Car Crashes into Store; City Councilor Makes Hitler Comparison; School Technology

Here are some of the top headlines from around Medford this week:

Shortly after 4 p.m. Wednesday, a black Lincoln Navigator drove through the glass windows of an empty storefront in between and at 199 Mystic Ave. A man and a woman were taken by ambulance to Massachusetts General Hospital. Eddie Manganiello was sitting in his car in the parking lot when he heard the crash. "I heard the glass smash and I thought someone broke the window," Manganiello said. "I looked inside and there was an SUV in there."

: When City Councilor Robert Penta compared Mayor Michael McGlynn's administration to the Gestapo, another councilor told him that could be offensive to some people. So Penta changed his comparison. “Fine - the Hitler-type tactics the mayor uses in this community,” he said. Penta and two other city councilors were upset over not being invited to a press conference McGlynn held on Monday.

New technology could start to be implemented in Medford Public Schools as soon at January 2012, Mayor Michael McGlynn said Thursday. But first the proposal will have to go through a public input process, McGlynn said, which started Thursday night in a school technology committee meeting at Medford High School. "I don't have a plan, it's going to be the same way we did the (elementary and middle) schools where it was citizen-driven," McGlynn said.

Pasqualino Spadorcia, 42, led at least three people to believe he was a close friend or "significant other" then convinced them to lend him thousands of dollars, write him blank checks and open a business that he siphoned funds from, District Attorney Gerry Leone said in press release. Spadorcia told authorities he lost much of the money he stole gambling, the press release said. In all, he bilked about $400,000; he was convicted by a Middlesex County jury Tuesday.

The Eastern Bank at 52 Locust Street in Medford was robbed Tuesday for the second time in two weeks. About 11 a.m. Tuesday, a tall white male with a red beard wearing khakis robbed the bank and fled on foot. The man allegedly threatened to have a gun. The bank, which shares a parking lot with Shaw's Supermarket, was previously robbed on Oct. 21. In that incident, the suspect, was described as a white male, about 5' 7" to 5' 11".