The MBTA had to roll out buses to replace the Red Line between Alewife and Harvard this morning after a train exhaled its last at Porter Square, the deepest station on the line. Things are now back to what passes for normal these days, the T reports.

The Globe reports on new wicked slooooow zones on the Green Line Extension, in particular in spots where the rails have gotten slightly closer to each other, an issue that left at least one expert with 40 years of experience scratching his head because rails in use generally widen in distance, not narrow.

Greg Cook reports going on a bat-listening tour at Mount Auburn Cemetery the other day. Christopher Richardson, a bat biologist at Boston University, led a group of would-be bat listeners at dusk - as part of a long-term project to study both the bats and the role of cemeteries as urban bat sanctuaries.

Why do people throw their energy into art when there are so many real and terrible things happening in the world that also deserve attention? This was one of the many questions which flitted across my mind as I sat on a bench in Harvard's Science Center Plaza Thursday night. Read more.

Harvard's officially inaugurating its new president in a couple of weeks, and so, the Crimson reports: Harvard to Pause Visits From Heads of State Ahead of President Gay’s Inauguration.

Cambridge Police report a manhole exploded on Brattle Street in Harvard Square around 8:34 a.m. No injuries, but "Harvard Square is closed to vehicle traffic, and pedestrian traffic is restricted" and, really, police would prefer if you avoided the square altogether, even if you are parents moving your kid into a Harvard dorm. Read more.

DCR is out with an online ad spot that urges newcomers to Boston to keep their rental trucks off the river roads - set to just the sort of plaintive music you'd expect on a late-night ASPCA ad:

For just zero dollars a day you can not hit a bridge or overpass on Storrow Drive and and Soldiers Field Road in Boston and Memorial Drive in Cambridge. ... The bridges, and the trucks, will thank you.

For the second time in nine months, a federal court has ruled that Harvard is out the $15 million it sought from a legal insurer because it missed the deadline for notifying the company it would invoke the policy for excess bills related to its decade-long, and ultimately unsuccessful, court battle against a group that didn't like its affirmative-action policies. Read more.

Cambridge Police report that a driver turning left onto Mason Street from Brattle Street slammed into a bicyclist around 8:54 a.m. yesterday. Read more.

Maria Daniels, in Harvard Square, was one of many people who looked up after the rain stopped this evening.

In Jamaica Plain, Handmaid saw the rainbows, too, but also a still angry cloud: Read more.