Harvard President Drew Faust has quickly distinguished herself from other Harvard presidents with some recent bold moves. First, she announced that Harvard would improve its financial aid offers, and now she is announcing that she will review the university's expansion to Allston, which had been perceived as a done deal during the reign of past president Larry Summers. From the Globe: "A $1 billion science complex, which will house a stem cell institute, will stay......

Harvard is putting all the money it has (see: "Harvard's Rich, Bitches!") to some truly good use by expanding financial aid packages to students. Here's the details from the AP: The university said it would replace all loans with grants, and spend up to $22 million more annually on aid, mostly targeting middle- and upper-middle class students. Families earning under $60,000 already pay nothing to attend the world’s richest university, with an endowment of nearly......

Evolution is on trial again. A former postdoctoral fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has sued the Cape Cod research center, claiming his 2004 dismissal resulted from his religious beliefs. Nathaniel Abraham was dismissed from Mark Hahn's research lab after refusing to work on the "evolutionary aspects" of his assigned project, according to the Globe. Hahn is a senior research scientist known for studying the effects of toxins on aquatic animals, using a hybrid......

In October, Boston University threw down the gauntlet and declared plans to expand. Now, Boston College is one-upping BU with expansion plans of its own. BC's expansion plan rivals that of BU. BU said it would put in $1.8 billion, and BC has announced that it will spend $1.6 billion. The BC Heights reports that the money will go to construction and renovation, and 100 new faculty members will be hired. The rest will go......

Billy Joel said "Only The Good Die Young," but let's just say he has no idea what he's talking about, and only the really good die at the ripe old ages of, say, 69. So goes the news for Friday, November 30th, as Evel Knievel - a legendary stuntman who's fame hasn't been succeeded by generations to follow. One can only wonder with the speed of technology and special effects if masters of amazement......

H Bomb, the Harvard University sex magazine, vanished for reasons that had nothing to do with scabies. Last year, the people who ran H Bomb lost their status as an official student group. But ">Lingbo Li at the Crimson revealed this week that H Bomb is back in the school's good graces, and they will publish a new magazine on February 14. H Bomb only published two issues, but a new editor, Martha ‘Martabel’ Wasserman,......

Two Boston University professors broke the stereotype of uptight, elbow-patched instructors last week when they let their students bring beer to their advertising class. Unfortunately, these cool professors are now in trouble. Angela Marie Latona at the Daily Free Press reports that Lawrence DeLamarter and Dave Schaefer (wait--any relation to el cheapo Schaefer beer?) let students bring beer so they could build an advertising campaign around the product. Their next classes were cancelled. That is......

SFist witnessed a new apartment building tszuj the skyline with spectacular, gaudy turquoise aplomb, the (informal) renaming of the Mission/SOMA neighborhood border, the return of the Maltese Falcon, the Mayor Gavin Newsom mea culpa-ing over his Hawaiian getaway during the oil spill, and double-decker buses hitting the streets of San Francisco. Oh, and some baseball player named Barry Bonds is a liar whose pants, it seems, are totally on fire. LAist continues to cover the......

--The DA's office announced earlier this week that it will expand its "Gun Court," which speeds up prosecution of gun-related crimes. Only cases from Dorchester, Roxbury, the South End, and parts of downtown were accelerated to gun court, but now cases from South Boston, East Boston, and Charlestown will go there as well. The DA's office press release touted its success rate: "Gun Court prosecutors have secured convictions in 85.1% of the viable cases handled......

Wednesday, November 14 Jonah Lehrer, Harvard Book Store, Proust Was A Neuroscientist, 7:00 pm, Harvard Book Store Lehrer, a Rhodes scholar and writer/line cook/lab tech, dives into works of classic literature and art and finds out how each work beat neuroscientists at determining how the mind works. Check out Bostonist's interview with Lehrer. Thursday, November 15 David Michaelis, 7:00 pm, Brookline Booksmith Michaelis is the biographer of Charles Schulz, the creator of "Peanuts." Imagine our......

MBTA employees are not endearing themselves to the public this week. First there was the driver on the C Line who injured a passenger by hitting the brakes at a bad time. She expressed her concern by going out for a smoke. Then there's the creep who made fake passes for the blind, which he sold to people who could see. Now there's the bonehead who wore a noose to the MBTA office for Halloween.......

Comics Come Home Saturday, November 10, 7:30 pm Agganis Arena, Boston University Tickets The 13th annual Comics Come Home event, which raises money for the Cam Neely Foundation for Cancer Care, is happening this weekend. Of course, Denis Leary is hosting, and Mike Birbiglia, the ubiquitous Lenny Clarke, Artie Lange, Jim Norton, Robert Kelly, Joe Yannetty, and Pete Correale will perform. Birbiglia is a favorite in the -Ist-a-Verse and has talked to Gothamist and SFist.......

Movember madness continues with Bostonist taking great leaps to link the Top Ten Mustaches of all time with our own fine city. Bet you never knew we had so many mustache connections, even beyond Wade Boggs. 1. Burt Reynolds Mr. Reynolds has apparently played a Boston policeman in not just one but two ridiculous movies you've never heard of. Score two for the force! 2. Tom Selleck Tom Selleck went out on a limb to......

Boston city councilors Stephen Murphy and John Connolly aren't the only ones who have to learn how to get along. City councilor Chuck Turner, he of the stunning goatee, will also need to learn how to get along with Northeastern University, or vice versa depending which side you're on. Before the city council elections, Turner was angry with the school for not treating the neighborhood he represents with enough respect. He didn't mince words on......

Four (Curious) Stories Monday, November 5, 2007 7-9pm (Music starts @ 6) The Enormous Room 567 Massachusetts Ave Central Square, Cambridge Admittance free and open to the public While "Tales of exploration, experimentation, and questioning" might conjure up images of coming out stories, tonight's installment of the Four Stories reading series isn't specifically tailored to that topic. It's just a bunch of curious tales, designed to step off the beaten (written?) path and spark some......

Update: The disorderly conduct charge against Hillel Neuer has been dropped. Remember that guy who freaked out the employees at the Stone Hearth Pizza after a 78-year-old man was beaten to death in Needham? Turns out that he was a perfectly normal guy who just happened to be changing his clothes in the bathroom. Franci R. Ellement at the Globe writes that Hillel Neuer is a human-rights activist who is the executive director of UN......

--A man and his mother were shot while riding in a car yesterday in Dorchester. The Globe reports that Darnell Ricks Jr., 20, was hit in the arm, and his mother "appeared to have been grazed in the face by a bullet." Police have a detailed description of the alleged perps: "They were looking for three black males who appeared to be in their late teens and about 5 feet 8 inches tall. One wore......

Here's a wrap-up from the local papers about the strangest and funniest episodes of the night: Boston Herald: "A Teletubby dressed in Red Sox gear and a man naked but for a giant red, plastic beer cup costume were part of a procession that included a large number of kids in BU and Northeastern gear." Harvard Crimson: Streakers galore on DeWolfe Street. Universal Hub Commenter Molly Clare: Speaking of Harvard, "'OH. MY. GAWD. The Red......

--The BPD has issued another warning asking Red Sox fans to "play it safe," and they have announced that they will shut down the Fenway area one inning early. The last time they announced a warning, before Game 7 against the Cleveland Indians, they said they would shut things down for the 7th inning, but for tonight's Game 4: If you are not already inside an establishment, be it a bar or restaurant, you will......

After definitively telling Bostonist that a scabies outbreak happened at Harvard's Pennypacker Hall, the school's University Health Service (UHS) sent out an e-mail saying might not have been scabies after all. Maybe. The memo from UHS sent Wednesday afternoon states that the results are inconclusive and that the ants in the Pennypacker pants resulted from "unknown" causes. Ivy Gate Blog has a copy of the memo, which says, "As is frequently the case with rashes,......

Panel Discussion on the Gas Tank Saturday, October 27, 7:00 pm Savin Hill Yacht Club Free Part of the Dorchester Open Studios More info about the studios If you have lived in Boston for a long time, you are aware of the area's most prominent landmark next to the Citgo sign--the gas tank on I-93. If you haven't lived in Boston for long, you're probably wondering what's going on with the gas tank with the......

--What at least one tv station thought was a gasoline heist (hey, it's expensive) turned out to be the result of a mistaken delivery. WHDH reported that employees saw someone in a Lukoil truck and uniform delivering gas last night to the Lukoil on Bennington Street. Upon further inspection, they found that the individual had allegedly absconded with $19,000 worth of gas. Police started making calls and found that "Further investigation revealed that the gas......

A few rowdy students who interfaced with the BPD following the Red Sox ALCS victory have been asked to write an essay considering their behavior. This is not a joke. Roxbury District Court Judge Edward Redd asked seven college students to write "a five-page essay detailing what they have each learned from the experience of getting arrested and that they provide the court with written verification that their parents are aware that they have been......

Boston University is willing to spend big bucks--$1.8 billion, to be exact--to be an academic powerhouse. Linda Wertheimer at the Globe reported Thursday that BU wants to "add 150 professors, dramatically lower the school's student-faculty ratio, and pour money into salaries to allow BU to vie for the nation's top professors." Not bad. You go, BU. President Robert Brown has visions of US News & World Report college rankings dancing in his head. However, if......

--At Fairview and Robert, a 15-year-old masked teenager from Roslindale tried to steal a woman's bag last night. The woman started yelling, and two people at a gas station ran after him and caught him. The perp tried to say he was only 15. Nice try, bub. He was still arrested. Elsewhere on the Blotter, police arrested a whole bunch of alleged hookers as part of "Operation Squeeze." One of them was 56 years old.......

Boston Latino International Film Festival Howard Thurman Center at Boston University 775 Commonwealth Ave October 19-21 Free! [ Schedule ] BLIFF may sound like bluff, but we're not bluffing when we say that the Boston Latino International Film Festival has some fine films (shorts, documentaries, full-length features, and more) coming up in this final weekend of the festival's 6th year running. Titles include Bragging Rights: Stickball Stories, Immigrant Reflections: Three Boston College Service Workers......

Residents of Harvard's Pennypacker Hall had to apply insecticide cream, and their personal items were fumigated when three residents of the dorm were diagnosed with scabies last weekend. According to Lena Chen and IvyGate, word had been going around that Harvard's University Health Services had misdiagnosed the students and that they just got attacked by some especially bloodthirsty mosquitoes. If so, then the whole insecticide cream-fumigation hurrah was all for nothing. Bostonist tried to track......

Authorial Intent is Bostonist's wrap-up of readings around the city. Thursday, October 18 Joan Blades, 6:30 pm, Rabb Auditorium, Boston Public Library, Ford Hall Forum Series. Blades is the cofounder of moveon.org, and she's got a lot on her mind besides "General Betray-Us," which Congress gnawed on like they had nothing better to do. She'll be talking about momsrising.org, her organization that pushes for more rights for moms and families. Saturday, October 20 Frank, Mark,......

As if there weren't enough icky skin problems that can be spread via the questionable hygiene practices of college students! Ivy Gate tipped us off that some Harvard students are suffering from an attack of scabies. A university memo states, "Today, three students from Pennypacker were diagnosed with scabies after presenting to University Health Services with an itchy rash." Once UHS determined that the "itchy rash" wasn't caused by the usual suspects, they went into......

The local college news has been depressing. One Globe editorial in particular sent Bostonist into a funk. While brainiacs with ordinary parents get denied at Harvard, the dumb but well-connected just waltz their way in, proving that the college admissions process is a skunky business. But Tufts offered a ray of light this week with the announcement that it will help students pay off their college loans if they take a job in public service.......