A consultant hired by the Boston Water and Sewer Commission is recommending a new barrier system where Boston Harbor meets Fort Point Channel, to keep rising sea levels and more intense storms from letting the ocean reclaim what was once South Bay - a large swath of Dorchester, South Boston and Roxbury. Read more.

The BPDA board last week agreed to spend $880,000 for a consultant to study ways to make Long Wharf, which now floods during particularly high tides, more resilient in higher tides - from water slopping over the end of the wharf and belching up through a storm drain further down, near the Chart House. Read more.

Boston Police report detaining four suburban youths, one just 11, on charges they and some of their pals went on a beating rampage in Downtown Crossing last night. Read more.

The Boston Licensing Board ruled today that J.J. Donovan's Tavern in Faneuil Hall Marketplace probably could have handled an incident involving a particularly aggressive patron on Dec. 4 better, but since he was not the one who yanked another customer to the pavement 150 or so feet away, causing possibly permanent injuries, the bar did not warrant any sanctions. Read more.

A Boston firefighter who was a regular at a Faneuil Hall bar slammed a Connecticut man to the ground outside, possibly leaving him with limited mobility for the rest of his life, even though neither knew the other - or had anything to do with some scuffling that had occurred both in and just outside the bar not long before, police, bar workers and the man and his family told the Boston Licensing Board today. Read more.

Shortly before 4:45 p.m., a car on the southbound side of I-93 in the tunnel erupted in flames. And that's why the ventilation shaft at Essex Street and Surface Road began belching black smoke.

Update: Emerson sent e-mail saying a student died, that police say there are "no security concerns" and that counselors will be available.

The Berkeley Beacon reports police responded to the Little Building, at the corner of Boylston and Tremont streets, after a body was discovered around 10 a.m.

The building houses dorm rooms for first-year Emerson College students.

So far this afternoon, MassDOT reports there was a multi-car crash at the entrance to the O'Neill Tunnel northbound that shut the left lane and an "overheight" tractor trailer that jammed up the entrance to the Callahan Tunnel. Both scenes now clear.

Red Line service in both directions was shut after a man wound up on the tracks at Park Street around 1:45 p.m.

The T is now running shuttle buses between Harvard Square and Broadway.