Somebody at Tufts thought so: Behind one building, the university has a set of steps that were supposedly designed to let a woman outrun a male attacker.

The kids at Teen TV Somerville frame the planned Green Line expansion in a novel way - and feature the stylings of the immortal Wig Zamore and US Rep. Mike Capuano. Even better: Judges pick the best song about the Green Line (the first from a kid who thinks the whole thing is a big mistake: "It's not too late ... to give this train away" - sing it!):

Latest Green Line Extension documents from the state.
State to study three locations for trolley repair facility.

Tip o' the beret to Erin Sunderland.

Among the electric customers to lose power due to the exploding manholes of doom today is Tufts University. Students are being asked not to light candles and to walk in groups if they have to go outside at night if the lights still aren't back on. The school says lights could be out for another eight to ten hours.

Might be good to avoid towns with names beginning with M today:

Channel 4 reports flames shot 20 to 30 feet in the air when manholes exploded on Main Street in Medford around 10:30 a.m. and that several thousand people are now without power.

William Fleurant tweets traffic is, as you might expect, a mess there (where 38, 16 and I-93 come together).

MBTA Police report power went out at the Malden Orange Line station, trapping one person in an elevator.

Tufts Daily reports some university employees were forced to go home early over the weekend when the school shut down computers across the campus to try to wrest back control from hackers who managed to take over dozens of computers.

Interestingly, most of the computers belonged to Tufts professors and staffers, not students.

By moving students with flu-like symptoms into quarantine rooms and wearing masks. Oh, wait, you thought I was going to write about, oh, never mind.

Earlier:
BU sets up quarantine rooms for students with the flu.

Looks like the New England Baptist Church in Medford Square is at it again.

In 2005, the church told Katrina victims they deserved it.

A “Voter Choice” initiative petition turned in to the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office on Wednesday would give Massachusetts voters a chance to change to a voting system that lets voters rank their choices instead of voting for only one candidate. The change would apply to key races, including for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary and treasurer, among others, starting after January 2012.

An Orange Line rider can dream, can't he?

Tony tweets:

Just saw an MBTA employee dump the metro paper recycling bin into a trash can at Oak Grove. Why do they pretend to recycle? Ugh.

The T does a better job of recycling old Metros at the inbound platform on the Orange Line at Haymarket: They use bundles of Metros to sop up all the water that keeps draining into the station - and to prop up an orange cone atop the slippery spot the water creates.