North Shore

This guy tells WBZ he was only expressing his displeasure at the way the driver was driving.

Transit Police report arresting a Saugus man after he started choking a bus driver for no good reason they could tell and another passenger had to pull him off.

Police say Franco Contino rode a 426 bus from Haymarket in Boston to Saugus without incident last Wednesday afternoon.

But when the bus stopped on Lincoln Avenue to let passengers off, Contino erupted in fury and began cursing out the driver, Transit Police say:

WBZ reports some girl up in Salem now faces a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a police officer for allegedly attacking a cop in the local police station with an eyeliner pencil. The officer was taken to the hospital with an unspecified injury from the attack but is expected to survive.

Kevin Wiles posts photos from the overnight fire on Lewis Street. The Red Cross reports the nearby Brickett Elementary School was opened as a shelter for the residents.

Days after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled stores could no longer force consumers to supply their Zip codes on credit-card purchases, a second Massachusetts resident has sued a chain of craft stores for violating a Massachusetts consumer-privacy law.

Even as federal authorities were announcing a 21-year prison sentence for the sergeant-at-arms for the Hell's Angels chapter in Lynn for illegal weapons possession, State Police were busy rounding up what they said were other members of the Hells Angels and another North Shore motorcycle gang.

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.

Maranatha Christian Church, a Pentecostal organization serving Brazilians in the United States, says it's just not true it's shipping money to its parent organization in Brazil to buy convertible Lamborghinis for church leaders.

In a lawsuit filed yesterday in US District Court in Boston, the New Jersey-based organization - which has local churches in Everett, Framingham and Marlboro, accused broadcaster Beto Moraes of libel for making a series of such allegations about the use of donations by church members. The suit also names the owners of WLYN, who sell air time to Moraes.

The suit charges Moraes is making up his accusations of fraud against the church. In November, leaders of the church in Brazil were barred from their own offices as part of a government investigation into possible fraud related to church donations (article is in Portuguese).

My son and I did a bunch of work this morning getting ready for the storm and decided we'd go to the Groveland Diner for lunch before things got ridiculously bad. At the diner, I kid you not.... they are selling Blizzard Survival Kits for $6.99. A loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, and a half gallon of milk. And people were buying them! It was hysterical to sit there eating my lunch, and watching folks come in out of the snow to go home with a take out order of lunch AND the survival kit. The only things missing are a roll of toilet paper and a bottle of vodka.

It made me think of Universal Hub, and how much fun I've had over the years (seven!) that I've been here. I remember meeting a lot of people here through their Stormpocalypse postings in the past, and I had to share this with you guys.

Hope you've got your fixin's. Be safe out there everyone.

People up at the crack of dawn this morning got to see a beautiful sunrise. Gregory Schlisson watched the sun come up over the Saugus River while on a Rockport Line train into town.

Today's sunrise from a skyscraper in downtown Boston.

Salem Patch reports Witch City's city council met until 2:30 a.m. the other day - and voted 300 times - in an attempt to elect a new city-council president.

Salem holds its annual Christmas-tree bonfire this Friday at Dead Horse Beach - residents can show up with a tree and watch it go up in flames.

A.P. Blake spotted this poster from the T Riders Union on the Blue Line today.

Kerr Leathers, which suffered a warehouse fire in 2010, says two insurance companies re-sold the damaged helmets they took as new - potentially endangering customers and competing against the company with its own products.

In a multi-million-dollar lawsuit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court, Kerr alleges that while it gave permission to Zurich North America and Farmers Insurance to take possession of the helmets as "salvage" and to resell them, they did so only on condition buyers know their provenance.

In fact, Kerr says, they let a company - also named in the suit - market them online as "new" and "DOT certified" - and at a considerable discount over their normal cost.

Kerry charges this led to complaints from dealers to whom it normally sells helmets, who dropped the line when they could no longer compete. Also:

Given the damage the Kerr products sustained in the warehouse fire, the products are unsafe, will not perform as indicated and certainly should not be marketed as DOT certified. Marketing these Kerr products as either new or DOT certified, when in fact they are not, results in harm to Kerr's goodwill and reputation.

UPDATE, 10:30 a.m.: Gas shut off, residents to be allowed back home, stores to reopen.

On Pine Street, just off Rte. 1, around 8:30 a.m. CFD267 and Damian Drella report firefighters are evacuating nearby homes and businesses, including a dialysis center and stores along Rte. 1.

Buy, use tickets on your smartphone, if your smartphone is an Android or iPhone. Versons for BlackBerry and South Station lines are planned.

The New Yorker recounts the saga of the evacuation of the NYU hospital through the lens of a North Shore teen who was there for epilepsy surgery but who had to be driven to another hospital all the way uptown when the power went. Her mother says:

Everyone's been just so great to us. I'm from Boston, but New York - they've been amazing.

MBTA Transit Police report they are looking for a man who allegedly slapped and spit at a bus driver for passing him by.

Police report the route-428 driver was attacked around 6:30 p.m. yesterday at Main and Forest streets in Malden. They provide this account:

Right in the lobby.

Steve Garfield reports.

Saugus Police report they are looking for a guy who robbed a Sovereign Bank branch on Wednesday:

Suspect used false mustache, goatee and discolor teeth as disguise.

Mike Ball took in the JP Music Festival today (top). Charlie Rosenberg took in the Steampunk Invasion in Salem. More on Salem Steampunk.

Mike Ball photo posted under this Creative Commons license. Charlie Rosenberg photo copyright Charlie Rosenberg. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

A Boston Reddit user in Salem reports a bright, greenish-blue shooting star, moving southeast, around 9:10 p.m.:

I was thinking maybe a plane was crashing but it was glowing greenish and moving extremely fast. The strange thing is it did not look like it burned up completely in re entry if it was a shooting star. ... I have been stargazing for a while and have seen some amazing things in my time , but never anything like this.

Not Jackie Jensen spotted this SUV today.

An Everett man was arrested last night after he allegedly beat and kicked an MBTA bus driver in a fit of anger over being left behind at Wonderland station, MBTA Transit Police say.

According to a police report, the driver had pulled his 455 bus into the Lynn commuter-rail station in Central Square last night when Paul Kouroyen got on, asked if he were the driver who had left him at Wonderland station and when the driver said yes, brutally attacked him: