Ciommo, Glennon advance in council race

Unofficial results from the Boston Elections Department showed Mark S. Ciommo and Gregory J. Glennon placing first and second last night, respectively, in the preliminary election for the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council seat. With 100 percent of the precincts reporting, Ciommo received 1,406 votes, Glennon 1,250, and Timothy Schofield came in third with 965 votes. Rosie Hanlon, Alessandro Selvig, and James Jenner also ran. Ciommo and Glennon will now face off in the final election in November. The winner will replace Councilor Jerry P. McDermott, who did not seek reelection.

The city is investigating why a heavy cast-iron grate became dislodged Monday and injured two people when it snagged the bottom of the car they were in. Private contractors working on Columbus Avenue in Roxbury to make the cover level with the road had raised the grate by 1 1/2 inches in preparation for asphalt to be poured, said Dennis Royer, Boston's chief of public works and transportation. It was marked in red paint so drivers could avoid it, but was not believed to be in danger of coming loose, he said. The impact caused the car's airbag to deploy. The injuries were not serious.

A well-known South African scholar and political commentator is being kept out of the United States because he has been a vocal critic of the war in Iraq and the detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the American Civil Liberties Union asserted in a lawsuit filed yesterday. In the lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Boston, the ACLU said the US government's decision last year to revoke the visa of Adam Habib has forced him to turn down invitations to speak to various political organizations, violating the First Amendment rights of US citizens who were prevented from hearing his views. Habib, a Muslim, is deputy vice chancellor of the University of Johannesburg. The lawsuit was filed in Boston because several organizations have invited him to speak here, including the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights. A spokesman for the State Department did not immediately return a call seeking comment. (AP)

Boston University announced yesterday that it has landed a prominent Ebola researcher from the University of Marburg in Germany to help run its high-security research laboratory in the South End, the second major position filled there this month. Dr. Elke Mühlberger will oversee research examining how viruses spread, as well as projects focused on the smallest biological components of germs. Mühlberger will join BU's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories in March. The centerpiece of the project, which is under construction on Albany Street, is a Biosafety Level-4 lab where scientists will be able to study the world's deadliest germs, including Ebola, anthrax, and plague. Mühlberger's research on Ebola and another highly lethal germ, Marburg virus, has been published in such prominent research journals as Science and the Journal of Virology.

Three former Quincy residents received federal prison sentences yesterday for failing to report $30 million in cash paid to temporary employees they placed in manual labor jobs in factories and warehouses across Massachusetts over 10 years, the US attorney's office reported. The defendants, who owned and operated a temporary employment agency, lied to the IRS and workers' compensation insurers in what federal authorities called the largest under-the-table payroll scheme prosecuted in Massachusetts. US District Judge Patti B. Saris sentenced Tina Le, 50, to 97 months; Le's boyfriend, Steven Nguyen, 48, to 87 months; and Le's daughter, Mercedes Acar, 32, to 70 months. The three concealed their activities through shell corporations and fictitious corporate officers, prosecutors said. They pleaded guilty in May to charges that included conspiracy to defraud the IRS, conspiracy to commit mail fraud, and filing false tax returns.

A 12-year-old boy was hit and dragged about 10 feet yesterday by a van driven by an unlicensed illegal immigrant, Lynnfield police said. Police said the boy was in the crosswalk when Antonio Montenegro, 52, struck him about 7 p.m. and trapped him under the van. The boy was conscious and alert at the scene, police said, and Montenegro did not realize he had hit the youth. Montenegro was issued a citation for operating without a license and a crosswalk violation, and the boy was listed in fair condition at Massachusetts General Hospital.

(Correction: Because of incorrect information provided by Lynnfield police, Antonio Montenegro's residency status was incorrectly described in the New England News in Brief section of some editions of yesterday's paper. Montenegro, an unlicensed driver who was cited in an accident in which a 12-year-old boy was hit on Tuesday, has a visa that expires in May 2009, police said.)