-- Boston police conducted a massive crackdown on the city's gangs, arresting nearly 50 suspected offenders on Friday. The sweep included the arrest of Caiheem C. Kindell, 18, of Brockton, who is suspected in connection with the Independence Day quadruple shooting in Hyde Park. [BPDNews] -- Nevertheless, violence continued across the city. Within hours of the conclusion of the BPD sweep, a man was killed on Whittier Street in Roxbury, across the street from police......

--Prosecutors in Malden District Court have charged a 57-year-old employee of Everett High School with child rape. He is accused of molesting a boy over a seven month period last year. He has worked for the school as a janitor and coach of the junior varsity basketball team. [Boston Globe] --A 28-year-old man has been arrested for the alleged murder of a 25-year-old woman who was found dead in her home in Peabody. Few......

-- A woman was robbed at gunpoint today during a daytime invasion of her parents' home in Everett. Michelle Nguyen, 24 of Malden, was babysitting her 2 year-old nephew this morning when a man dressed completely in black entered the house and held a gun to her head. She parted with $500. Both Nguyen and her nephew were left unharmed. [Herald] -- Cambridge has a flasher in a trench coat. A 20 year-old Harvard student......

--Local news outlets were especially good at stating the obvious today. The weather is windy, as in 70 mph, and the snot will freeze in your nose once you step outside. [Boston Globe, Uh, everyone] --Ten people were forced out into the cold after a fire broke out in their house this morning in Everett. [Boston Herald] --Sometimes justice has a laugh at our expense. A convicted Level 3 sex offender from Uxbridge won......

Republican presidential aspirant and former Massachsuetts governor Mitt Romney is the projected winner of the state of Massachusetts over John McCain this Super Tuesday, according to CNN. And that victory was by no means a given since Romney didn't exactly leave Massachusetts wanting more. However, Romney is still fighting for states, and Mike Huckabee (plus buddy Chuck Norris) is racking up enough votes that neither one can catch up to the front-runner, John McCain. Huckabee......

--After such nice weather, a Nor'easter? You're kidding, right? Oh, no. You're not. At least it's scheduled to arrive Sunday, which will make the Pantsless T Ride much more pleasant. [WBZ] --A report indicates that a terrorist attack on Everett LNG would be a bad thing. Gee, ya think so? [Boston Globe] --Alex Jimenez, the soldier from Lawrence who went missing in Iraq last May and who still has not been found, has been......

--The recent toll hikes just keep on giving. Your cab ride from the airport into Boston just got more expensive. Now that the Big Dig no longer seems to be swallowing people (at least not at the moment), it is content with swallowing our money. [Boston Globe] --What the hell is up with trucks and Everett? First a truck tanker tips over, and now a dump truck plows into an overpass. [Boston Herald] --Investigators......

The Blotter and the Bite Size are merged today, given that everyone seems to be on break. Thank you for reading this if you're here! --Merry Christmas to the Del Valle family. Powers Fasteners has agreed to pay 6 million to the family of Milena Del Valle, the woman who died after a portion of the Big Dig fell on her as she and her husband were on the way to Logan Airport. [Boston......

Update: WBZ has pictures of an SUV crashing into the bus. Another car plowed into the back of the car that hit the bus. The people involved were lucky--only three people on the bus and four in the SUV were hit. --A car hit an MBTA bus this afternoon while the bus was on American Legion Highway and Mount Hope Road. Three people on the bus went to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. [Boston......

--Former Massachusetts Speaker of the House and radio host Tom Finneran cries. Conveniently, a camera is there. [Boston Herald] --Equally conveniently, the Herald finds someone to analyze the supposedly hot new trend of men crying. How come we never get asked to discuss this stuff? They ask if guys can cry, too. Uh, they have tear ducts, right? [Boston Herald] --Another winter day, another snow collapse, this time for a gas station canopy in Worcester.......

--King Downing, the ACLU coordinator for the Campaign Against Racial Profiling, won his case against the Massachusetts Port Authority and the State Police. He sued because he felt that he was illegally detained at Logan Airport in 2003, and a jury agreed with him. [Boston Herald, WCVB] --City officials in Everett plan to develop an emergency plan to improve response to disasters following last week's tanker explosion. [WBZ] --The Boston Society of Film Critics gathered......

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryant Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,......

The guy who drove the tanker truck that exploded in Everett is officially Blotter material. Not only did Chad LaFrance have some driving trouble on his record, but he admitted to issuing a bomb threat in 1997. The Globe quoted what he wrote on a package at a UPS store where he used to work: "Tick. Tick.Tick. The time is running out. UPS Sucks. Danger. Explosive illegal bombs enclosed. Watch handling." His aunt called it......

--Only one woman at MIT this year was granted tenure. Uh, you've come a long way, baby? [Boston Globe] --In better news for gender equality, Massachusetts ranks fifth when it comes to the number of women in powerful state government positions. Women make up almost half of Governor Deval Patrick's leadership team. [Boston Herald] --Seven people were injured in a house fire in Brockton yesterday afternoon, including former Brockton city councilor George Papas. [The Enterprise]......

Somebody's in trouble. The trucker who took a turn too fast in Everett and caused the tanker explosion and fire that left 60 people homeless at last count had a lead foot. Casey Ross at the Herald writes: Chad LaFrance, 30, of Dover, N.H., has three speeding violations between 2000 and 2002 in New Hampshire, with one citation for going 83 mph in a 55-mph zone in 2001, according to a spokeswoman for N.H.......

Early this morning, a gas-tank truck driver took a turn too fast in Everett, and his truck tipped over at the Route 16/Route 99 rotary, prompting an explosion and fire. 200 people were evacuated, 40 cars were destroyed, and at least 3 homes caught fire. No one has been reported hurt so far. That's the key phrase--"so far." The latest TV news reports indicate it is still a mess. WBZ has raw footage of......

A mixed bag on Big TV day in New England. Let's start with the good: The Bills had won four in a row, and were feeling pretty good about being able to hang around with the Patriots. They even got an inspirational message on the Jumbotron from injured Kevin Everett, so they had to be pumped up. Eleven seconds later, they were down 28-0 (numbers may not be strictly accurate). We're running out of ways......

Who will be the next Boston Rob? Who cracked us up as much as "Mr. Boston" did when he wooed Tiffany "New York" Patterson? A new season of reality television has started, and Massachusetts residents are on many of the shows, so we'll take a tour of how they're doing each week. --Kid Nation: A child from Upton is participating in Kid Nation, the reality show that has stirred up all manner of controversy regarding......

--A man in Plymouth was arrested for beating up a kitten in a CVS parking lot. Robert J. Frates, 25, blamed the cat for his despicable actions, claiming the cat peed on him. The poor cat, whose owner is unknown, had to be put to sleep. --Drivers, brace yourself, and watch the skies. Pumpkin-tossing season is coming. Cretins are warming up by tossing rocks off an overpass above Route 24 in Bridgewater, and police are......

--One man was shot to death and two were wounded in Dorchester last night. One resident told the Herald that the man was exactly who the shooters were looking for, and they shoved him into the hallway of an apartment building on Shandon Road and started firing. Two men were killed at that spot back in July. Last night's victim is the 49th homicide of the year. Later last night, two other people were shot......

--Neighbors in Everett are still shocked that George Philbrook, who killed his ex-wife and went straight to the liquor store, could do such a thing. Philbrook projected the image of a friendly guy, but he started shutting off before shooting Dorothy Philbrook. They had been fighting about money, and Dorothy Philbrook was apparently a fan of scratch tickets. The Herald was very much into the detail about scratch tickets. Someone allegedly heard Philbrook shout, "You......

--More cross-dressing criminals! Dr. Richard Sharpe, the dermatologist who liked to play dress-up and who shot his wife to death in 2000, is going on trial Monday for trying to hire a hit man to kill the prosecutor who sent him to jail. Sharpe thought that if he could take out Essex County prosecutor Robert Weiner, he might have a shot at an appeal. This isn't the first time crazy thoughts have floated through Sharpe's......

--Police might be getting closer to tracking down the individual who attacked two women on the Esplanade on June 16 and July 29. The DA and the State Police put out a release saying they want to talk to five people who may have seen the man before the attacks happened. On June 16, one of the victims spotted a man by an Esplanade footbridge at 11:15. On July 29, the other victim saw two......

The Comfort of Strangers screens at the Harvard Film Archive on Tuesday, May 29, at 9:00 pm and on Wednesday, May 30, at 7:00 pm. The festival ends on May 30, but several other Pinter movies are still showing between now and then. Check their calendar. Note: The Harvard Film Archive will be closed for construction in June. We were so preoccupied with the Brattle Grindhouse that we almost missed the Harvard Film Archive's Pinterfest,......

--In Everett, 26-year-old Stacy Russo robbed an apartment – and she took her baby along for the ride. She used her own daughter's baby carriage has a handy place to stash her ill-gotten gains. But the baby was in the carriage at the time and probably didn't appreciate having to share her space with a bunch of extra stuff. Russo then took her baby for a wild ride to a Dunkin' Donuts, where police caught......

With a miserable rain forcing the postponement of last night's Sox-Tigers game, our thoughts turn to geography. Yes, they really do. Specifically, to a subject we've been noticing a lot lately: the fact that the Red Sox seem to attract a large number of players whose last names are also the names of towns in our fair Commonwealth. So let's hit the road and take a tour of Massachusetts, Red Sox-style. Close to Boston, we......

--Tempers flared with the temperature last night in Dorchester and East Boston. As three men stood across the street from the Dorchester YMCA, shots were fired, leaving two people wounded and one in critical condition. A little later in East Boston, one man got shot, and another got hit "in the back of the head with a blunt object, reportedly a hatchet." A hatchet?!? We're getting nervous with all these sharp weapons like machetes and......

September 17 terrorism comes to the Hub. The Boston Globe got hold of a memo outlining the plans for an upcoming terrorism drill to be conducted by federal officials and the City's office of homeland security. There is great value in staging drills, but there is a bit of complacency that comes along with knowing that a drill will happen. When the fire alarm goes off in the building it's a slow stroll out to......

This string of nice days has made for some gloriously blue skies and thoroughly Hudson-River-School-esque cloud formations. Seeing this natural splendor as a dramatic backdrop to the enormous industrial plant in Everett just across the water from Charlestown reminded us of some sort of communist propaganda poster celebrating industry or progress or some such thing. Also, it was pretty, so we took a picture.......

Just in case the prospect of death and destruction at the airport weren't enough, there's more news today in the ongoing saga of the route to the airport here in Boston. Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, the contractor overseeing the Big Dig, has now announced that the bolts holding up ceiling panels in the Ted Williams tunnel - the ones that haven't already given out and caused a fatal ceiling collapse - may not be good for the......