--A former Marshfield High School student who was arrested in 2004 for planning a Columbine-like attack was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and could face 20 years in prison. He was, however, acquitted on a deadly weapons charge and on "promotion of anarchy." [Boston Globe] --It's not a good sign when police find someone else's Social Security Card in your pocket. A man was arrested yesterday in South Boston with that dubious credential......

South End residents who are bracing for the opening of the BU Biolab, where scary germs like ebola will be studied, have a reprieve. The "National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories" was supposed to open in the fall, but the National Institutes of Health has declared that its review won't be finished until "on or before" April 2009, the Globe reports. A panel had criticized the NIH in the past, saying its reviews of the Biolab......

Mark A. Flomenbaum, the former Chief Medical Examiner who was dismissed after the office of the Chief Medical Examiner was revealed to be an unsanitary hellhole, is suing because he feels "Governor Deval Patrick lacked grounds to dismiss him." Okay, okay, all charges alleged. But a body went missing. The Herald reported blood on the floor and a "constant stench of decomposition." If that's not grounds for dismissal, then what is? In terms of sheer......

The Supreme Judicial Court gave Mitt Romney and his conservative cohorts a mild smacking today when the justices ruled that they cannot force legislators to vote on whether or not a proposal to ban gay marriage should be on the 2008 ballot. This ruling is the latest in a set of complex legal wranglings, which Bostonist has explained here and here, that started when the Legislature recessed before voting on the proposed ballot measure. Romney......

Yesterday was supposed to be the big day for the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The Supreme Judicial Court had just ruled that the proposed amendment was legally kosher, the constitutional convention was slated to begin, and Senate President Travaglini had said he would make sure the amendment got a vote and wasn't postponed indefinitely by parliamentary maneuvers. (To get on the ballot, the amendment must be approved by two consecutive sittings......

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled yesterday that a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is not unconstitutional. The Globe described this as "a major victory" for bigots opponents of same-sex marriage, but honestly, any other outcome would have been something of a shock. The case turned on a provision of the state constitution that prevents amendments designed to reverse an earlier judicial decision. The argument against the current proposed amendment was that, since it......

Thank goodness! Another update in Bostonist's favorite ongoing story, the neverending battle over gay marriage: The Supreme Judicial Court yesterday heard oral arguments in a challenge to a 1913 law being used by state government to deny marriage licenses to out-of-state gay couples who do not intend to move to Massachusetts. Bostonist is enjoying this subset of the gay marriage debate because it makes clear just how similar today's opposition to same-sex nuptials is to......