Transit Police report on what, so far, is the weirdest MBTA crash of the year:

4/10 12:15AM Fitchburg Line between Cambridge & Belmont unknown person/s left a boat on the right of way. An #MBTA commuter rail train did strike the boat. No injuries were reported & no damage to train. TPD Detectives to follow up.

The Boston City Council today officially honored the city's four state-championship teams with proclamations - and pizza: Charlestown High School, whose boys basketball team won the Division 3 state championship, New Mission High School, whose boys basketball team won the Division 5 championship, the Josiah Quincy Upper School's girls wrestling team brought home medals in Division 2 and Boston Latin School, whose hockey team won the Division 2 championship.

Coach Hugh Colman, himself a Charlestown High alumnus, had a particular reason to be proud of his team - his son, Jaylen Hunter-Coleman, is a player.

"I still drive around and scream: 'State champions!" New Mission Athletic Director Malcolm Smith told councilors. Smith praised his champions for turning themselves around and going on a 9-0 run that led them to their division championship. "They worked for it, they earned it, that's for sure, they earned it," he said:

Josiah Quincy wrestling coach Malaky Lewis noted his team's wins were the first state titles in school history, but said there is more to sports than just competing: "We do it for growth and integrity, growth and consistency, and confidence:"

Boston Latin School hockey Coach Frank Woods praised his team for the way it won over a tough Tewksbury team 4-2 by scoring three goals in the last few minutes of their game. "They outlasted, out-willed and out-toughed that team and that's whey they're champions:"

One day after the family of Jeanica Julce of Somerville sued the owner of the boat she was on just before she drowned - and the owner of another boat - both the boat owner and the federal government asked a federal government to reinstate her ban on lawsuits over the crash in state court, which she had lifted just last month.

In motions filed in US District Court yesterday, both Seaport resident Ryan Denver and the government cited admiralty law in urging US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs to at least partially reinstate her earlier stay of any suits in state court, although they cited different specific laws.

Denver, who hit a permanent navigational marker marking the boundary of deeper Boston Harbor water and the shallower Dorchester Bay, asked US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs to "alter or amend" her ruling last month allowing suits over the crash in state court, saying it would violate his rights under an 1851 "limitation of liability" law aimed at protecting ship owners by limiting the amount they might have to pay out after a disaster on the high seas over which they had no control to the value of whatever was left of their ship after the disaster.

In Denver's case, he says that means he should not have to pay out more than $50,000, which was all that was left of his 40-foot speedboat after the crash - and before State Police accidentally set it on fire while trying to shrink wrap it - his lawyers argue.

Denver's lawyers say lifting the stay would also make it harder for him - and Julce's family and the other people on the Make It Go Away who survived - to sue the Coast Guard for contributing to the crash.

Denver has argued he is totally blameless for the crash in part because he didn't hit the beacon - Daymarker 5 - on his way out of Boston Harbor to Quincy and he followed his exact path on his return trip, that the bottom exposed part of the structure was not illuminated and that the top part, which has a flashing light, was obscured by bright lights from two nearby vessels doing harbor dredging for the Army Corps of Engineers at the time.

Also, letting state lawsuits be brought would only lead to a confusing miasma of possibly conflicting rulings in different courts, they say:

Otherwise, a procedural quagmire will create substantive hash sapping the uniformity of maritime law and injecting res judicata confusion into the limitation case; prejudice Denver, leaving him without insurance proceeds to answer the USCG claim against him which cannot be adjudicated in state court, while also precluding him and the human claimants from pursuing the USCG in state court; thereby creating inefficient, multi-forum litigation of a multi-victim marine casualty and defeating concursus.

Julce's family, and survivors of the crash, or in nautical terms, "allision," however, argue that Denver caused the crash, that the limitation-of-liability law doesn't apply because he wasn't just the boat's owner, he was its captain, onboard at the time and he had had too much to drink.

In her ruling, Burroughs said that while the limitation case before her remains open, it's pretty obvious that Denver wasn't just a ship owner - he was the "master" of the craft at the time it crashed and so there is "no need for a stay here where the owner was at the helm and it is the negligence of the master, if any, that will drive liability rather than his actions as owner."

In its own motion, the US Attorney's office also asked Burroughs to change her order - but it cited different federal laws: The Rivers and Harbors Act and the Suits in Admiralty Act, which it says gives federal courts exclusive jurisdiction over maritime crashes, and under which it is seeking $300,000 from Denver for the damage the Coast Guard says he caused to the navigational structure.

The government argues that in particular, the Rivers and Harbors Act, which relates to infrastructure in harbors, such as navigational markers, takes precedence over the limitation-of-liability law.

Besides, if Denver or any of the people on the boat should sue the Coast Guard in state court, the government would only seek to have the case moved back into federal court, which would cause unnecessary delays in getting to a final determination of just how much liability Denver should be ordered to have.

To ensure the United States’ rights are protected so that it can prosecute its property damage claim and defend itself against Denver’s liability claims, and to promote judicial economy in determining liability for the accident, the United States requests this Court amend its Order and reinstate the injunction against state court proceedings so that the liability of all parties can be determined by this Court.

Stavros Papantoniadis, still behind bars as he awaits charges that he terrorized and beat employees at his Stash's pizza places in Dorchester and Roslindale, faces new charges that he defrauded a program meant to help small businesses stay afloat during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A federal grand jury in Boston today indicted Papantoniadis, formerly of Westwood but currently of the federal Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, RI, on two counts of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.

Federal authorities charge that Papantoniadis managed to convince the Small Business Administration to give him a $500,000 Economic Injury Disaster Loan on Dec. 28, 2021 to help support the 18 alleged employees he had at his Boston Pizza Company in Randolph - even though he had sold that pizza place several months earlier.

According to the indictment, he had originally sought $1 million, but after the SBA rejected his application on Dec. 4, Papantoniadis convinced his CPA - not named in the indictment - to send in a bogus "certificate of good standing and/or tax compliance" certifying the place was open, in compliance with its state tax obligations. T

he SBA then had authorized the $500,000 loan, which was transferred to Papantoniadis on Jan. 4, 2022, the indictment states.

Papantoniadis was arrested last March on federal forced-labor charges, allegedly because he underpaid the undocumented immigrants he liked to hire, went on frequent tirades against them and in at least two cases beat employees. He allegedly beat one employee, twice, so severely he required surgery.

Although he had once operated pizza places in Boston suburbs, at the time of his arrest, he was only running Stash's on Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester and Belgrade Avenue in Roslindale. His family shut the Roslindale pizzeria but later re-opened it under a new name: Bel Ave.

A couple of days after his arrest, a magistrate judge in US District Court in Boston ordered him held without bail pending trial as a potential threat to the workers he allegedly intimidated and beat. He appealed that decision, but the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston upheld the no-bail ruling.

His trial on the forced-labor charges is currently scheduled for May 20.

Innocent, etc.

Brookline.news reports the woman charged with the Longwood graffiti was recently fired from a job at the MBTA.

The Zoning Board of Appeal today approved a proposal by Elias Akiki to build a four-story, nine-unit residential building at 1015 Hyde Park Ave. in Hyde Park, currently a parking lot and home of one of the larger Madonna shrines on the street.

Akiki will sign an agreement with the city to market one of the units as affordable, his lawyer, Ryan Spitz, said.

The building will have nine parking spaces, seven of them covered.

Through aides, Councilors Enrique Pepén and Erin Murphy supported the proposal.

Craig Martin of the Hyde Park Neighborhood Association said he was not opposed to the proposal except aesthetically.

"Why does this have to be basically a square straight building?" he asked. "There are no unique attributes at all to the building, it's just not attractive." The association as a whole voted to support the proposal.

The Zoning Board of Appeal today approved plans for a total of 15 affordable housing condos on what are now vacant lots on Blue Hill Avenue at Intervale and Brunswick streets.

The city is selling the lots at low cost to developers Norfolk Design & Construction and SMJ Development as part of its Blue Hill Avenue Action Plan to turn vacant lots along the street into housing and retail uses.

The developers are proposing a four-story building with ten condos at Blue Hill Avenue and Brunswick Street and a three-story building with five condos at Blue Hill Avenue and Intervale Street. Both buildings would have ground-floor retail space.

All the units would be sold as affordable split between units to be sold to people making up to 80% of the Boston area median income and people making up to 100% of that level.

The smaller building would be split between 2- and 3-bedroom units; in the larger building, all the units would have one bedroom.

The Zoning Board of Appeal today approved plans by the Conservatory Lab Charter School to add a cafeteria, gym and new classroom to its K1-to-grade-2 school at 131 Hancock St. in Dorchester.

The school is planning to use the roughly 6,000-square-foot addition to its current 19,000-square-foot building as a benefit for its current students, rather than for expanding the number of students, its attorney, Donald Wiest, said. The school has a separate school building for students in grades 3-8.

The school, open to students across Boston, was founded on the belief that musical education should be intergral to academic pursuits," Weist said.

Boston will get its annual pre-Marathon background nuclear radiation check Thursday through Monday, s o that's why you'll see (and hear) a blue and white copter flying loud and low over downtown and the Marathon route and downtown Boston - like 150 feet up at 80 m.p.h.

The Zoning Board of Appeal today rejected plans to expand a two-family house at 847 East 5th St. into a five-unit condo building, saying it was completely out of character with the triple deckers on the rest of the block and had too much parking.

As it did with a smaller redevelopment proposal for the site in 2020, the board rejected the plans without prejudice, which means developer James McClure can come back with revised plans in less than a year.

Board member Hansy Better Barraza said she had no problems with putting five units on the site, but said the way the proposed building was "massed" was not in character with the surrounding neighborhood. "It's a very kind of suburban typology to bring here," she said.

Board member Katie Whewell objected to the seven parking spaces, to be arranged mostly under the building, and the loss of open space on the lot.

Rendering of building's proposed rear, showing decks and some parking:

Direct neighbors, the City Point Neighborhood Association and City Councilor Ed Flynn questioned whether there was enough room for the drivers of parked cars to maneuver to get out of the spaces without causing a menace to pedestrians and children playing nearby, said the building would create a wall right at the property line that would deprive neighbors on both sides of sunlight and fresh air.

"All of our sunlight comes through windows" that would be completely blocked by the new building, one neighbor said.

McClure's attorney, Kevin Cloutier, said BTD raised no objections to the planned parking and said there was enough room that drivers could make a three-point turn and leave the building head on, rather than in reverse. He said McClure specifically put in seven spaces to stave off any concerns from the neighborhood about the proposal causing parking problems on the street.

The Zoning Board of Appeal today approved a developer's plans to convert a six-story office building at 281 Franklin St. into 15 apartments, 3 to be rented as affordable.

Developer Adam Burns needed zoning-board approval because the 1878 building sits in a groundwater-protection district. The board approved the project after Burns's attorney submitted documentation to the city Groundwater Protection Trust that the building would not change the amount of rainwater and melting snow that would "recharge" the ground underneath, rather than flowing into storm sewers. The project did not require any variances.

The $1.6-million conversion project is one of the first under a city pilot that grants tax breaks in an attempt to turn empty downtown office space into residences. Burns is eligible for a 29-year break on property tax for the building, through an abatement of up to 75% of the building's assessed value.

The Boston Fire Department reports construction material on an outside deck of the ninth floor of the 51-story South Station Tower caught fire this morning.

No injuries to report. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Last month, a steel beam fell 20 stories, slamming into a window, but not causing any injuries.

Transit Police this morning released surveillance photos of two men wanted in connection with a stabbing Saturday evening that sent a man to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Boston Police found the victim at Summer and Purchase streets around 6:20 p.m. - and a blood trail that led them to a handicap ramp leading from on Summer Street - where Transit Police say they believe the victim was stabbed.

If either of the two look familiar, contact Transit Police detectives at 617-222-1050 .

The family of Jeanica Julce of Somerville, who drowned in Boston Harbor in 2021 after the speed boat she was a passenger on hit a large, permanent navigational beacon off Spectacle Island, yesterday sued both Ryan Denver, the owner and captain of the Make It Go Away, and the operator of another boat the family charges struck Julce before speeding from the scene.

The second operator, who, unlike Denver is not facing criminal charges for Julce's death, today denied he had struck the woman and, through his lawyer, said he actually helped look for her before leaving to avoid complicating the search by the Coast Guard and local police and firefighters.

The Julce family had been barred from filing a wrongful-death suit until last month, when a federal judge, hearing a case involving how much Denver might have to pay for his liability for the crash under federal maritime law, rescinded a stay she had placed on any state lawsuits related to the case. In addition to Julce, several of the other six passengers on board that morning have claimed serious injuries.

Meanwhile, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Robert Ullman has set trial for Feb. 25 of next year on five criminal charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury and one criminal charge of involuntary manslaughter brought against Denver by the Suffolk County District Attorney's office.

However, prosecutors may be hobbled in a key part of their case because the judge has ruled they cannot use evidence from any black boxes or other devices that might bolster their assertion that Denver was going way too fast around July 17, 2021, when his boat slammed into Daymarker 5, that, in fact, they should be barred from even asserting at all that Denver was speeding.

The remains of the boat were being stored at a MassDOT dry dock in Cohasset on March 16, 2022, when State Police decided to shrink wrap it to protect it, but instead managed to set the boat on fire while using a propane torch to shrink the wrap, completely destroying both it and electronic equipment still on board. Prosecutors had hoped to use data from the devices to prove Denver was powering his boat more than twice as fast as he should have - but Denver's team could not examine the boat and the data after the fire. Also, it turned out that some data-recording equipment that should have been removed from the boat right after it was removed from the water wasn't, so it was exposed to the elements and essentially destroyed even before the fire.

Ullman ruled that while the damage was not intentional, this "carelessness that was negligent or grossly negligent and inadvertence" deprived Denver and his defense team of evidence that might help exonerate him on the speeding question. But rather than throwing out the entire case - in which prosecutors planned to present other evidence not related to speeding - Ullman ruled the answer was to go to trial, but not let prosecutors allege that Denver was going too fast.

In their lawsuit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, Julce's estate, headed by her father, Wilfred, is claiming at least $15 million in damages for her death - against both Denver and Lee Rosenthal of Beverly, whom both he and Denver had previously charge broke his maritime-law responsibility to aid the people in the water when he came upon them. The Julce lawsuit goes even further and alleges that Rosenthal, in fact, steered right into Julce as she struggled in the water and then sped away.

The complaint first lays out the case against Denver:

Upon information and belief, Defendant Ryan Denver consumed alcohol in the Seaport that evening, then piloted the "Make It Go Away" to Marina Bay in Quincy, where he consumed more alcohol. Defendant Ryan Denver was piloting the "Make It Go Away" back to the Seaport from Quincy when his vessel struck Daymarker #5.

Defendant Ryan Denver was operating his vessel at an unsafe speed when he struck Daymarker #5.

Defendant Ryan Denver failed to maintain a proper lookout when he struck Daymarker #5.

Defendant Ryan Denver failed to use and heed his navigational instruments on the "Make It Go Away" when he struck Daymarker #5.

When the "Make It Go Away" struck Daymarker #5, the vessel capsized and all eight (8) people on board went into the water, including Jeanica Julce.

With respect to this incident and the operation of the "Make It Go Away," Jeanica Julce was in no way operating the vessel or under the direction of the Defendant, Ryan Denver, and had no duties or responsibilities with respect to the operation of the vessel; simply stated, Jeanica Julce was a passenger on a vessel being solely operated at the time of the incident by the Defendant, Ryan Denver.

At all material times hereto, and especially during the voyage of the "Make It Go Away" in Boston Harbor as described above, the care and safety of the passengers on the vessel was the responsibility and duty of the Defendant, Ryan Denver.

The complaint continues that the captain of a nearby tugboat saw the aftermath and made a distress call to local harbor authorities - but was unable to help himself because his craft had too deep a draft for the shallower water where they were, near Daymarker 5. The marker is there to warn off larger ships from the shallower waters of Dorchester Bay.

The complaint then turns to the alleged actions of Rosenthal, helming a family boat called Defensive Indifference, who got to the crash, or "allision" scene, before any rescue ships:

Upon arrival at the scene, the Coast Guard noted, "[t]here is a vessel on scene doing laps around the capsized vessel and a person is swimming towards it. The vessel takes off without retrieving anyone from the water." That vessel was the "Defensive Indifference," operated by Defendant Lee Rosenthal.

Upon information and belief, the "Defensive Indifference," struck Jeanica Julce as Defendant Lee Rosenthal was circling the area and/or leaving the area.

Eventually, seven (7) of the people on board the "Make It Go Away" were rescued from the waters of Boston Harbor.

Jeanica Julce was never rescued, and she died in the waters of Boston Harbor that night.

After an extensive search, Jeanica Julce's body was recovered from the bottom of Boston Harbor by divers with the Boston Fire Department. It was noted when her body was located that, initially, identification of the body could not be made because the body needed to be placed in multiple body bags and the Medical Examiner needed to reassemble the body to make an identification.

But for Defendant Lee Rosenthal's negligence, gross negligence, and/or recklessness occurring during the time Jeanica Julce was in the waters of Boston Harbor, Jeanica Julce would not have died on July 17, 2021.

The complaint concludes by blaming both boat operators for Julce's death:

Defendant Lee Rosenthal knew or should have known of the dangers created by his negligence, gross negligence, and/or recklessness.

But for Defendant Ryan Denver's negligence, gross negligence, and/or recklessness, which caused Jeanica Julce to enter the waters of Boston Harbor, Jeanica Julce would not have died on July 17, 2021.

Defendant Ryan Denver knew or should have known of the dangers created by his negligence, gross negligence, and/or recklessness.

Jeanica Julce suffered consciously before she died and died a premature death.

In a statement today, Rosenthal's lawyer denied the "false accusation" that his client in any way contributed to Julce's death:

The filing includes a false accusation regarding Mr. Rosenthal who was found to have no responsibility or involvement by police detectives and rescue personnel who investigated the fatal accident. The at-fault party was charged. The authorities confirmed in the investigation that an individual in the water who was not the victim asked Mr. Rosenthal to look for the young woman, which he did. According to the official police reconstruction, Mr. Rosenthal then "transited away to not interfere with the rescue" as police and fire boats arrived.

Throughout the long legal process, Denver - who has brought his own action against Rosenthal - has repeatedly asserted his complete innocence.

He has argued that whatever happened to Julce and his other passengers was their own fault, through drinking or drugs or anything he had nothing to do with.

And he has suggested that the navigational marker, affixed to the bottom of the harbor and rising some 40 feet above it, must have moved, because he didn't hit it on the way out from the Seaport and he followed the same exact navigational path he took outbound to return inbound. He has also blamed bright lights from two barges doing dredging that night for making the marker impossible to see.

In addition to all the charges and counter charges involving Denver, Rosenthal and the passengers on the Make It Go Away, the Coast Guard wants Denver to pay the $300,000 it says it cost to repair the damage Denver did to the daymarker.

The ruling that allowed the Julce family to sue came in the first legal action filed involving the case - a demand by Denver that his total financial liability be limited to $50,000, the value of what was then left of his boat, before it went up in flames at a marina.

Denver made the demand under an 1851 law designed to protect ship owners from claims involving pirate attacks or bad storms by limiting their liability to the value of whatever was left of their ships, not any of the cargo or people they were carrying.

Julce's family and the survivors who have gone after Denver say that law only applies to ship owners not actually on their ships, and Denver was captaining his boat right up until the moment it hit the daymarker. Also, he's excluded by the "homeport doctrine," which excludes ships being piloted in their local port - in this case, Boston Harbor, since Denver lives and berthed his boat in the Seaport.

The Coast Guard, meanwhile, says its demand is exempted from that law by another maritime law related to harbors and fixed equipment in them, such as permanent navigational markers.

Complete complaint in Julce lawsuit (133k PDF).
Motion in federal case that includes copy of state-court ruling on the boat going up in flames (3.7M PDF).
Federal judge's ruling allowing state suits (259k PDF).

The Newton Beacon reports the boiler had sat, unused, behind several locked doors, for decades with "a 3-inch raised-iron swastika" on it until Mayor Ruthanne Fuller heard about it last week and ordered the symbol ground off.

Mary Ellen spotted this osprey in Squantum yesterday.

The eclipse over Roslindale around 3.08 p.m. (so about 21 minutes from as close as we got to totality).

To get the shot, I ran inside for some duct tape, taped my eclipse glasses to my phone (a Pixel 7), then lowered the brightness almost all the day down.

An earlier effort with our exclusive ColanderVision didn't work so well - unless the sun is actually rectangular in shape:

Johnmcboston captured the eclipse at its peak of perfection:

Handmaid captured some workers today erecting the viewing stands at the Boston Marathon finish line on Boylston Street for next week's annual race.

Seems Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee declared a state of emergency in advance of today's eclipse - and it runs through Wednesday, because who knows what demons the eclipse will unleash, no doubt with claps of thunder and the fiery odor of brimstone?

OK, she claims it's because all the visitors to the state will so badly clog roads that she has to throw money at truckers, which, well, might not be a more cogent explanation - Arkansas might not be Vermont (or New Hampshire or Maine), but it has its share of tourist-drawing events and destinations, so it's not like it shouldn't know how to deal with some extra traffic on the roads.

In any case, we'd suggest a calming few minutes with Darkness at Noon: or the Great Solar Eclipse of the 16th of June, 1806. It's attributed to Andrew Newell and is a guide to what to expect from the first solar eclipse in Boston since its founding nearly a couple centuries earlier.

It explains the science behind eclipses, includes a timeline (the eclipse would start around 9:58:45 a.m., reach "total disappearance of the sun behind the moon" at 11:22:15 and then end completely at 12:46:15 a.m.), cautions readers who want to look at the eclipse to use smoked glass and adds:

In the less enlightened ages of the world, the eclipses of the sun and moon were regarded with surprize and consternation, and as intimations of divine displeasure. Amongst many of the ancients, they were considered as the harbingers of disastrous events, and as indications of some revolution in the physical system of things. But thanks to the progression of science, that whilst we are exempted from the slavery of superstition, we are enabled to predict them with certainty, point out the causes of their aspects and the period of their return.