Mosquitoes with West Nile found in city

For the first time this summer, mosquitoes infected with West Nile virus have been discovered in Boston, public health authorities said yesterday. The disease-carrying insects were found in West Roxbury; last week, a red-tailed hawk infected with the virus was discovered in Jamaica Plain. No human cases of West Nile have been reported in Massachusetts this year; last year, six people fell ill with the disease. Boston authorities have already started putting insecticide in catch basins to reduce the number of mosquitoes. Last month, mosquitoes carrying West Nile were discovered in Brookline and Worcester.

A Worcester man attending school in California was charged with a variety of offenses yesterday as a result of his behavior aboard an airplane awaiting takeoff at Logan Airport on Wednesday. Passengers on the Utah-bound aircraft observed Jason Robo, 26, acting nervously. Robo was wearing a T-shirt that featured images of President Bush and Adolf Hitler, and a flight attendant found adhesive address labels that read "9/11 was an Inside Job! PrisonPlanet.com" stuck to the sink of the bathroom and on the fold-down tray table of a seat next to his. Robo left the plane after telling the flight attendant that he had to leave immediately. When he was apprehended by police, he said it was a joke. Robo was charged with interfering with aircraft operation, disorderly conduct, and disorderly conduct on a public conveyance.

A lawyer for three women who allege that state Senator James Marzilli sexually accosted them has asked a judge to issue a civil rights injunction barring him from harassing all women in the state. Attorney Wendy Murphy told a Middlesex Superior Court judge yesterday that Marzilli has targeted women. Judge Sandra Hamlin did not immediately rule on the request. Murphy said she made the unusual request because a civil rights violation carries a stiff penalty of up to 10 years in prison. (AP)

The state's highest court ruled yesterday that a law enacted after the state's clergy sex abuse scandal to penalize people who endanger a child applies to more than sex abuse cases. The Supreme Judicial Court made the ruling in the case of Thomas Hendricks, who led Mashpee police on a chase down a rural road in 2004 while his 3-year-old daughter was in his car. Hendricks admitted to police that he should not have been driving like that with his daughter, the court said in its opinion. He contended that the law, passed in 2002, was aimed only at people whose conduct exposed a child to substantial risk of serious injury from physical or sexual abuse. The court ruled, in upholding Hendricks's conviction, however, that the "plain language of the statute enacted sweeps more broadly to proscribe all wanton and reckless conduct that creates a 'substantial (and unjustifiable) risk of serious bodily injury' to a child."

Governor Deval Patrick yesterday signed an early education and care law that formally establishes the Universal Pre-Kindergarten Program, which seeks to make high-quality preschool available for children across Massachusetts. The bill "takes us one very important step closer to providing every child in Massachusetts with the lifelong benefits of strong educational beginnings," Patrick said in a statement. Matt Veno, a spokesman for the Department of Early Education and Care said the bill would strengthen his agency and give it guidance on a number of initiatives, including the push to make preschool available for all children.

A teenager was arrested in Everett yesterday after a 37-year-old man was stabbed outside a pharmacy, a spokesman for the Middlesex district attorney said. Police responded to a call at 5 p.m. of a man stabbed in the neck at the corner of Ferry Street and Blanchard Avenue in Everett, according to Corey Welford, a spokesman for Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr. Sean Mooney of Revere was in stable condition last night at a Boston hospital, Welford said. Police apprehended Jeffrey Raphael, 18, of Everett, and he was charged with armed assault with intent to murder. Welford said Raphael had barricaded himself inside a home on Foster Street.