Bar can open as it appeals sprinkler rule

One of three bars shut down by Boston fire officials because they failed to install fire sprinklers was allowed last night to reopen temporarily. The Milky Way Lounge & Lanes won an injunction in Suffolk Superior Court allowing it to remain open until Monday, when a hearing is scheduled to determine if the bar can continue to operate while state fire officials consider its appeal for a one-year extension on Thursday's deadline to install fire sprinklers. A law passed in 2004 after 100 people died in a Rhode Island nightclub fire gave entertainment venues with capacities of 100 people or more three years to install sprinklers. Milky Way owners say they should be given more time because their lease at the Centre Street bowling alley in Jamaica Plain expires in July, and they may have to relocate. Installing a sprinkler system would cost $70,000, they say.

A 20-year-old Boston man was acquitted yesterday of second-degree murder, but convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm. William Badgett was accused of shooting Louis DoSouto, 25, during a fight at a party on Hamilton Street in Dorchester on May 6, 2006. Prosecutors asked that Badgett be sentenced to four years in prison on the firearm charge, but Suffolk Superior Court Judge Frank Gaziano imposed an 18-month sentence, the time Badgett had been held awaiting trial.

A 73-year-old Peabody woman was killed yesterday in a head-on crash on Route 1 in Danvers, State Police said. Joyce E. Oliver was driving north at about 9 a.m. when a car driven by Buck C. Bishop, 18, crossed from the southbound to the northbound lanes and crashed into her car, police said. Oliver was rushed to Beverly Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Moments after the initial crash, a third car traveling north slammed into the vehicles. Bishop and the driver and passenger of the third car suffered minor injuries.

A trench collapsed at Governor Deval Patrick's property in the Berkshires yesterday, trapping a worker in heavy clay and soil up to his chest. The worker appeared to have suffered broken ribs and internal injuries that were not life-threatening, said Richmond Fire Chief David Morrison. The man, whose name was not released, was taken to Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield after the accident, Morrison said. Workers were digging a trench for a pipe to pump water from a manmade pond to a hydrant being installed on the property.

President Bush is launching a second bid to make Reed Hillman US marshal for Massachusetts. The Senate Judiciary panel sent Hillman's appointment back to the president last summer because a time limit on the nomination had expired. Senate officials say Bush has resubmitted the nomination. Massachusetts senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, both Democrats, oppose Hillman, saying he lacks the proper law enforcement experience. Hillman is a former head of the Massachusetts State Police and was a state representative for six years. He ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor last year on the Republican ticket. (AP)

Tests done by federal health officials have confirmed that a wildlife biologist at Grand Canyon National Park died of the plague. Eric York, 37, who grew up in Shelburne, Mass., died Nov. 2 in his home at the Grand Canyon. He had done a necropsy on a mountain lion a few days earlier, and tests on the big cat show it too had died of the plague. (AP)

The state Transportation Department has announced plans to reduce the load on the Pawtucket River Bridge on Interstate 95. The decision to do the repair work follows recent inspections, but Transportation Department director Jerome Williams said the bridge is safe for travel. The bridge was built in 1958 and was designed for 60,000 cars a day. But transportation officials say that nearly three times that many vehicles cross the bridge daily. Crews will restripe the bridge to shift weight from the outer edges to the main girders. By the last week of November, the bridge will be posted at 22 tons and restricted to cars, sport utility vehicles, ambulances, and light trucks. (AP)