--Nancy Pelosi is coming into town on April 4 to speak at the inauguration of former US Rep Marty Meehan as he becomes chancellor of UMass-Lowell. [Boston Globe] --More people than the state expected chose state-subsidized insurance with the new Massachusetts health care plan, and now the state is wondering how to pay for it all. [Boston Globe] --Voters in Natick declared overwhelmingly that they want to keep the name "Redmen" for their school......

The special election to replace Rep. Marty Meehan in the Fifth Congressional District will be tomorrow. The candidates are Democrat Niki Tsongas and Republican Jim Ogonowski. Tsongas is the widow of former Senator Paul Tsongas, and she has been able to bring in the big-time Democrat starpower. Ogonowski, a former member of the Air Force and National Guard, has been taking the door-to-door approach. The Globe said he planned "more than two dozen appearances" today.......

Scarlett Johansson was honored as the Hasty Pudding Theatricals Woman of the Year today in Cambridge. She was cause of more traffic snarls in the Harvard Square area than the icy road conditions yesterday's storm brought. The festivities began with a parade through the streets of Harvard Square followed by a roast at Agassiz Theatre and a press conference, both on Radcliffe Yard. Being the Year of the Woman 2.0 (madam speaker Nancy Pelosi,......

The Massachusetts midterms were downright sane compared to what happened in the rest of the nation. There was voter deception in Virginia. A poll worker strangled a voter in Kentucky (you'd think it would have been the opposite). Computer glitches slowed down voting across the nation. South Carolina's governor wasn't able to vote for himself. Britney Spears divorced K-Fed, which may have been a cultural sign that "The Man" was about to get stuck.......