Medford

Last month, the MBTA announced a contest in which anyone could design what could be the next MBTA map.

Transit Maps has not one, but two contest submissions posted for our viewing pleasure. While no submissions have been officially heralded by the MBTA at this time, it is clear that some very talented cartographers are partaking in the festivities.

The MBTA had previously announced a deadline of April 30, 2013, however no mention of the contest has been made since the original announcement of the contest.

This just in from Teamsters Local 25:

"Teamsters Local 25 will be out in full force tomorrow morning at St. Joseph's Church in Medford to form a human shield and block the Westboro Baptist Church from protesting the funeral of Krystle Campbell," said Sean M. O'Brien, president/principal officer of Teamsters Local 25, headquartered in Boston and representing 11,000 members from the area. "The Campbell family and friends have already endured immeasurable amounts of heartache and tragedy this week, and deserve a peaceful funeral with time to grieve privately."

"Westboro Baptist Church should understand that we will go to great lengths to make sure they don't protest any funerals of the victims of the past week's tragedies, and that those we lost receive a proper burial," O'Brien said.

Krystle Campbell was at the finish line to cheer on a friend.

InsideMedford.com has more.

Earlier, Martin Richard, 8, of Dorchester, was also identified as one of the murder victims.

Meanwhile, the Lowell Sun reports on a Lowell woman who lost both her legs, and her daughter, who suffered serious leg injuries. A fund has been set up to help them.

H Boston photographs the latest opus at Sav-Mor Liquors in Medford.

Copyright H Boston. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

The Globe reports.

Join Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders at our annual Summer Party held outside in the heart of Provincetown, MA on Saturday, July 27 from 4:00-7:00PM. Enjoy the view of the harbor, mingle with other GLAD supporters and learn more about our ground-breaking cases.

Tickets are $75 online | $85 on site | $30 student
Purchase at www.glad.org/events.

Don't miss our amazing auction and celebrity auctioneer Kate Clinton. You don't have to be present to win. Travel packages, restaurants, massages, and much more - something for everyone!

Children are welcome to attend (at no charge) and will enjoy a range of fun activities.

Delicious summer fare and refreshing cocktails provided.

More information, tickets and sponsorships are available at www.glad.org/events.

The MBTA continues to run trains to try to keep the tracks clear. Here's the view from out the front of an Orange Line snow train.

Billboard over I-93 in Medford celebrating the end of the NHL lockout.

The Boston Business Journal reports.

MBTA Transit Police report arresting a Boston man for allegedly masturbating in full view of other Orange Line riders from Oak Grove to about Wellington, around 4:45 p.m. on Saturday.

Guy's scheduled for arraignment today on a charge of lewd, wanton and lascivious conduct.

A federal appeals court said today that Gerard Sasso of Medford must get a new trial to determine whether he was too stupid to realize that pointing a powerful laser at a helicopter might be dangerous or if he knew and did so anyway.

Sasso was sentenced to three years in federal prison in 2010 for pointing a green laser at a State Police helicopter helping to escort an LNG tanker through Boston Harbor in 2007. He was the second person in the US convicted under a federal law aimed at protecting aircraft pilots from losers with lasers.

The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston said there was no question that Sasso did just that. Sasso, caught with a whole drawer full of lasers, kept pointing a green laser at the helicopter even as its pilot began flying toward him to try to find the source of the potentially blinding light. the court said.

Happened shortly after 5:50 p.m., based on the tweets from people in suddenly sweltering cars sitting on tracks just outside the station. Rescuers were able to get him safely off the tracks in just a few minutes.

"Well/at least a/c back on," Frank Conte reported at 5:57. Andrew Choy praised the driver on his train for keeping riders up to date: "Packed train and no air had potential for freak-outs."

Crushed car in Medford. Photo by Alex Formanek.

Extensive delays on the Lowell Line this morning after an Amtrak train smashed into a car at High Street in West Medford. MBTA Transit Police report:

Minor injury to driver, substantial car damage.

As of 9 a.m., the Lowell Line alerts page had seven alerts - all showing cancellations or extensive delays.

State Police report a woman gave birth in the back seat of a car stuck in traffic on Rte. 16 this afternoon.

The traffic was at a near standstill due to malfunctioning traffic lights at Wellington Circle, State Police said in a statement. When a frantic 911 call came in around 1:30 p.m. about a woman who appeared to be about ready to give birth, state troopers rushed to Rte. 16 on foot to try to get cars off the road - so that the driver could get her to the hospital in time. It didn't work:

As the vehicle pulled up the occupants told the troopers the baby was being born and was directed into the paking lot of the Medford barracks.

When troopers opened the door the back door the baby girl had just been born. Troopers ensured the baby was breathing and wrapped her up in blankets until the arrival of Medford EMS. The mother and child were transported to Massachusetts General Hospital by ambulance with a State Police escort. At this time the mother and child are reportedly in good condition.

MediaBistro has an interesting tale about a guy who works on a show at WMFO who says a man claiming to be a Boston Police detective visited his house to warn him to stop tweeting insults at WAAF's Greg Hill:

My cousin tells me two men [he has requested we leave the description out] are in my yard looking for me. I go up and introduce myself and one hands me his card, saying he's a Boston Police Detective, and tells me he was here because of 'the Twitter stuff'and that 'it needed to stop.' And then he said they didn’t want to press charges, but 'it just needs to stop.'

South End Patch reports on impending bustitution north of the city to let the MBTA build the new Assembly Square stop in peace. There's no set schedule yet for the "diversions," but the T says what will start out as sporadic shutdowns will grow more frequent as the station progresses.

Medford Patch reports a man suspected for at least two bank robberies, one in Charlestown, was arrested after a teller recognized him as they stood in line at a Medford Dunkin' Donuts a couple of days after he'd allegedly handed her a note demanding money.

Tufts Daily chronicles the men's crew team, which was suspended for T-shirts reading "Check out our cox" after somebody complained that promoted "a culture of rape and sexual aggression," then unsuspended after the university president said the university did not want to infringe on "free expression" and that the real issue was that the team printed up unauthorized T shirts, not about whatever message they were sending with the slogan, and besides, the guys apologized.

The Globe also wrote about the issue, but could not bring itself to write out the word "cox," instead referring only to "a common abbreviation of the coxswain's title."

Here at Phallus Daily Universal Hub, of course, we long ago lost the pearls we once clutched to our chests on such occasions. Plus, in a previous job, we worked with a colleague named Cox, who reported to an editor named Dix.

Michael Moura reports a store in the Meadow Glen Mall on Mystic Valley Parkway was held up this morning by a masked man with an axe.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today Tufts University had every right to bar the door to a lecture to a veterinarian who'd refused to pay its veterinary school for treating her horse.

The state's highest court ruled that at issue was strictly a non-paid bill, not any attempt to get at Margo Roman because she holds a different philosophy on veterinary care than her counterparts at the university veterinary school.

read more at bluemassgroup

Inside Medford reports students at Medford Vocational Technical High School recently got some hands on experience with a plug-in Prius:

Robert Dell'Ova is teaching the Automative Technology students to be cautious when working on electric cars because they use high voltage and how to avoid being electrocuted when working on them.

State Police are investigating a particularly violent car crash around 12:30 a.m. by the Wellington T stop that sent three people to the hospital with serious injuries:

Preliminary investigation indicates that one car was traveling westbound in the eastbound lane when it collided head-on with the second car, which may have been racing at the time of the crash. Preliminary investigation further indicates that a 2004 Honda Accord driven by a 30-year-old Somerville man was going the wrong way when it collided with a 2001 Honda Civic being driven by a 23-year-old Cambridge man and carrying a 25-year-old Cambridge man as a passenger. Both drivers and the passenger were transported to Massachusetts General Hospital, where they remain this morning with serious injuries. The investigation into why the Accord’s driver was going west in the eastbound lane, and whether the Civic was involved in a race at the time of the crash, remains ongoing.

Shocker: The driver of the second car in the impromptu speed trials fled the area, State Police say.

Lanicita posts an alert from Tufts University Police that a student was knocked down and sexually assaulted around 1:15 a.m. at Stanley and College avenues in Medford. She managed to fight off her attacker.

The suspect is described as Hispanic, late teens, 5'5" to 5'7" tall, with a thin build, dark, short hair and wearing a dark hoodie.

On Thursday, another woman was similarly attacked on Holyoke Road in Porter Square in Somerville.

Cambridge, Mass. — Tickets are on sale now for George V. Higgins’ The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Stickball Productions’ world premiere stage adaptation of the quintessential Boston crime novel. The production runs Dec. 8–Jan. 15 at Oberon in Harvard Square, for tickets, visit www.thefriendsofeddiecoyle.com

It is the winter of ‘69 in Boston and Eddie Coyle is a bottom of the barrel hood attempting to stay alive and out of jail among his “friends” – cops, bartenders, radical hippies, bank robbers, hit men and informants. Weeks away from a prison sentence for trucking stolen booze, Eddie’s making a few bucks supplying the guns for a rash of brazen bank heists, while looking to tip someone in for a kind word to the judge.

George V. Higgins’ classic novel has been called the “best crime novel ever written” by Elmore Leonard, and literary scholars have compared his unforgiving and realistic depiction of Boston’s underworld with the works of Dickens, Dostoevsky, and Balzac. Through dialogue quintessentially Bostonian, and the most poignant homage to Bobby Orr and the ’69-’70 Boston Bruins in literature, The Friends of Eddie Coyle has set the bar for Boston crime stories for nearly 40 years.