Cambridge firefighters responded to MIT's Building 18 at 21 Ames St. after hydrogen burst into flames inside a hood shortly before 12:30 p.m.

The fire, in Rm. 121 on the first floor, forced the evacuation of the entire building.

Firefighters reported the fire was knocked down shortly after 12:40 p.m.

The City Council today rejected a resolution by Councilors Ed Flynn (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, Downtown) and Erin Murphy (at large) calling on the state to take over the city election department because of Election Day problems that included numerous precincts across the city running out of ballots.

Councilors who opposed the measure said they want to give election officials a chance to formally respond to the complaints first - at a hearing scheduled for 2 p.m. at Dec. 6 - before asking for such a drastic step. And they noted that the Secretary of State's office is currently conducting its own investigation into what went wrong in Boston on Nov. 5.

Among those voting against the proposed resolution was Councilor John FitzGerald (Dorchester) who said he wants to hear from election officials first even though "the fact of the matter is the Election Department screwed up pretty bad, right, and throughout the city."

"It seems to be a bit abrupt and hostile to just go into state receivership," Councilor Julia Mejia (at large) said.

Flynn asked for immediate passage of the resolution despite the scheduling of a formal hearing next month. That prompted Councilor Benjamin Weber (Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury) to ask why Flynn was insistent on holding up funds for "lead paint hazard reduction" until after a hearing was held "but we would not need a hearing on whether or not to send a city department into state receivership."

Flynn said the difference was he was proposing a non-binding resolution, not a formal hearing.

Councilors Breadon, Durkan, FitzGerald, Pepén, Santana, Weber and Worrell voted against the resolution. Flynn and Murphy voted yes. Coletta Zapata, Fernandes Anderson, Louijeune and Mejia voted "present."

Earlier in the meeting, Flynn lost votes, both by 12-1, to block acceptance of federal grants that would go to renovating facilities used as emergency shelters for undocumented immigrants, because, he said, he wanted to have hearings on them first.

The Boston Licensing Board decides tomorrow whether to let the landlord of the defunct Sons of Boston/Loyal 9 buy its liquor license as it looks for a more food-oriented restaurant operator to re-open the troubled space.

At a hearing today, Cypress Realty Group attorney Adam Barnosky said that as part of a settlement between the family of Daniel Martinez and the now former owners of the bar over his death at the hands of Sons of Boston bouncer Alvara Larrama, Martinez's family will get all of the proceeds of the sale of the bar's liquor license. Over the past year, the value of a full liquor license in Boston has risen to more than $600,000.

Sons of Boston tried to erase the stain of Martinez's stabbing with a name change, but the new Loyal Nine shut earlier this year, and the board indefinitely suspended its liquor license after an incident in which video appeared to show the bar's manager attempting to strangle his drunken girlfriend in his basement office.

Barnosky said Cypress is currently negotiating a letter of intent with the owner of an "experienced, local food-focused restaurant" to take over the Sons of Boston space. He said he hopes to see a lease "finalized in the next few months," after which the new operator would come before the board for approval of its use of the liquor license.

Barnosky added that the new operator, whoever it is, will have no connection at all with the Sons of Boston/Loyal Nine operators.

Cambridge Day reports a man was shot several times around 12:45 a.m. in the Port neighborhood.

City Councilor Benjamin Weber (Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury) today recited Martin Niemöller's poem before introducing Haitian-American pastor Keke Fleurissaint to open the council's meeting with an invocation.

Weber, the council's only Jewish member, first said he objects to people trivializing the Holocaust, such as a Republican congressman who last year compared Direct TV's elimination of Newsmax to the murder of 6 million Jews, but continued:

With talk of mass deportations, construction of detention centers, stripping of funding for affordable housing and public schools and threats issued to anyone who may try to stand in the way, I will keep the lessons Martin Niemöller learned at the front of my mind. That is one of the reasons why I am glad we have Pastor Keke with us today. Pastor Keke represents a Haitian community that is vital to the city of Boston. and if the Trump administration comes for them, I hope we have the strength to speak out and act.

Mayor Wu recently re-asserted Boston's role as a sanctuary city and, like Gov. Healy, has vowed to fight the incoming Trump administration's plans for concentration camps to hold immigrants - possibly including people who were actually born in the US - before sending them out of the country.

Trump's proposed "border czar" called Wu "not very smart."

The Supreme Judicial Court today overturned the convictions of a man for a murder on Deering Road in Mattapan in which he drove the killer - who has never been found or publicly identified - to and from the scene.

Dewane Tse of Providence was convicted in 2022 for a triple shooting in 2018 that left Yashua Amado dead. Two days before the Aug. 18 shooting, Tse had rented a red SUV. Around 9:45 a.m. that morning, he then followed Amado down Blue Hill Avenue to Deering Road where another man got out and opened fire, after which that man got back in the vehicle and Tse drove away.

Suffolk County prosecutors convinced a Suffolk Superior Court jury that even if the actual gunman has never been located, Tse was guilty of first-degree murder and armed assault with intent to murder on a legal theory known as "joint venture," in which somebody who contributes to the planning or pre-shooting events leading up to a murder is as guilty as the person who actually pulls the trigger.

But in its ruling today, the state's highest court concluded prosecutors did not actually make the case beyond a reasonable doubt that Tse knew what his passenger was planning before he opened fire, or even that he knew the man had a gun.

Because we agree that there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew of or shared his alleged coventurer's intent, we reverse the defendant's convictions of murder in the first degree and armed assault with intent to murder.

At Tse's trial, witnesses said they got at least a partial look at the shooter as he approached the car in which Amado sat, which ruled out Tse, because the shooter was "not obese," while Tse was 5'8" and weighed more than 300 lbs., or as one BPD detective described him, looking like he was "carrying a ten-month baby high [in] his belly," according to the court's summary of the case.

In order to convict Tse for first-degree murder, the court said, prosecutors had to show that "the defendant knowingly participated in the commission of the crime charged, and that the defendant had or shared the required criminal intent."

Prosecutors told the jury that the way Tse maneuvered his rented SUV to follow Amado, in his car, to Deering Road, was proof that Tse "knew of and shared the unidentified shooter's lethal intent."

But, the court wrote, this argument rested on "a chain of speculative assertions," not hard facts.

"The Commonwealth did not present direct evidence of the defendant's lethal intent or evidence that, at any point, the defendant was a witness to, or participant in, the shooting," the court wrote. "[T]he Commonwealth did not offer other evidence as to interactions or communications between the shooter and the defendant from which an inference of knowledge or shared lethal intent could be drawn, including any evidence as to whether the defendant knew that his purported passenger was armed."

In its arguments before the state's highest court, prosecutors said the length of time Tse followed Amado's car - some 13 minutes - was more than enough for a "rational jury" to conclude that Tse was out for more than a ride around the neighborhood that day, especially as it included making a U-turn on Blue Hill Avenue and at one point slamming on the brakes to avoid hitting another car as Tse continued to try to follow Amado's car - based on surveillance video from a variety of sources in the area, including BPD surveillance cameras and a passing MBTA bus.

But the court did not buy that that was the sort of exacting proof one would need to send somebody away for the rest of his life without any chance at parole:

The necessary leap between the defendant's inferred intent to cause harm and the defendant's inferred intent to cause lethal harm cannot, without more, be supported by the evidence offered by the Commonwealth.

And so, the court wrote:

Accordingly, we conclude that the evidence against the defendant was legally insufficient to support his convictions of murder in the first degree and armed assault with intent to murder. We therefore reverse those judgments, set aside the verdicts, and remand the case to the Superior Court for entry of required findings of not guilty.

The Zoning Board of Appeal yesterday approved a billboard company's plan to replace the rusted old billboards down the hill from the Madonna Queen of the Universe Shrine on Rte. 1A in East Boston with a double-sided electronic signboard, after hearing from residents and elected officials that the plan would remove a local eyesore and help fund the religious order that owns the property.

The board last year rejected the proposal twice. Both times, the board actually voted 4-3 in favor, but state law requires 5 votes to approve variances. The company, Maverick Media, sued - but agreed to dismiss its suit this past July.

After yesterday's hearing, in which the company said it would agree to landscape the parcel and keep it clean for the entirety of its 30-year lease, and to use "light blocking" technology that would beam its messages only at drivers on the highway, the board voted 6-1 to approve variances for its plans for a 14 1/2 x 48-foot two-sided billboard on a single pole, with the top about 60 feet high. The company's attorney, James Costello, added that the "mountain" on which the shrine and surrounding homes sit is 100 feet high, so that would further ensure residents don't suddenly get ads frying their eyes.

Former City Councilor Sal LaMattina has lived up the hill from the current rusted structures, which used to advertise the shrine, for 30 years now. And the site has been "driving me crazy for 30 years," he said. He added, "people have been dumping on that hill for many, many years and it's really frustrating."

Current district City Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata, at-large Councilor Erin Murphy, state Sen. Lydia Edwards and state Rep. Adrian Madaro all supported the proposal, the rent from which would help the Sons of Divine Providence, which owns the shrine and the land down the hill to Rte. 1A.

One resident, however, opposed the plans. Gail Miller, of Orient Avenue, said the site is in a conservation district and that while she would not oppose replacing the current billboards with identical, if less rusty, structures, the new electronic board would harm the wildlife that thrives on the hill now. And she said the religious order doesn't really need money, because it just sold a nursing home it owned for $10 million. "I think they're pretty flush if I may say so," she said, adding that while the Orient Heights Neighborhood Council voted to support the proposal, it only did so in a 7-6 vote.

Costello praised Miller as being like "a tiger up on the hill," but added, "I just think she's wrong on this."

There are no protected species on the hill and the city's conservation code in this case is a recommendation for minimizing environmental harm, not an outright ban, he said, adding that he could not think of a better place for a billboard than on the side of that stretch of Rte. 1A, a busy roadway with no homes along it. And the billboard company's maintenance will mean the end of "rats the size of cats and coyotes that are residing in this mountain," he said.

Board member Hansy Better Barraza, who voted against the proposal last year but voted for it yesterday, asked why the Sons of Divine Providence have never maintained the land. Jeff Turco, the order's attorney, said it had simply been pressed with other issues, such as trying to maintain the land around the shrine at the top of the hill. He said neighbors knew the order was struggling financially and so none pressed the brothers on cleaning up the eyesore at the bottom of the hill.

The sign needed variances for being within 660 feet of a highway, its size and being in a conservation district. Costello said the proposal legally deserved variances because its unusual topography - a small flat area next to a steep slope - means there's nothing else that could be built there.

Member Katie Whewell cast the lone no vote, because, she said, the new sign was far larger than the two billboards it would replace.

The Zoning Board of Appeal today rejected a non-profit group's plans to convert a Shawmut Avenue office building into affordable apartments because it would have one apartment on the first floor despite being in Boston's coastal flood resilience overlay district, where residences are supposed to be higher than that in anticipation of flooding as sea levels continue to rise and storms become more fierce.

The board's vote, however, will likely only delay, not stop, Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción's proposal to convert space inside 403-405 Shawmut Ave. into six apartments, all to be rented at affordable rates.

The board denied the proposal "without prejudice," which means the non-profit can come back in less than a year with a new proposal, for example, one in which the building only has five residential units, on the upper floors, or it somehow rejiggers its plans to fit six units above the ground level and its anticipated possible flood level in the coming decades.

"This is coming as a bit of a surprise," IBA attorney Jacob Taylor said.

The overlay district, adopted in 2019, covers parts of the city from East Boston to Dorchester that could experience significant ocean, or in some cases, river, flooding in the future.

The IBA proposal was part of a larger package reviewed by the zoning board, in which IBA also sought approval to do extensive renovations on several buildings in the South End in which it already rents affordable units, from roof replacements to kitchen and electrical upgrades.

Those projects, along with the Shawmut Avenue proposal, needed separate zoning-board approval because they sit in another "overlay district" in which new buildings or large renovation projects have to be certified as not affecting the amount of rainwater that percolates into the ground. That water is necessary to keep the wooden pilings that support so many buildings in the South End, the Back Bay and Bay Village from drying out, which could lead to rotting.

The board approved all of the projects, including the Shawmut Avenue one, as compliant with the city's groundwater-conservation regulations.

A federal judge last week sentenced Royal Benjamin, 64, to five years in prison for robbing a phone store at gunpoint in Jamaica Plain last year - after the clerk refused to buy the two pairs of new Puma sneakers Benjamin carried in, which he'd acquired by robbing somebody at the Downtown Crossing T station.

Benjamin has been getting into trouble with the law since he was 15 - his lawyer suggested he started in part because he was a Black teen growing up in Roxbury where he was exposed to both constant drug use and the virulence of White hatred for Black teens during the busing crisis.

His sentences include 10 years in Alabama for armed robbery, although he escaped and never served that time and 18 to 20 years for manslaughter, for a 1982 incident in which he helped his brother murder a cab driver in Dorchester - the two and a third man split the $7 that was all the driver had on him at the time; the brother got life. He's also served time for another armed robbery, simple robbery and possession of cocaine, according to court filings. And although he was never formally charged, he admitted to holding up a credit union not long before the Jamaica Plain robbery that got him arrested most recently.

In a sentencing memorandum, assistant US Attorney David Tobin described what happened inside JP Wireless, 319 Centre St., as the clerk was getting ready to close up for the day on March 20, 2023 and Benjamin walked in, holding a bag with two pairs of new, freshly stolen Pumas:

When the store employee stated he did not want to buy the sneakers, Mr. Benjamin moved toward the store exit but then turned around, removed a firearm from his waistband, and rushed behind the counter, pointing the handgun at the store employee (when the handgun believed to have been used by Mr. Benjamin was seized by police ... it was loaded with approximately seven bullets). Once behind the counter, Mr. Benjamin approached the register, and took $594.00 in U.S. currency that was sitting on top of the register. The money was sitting on top of the register because prior to the robbery, the store employee had been in the process of closing the store.

Mr. Benjamin then opened the cash register drawer and removed the drawer. He dropped the drawer and its contents on the ground and left it there (Mr. Benjamin's fingerprints were located on the cash register drawer). Mr. Benjamin then fled the store, threatening to harm and shoot the store employee, stating, "I'll fuck you up. I'll fucking shoot you."

Tobin urged US District Court Judge Indira Talwani to sentence Benjamin to 7 1/2 years in prison - the top of the sentencing range based on a variety of factors, including his past record and his decision to plead guilty - arguing that Benjamin has proven himself a menace to society over a more than 40-year crime career, and that he has proven to be the exception to the rule that criminals tend to be less likely to return to crime the older they get:

In determining what sentence most accurately reflects the seriousness of Mr. Benjamin's crime, the court should consider his lengthy criminal record and his failure to learn anything from long periods of incarceration. The government's recommendation of a sentence of not less than 87-months accurately reflects the seriousness of Mr. Benjamin's crime.

The court's sentence must promote respect for the law and the federal criminal justice system. A sentence of less than 87-months would fail to promote respect for the law or the federal criminal justice system. The undersigned suspects that the vast majority of Americans would be offended by a sentence of less than 87-months given the facts of this case and Mr. Benjamin's extensive violent criminal record.

Benjamin's attorney, Joshua Hanye, however, called for the five-year sentence Talwani meted out, which he said would recognize the harm Benjamin did but also the difficulties he has faced in life - and his age:

In addition to the busing crisis, Benjamin has suffered from a lifelong drug addiction that started as he grew up on the mean streets of Roxbury, then escalated during the 1980s crack epidemic, Hanye wrote. And Massachusetts state courts and prison system never helped him get into addiction programs even as he kept getting arrested and sentenced, he continued.

But in his early 60s, after his release from yet another sentence in 2019 and on his own, Benjamin managed to get sober for the first time in a long time and actually held some jobs as he stayed sober for three straight years - until he relapsed and began using crack again, leading him to commit more crime, he wrote.

In the federal system, once he is released to three year's probation, he will have access to programs to help him maintain a drug- and crime-free life, Hanye wrote.

Mr. Benjamin will be approximately 70 years old when released. His advanced age, the lessons of his past success, the supervision of probation, and the support of his loved ones will all put him in the best position to finally end the cycle of addiction and offending for good.

Inside Higher Education reports the university is blaming the recent strike by existing graduate students for making its programs too expensive to run.

[T]he programs not accepting Ph.D. students for next academic year are American and New England studies, anthropology, classical studies, English, history, history of art and architecture, linguistics, philosophy, political science, religion, Romance studies, and sociology.

The Zoning Board of Appeal today approved plans by serial North End restaurant owner Frank DePasquale to add a second floor to the vacant strip of storefronts on Cross Street between Hanover and Salem street so he can open a series of businesses keyed to Italian culture - including a cooking school to be run with an existing culinary institute in Italy, aimed at both people looking at restaurant careers and residents and even elementary-school students who just want to learn more about Italian cooking.

DePasquale, who bought the block - 60-80 Cross St. - for $8 million last year, is also planning a two-story restaurant and cafe with large windows overlooking the Greenway and seasonal outdoor dining, as well as an Italian clothing store and an Italian furniture store, his attorney, William Ferullo, told the board at a hearing today.

Among those supporting the proposal: State Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, who, through an aide, said he "can't think of any better proponent" to ensure the rebirth of the blighted block at the main gateway to the North End.

However, the project was opposed by residents of a neighboring condo building on Salem Street, who said the building would block their light and air and views of the Greenway. One pointed specifically to a rooftop HVAC unit shown directly next to a window of one of the two units she owns. Residents also said they're concerned about proposed changes to their fire-escape egress in the event of an emergency, which relies on an easement carried with the Cross Street property.

Ferullo and Pisani said their plans would actually make emergency escape easier. Currently, people fleeing on the fire escape have to take a fire escape down to the roof of the one-story building then walk across that and climb down a 15-foot ladder to the street. Their plans call for providing emergency entrance to rooftop doors on their buildings, where residents could then walk down a safe stairway to the street.

They added that in response to neighbor concerns, DePasquale agreed to eliminate the third floor he had originally proposed and that taller buildings across the Greenway do more to shade the Salem Street building than anything their building would do.

The project needed several variances, including for being too close to its rear property line, adding a roof deck and adding another floor.

The board's approval came with a condition that Pisani work with the Boston Planning Department to both fine tune the general exterior - to possibly add some design elements that better match the neighborhood's existing brick esthetic to the overall glass design - and to work specifically on reducing the impact on residents in the Salem Street building.

The restaurant/cafe proposal will also need approval from the Boston Licensing Board - including its hours, which Ferullo said would include a 1 a.m. closing time inside and 11 p.m. on its proposed patios.

Cara Wehmhoefer reports she pulled into the parking lot on Enneking Parkway in Stony Brook Reservation - the one across from the baseball field - yesterday and saw a chicken that had apparently already crossed the road. And then she called Boston Animal Care and Control:

Big shoutout to Boston Animal Control for coming to rescue this lone chicken wandering by the Stony Brook parking lot entrance today.

With the help of some corralling and some stealthy net skills she now gets a second chance at a new life and will no longer be a snack for the local coyotes.

An elderly couple at home on 35 Dennison St. in Roxbury were attacked by one of their four dogs, which mauled the woman so badly she was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries to her arm, around 4:30 p.m.

Arriving officers applied a tourniquet to her arm, barely still attached to her body, to try to contain the bleeding until Boston EMTs and paramedics could arrive. But the woman, 70, was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Not long after officers arrived, according to a recording of scanner traffic from the scene, the dog went after officers, biting two, one of whom who shot the dog to stop the attack. The dog did not immediately die, but it did stop biting.

Animal Control was called in to deal with both the shot dog and three other dogs in the house.

BostonTimelapse looked out of his South Boston window towards the Blue Hills Reservation around 7:50 tonight and saw the red-hued smoke from brush fires in the park. He reports that an hour later, the fires, or at least the glow from them, had died down.

Kristen Eck at WBZ has some video from directly overhead the fires, in the part of the reservation in Milton.

The National Weather service is still calling for "much needed widespread, meaningful rain late Wed night into Thu."

Mary Ellen was down in Plymouth this morning and spotted an eagle eating breakfast atop Flag Rock and a dolphin swimming nearby. And then a lobster boat puttered by.

More (caveat: some blood and guts):

The Attleboro Sun-Chronicle reports a man was arrested over the weekend on charges he set a series of brush fires in the city - and that he is a s suspect in a fire set not long before his arrest.

Court records show he was formally charged with three counts of burning land, trees, lumber or produce, each of which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison, for fires set across the city last Tuesday.

At his arraignment today, the 72-year-old man was ordered held at the Bristol County House of Correction after failing to come up with the $1,000 cash bail a judge set, records show.

Science IRL explains the ginormous Osage oranges (which are not actual oranges) that litter the ground at the Arboretum, waiting, like Puff for little Jackie Paper, for woolly mammoths that will never come again:

H/t PonderStibbons.

WBUR reports. Possible opponents include City Councilor Ed Flynn and Josh Kraft.