Downtown kaboom alert: Normally, we only get howitzers firing downtown when the Ancient and Honorables have their leadership change in April, but if you're anywhere near the Common on Wednesday between 5 and 6 p.m., get your hands ready to cover your ears. Read more.

The Zoning Board of Appeal yesterday approved plans for a "New York style" halal takeout place at 106-120 Cambridge St. that would offer Halal dishes such as chicken and lamb over rice and falafel. Read more.

The Zoning Board of Appeal this morning unanimously approved plans for a new Charles Street business that would combine a cafe, a small bookshop and a lounge where people could book hour-long appointments to spend time with up to ten cats. Read more.

Update: Beer and wine license approved.

Kured, which has been serving up "fast casual" charcuterie boards at 83 Charles St. on Beacon Hill since last year, learns tomorrow whether it can begin offering beer and wine to go with what people in other neighborhoods might call party platters. Read more.

Nancy shows us the 100 or so men who started marching down Comm. Ave. at the Allston Planned Parenthood to mansplain about a medical procedure none of them will ever need. The Million Thousand Hundred Mansplainer march against abortion was supposed to end up at the State House, but would anybody be surprised if most of them exhausted themselves mansplaining long before they got there?

The Beacon Hill Times reports on one catrepreneur's plans to convert a former bank branch at 80 Charles St. into a cafe/bookstore that would also have a room where people could sit and play with cats - separated from the other two rooms for book and coffee lovers who are allergic to or just don't like cats.

Boston's first attempt at a cat cafe, in Brighton, did not end well.

Chris in 02134 shows us the new Lake Charles this morning. Earlier, he watched water bursting up at Charles and Beacon streets and flowing into the Public Garden Lagoon, which broke free from its artificial bounds and flooded the surrounding land: Read more.

A manhole exploded shortly before 6 p.m. at Cambridge and Bowdoin streets, sending two Eversource workers to Mass. General, one with life-threatening injuries, and creating massive traffic issues in the area. Read more.

David Parsons visited the Boston Common memorial, which features one flag for each of the 37,000 Massachusetts residents who have died fighting for the country since the Revolution. Read more.