A Dorchester man has been convicted of manslaughter for fatally stabbing a co-worker who ridiculed him about his failed attempts to date a waitress at the hotel restaurant where they both worked.

Ivan Lorenzo Sosa was found guilty Tuesday in the Sept. 16, 2006, death of 30-year-old Carlos Borrero Jr. of Chelsea. Sosa was charged with second-degree murder, but a Suffolk Superior Court jury convicted him of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to serve 8 to 12 years in prison.  Read more

Just a week after an unapproved cinder block wall on the back of a new gymnasium at the Columbia Campus of the Pope John Paul II Academy (formerly known as St. Margaret's) brought neighbors on Roseclair Street to a boil, Suffolk Construction has agreed to attach a brick veneer to the greater portion of the wall and add metal sheathing to its upper portions. The details were hammered out in a McCormack Civic Association meeting on Tuesday.  Read more

Heading into the Sept. 16 primary, state Rep. Willie Mae Allen squared off against her challenger Faustina "Kathy" Gabriel in a forum last week, with both voicing their respective takes on violence prevention tactics and support for public transportation.

In the brief forum last Thursday at English High School in Jamaica Plain, Gabriel, a relative newcomer on the local political scene, sought to knock Allen off her perch, but failed to land any hits.  Read more

Gov. Deval Patrick's veto of $12 million for the cleanup of the lower Neponset River has left activists puzzled and hopeful that lawmakers will move to restore the money. The funds were meant to be part of a $1.7 billion bond bill that Patrick signed in August. In a press release announcing the signing, there was no mention of the Neponset veto or any others.  Read more

Last Friday, Soledad Lawrence was chained to the front of a condominium at 76 Perrin St in Roxbury, trying to keep Paula Taylor from being evicted. Lawrence, a tenant organizer for City Life, a Jamaica Plain non-profit that has been working to prevent evictions and foreclosures in Boston, intended to be arrested that morning.

"We always go in prepared to be arrested," she said in a phone interview this week.

Friday wasn't her day. She wasn't arrested, but four others were.  Read more

Outraged when he realized that someone was attempting to rob his bank for a second time in 10 days, a Lower Mills bank president reacted by dropping his phone and running out of his office to give chase last Friday afternoon. And with the help of a Boston cop in his cruiser in a nearby parking lot, the collar was made.

The incident took place mid-day last Friday. Meetinghouse Cooperative Bank President Tony Paciulli was in his office at the bank on Dorchester Avenue at the corner of Richmond Street, when he realized that a man was attempting to pass a note demanding cash.  Read more

Federated Dorchester Neighborhood Houses' new focus on shepherding Dot's youth onto the college track is bearing fruit, says director Mark Culliton. In what was once called FDNH's GED program - but now is referred to as college prep 0 14 former high school dropouts have entered college.

"I always wanted to go to college, but I didn't want to go to high school," said 19-year-old Jazmen Huggins, a Dorchester resident and former Charlestown High School student who took FDNH's program from July to August this year. "It was like an epidemic at school, everybody was dropping out."  Read more

The 14th of September, which happens to be the 15th day of the eighth lunar month in the calendar used in Vietnam, is the day of Têt Trung Thu, a traditional child-centric harvest festival. For the first time - on Sept. 1 - that holiday which involves colorful lanterns, singing and moon cakes, will be celebrated publicly in Dorchester Park.  Read more

The developer of a proposed 29-unit affordable housing building in Fields Corner was asked to make changes to the project and negotiate with abutters late last month, forcing at least a six-month delay. Some observers--pairing the opposition to this project with blockers of a smaller four-story building at the former site of the Lucky Strike Bowling Alley--note a developing trend in Fields Corner that is anti-density, hamstringing sizable investment in the area.  Read more

Bent over her desk in Room 342, Anizia Piris is preparing for the start of the 2008-2009 school year. Today, the 12-year teaching veteran will start a new job as a math instructor at the long troubled and now newly refurbished Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Grove Hall.

When the school bell rings this morning it will usher in the first students the Washington Street building has seen since a massive rehabilitation project began in December 2006.  Read more

Pressures from various neighborhoods have kept a change in Boston's police districts slow cooking for years, but the final touches are being added to a new re-districting recipe that may be ready by November, as long as no neighborhoods get steamed.

District captains have been reaching out to their constituents, feeling out how each views the natural boundaries and allegiances in their neighborhoods.  Read more

The 2004 sprinkler law that forced nightclubs across the state to install sprinkler systems and new fire alarms has sent pocketbook-draining shockwaves through that industry, forcing some to move and a few to appeal the law. But in the Four Corners area it has caused dancing in the streets - and not the kind appreciated by neighbors.  Read more