This is a story tailor-made for the Herald: The Mass Pike has changed a long-standing but secretive policy that allowed toll collectors to carry .38-caliber handguns. The union that represents these workers plans to oppose the rule change, saying they need the weapons for protection when transporting toll money away from the booths. State Senator Steve Baddour told the Herald: “It’s absurd. The last time I saw a toll taker carrying a gun was when......

Photo credit: sniderscion Torontoist spent its week uncovering who was behind mysterious ads for a drug called "Obay" that popped up across the country (Scientology? Frank Shepard Fairey?), first tracing them to an advocacy group called Colleges Ontario and then confirming their suspicions a few days later.Phillyist learned how to put on a puppet show – it's not as easy as you might think!Shanghaiist discovers that the average starting monthly pay for fresh graduates......

--Are you freaking out over the fact that the St. Patrick's Day parade falls on the same day as Palm Sunday, March 16? 'Cause the press sure seems to be making a fuss. [Boston Herald, Boston Globe] --The local papers are bombarding us with Foreclosure Doom. Foreclosures in Massachusetts are up 128% in January. Bus tours of foreclosed homes might reflect a corresponding increase. [Boston Globe] --A Globe blog post headlined "Suburbs, the future......

derequito grabbed some great shots of the Chinese New Year festivities in Chinatown this past Sunday. This photo perfectly captures the noise, smoke, and general activity of the day. Happy Year of the Rat!......

-- The Bridgewater man being sought by police for the murder of his ex-wife was found dead last night, an apparent suicide. Andrew Boisvert was found hanging in an Iredell County, North Carolina rest stop. He was fleeing Friday's warrant for his arrest in the murder of Medford resident Margaret Ninos, who was found beaten to death in her home on Wednesday. A North Carolina rest stop worker discovered Boisvert's body hanging from a tree.......

Chinese New Year Harvard Square is celebrating the Year of the Rat with a Lion Dance Parade. Perhaps even more meaningful for some Cambridge residents, the Hong Kong (yay scorpion bowl!) is holding an open house in honor of its 54th anniversary. But be aware that they are having a craft party, not a scorpion bowl party. 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm, free. Art Instruction You've seen the MFA's British Prints show, and you......

bartendermagic_com grabbed this fantastic action shot while out on a recent photo walk/Flickr meet-up. Organized by the Boston Photo Mob group on Flickr, they are planning on meeting again for the Chinese New Year Parade on February 17th. Head on over to the group for more info if you're interested in joining.......

SFist worried over drugstore chain Walgreens celebration of Black History Month.Gothamist was surprised that apparently New York City is the fourth most miserable city in the country, after Detroit, Stockton, CA, and Flint, MI.Shanghaiist finds out what the Chinese think of Hilary and Obama.It was with a healthy amount of schadenfreude that Phillyist reported that former Eagle, and now Cowboy (ew), Terrell Owens owes the Eagles a significant wad of cash.Torontoist is two weeks......

After opening stores in Taiwan, Dunkin' Donuts is breaking into the Chinese market. The company announced that it plans to open 100 restaurants in the city over the next 10 years. Shanghai residents will get all the good things we get from Dunkies, and they won't even have to deal with Rachael Ray. The company will also sell "green tea and honeydew melon doughnuts, as well as mochi rings, which are similar to cake doughnuts......

Mike of The Food Monkey shares his thoughts about cooking, food history, restaurant trends, and any other Epicurean issues. He promises to discuss what tastes good, but not always what is in good taste. For more on consuming the opponents and other food news, go to the Food Monkey website. To contact Mike, go to the Food Monkey's contact page. After a long hiatus filled with flurries, football, food, and fireworks, I resume my series......

Torontoist discovered their city's most ridiculous holiday lights setup, with 80,000 lights and two––two!––synchronized music routines. Naturally, they snagged a video. Chicago tragically loses one of its most recognizable neighborhood icons, the pigeon man of Lincoln Square. LAPD leaves body in car at crash scene, then tows it. Massachusetts plus mullet equals PR mayhem. Londonist sleeps in a Haunted plague pit. UC Berkeley students strip naked and race through campus, NSFW floppiness ensues. Phillyist......

-- 18 protesters were arrested during yesterday's Veterans Day ceremony at City Hall Plaza. They were members of Veterans for Peace, an organization of former soldiers opposed to the Iraq War. The American Legion had placed the group in the rear of the Veterans Day parade and told them that they could not carry signs protesting the war. The Veterans for Peace responded by blocking the official ceremony podium with gags in their mouths and......

Fun Fun Fun Fest 2007 Recap from Super!Alright! on Vimeo. Austinist attended a town hall meeting about proposed noise ordinances that could undermine the city's future as the Live Music Capital of the World, and lamented the possible loss of Texas's only feminist bookstore. Throughout the week, they interviewed a bunch of indie fashion designers and D-I-Y websites—Etsy, Ornamental Things, 31 Corn Lane, and Aorta Designs—for the upcoming Stitch Fashion Show. They also did......

Movember madness continues with Bostonist taking great leaps to link the Top Ten Mustaches of all time with our own fine city. Bet you never knew we had so many mustache connections, even beyond Wade Boggs. 1. Burt Reynolds Mr. Reynolds has apparently played a Boston policeman in not just one but two ridiculous movies you've never heard of. Score two for the force! 2. Tom Selleck Tom Selleck went out on a limb to......

--Shooting broke out in the parking lot of Dorchester's Holy Tabernacle Church on Washington Street last night--during a packed worship session. An unidentified person was shot in the shoulder. --Emmanuel Greene, 22, of Dorchester, was not happy when he picked up his Chinese food at Chung Wah on Bowdoin Street last night. A Safe Street Team spotted him kicking a door because some kind of mixup happened with his order. Greene said that he didn't......

Talk about adding insult to injury. Not only did the Big Dig contractors bleed the state of money and do a crappy job, but one of them somehow obtained two of Chinatown's "Foo Dogs" during a renovation of Chinatown park. From the Herald: The marble foo dogs, sometimes called lions - which once stood guard under the Beach Street arch leading visitors to Chinatown - were taken by Paul Pedini, a former vice president of......

Bostonist received a particularly heartwarming Christmas gift last year, one that we proudly showed off whenever we could. Our Friends of Mel bracelet was too large for our dainty wrist, but a modification - we turned it into a necklace - gave us a conversation jewelry piece that was also fighting breast cancer. Good times, until we learned Friday that our FoM piece - along with about 200,000 - was subject of a recall because......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

The nailbiting, the pacing, the swearing, the chainsmoking - they all end tonight. Except maybe at Tommy Heinsohn's house. Tonight, we find out the next step in the Celtics' drive back to relevance. Will Danny Ainge swing one of the deals we've heard about? Will we be welcoming Kevin Garnett (no way), Shawn Marion (probably not), Dikembe Mutombo (possible) or Bill Telfair? Or will Danny stand pat and actually use his #5 pick to draft......

Former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney's name translated in Chinese might mean "Sticky Rice." State Secretary William Galvin says the federal guv'mint wants the names of presidential candidates to be printed in Chinese characters on ballots in areas where the primary language is Chinese. That sounds like such a good idea that it probably should have been done a long time ago. But translating an American name into Chinese characters isn't exactly easy......

Many great cities across these lands of ours are excited and happy to boast when they have one arts festival ready to go for its citizens and visitors. But Boston? An arts festival? That's too easy. What we do is plan a whole slew of 'em and work them all into the same weekend. Take THAT, other so-called culture centers! Bostonist will be telling you over the next couple of days about some of the......

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. Torontoist Special Report: Rosie to Trump: "Fire 300 Bicyclists for Fraud!" On DCist: Students Go Wild for Slogans, Secrets and Sexual Harassment The action was thick......

We're guessing most of you are hungover from St. Patrick's Day. We are too. But still, we're going to muddle on through our green haze and give you (drum roll please...) this Week In -ists. We start with SFist which broke the -ist record for comments with nearly 500 comments on a post about our Mayor's girlfriend. She responded back on charges that she's not a "girl's girl" and, whoo boy-- the floodgates? They......

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't officially start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... Over at Sampaist, spring has more than sprung: it's sweltering! But, as everyone knows, museums are an ideal......

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur,......

Valentine's Day is only a few days away, and we here across the network wanted to express would like to tell you, in the spirit of the holiday, just how much we love you, our readers. Don't let it get to your heads, though. There are plenty of things we love, you included. Just be glad you're not amongst the things we hate. SFist saw their beloved mayor enter rehab, and they loved the opportunity......

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. Londonist HQ—that is to say, the city of London—was battered by heavy winds, making it a bad time to be a twelve-meter (nearly forty-foot) tall snowman. Still, not everyone decided to keep warmly covered. Meanwhile, back indoors, the Big Brother racism is now causing all kinds of headaches for international diplomats, and Londonist got into......

We don't know about you, but it's been friggin warm out there. Well, not for some of you. It seems as though places that are supposed to be cold are warm and places that are supposed to be warm are cold. Or maybe that's just us. Either way, it's just confusing. Austinist said goodbye to their co-editor (sell-out) and played rumor monger on the SXSW lineup. And when dozens of dead birds littered downtown......

At least the Whole Foods stores in Cambridge. Today, Tuesday, January 9 the Whole Foods Markets in the three Cambridge locations will be donating 5% of their sales to Cambridge Housing Assistance Fund. Whole Foods runs these five percent giving days (they call them CommUnity Giving Days) to benefit local charities from time to time, but it's great when the benefit helps to even the playing field a little bit. Cambridge Housing Assistance Fund (CHAF)......

With visions of sugar plum fairies dancing through their heads, the -Ists began to get into that holiday mood. Well, some did. Austinist wasn't as the NY Times dissed them and a local Tex-Mex institution sold out. Making them feel better was music, sweet music and the local theater getting name checked on "Heroes" Chicagoist tried to wrap their heads around a religious movie being banned from a Christmas themed park. To wash that......