AM Briefing: Ferdaus Plea Expected; Light Falls From Tobin Bridge

Happy Friday. Top local stories and what we're watching today:

-- The Ashland man accused of plotting to fly explosive-packed model airplanes into the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon is scheduled to plead guilty to federal terrorism charges today.

-- The three-strikes crime bill, which would overhaul sentencing guidelines, is headed to the governor after the Senate approved it yesterday.

-- The Senate quietly tucked an expansion of the state's bottle deposit law into a proposed jobs bill. [State House News Service, via Fall River Herald News]

-- Likely due to age and corrosion, a light fixture — weighing about 10 pounds — fell from Boston's Tobin Bridge yesterday. Transportation officials will offer more information today.

-- A medical technician who worked at Exeter Hospital in Concord, N.H., for 13 months has been charged with infecting at least 30 patients with hepatitis C. [Boston Globe]

-- Emails indicate that the new gaming commission foresaw no "public relations hit" in its hiring of Carl Stanley McGee, who was arrested in 2007 for allegedly sexually assaulting a teenage boy. After an uproar, McGee turned down the position. [CommonWealth Magazine]

-- Locally based online travel agency Kayak Software Corp. makes its stock market debut today.

-- Following the confirmation of EEE in mosquitoes, the state begins aerial pesticide spraying tonight in 21 communities. [Brockton Enterprise]

Sports:

-- Cody Ross' walk-off homer powered the Red Sox atop the White Sox.