--Graffiti artist Adam Brandt, who may possibly be "Spek," was arrested and "charged with 16 counts of tagging and 16 counts of malicious wanton destruction to property." [Boston Globe] --Two college students, one of them a junior at Bridgewater State College, have been missing since Valentine's Day. 22-year-old Daniel Querzoli, the Bridgewater State student, and his girlfriend, Amy Scott, a Johnson & Wales student, went out in Providence and haven't been seen since. [WBZ]......

--Last night, a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis was unable to get out of her home and died in a fire in Wellesley. Wellesley's fire chief said a space heater was the cause. [WCVB] --A fire broke out on the third floor of the Boston Marriott Cambridge last night. No one was hurt, but those who were evacuated were probably freezing. [Boston Globe] --A reporter checks in on the father of Alex Jimenez, the......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too - two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

Seattlest has a talk with the photographer from last week's "Segway Mom" and then experiences some dissension in the ranks over the question of wine vs. beer. It's not West Side Story, but about as close as they'll get. They're also still waiting on some inbox relief after a spammer is arrested. As Chicagoist counts down the days to its third anniversary party, they found all-organic pizza to be underwhelming amidst the hoopla, tried......

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

A BPD officer has been arrested on drug-related charges. The officer, Jose Ortiz, has been on the force since 1986 and worked in the Back Bay and the South End. Details on the arrest were murky at first, but Ed Davis' opinion on Ortiz was clear. His statement is chock-full of irate zingers, such as "Ortiz disgraced his badge and dishonored his brother and sister officers" and "Good cops don’t like bad cops." And, if......

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay......

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. Bostonist was happy they finally found an Anna Nicole Smith connection to their fair city and that an Apple Store was opening up. They were less happy that new rules have been established limiting underage shows and that their Governor is spending......

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur,......

Valentine's Day is only a few days away, and we here across the network wanted to express would like to tell you, in the spirit of the holiday, just how much we love you, our readers. Don't let it get to your heads, though. There are plenty of things we love, you included. Just be glad you're not amongst the things we hate. SFist saw their beloved mayor enter rehab, and they loved the opportunity......

Five out-of-town - and a few out-of-nation - graffiti artists are accused of tagging MBTA cars in Braintree. While they went to court, Boston police grew jittery because of an impending "graffiti convention." The lawyer for the Braintree Five, including two Germans and a Swiss, says that they were out looking for something to eat. But, when MBTA police pulled them over, they smelled paint fumes, had a Berdvosky/Stevens flashback, and brought them in. If......

The Graffiti Research Lab, or GRL, is a group "dedicated to outfitting graffiti artists with open source technologies for urban communication." They'd like you to know that they were not part of the Great Lite Brite Incident of 2007 yesterday. The company Turner Broadcasting hired for their marketing initiative, Interference, Inc ripped off ideas that the street artists at GRL had posted and used it for commerce – pretty much opposite the goal of GRL.......

One thing's for sure - Mayor Menino is no fan of "Mooninites," or what the Globe calls "little square-shaped men frowning and making an obscene gesture." Most important, "Mooninites" are the objects that have tormented Boston law enforcement since lite-brite displays of the object were found attached to the city's sensitive spots - like by bridges and highways. It's time to figure out what to do about the people who hung LED light displays of......

We can just imagine the scene. Globe reporter tries to get hip with Street Art. Stalks Myspace, meets up with, and interviews Pixnit about her experience, technique, and dreams. Fluff piece is written up and sits on the editors' desk for about a month until a nice, slow news day hits. Say January 3? The article runs. Readers write in (and leave comments), angry with the soft handed and accepting tone of the original article.......

It is surely true that Bostonians, more than other people, carry grudges and nurture grievances. Whether this is a product of the forced closeness and resulting small indignities of cheek-by-jowl city living, or of our severe, cold-climate, Puritan disposition, Bostonist cannot say. But one need look only as far as local bloggers (ourselves included) to see evidence of the Hub's pervasive grumpiness. Still, we were somewhat surprised to discover the graffiti in the Back Bay......

San Francisco is proud host of a new reality show called "How to Get the Guy" that's unfortunately not a descendant of Will and Grace, Queer Eye, The L Word, American Idol etc. Also a biodefence lab is coming to the East Bay and SFist teaches wine pairing. Getting on the wrong train sucks. Getting on the wrong train and becoming the victim of what will later be described as a "stabbing spree" really sucks.......

Given Bostonist's recent interest in graffiti and street art, as well as a few connections we have to a certain street art site, there was no way to avoid letting our readers know about SPOTHUNTERS, the newest installation to open at the New Art Center in Newton. Curated by Caleb Neelon and featuring the likes of Shepard Fairey, Greg Lamarche, Monster Project, and the curator himself - this installation is truly something to check......

YouTube user FortDrasticDotCom shares with us a video of a cave, as he describes it, that he discovered south of Boston. The “cave,” while in Hingham and not Boston proper, has an amazing display of graffiti. Bostonist knows this guy down in NYC (ok, so he’s our publisher) that has a site devoted to street art and we’re bummed that there’s no love for Boston. Bostonist would like to see many more Flickr and YouTube......

Just as national politics is a sport in which our liberal Commonwealth is mostly a spectator, the war on terror seems lately to be something with only weird, oblique connections to our everyday life. Sure, several years ago it was all about Boston - one of the 9/11 planes left from here, and we had the shoe-bomber trial. But these days, it's never so clear-cut: Planes headed to Boston get diverted to other places to......

There’s the Duck Tour, the Trolley Tour (we’re not talking Green Line), Park Service Docents, the Freedom Trail, and dozens of biking and walking tours of the city. Steven Tyler may be local, but Bostonist has already seen the Old State House and we can’t be wasting our precious cell phone minutes to listen to him talk about it. With our attempt to find out some of those local hidden historical markers, we were very......

Remember when Cat Stevens Yusuf Islam was "discovered" on a flight to Washington DC, and the flight was diverted to Bangor, Maine, for security purposes (because Cat Stevens, like so many other very bad individuals, has found his name on a terrorist watch list)? Bangor picked up a few other inbound bad guys after that, too. Now, a flight headed to Logan was diverted to Kansas City because of "threatening graffiti" in the bathroom. As......

When Bostonist thinks about Somerville (as we so often do), the first two-word phrase that comes to mind is "hip hop." OK, not really. We know of plenty of MCs from Boston and environs, but none from the Cambridge of Medford. Nevertheless, Union Square will play host this Saturday to the Hip Hop History Jam, sponsored by the Library of Vinyl Experience and the Somerville Arts Council as part of its ArtsUnion project. From......

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 --......