He was featured in a documentary at the international Sundance Film Festival last month in Utah. Soon, his peers at Penn may be seeing him in theaters nationwide, even at next year's Academy Awards. College freshman Yoni Gruskin might be a rising movie star - but not for his acting skills.

The Grand Old Party might be able to celebrate a new nominee by tonight. Twenty-one states will vote today for the Republican presidential nomination and pressure could not be greater with over half of all delegates at stake. The Republican race has whittled down to four remaining candidates: John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul.

One is a licensed surgeon wearing scrubs and a black wig. One is 6-foot-5, 320 pounds and has calves the size of tree trunks. One was described as the "biggest, fattest, nastiest pig" that Philadelphia sports radio personality Al Morganti has ever seen.

The annual Saint Joseph's-Villanova matchup is always the most emotional Big 5 game, and for the past two years it provided the most convincing argument that the Wildcats were the city's best team. The Holy War was no less consequential this year, and the result was a clear reflection of the Big 5's new balance of power.

During junior year, everyone wants to know where you're studying abroad. But for around 75 percent of Penn's junior class each year, the answer is "nowhere." Whether for obligations on campus or to stay on-track with coursework, a majority of students have legitimate reasons for remaining in Philadelphia all four years.

The nation as a whole is getting older, but the process doesn't have to be painful. Penn researchers are investigating cures for a variety of neurodegenerative diseases to improve the quality of life for both patients and their caretakers. "Penn has traditionally had strengths in neuroscience and the strengths are not just in one department," said John Trojanowski, co-director of Penn's Institute on Aging and guest editor of a Neurosignals issue featuring Penn research on diseases like dementia, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Some universities are suffering from an embarrassment of riches. Last week, Senators Max Baucus (D-Montana) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) requested financial aid data from 136 universities with large endowments. The senators want to investigate whether colleges are doing all they can to make higher education affordable.

It was Friday, and it was time to feel good. Last week, outfitted with cushions and clementines, the Penn Women's Center kicked off Feel Good Fridays, a weekly program featuring free public workshops, with a seminar on nutrition led by local health counselor Jillian Bird.

More than anything, this weekend's opening Ivy League games were a chance for the Quakers to rebound from a rough first half of the season. And rebound they did. In the two games this weekend, Penn beat Harvard and Dartmouth on the glass by a combined 88-63.

Amira Fawcett is an Engineering junior from Houston, TX. Her e-mail address is fawcett@dailypennsylvanian.com.

Cars and Philadelphia streets are a match made in hell. The circulation situation is a heart attack waiting to happen. Rush hour traffic glides through city streets as easily as cheesesteaks and scrapple slide down clogged arteries. With SEPTA buses and taxi cabs jostling for room, motorists navigate circuitous routes down potholed streets.

As the number of general thefts in the Penn patrol zone continues to rise, the number of violent crimes has decreased in comparison to this time last year. Crime totals in the area this January remained steady compared to the same month last year, with 60 crimes reported in both 2007 and 2008.

Can a picture of a trash be considered art? Depends on who you ask. Last Friday Fox Leadership hosted "Sustainable by Design," an environmental art gallery that focused on raising awareness of recycling, global warming and ecological architecture. The event coincides with RecycleMania, a 10-week campus-wide initiative to reduce waste.

It ended up as a typical weekend of Ivy League basketball, with everything that entails. Sparse crowds, bad defense, bad offense, terrible officiating and Penn and Princeton winning. How refreshing. With all the forces rippling through the conference - the rise of peers like the Patriot League; coaching transitions at Harvard, Princeton, Brown and Penn; fear of a league stratified by financial aid - it was not unreasonable to think that this season might mark a turning point in a new era, or at least a new balance of power.

What do you mean, you haven't settled on your final project yet? We're already three weeks into the semester! This year, as always, Penn students will launch advertising campaigns, write unique research papers and think of business proposals. More and more classes ask students to apply the knowledge that the classes purport to teach.

Standing lonely on the corner of 36th and Chestnut streets, the 'Big Belly' looks like any other trash can - barring the solar panels on its top. The quirky design serves a purpose. Big Belly is the first solar-powered compacting trash can in Philadelphia.

Last Friday, I walked into class wearing jeans for the first time. My students, accustomed to seeing me in slacks, button down and tie predictably freaked out. "Mr. Brosbe's wearing jeans! Finally!" None of the other male teachers at P.S 33, an elementary school built for 750 students but currently serving 1,050, wear a tie.