Boston

BFD response to mystery boom. Photo by Victoria Bedford.

Around 8:50 p.m., Boston firefighters and Transit Police rushed to the area of Arlington and Boylston streets after several people reported hearing a loud explosion. Cara Terez, sitting on the Rattlesnake roof deck, tweeted:

Loud LOUD explosion.

As a precaution, the T shut Green Line service as firefighters looked around on the street and in the station for the source of the boom, but they found nothing, an inbound Green Line driver reported the tunnel between Copley and Arlington was fine and service started up about 10 minutes later.

Brian D'Amico tweets police speculate a tour bus may have had an engine backfire or two.

Keon Monteiro, 24, was charged today with fatally shooting Victor Otoadese, 21, and Sean Repetto, 25, on Batchelder Street in the middle of the day last Nov. 28, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

At 9:50 a.m., CarCarli tweeted from her North End apartment:

Did anyone just feel an Earthquake? Home sick in bed & just felt that earthquakey JiffyPop shaking sensation.

The USGS reported a 4.4 earthquake north of Ottawa at 9:43 a.m. In addition to the North End, it shook upstate New York.

After getting confirmation of the quake, CarCarli added:

I'm a precision instrument.

Police are swarming the area around the Sovereign Bank branch at 38 Leo Birmingham Parkway, looking for the man who held the branch up around 9:20 a.m.

He's described as black, medium height, with a gap between his front teeth. He was wearing a blue Sox cap, a bright red hoodie and black pants. He displayed a black handgun.

A disgusted citizen reports his or her neighbors on Cambridge Terrace in Allston promised to clean up the rotting pile of potatoes they left on the ground outside when they moved out on Sunday, but they haven't been back and now the potatoes are sprouting, and you don't even want to know about the dried pet food.

The Globe reports on support for mayoral candidate Charlotte Golar Richie among people like state Reps. Michael Moran (Allston/Brighton) and Aaron Michlewitz (North End).

Mike Ball comes away impressed from Rob Consalvo's kickoff rally in JP, although he says he needs to flesh out his proposed agenda:

So far, no one in the race has advanced either a brilliant slogan or a revolutionary platform. Rob's catchphrase Making Boston Better is more than adequate. He simply has to convince enough voters that he can pull that off, that he can harden up his kind of spongy goals and achieve each one. Last evening was promising.

WBUR reports on plans to finally hide that ugly blank front wall of the Garden with two mixed-use buildings featuring retail space, offices and, of course, 500 luxury apartments and a 200-room hotel.

Update: The pizza chain says you can't believe everything you read, even its own license application - says it just wants to add a guitarist, not dinner theater (scroll down the page at that link).

Regina Pizzeria goes before the Mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing on Monday seeking permission to add "a comedian and dinner theater" to its restaurant at 353 Cambridge St. in Allston.

Yes, of course, comedy at a restaurant in Boston is illegal without permission from city regulators. The restaurant's current entertainment license only allows for a CD player, a radio, TVs and a jukebox.

The hearing starts at 10 a.m. in the Albert L. O'Neil Hearing Room on the eighth floor of City Hall. Immediately after, the Hilton at 80 Broad St. will also seek permission to add comedy and cabaret performances.

Brad Kelly captured a tree on a hill at UMass Boston.

Copyright Brad Kelly. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

Proper Bostonian reports on the wild turtle (tortoise?) she spotted ambling down Beacon Street near Charlesgate, all by himself:

There were a lot of runners passing by; it was likely he'd get squashed on or run over if he wasn't relocated. Bringing him home to meet the cats flashed through my mind for maybe a second; they have never mentioned any interest in amphibians reptiles, although the kittens have more scientific curiosity than Possum or Wendy. But I didn't see that scenarios ending well.

Finally, I picked him up and carried him to some green weeds under a rosebush, not far from the Muddy River.

The Boston Herald reports that U.S. Representative Stephen Lynch and Boston Mayoral Candidate Robert Cappucci, a former Boston School Committee member and police officer, were involved in a car accident yesterday in South Boston.

“I felt the bang and thought, ‘What the heck is that?’ ” Cappucci said. “I looked in the rear-view mirror and I recognized Steve. I thought, ‘That’s unbelievable that he would hit me like that.’ But he probably knew more than I did because I couldn’t see the other cars behind him.”

To read click here.

Around 10:15 p.m., Dave Ahern reported:

Just saw an intense shooting star western sky from Dorchester.

Over in South Boston, Broadway Joe also saw the meteor:

Over the South Boston Waterfront until it disintegrated over near Dorchester!

Parents at the Curley School hold a fundraiser on Saturday afternoon to try to raise $200,000 to convert an old asphalt "field" at the school into a three-season, multi-use playing field. The original goal was $250,000, but somebody recently and anonymously donated $50,000 toward the goal.

Stanley Staco reports the victim was taken away in bad shape following the 8:25 p.m. incident at Blue Hill Avenue and Woodcliff Street.

Some people try to visit all 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth. Others vow to eat at every single burger place in Boston. Googiebaba has decided to try to meet all 24 people running for mayor of Boston. She starts with DA Dan Conley, whom she met one rainy Saturday while she and her two kids were on the side of the West Roxbury Parkway, victims of a flat tire:

A black SUV pulled up, and there was a gentleman talking to the police officer. I actually thought I might be in trouble when I saw him. He had that air of authority about him. For those not in Boston, Dan is our District Attorney. He introduced himself, and then asked me if I wanted him to take the kids home. This continues to amuse me. My children are gorgeous. They are bright, shiny stars. But they are also beastly. I keep imagining what would have happened if I had said yes, and put my two kids in the back of his beautiful SUV. ...

Marco Tulio Flores, now 19, today pleaded guilty to strangling Jaime Galdamez with a dog chain and then setting his body on fire after years of sexual abuse, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Flores accepted the voluntary-manslaughter sentence rather than face a murder charge for the 2011 death of Jaime Galdemez, the DA's office says.

"This was a just resolution to an utterly tragic case," DA Dan Conley said. "It provides accountability for a life that was taken cruelly, but it also recognizes the strong mitigating factors and the potential outcomes at trial."

According to the DA's office:

The BAA is inviting 5,633 runners who were unable to cross the finish line at this year's marathon back to run in the 2014 Boston Marathon next year.

In a press release today, they listed the eligibility as having at least crossed the half-marathon checkpoint when the race was stopped at 2:50 PM. They do not yet know what the total size of next year's field will be set at, but those invited back will be given the chance to be a part of that field automatically by using a non-transferable unique code that will be given out in August.

Those affected by this decision should already have received an e-mail letting them know that they were included.

A lot of people have speculated that Lt. Governor Tim Murray's gubernatorial ambitions crashed and burned. However, with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder embroiled with scandal, the rumor about Governor Patrick being tapped to replace Holder is heating up again. If this happens, Murray becomes Acting Governor. Today, President Obama's hometown paper, the Chicago Sun, focuses on this.

To read click here.

Faneuil Hall Marketplace notes somebody made sure Red Auerbach was ready for today's opening Bruins/Rangers playoff game.

A pedestrian who suffered no visible injuries when "brushed" by a car whose driver was making a turn made a series of phone calls to get money out of him, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Instead of money, however, Deborah Yi, 24, got a trip to a State Police barracks, after she was arrested on an extortion charge after allegedly accepting an envelope full of cash from the driver - who had immediately reported the calls to police, the DA's office says.

According to prosecutors, the driver, a lawyer:

Reuben Kantor, who worked for Ross when Ross served as city council president, sent out e-mail today announcing he'll be working as Bill Walczak's campaign manager:

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that Our House East on Gainsborough Street engaged in "unfair or deceptive conduct" under the state's consumer-protection law by building an illegal and unsafe staircase down which Jacob Samuel Freeman fell to his death in 2007.

However, the court sent the case back to a lower-court judge to reconsider the monetary awards, in particular, some $2.1 million in lawyers' fees.

A jury had ruled for the bar's owners on strict negligence grounds, saying that while the place violated state building codes, that didn't cause Freeman's death. The judge, in the case, however, ruled that his death did violate the consumer-protection laws, and the state's highest court agreed:

WBUR reports on progressives fretting about the City Council winding up next year just as white and XYish as "old Boston." Or as 'BUR calls these folks, "self-styled progressives," because God forbid people be allowed to identify their political leanings without a reporter casting some doubt on what they really are by adding some empty phrase like "self-styled." But I guess we could expect no less from self-professed reporter David Scharfenberg.

Dave Levy isn't buying some survey that claims 48 other states are more frickin' foul mouthed than we are.