--A young woman from Southbridge died from a gunshot wound after an alleged robbery attempt in the Bronx, NY. The 18-year-old's fiance was also wounded in the incident. Her young child, who was nearby, was unharmed. [Boston Herald, Gothamist] --Former mob boss Cadillac Frank Salemme entered a plea margin on charges of lying and obstruction of justice. The 74-year-old, who has been locked up since 2004, has been recommended to serve five years. He......

--This isn't local, but the big crime story of the day is the revelation that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was involved with a prostitution ring. He made a public statement alongside his wife earlier today. Our motherblog Gothamist has all the details. [Gothamist] --In political sex scandal news related to our State House, the arraignment of Carl Stanley McGee, the Deval Patrick aide who is accused of "sexual battery on the boy whom......

Recently Bostonist wondered: how do hometown-loving fashionistas show their Boston pride without resorting to tacky Cheers t-shirts or the ubiquitous Red Sox hat? So we made a visit to our favorite source of unique, handmade merchandise, Etsy, and searched "Boston." To say we were delighted with the results does not do justice to the amount of squealing that occurred. Amy J. Designs offers a necklace (pictured) and cuff links made with now-sadly-defunct T tokens.......

Tears and sorrow fill the offices of mainstream publisher Riverhead books as another memoir delivered from the school of hard knocks turns out to be a complete fabrication. Love and Consequences, a memoir released last week by Margaret Seltzer (published under the silly pseudonym Margaret B Jones), which chronicles the author's difficult life story of foster families, drug running, and all around thuggin' on the mean streets of L.A., turns out to be a complete......

Ivy League schools aren't supposed to have good basketball teams, are they? They have teams for fun, so they can relax their weary minds with sports, but no one expects them to be a powerhouse. They're supposed to suck. A good Ivy League team might rip the fabric of the universe. Tommy Amaker, coach of Harvard's men's basketball team, might not have gotten that memo. The New York Times reported that Amaker has been considering......

Some alleged boneheads should have their Red Sox Nation cards revoked, and we're not talking about Hank Steinbrenner. In a scary incident reported in the Cambridge Chronicle, a man wearing Yankees attire got beat up outside the Cantab Lounge in Central Square early Sunday morning. From the Chronicle: The Yankees fan was transported to the hospital March 2 at 1:41 a.m. for medical treatment for head injuries, including swelling over his entire face and several......

Boston's King of Boogie-Woogie With his long hair and white beard, Preacher Jack may look like a wild-eyed holy man descended from a lonely mountaintop. He's actually a living piece of boogie-woogie/rockabilly history who grew up and resides on the North Shore. Pounding the keys for fifty years, he may not keep a weekly residence at Frank's Steak House anymore, but Preacher Jack comes down to Cambridge & Boston every couple weeks to spread......

RoseLee Goldberg Reflecting Spectacle: Life as Art A panel discussion Institute of Contemporary Art Tuesday, March 4, 6:30 pm $12/$8 More information RoseLee Goldberg wrote the book on performance art. Her text Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present, first published in 1979, has seen three editions and been translated into seven languages. It's a mainstay on art history syllabi and one of the first attempts to see performance as an organic part of artistic......

An MIT student died early this morning in what the AP says was an apparent fall from the fifth floor of the Delta Upsilon fraternity house. Robert Wells was a senior from Ballston Spa, New York. He studied in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and played on the football team. In WBZ's online video, a neighbor described the scene: "The body was laying right next to that car with white towels on it,......

Bostonist called it! Once we wondered if Tom Brady was evolving into his panty model girlfriend Gisele Bundchen. Well, he might be. The New York Post has unleashed a bombshell that Brady, who is a Stetson model and a Smart Water model and an everything model, might be donning Calvin Klein underwear for a new series of ads. The Calvin Klein label has a sweet tooth for New England men, as Mark Wahlberg once......

Short Cartoons You saw the nominees for the Live Action Short Film Academy Award last night; come back to the ICA for the contenders in the animated category. Formats include traditional 2D animation, CGI, and claymation. Check out the John Lennon interview film "I Met the Walrus." Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Avenue, South Boston, 7:00pm. $7/$9. Recover Heal a broken heart with laughter. Ben Karlin has assembled a collection of raucous breakup......

Unfortunately the world of vegan gourmet dining is a small one, with most restaurants concentrated in the Veg-friendly cities of New York, San Francisco, and Portland. While visiting San Francisco, Veggiest was able to dine at Millennium, which is consistently rated among the very best veg restaurants in the country. Everything about the experience was impeccable, the decor, staff, wine, and of course FOOD, were all top-notch. We dined on avocado and endive salad,......

Last week brought the drama: Chris and Rami are going to have to compete (again!) for a spot on the runway at Fashion Week in NYC. Whoa! As Rami puts it, "Once we thought the rollercoaster was over, there was still another loop." And it's a killer! After giving the contestants 3.5 months to work, Tim Gunn visits the contestants. "Talk about make it work," says Tim Gunn in response to seeing Christian's tiny closet......

A Boston pharmaceutical sales rep who is on this season's cycle of "Big Brother" went to the hospital after having an allergic reaction to "slop." Allison Nichols had to eat the aforementioned "slop" as a punishment. (As far as Bostonist is concerned, being on or watching "Big Brother" is punishment enough.) Her lips swelled and she said her throat closed up. Meanwhile, another contestant had a seizure, Reality TV World and the New York Daily......

--Terry Francona will stay with the Red Sox through 2011. [Boston Globe Extra Bases] --The New York Times glad-games the Greenway, asking if it was worth the trouble given the issues of the Big Dig. [New York Times] --A student at Bentley College is being treated for bacterial meningitis. Last year, a Bentley freshman died from bacterial meningitis. [WCVB] --If you feel the need for speed, squelch it if you are passing through Marshfield,......

Call us crazy, but we're not as excited about the Oscars as we could be. We're happy the writers' strike is over, because we support writers as much as anyone (we're pretty writerly ourselves, y'know). Still, the fact that everyone's excited about ads, parties, and fashion (though we do like the Penelope Cruz pick) rather than films speaks to just how Hollywood our movie industry has become--and just how sad that is for the films......

--Wo ist Whitey? The Feds are going on the German equivalent of "America's Most Wanted" to ask for help looking for Whitey Bulger. If you are an old white guy planning a leisurely European tour or happen to know an old white guy considering such a trip, watch out for overeager foreign policemen, even if you wear a Yankees cap. [Boston Globe] --Read this before you go to the grocery store. Three words: "Rodent-gnawed......

A recent article in the New York Times pondered that constant buzzing question, are Americans willfully stupid? Though it may seem asking this question is a favorite pastime of the popular rag, a recent profile on a bevy of books on the subject argues Americans are less willfully stupid than they are openly hostile towards the smarty-pantses of the nation. Author Susan Jacoby, whose book The Age of Unreason came out last week, says she......

An editorial in yesterday's Globe swiftly rose to the top of the "Most E-Mailed" ranks. The title alone was a grabber: "Go-Go Dancing All Over Red's Grave." The author, Kate Darnton, writes a juicy screed against the Boston Celtics dancers, who are in her opinion more like strippers than dancers. She describes how embarrassing it is to watch the dancers strut their stuff: "The lights dim, the music pounds, and suddenly you've all been......

Comedy Just when you're sick of all the caucusing and candidate crap, Jimmy Tingle makes a triumphant local return with his show "Jimmy Tingle for President." Bostonist interviewed the candidate, and he's going to have plenty to say. Regent Theatre, Arlington, 8:00 pm. $30 orchestra / $25 balcony. PS--Mr. Tingle himself told Bostonist another show has been added for next Saturday, February 23. Dirty Movies Be careful who sits behind you tonight as sex......

It looks like it's going to be an easy season for Red Sox beat writers. It looks like all they'll have to do is set up a microphone within half a mile of Jonathan Papelbon, and he'll come a-runnin' with enough material to fill a dozen Notes columns. More, if they can be padded out with 40-year-old rock lyrics (hi, Dan!). So it's the time of the season for Spring Training, and Papelbon held court......

The rumors that JFK fathered a love child who is now living in Canada have not gone away. In fact, they seem to be gaining strength, at least up north. The love child went to the press and revealed some information about himself. His first name is "Jack," of course. The Herald has his full name, but the Toronto Globe & Mail does not. "Jack" wants DNA tests, and he says people stop him and......

It was the rarest of rare occasions: a Beanpot final that didn't involve BU. Instead it was Boston College and Harvard, with the Eagles leading by two midway through the third period. BC almost blew it before taking control in overtime and winning on a Nick Petrecki goal. So two overtime wins for Boston College. And a very relieved Jerry York. BU beat Northeastern in the consolation game. Pitchers and catchers don't have to be......

The good news for the Celtics is that the Timberwolf portion of their schedule is in the history books. After surviving a 1-point game against Minnesota at home a couple of weeks ago, the C's went to the Twin Cities and pulled out a 2-point win. It started with a polite Minnesotan reaction for Kevin Garnett, who of course didn't play again but got a huge ovation from his former hometown fans. It continued with......

Some super-snazzy stuff is going on around Boston this week in the film world. The African Film Festival at the MFA is going strong, and Harvard Film Archive brings us José Luis Guerín's In the City of Sylvia (En la ciudad de Sylvia) with the director live and in person. (Sometimes we wonder what the point of saying "live and in person" is--would we really go to an event with someone dead and in person?......

On top of the loss of his chosen presidential candidate, Barack Obama, in the Massachusetts primaries (debate on the "Kennedy Lift" here), Senator Ted Kennedy now has to deal with more rumors about the Kennedy Clan. The Kennedy Clan has always been a magnet for rumors, some sordid, some not, some true, some not. In this case, whether or not it is true, the latest rumor will have a high-profile mouthpiece in the form of......

--The Patrick administration is working on stopping the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe's attempt to get approval for a casino through the federal government. The administration would prefer that the tribe bid for one of the three casino licenses Patrick hopes to auction off. [Boston Herald] --A plane on its way to Paris from New York City had to make an emergency landing at Logan Airport after a passenger attempted to attack a flight attendant. [Boston......

We meant it as a joke when we said that former Romney aide Jay Garrity was the only one on the team having a good week. But it might be true. WBZ is reporting that Romney is "suspending" his campaign. Leave it to Romney to use the euphemism "suspend" instead of "drop out." WBZ explains that he can keep his delegates "if something happened to front-runner John McCain's campaign." The language makes the situation sound......

Today is truly a day to end all days: Super Tuesday and Fat Tuesday unite as one, to reveal America for what it truly is: the Nation of the SuperFat (and the grammatically illicit double-colon sentence as well!). Bostonist encourages all of its readers to vote prior to partying (a couple of drinks might make you think Michael Cera is a great write-in vote--actually, he totally would be), and to party like it's 2009 and......

It seems for some reason, Tom Brady and Randy Moss don't want to take a 6,000 mile flight this week and be reminded of Sunday's crushing disappointment. Brady's ankle issues are well-documented, of course, but Randy is feeling sympathy pain and is skipping the trip to Hawaii as well. So the Pro Bowl will have to go on without them. Tissues all around. The fallout is still...well, falling. The Patriots have to decide how much......