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.

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.

Local civil-rights groups said tonight that the federal Department of Education has agreed to investigate their claim that Harvard's continued preference for "legacy" admissions of primarily white applicants violates the rights of Hispanic and Black applicants whose parents or other relatives didn't go to the school or donate large amounts of money to it. Read more.

The Harvard Crimson reports on today's ruling, which focused in part on admissions at Harvard.

The Crimson reports Tishman Speyer is set to break ground this week on the Harvard Enterprise Research Campus off Western Avenue after the company landed a $750-million financing package, which it claims is the largest such deal in the US this year. Harvard currently owns about a third of Allston, with much of its newest holdings secretly acquired in the late 1980s.

A man who claims he was only answering a Craigslist ad from somebody seeking to arrange delivery of a package to his son at Harvard was arrested today on federal charges of aiding and abetting an extortion attempt and conspiracy for an incident that shut down part of the Harvard campus last month after police discovered a bag containing a box full of Roman candles, bottle rockets and wires, following a series of threatening extortion phone calls that day. Read more.

The Harvard Crimson reports on a swatting attack that involved four black students being awoken by campus police in riot gear pointing rifles at them and ordering them to raise their hands and walk out of their rooms.

The false report was an apparent example of “swatting” — the act of placing a false emergency call with the intention of harassing a target by provoking a forceful police response.

Harvard University yesterday filed plans with the BPDA to build a new home for the American Repertory Theatre at 175 North Harvard St. that would include two theaters able to hold up to 1,000 people as well as a 14-story, 264-unit apartment building that would be topped with "a beacon effect" as an homage to Allston. Read more.

They could make this a class at Harvard Law: If you sue your insurer for not covering a claim, make sure you file that claim within the time set by your policy. Read more.

The Crimson reports on problems electing a student government at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.