The 88-day process to make evidence in the Swartz trial public has begun. The government, Aaron Swartz’s lawyers, MIT, and JSTOR submitted a plan last Friday to release certain documents, but identifying information about MIT employees will be scrubbed, among other redactions. The plan was endorsed on Monday by U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton.

Residents in MIT’s Eastgate graduate dorm were forced to evacuate their building on Saturday when a stovetop fire broke out at 1:35 p.m. in the penthouse kitchen on the 29th floor, which is open to all residents. Residents were transported by bus to Sidney-Pacific, where food, childcare, and air conditioning (the temperature was over 92 degrees Saturday afternoon) was available. Most residents were allowed back into the building at 8:30 p.m. (around seven hours after the fire), but MIT had to put up a few residents in the Hyatt overnight. Since this event occurred the week before graduation and summer classes begin on Monday, some residents had moved in just days before the fire.

U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton ordered yesterday that some confidentiality restrictions be removed from evidence MIT had produced for the case against Aaron Swartz, which was dropped after his suicide in January. This is the first order since Swartz’s lawyers’ motion on March 15, which would have made information collected for the trial public. The judge agreed with MIT’s and JSTOR’s March 29 responses, asking that information including the names of employees be redacted.

Monday’s marathon bombings took a heavy emotional toll on MIT. While no students or faculty at MIT were physically injured at by the attack, the stories that have since emerged show that the bombings have still deeply hurt many in the MIT community. But through the tragedy, we’ve seen the Institute’s strength through stories of inspiration, hope, and community.

In a letter this morning, MIT’s president announced plans to make requested Swartz-related evidence public, with names redacted to “protect the privacy and safety of those members of our community.” However, much of this information is already publicly known and has been published by The Tech and the New York Times, among others.

A memorial was held for Aaron Swartz on the sixth floor of the Media Lab Tuesday evening. The event, hosted by Media Lab director Joi Ito, included speakers like Swartz’ colleagues, friends, and family.

A large crowd packed Bartos Theater last night for a talk with Nate Silver, hosted by Seth Mnookin and the MIT Communications Forum. The auditorium quickly reached its 190-person capacity, and many wannabe audience members were left to watch the live feed outside the theater.

The Cambridge Police received a false report early Saturday morning of a “male with a large firearm and wearing body armor” at 77 Massachusetts Avenue. The report was declared to be false around 2.5 hours later after MIT and Cambridge police searched each building room-to-room. Students were not notified of the situation until after an hour after the initial tip.

MIT closed on Friday, Feb. 8, 2013 for a winter storm that hit the Boston area — 24.9 inches of snow fell at Boston Logan Airport over the weekend. MIT had an Institute-wide snowball fight in Killian Court at 4:05 p.m.

MIT was hacked yesterday shortly before noon, with MIT URLs redirecting to a webpage claiming credit for the attack in remembrance of Aaron Swartz. MIT’s email was also diverted.