The mayor's office and the BAA announced the fastest man, woman and non-binary runners in today's Marathon: Miles Batty, an MGH orthopedic surgery resident from West Roxbury who finished in 2:25, Ariana Maida, a Dana-Farber physician's assistant from Jamaica Plain, who completed the course in 2:48:50 and Nonie Anderson, a BC Law School student from Brighton, whose time was 3:44:18.

Batty once ran a sub-4-minute mile, as an undergraduate at Brigham Young University.

However, the time for the fastest banana went to Matthew Seidel of Oakland, CA, who established a new Guinness record today for the fastest Marathon fruit, when he peeled out from Hopkinton to Back Bay while dressed in a banana suit in 2:35:38.

That's almost six minutes faster than the previous record for fastest fruit-based time in a Marathon, set in 2020 in Arizona, by a man also dressed as a banana.

Matt Frank spotted this sky-blue VW Bug against the blue sky at Revere Beach this afternoon.

Martin Lieberman noticed a developing theme among signs people held to cheer on the runners today. Another example.

Hugmajesty watched the runners rolling by near Cleveland Circle:

She also caught some of the dogs at the race.

Michael Burstein videoed some of the runners going by on Beacon Street in Brookline:

A snake found some old concrete and asphalt chunks a good place to do some sunning at the kayak launch in Millennium Park in West Roxbury this afternoon.

Jamaica Plain News reports bb.q Chicken is moving into the Centre Street space where Cafe Beirut used to be.

A roving UHub photographer reports from Beacon Street at Kent Street in Brookline, where the Green Line stop was supposed to remain open until 10 a.m., but which was closed at 8:40 a.m.

There was no access through the fence. While I waited, a woman was trying to take her kid to daycare and was only able to get through because an employee from the fence company was still around and unlocked the fence for her. Five people who had gotten off the outbound train followed her, saying they were trying to get to work. Kent St is one of the stations workers at the Longwood Medical Area use, and several of them had badges from the hospitals. When I pointed out to the fence guy that according to the MBTA this station is open until 10 AM and people (including me) need to get to work, he responded "You should have planned better." I asked him if people would be allowed to unlatch the fence to cross before 10 and was told they would not be. I checked the MBTA website last night and this morning, and there is nothing about above ground stations only being accessible from one side. The fence company workers said they were just doing their job and the Marathon volunteers said there was nobody from the Marathon organization I could email about this.

Mary Ellen spotted this blue grosbeak at Millennium Park in West Roxbury today.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round, until the bus driver gets on Storrow Drive and skee-ronches right into the infamous Bridge of Double Storrows by Mass Eye and Ear. Tom Leonard couldn't help but photograph the scene this morning, given that the stuck bus was backing up traffic like nobody's business.

A federal appeals court yesterday upheld an earlier lower-court ruling that a woman who was suspended from the theology master's program at Boston University for refusing to take the nasal Covid-19 tests the university once required has no case because the school no longer requires the tests.

The court's rejected Caitlin Corrigan's argument that BU could bring back the testing regimen in the future and that she needed protection should she in fact take the school up on its offer to resume the classes she stopped not long after she started at the BU School of Theology, and so her case remains as moot.

Because it is absolutely clear that BU ended its mandatory testing program in response to encouraging public health data and there are no signs that the pandemic will worsen, it is not reasonable to expect that BU again will impose a similar testing program.

Corrigan, who loves horse deworming paste as much as she hates Covid-19 vaccines, was represented by Robert Meltzer, a Concord attorney who has had his own problems convincing federal judges that public-health efforts to combat Covid-19 are evil incarnate. In his case, a federal judge rejected his lawsuit against the Massachusetts state court system for requiring masks after courts reopened, in which he claimed the requirement was the equivalent of waterboarding and a violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

Meltzer's work on Corrigan's case was supported by Children's Health Defense, the anti-vax group run by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. at least until he officially declared he was running for president. Last fall, Kennedy told the group that if elected, he would stop all government research into communicable diseases for at least eight years.

In addition to declaring her suit moot in general, the court also rejected Corrigan's claim that Boston University had somehow stealthily enacted and then rescinded its testing requirements too quickly for a court to have considered them - which would give the appeals court an exception under mootness rules to consider them. Referring to the two years the BU requirement was in place, the court said:

It is struthious at best to suggest that a resource-intensive effort continuously spanning almost two years is so fleeting that a court could never have time to pass on its legality.

"Struthious" is a word referring to the behavior of ostriches, which are sometimes thought to bury their heads in the sand - and an indication for people who have yet to read the full opinion that it was written by Judge Bruce Selya, who has long been known for making lawyers and other judges reach for their dictionaries.

Patrick spotted the Nuclear Emergency Support Team's radiation-sensing helicopter over Boylston Street today, doing the annual pre-Marathon check of background-radiation levels, just in case.

A concerned citizen filed a 311 complaint asking for help for an injured turkey on Beacon Street near Exeter in the Back Bay:

There is a hurt turkey, all alone at 270 Beacon Street. It appears to have an injury to one of its legs. It had been here for three days. I have already contacted three wildlife preservationists and they won’t help because turkeys are “aggressive”. This turkey is hurt and needs to be relocated. What can be done?

Chris Hugenberger shows us his Marathonned house on Albano Street in Roslindale.

Also see: Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings are ready.

Jess Riley shows us the car flipped on its roof on Alston Street in Somerville, near McGrath Highway.

WCVB reports the incident shortly before 6:40 p.m. began as a drive-by shooting and that the car flipped just feet away from a woman and her young child.

Two people were transported to a Boston hospital; a third person was treated at the scene.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that SEPTA, Philadelphia's equivalent of the MBTA, has cancelled a $185-million contract for new commuter-rail cars with the Chinese company building new Orange Line and Red Line trains, after already spending $50 million on the deal and not having actually gotten a single car four years after they were supposed to have started rolling in.

The Philadelphia cars were supposed to have been built at the same Springfield plant that is slowly building those new T cars.

Just last month, the T board voted to give CRRC an extra $148 million to make sure all the remaining Orange and Red Line cars are finally delivered by 2027 - and to waive millions more in late penalties. That would be roughly four years after we were supposed to have all the new cars.

Cambridge Police today released their most detailed update yet on how a CPD officer's gun came to discharge in a restroom at Cambridge Rindge and Latin. As you may recall, in the last update we were told, the officer had entered the stall to use the facilities and somehow the gun went off. In today's update, we learn the gun fired as he was getting ready to leave:

Based on information developed in the preliminary investigation, Police Commissioner Christine Elow announced that while in a single-stall staff restroom Officer Frank Greenidge removed his department-issued firearm from its holster and placed the firearm on a bathroom stall hook by the trigger guard. The firearm reportedly unintentionally discharged as it was removed from the hook. There were no injuries, and the school day continued uninterrupted.

The officer remains on administrative leave as the investigation continues. Police add:

The Cambridge Police Department has strict policies and standards regarding the use, maintenance, and storage of all department-issued firearms. Conduct by a member of the Cambridge Police Department that is found to be non-conforming with department policies and standards will be thoroughly and objectively investigated to assure that there is accountability.

The Harvard Crimson talks to City Councilor Liz Breadon (Allston/Brighton) about the city's proposed budget for capital projects, noting that supposed projects to build a new Jackson-Mann school and community center are still only marked as "to be scheduled" and that the neighborhood is dead last in proposed capital projects, behind even smaller neighborhoods.

Shamus Moynihan was on Causeway Street yesterday afternoon and watched the ride and escort a kid from Dorchester got from the Make a Wish Foundation on his way to fulfill his wish to meet the Celtics.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that Leon Robinson got a fair trial on charges he gunned down Recardo Robinson in Robinson's Commonwealth Avenue barbershop during an argument in 2001, which means Robinson will spend the rest of his life in prison.

The court did vacate Robinson's conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm, however.

The court's ruling provides a summary of the evidence against Robinson, which led a Suffolk Superior Court jury to convict him of first-degree murder for shooting Robinson in his Commonwealth Avenue shop just a couple of weeks before he was planning to close it for good and move to North Carolina to join his wife, who had gotten a job there, and six young children.

On the afternoon of February 21, 2001, the shop saw many visitors, as the victim was closing down the shop before moving to North Carolina. Among the visitors that afternoon were Maurice McIntosh, a friend of the victim who had previously worked at Hair Textures, and James Rainey, who was a regular at the shop. The defendant, who was not a regular at the barbershop but was a family friend of the victim, was also present, having received a haircut at the shop earlier in the afternoon. By around 4:20 P.M., only four men remained in the barbershop: the defendant, the victim, McIntosh, and Rainey.

The victim began lecturing the defendant about how the defendant needed to "straighten up" and change the way he was living his life in order to take better care of his children. The lecture upset the defendant, and the defendant showed the men in the barbershop that he was carrying a black revolver. The victim looked at his cell phone, and the defendant asked the victim who he was calling. The victim told the defendant he was not calling anyone, and again began lecturing the defendant on how to live his life. The entire conversation between the victim and the defendant lasted about five minutes, at the end of which the defendant pulled out his gun and shot the victim once in the chest. The victim fell, and the defendant shot the victim twice in the back and once in the back of the head. Rainey ran to the back of the barbershop and descended a staircase to the basement, where he hid until he was found by police. McIntosh fled out the front door and ran to a nearby pizza shop, where he called 911.

Dorinda Carter was parking her car on Commonwealth Avenue outside Hair Textures at the time of the shooting. She saw the defendant pull a gun from his waist area and shoot at the victim. The victim fell, and the defendant shot twice more. The defendant left the barbershop.

The court recounted that additional evidence against Robinson included finding clothes in his West Roxbury apartment that matched that described by witnesses, along with a stain on his left jacket sleeve that turned out to be blood, with DNA that matched Robinson's.

The court rejected Robinson's argument that police didn't have probable cause to search his apartment on Spring Street, saying witness descriptions gave them a reason to look for Robinson and evidence linking him to the murder. Robinson had earlier sued police and then Mayor Tom Menino in federal court on the issue, but lost there as well.