City’s Christmas tree arriving Friday

The MBTA is investigating what caused the abrupt stop on a Green Line train that sent five people to local hospitals Saturday. A single westbound trolley was 200 feet outside North Station when the brakes were applied, jolting passengers about 9:30 p.m., a T spokeswoman said. Transit authorities are investigating whether the driver or a mechanical error caused the halt. The driver asked if everyone was all right, drove into North Station, and continued to Government Center, according to the T. The driver has not been cited. On Nov. 6, a young woman fell into the train pit at North Station as a trolley approached. The train operator stopped short of the woman after bystanders waved their arms in warning.

A Boston man accused of killing his father and dismembering the body is set to go on trial this week. Brian Lee was arrested in October 2006 after police found his father’s remains in the backyard of a home where Lee, then 41, worked as a handyman and at his father’s home in Mattapan. Prosecutors said Edward Lee, 70, had taken out three restraining orders against his son over the previous six years, including one the week before he was killed, alleging that his son physically abused and threatened him. Brian Lee has pleaded not guilty to murder. Lee told police he found his father dead, covered with blood. Jury selection is to begin tomorrow in Suffolk Superior Court. (AP)

An MBTA bus driver was assaulted and robbed on an idling bus Saturday night in Dedham, a T spokeswoman said. Two men approached the 33 bus at the intersection of River and Milton streets about 7:45 p.m. One man punched the driver in the back and snatched her pocketbook while the other man blocked her escape at the door, spokeswoman Lydia Rivera said. No passengers were on the bus, which was waiting to begin its route. Rivera said she did not know if the robbery had been caught on video. The driver, Dawn Kenney, 45, was taken to Faulkner Hospital and has been released. No arrests have been made. Kingston Police arrested and charged four people yesterday in last week’s vandalism at Evergreen Cemetery. Glenn Cadose, 17, of Kingston, and three juvenile males will each will be charged with 92 counts of vandalizing a gravestone and one count of trespassing, according to a statement from the Kingston Police Department. Cadose is scheduled to be arraigned today in Plymouth District Court, while the juveniles will be summonsed, police said. The damage took place between Tuesday night and Veterans Day. More than half of the disturbed headstones marked veterans’ graves, officials said. The cemetery’s Veterans of Foreign Wars memorial also was overturned.

The federal housing chief will visit Southeastern Massachusetts to see the impact of the foreclosure crisis and discuss how stimulus money is used to boost the economy. Shaun Donovan, US secretary of Housing and Urban Development, will visit Fall River and New Bedford today at the invitation of US Representative Barney Frank. In Fall River, Donovan will discuss the impact of the foreclosure crisis as well as federal efforts to curb it. In New Bedford, he will join Governor Deval Patrick to visit Bay View Village, which recently received $1.5 million in stimulus funds to convert an obsolete power plant to an energy-efficient power generation unit. (AP)