-- The second Dorchester murder in 48 hours found a man stabbed to death yesterday afternoon in front of a home on Geneva Ave. [BPDNews] -- A man was shot last night on Algonquin St. in Dorchester. He remains in critical condition at Boston Medical Center. [BPDNews] -- A man on Gayhead St. in Jamaica Plain was pummeled with a tire iron by thugs who had been breaking into his car, according to police. [BPDNews]......

-- A car chase and gun battle ended yesterday evening in Cambridge when a man toting a .45-caliber handgun slipped out of his bullet-perforated car and into the waiting arms of police. The man was allegedly involved in a series of shootings that twisted through the streets of East Cambridge, stretching down Pine St. and up Main St. to Bishop Allen Dr. Three different crime scenes were established, and authorities believe that somebody fired upon......

--A man died in a shooting at King Arthur's Lounge (aka strip joint) in Chelsea last night. Two other men were wounded. The Herald suggests that a woman may have been involved with the shooting. The story of strippers with guns is a B-movie waiting to happen. [Boston Herald, background on King Arthur's: Universal Hub] --In a particularly bold bank robbery, a single robber with a gun tied up four people at the East Cambridge......

--More snow on the way tonight! Get your space-savers ready! [WBZ] --Danny Ainge and Robert Kraft are Mitt Men. [Boston Herald] --Another fire, this time at a nursing home in Jamaica Plain early this morning. But a heroic rescue team managed to get a resident who was suffering a heart attack out of harm's way, and no one else got hurt. [WHDH] --Police are still looking for the remains of the man who died......

--The Commish Ed Davis - DA Dan Conley back-and-forth continues. Davis put out a three-page letter explaining why the State Police shouldn't be working on MBTA or transit-related homicides. The State Police doesn't appear to give a crap whether they are working on those homicides or not. But the transit police chief has taken Conley's side and said they would like state police on those cases. Of course, the time it took Conley to develop......

There’s nothing subtle about the sign outside the Mayflower Poultry Company in East Cambridge: “Live Poultry, Fresh Killed,” it proclaims across the silhouette of a sunny yellow (and presumably doomed) chicken. We picked up a whole chicken at Mayflower’s butcher shop to see if a freshly killed chicken is better than our usual supermarket bird. The shop is simple and unassuming, with most of the space devoted to chicken, although they do also sell a......

--The BPD blotter writer had reason to be confused yesterday afternoon because something happened, only the BPD isn't exactly sure what it was. Here's what they know: In Brighton, two witnesses claim they saw three people "wearing sweaters, camouflaged clothing, and ski masks drag a white male off the sidewalk and push him into a van." The witnesses got a description of the car and a license plate number, but the BPD blotter writer is......

--The last thing we need, especially with a presidential election coming up, is for someone to add fuel to the flag-burning debate. On Thursday, someone in Natick destroyed a solar-powered trash container by stuffing it with American flags and setting them on fire. The person who did it must be trying to offend as many people as possible - the left by wrecking an environmental device, and the right by burning flags. We are all......

The body of an MIT student who went missing washed up on Scusset Beach and was discovered on Friday. Authorities had a "difficult time identifying the body," but it was that of Daniel Barclay, who had been missing from MIT since April 8. According to the MIT Tech, an autopsy was performed, and the DA for the Cape said "there were no obvious signs of trauma on the body." The MIT Tech reported that he......

Trolley service recently returned to the Lechmere station, replacing the bus service that had been the temporary replacement beyond North Station. Somervillionaires are debating the stops and length of an anticipated northern expansion of the Green Line. Today, in the latest Green Line development, ground was broken on North Point NorthPoint (hip one-word version, just like Charlie.) The construction project is a fairly intuitive idea – build housing where there's already transportation. It's easier, given......

The Society of Typographic Aficionados' annual gathering kicks off today at the Hyatt Regency. Though Bostonist harbors a lifelong love of typography, our wallets lack the $135-$345 of love required to attend TypeCon2006—punnily titled "The Boston T Party," as if they're going to throw crates of Comic Sans into the harbor. Fortunately, TypeCon is offering some free love in a slew of special events that you can sign up for here, and the schedule......

Call it performance art. Call it comedy of irony. Call it, well, that’s the point. The Institute for Infinitely Small Things has begun the Initiative for the Renaming of Names in Cambridge. Through 13 separate renaming expeditions, they’ll compile a new nomenclature for the entire city of Cambridge. From what we see we’re not quite sure if they’re going to breach the sanctity of the every-other-block memorial square, but Porter is certainly fair game.......

Boston and environs are trying like hell to be high-tech friendly. Mayor Menino wants to have wireless internet throughout the city. The governor wants to hype Massachusetts as a the go-to place for tech and biotech companies. And businesses left and right are scrambling to offer wi-fi. So what's a neighborhood bar in East Cambridge supposed to do to stand out from the crowd? The Courtside has the answer: Don't just have the wi-fi; be......

Bostonist has long found that making fun of New Jersey is like shooting fish in a barrel, except better, because we don't like handling guns. So we can't help but mention the fact that the Garden State has abandoned its second slogan in as many years. The first slogan, "We Will Win You Over," was scrapped by the governor at the time because "it reminded him too much of when he was single and asked......

Governor Romney announced a plan yesterday to hype the business and research assets of Massachusetts to the world, an effort meant to draw more companies, jobs, etc. to our fair Commonwealth. Bostonist can't argue with this, but we think a crucial element is missing: a slogan for Massachusetts. Sure, we have our tourist slogan - "The spirit of Massachusetts is the spirit of America" - but that doesn't really speak to our high-tech nerd cachet,......

When Bostonist read last week that some road signs for state routes in Easthampton were accidentally set against the silhouette of Alabama, we thought it was amusing: Alabama is funny, that's all there is to it, and Alabama road signs in our deep-blue Commonwealth are even funnier. We learned from the news today, however, that at least one man fails to see the humor, not only in the Alabama signs but in any wrong, blocked,......

If you have a pulse and have lived in the Boston area for any significant period of time, it's hard to miss the fact that things are changing. As the powers-that-be taut "New Boston" initiatives, revitalization efforts have been focused on our urban centers with the effect of -- whether intentionally or not -- accelerating gentrification in once neglected neighborhoods like Roxbury, Charlestown, or Dorchester. Perhaps one of the most effected has been Somerville --......