Cambridge can seem like an afterthought (at best) to the academics who pass through, and even to those who are here for the long term as lecturers and residents.

Public meetings this week look at independent counsel for elected officials, renter credit checks and the city’s winter expenses; design review on two lab buildings that will begin transforming the CambridgeSide mall; the city’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic; and an interim schools superintendent.

Public meetings this week look at snow removal, while the snow keeps falling; an Alewife Quadrangle zoning petition, continued; MIT plans for a grad student dorm; a possible end of zoning just for single-family housing; remaking Harvard Square’s Palmer Street; and more.

There’s trouble at Moose and Grizzly Bear’s Ville – the colorful public art project that is the home of the equally colorful Peter Valentine a few blocks below Central Square: Tuesday’s cold snap burst a radiator pipe, flooding the home’s first and second floors.

A city snow emergency parking ban ended at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in Cambridge and a half-hour later in Somerville for a storm that fell short of the threatened foot of snow.

A nor’easter following the mid-Atlantic coast was expected to dump anywhere from 6 inches to a foot of snow on the Cambridge area “later Monday morning,” Accuweather forecasters said Sunday, and the city announced its first snow emergency parking ban of the year.

A city snow emergency parking ban for an overnight nor’easter, which dropped some 13.4 inches of snow as of Thursday afternoon, ends at 8 a.m. Friday.

A city snow emergency parking ban begins at 8 p.m. Wednesday. Around a foot of snow is expected through Thursday morning.

A Hurricane Laura Relief Effort for North Lake Charles, Louisiana, has been launched by School Committee vice chair Manikka Bowman.

A Hurricane Laura Relief Effort for North Lake Charles, Louisiana, has been launched by School Committee vice chair Manikka Bowman.