched in this past winter as storm after storm left stops inaccessible to riders.

Meanwhile, the state Department of Conservation and Recreation says it is considering snowplows that push to the left instead of the right for the populated parkways that pass through Boston, such as the Arborway, the Jamaicaway and the VFW Parkway.

Those roads have large medians onto which snow could be pushed with left-leaning plows - instead of the driveways of residents along the roads. Meira Levinson, who lives on the Arborway, said she and her neighbors found their driveways repeatedly unusable and unsafe to get out of as plows kept pushing snow into them, eventually causing giant ice moguls that took days to chip away.

O'Malley called for the hearing to get city officials and state agencies that deal with snow in Boston - the MBTA, the DCR and the state Highway Department - to better coordinate snow removal in Boston's large number of snow no-man's-lands, which often don't get plowed at all.

City Transportation Commissioner Tom Tinlin promised relief for Steve Poftak, a West Roxbury resident who complained that the sidewalks on the bridge over the Needham Line on Mt. Vernon Street to the Lyndon School in West Roxbury never got shoveled out last winter, forcing elementary-school students into the street. Tinlin said he had no clue who actually owned the road, but vowed he would make sure the sidewalks were cleared this winter.

Boston Police report arresting a West Roxbury teen yesterday on charges he helped steal two gorilla suits from the IParty store on VFW Parkway.

Police say the kid was one of four who grabbed the suits, valued at $100 apiece. Store workers in turn grabbed one of the four; workers somehow convinced the kid to call the guy with the suits and get him to come back. The other two made good their escape.

A Suffolk Superior Court jury yesterday convicted Omay Tavares of gunning down George "Jeffrey" Thompson on Rosseter Street in Dorchester on Jan. 7, 2010, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

The conviction on the first-degree murder charge means a mandatory sentence of life without possibility of parole.

Tavares's undoing was a series of phone calls he made to Thompson before shooting him repeatedly. Tavares claimed he was on Greenbrier Street, nowhere near Rosseter, at the time of the murder, but "cell phone and tower records proved that Tavares made the calls from his own cell phone, with those calls hitting towers close to Thompson's house," the DA's office says. A "pristine" fingerprint matching Tavares's on a doorknob at Rosseter also didn't much help his case.

West Roxbury Patch reports on a candidates' forum at the Deutsches Altenheim.

A timeless citizen complains about the clock faces on the Custom House:

Why are the numbers illuminated at night, but not the hands?? It's impossible to tell the time if you can't see the hands... Have lived in Boston 10+ years, no one has ever known the answer to this question...

City officials respond there's nothing they can do about the hands of time because the tower is run by the Marriott hotel chain.

Photo by David Grant used under this Creative Commons license.

City Councilor Matt O'Malley reports Urban Edge is seeking clothing donations for people burned out of their Roxbury homes by that botched suicide attempt.

Drop clothing off at 1481 Tremont St. on Mission Hill.

EastBoston.com reports a fundraiser on Oct. 21 at the East Boston Yacht Club will benefit the residents of 45 Chelsea St., who had to flee their homes as the building next door collapsed.

NSFW and possibly other places.

Via BostInnovation.

Doward Forbes, 45, was sentenced to 30 years in prison today after admitting he broke into a Back Bay apartment in 1992 and raped its 21-year-old occupant.

The statute of limitations was about to run out in 2007 when the Suffolk County District Attorney's office indicted "John Doe," identified only by DNA recovered from the scene. The indictment stopped the clock ticking.

Forbes was linked to the DNA in 2008 when he was returned to Massachusetts for parole violations - in attempted rape cases in the western part of the state - and had to give a DNA sample.

The state Supreme Judicial Court approved such indictments last year in a case involving another Boston rapist, who also pleaded guilty to rape earlier this year.

In court, Forbes's victim pleaded to have Forbes locked away for good:

Nineteen years have passed and my physical scars have faded but the emotional damage remains for life. I was a young woman, 21 years old and ready to conquer the world. I was excited about spending the first night in my first apartment. Then, I experienced every woman’s worst nightmare ... My pain is the pain of all women who have been violated. On behalf of them and myself, finally, I stand up today to speak out against rape, the utmost act of hatred. I implore you, Your Honor, to ensure this will not happen again, at least under the wrath of this dangerous sexual predator ... He should not be free to walk the streets again.

Bob Slate has re-opened in Harvard Square. They're even on Twitter.

Not even for one night.

BehindDarkEyes spotted some Santas in Speedos warming up for their annual December run by declaring Speedos are a Human Right at the anti-war march/OccupyBoston on Saturday.

More photos. Photographynatalia also photographed Occupy Boston this weekend. H/Boston took photos. Mike Ball posted a set.

Latest Occupy Boston news.

Photo copyright BehindDarkEyes. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

The Sox starter talked to the Globe.

Boston Police report this is a surveillance photo of a man they say broke into a cell-phone kiosk at the Prudential Center mall yesterday.

Police say he made off with 20 new cell phones worth $7,000 - which works out to $350 apiece.

If you know anybody with plenty of phones, contact Detective Dan MacDonald at D-4: 617-343-4683.

Police in Dartmouth are hoping two crooks will come clean for a heist that hardly seems worth the effort: A guy walked out of the local Stop & Shop with "4 large containers of Tide detergent and 2 large packages of paper towels" without paying for them and then, a few minutes later, an accomplice "returned the paper towels for a refund."