They used to hold parties in the basement of the ARCH, plastering newspapers over the windows to protect the anonymity of the attendees. But for the current Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender community on campus, these carefully guarded gatherings are a thing of the past.

Films at this year's Greater Philadelphia Student Film Festival ranged from the frivolous and fun ballad of a hot air balloon spy to the weighty and grave story of a transsexual Drexel student switching genders. About 540 people attended the third-annual festival last Friday, where students from Penn, Drexel and University of the Arts took away the majority of the awards.

Harvard Law School is easing the burden of taking public service jobs with a new tuition plan, a move experts and students applaud but say could go further. Under the new plan, the law school will pay the third year of tuition for future students who commit to work in public service for five years following graduation, Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan announced last week.

For some, April Fools' Day has come early -- despite the "Obama" eggs scattered around campus and the flyers posted on Locust Walk saying otherwise, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama will not be speaking at Irvine Auditorium tomorrow night.

PhillyCarShare has some competition. Zipcar, another car-sharing company, began service in Philadelphia last week. Zipcar will begin its service in Philadelphia with 110 cars located throughout University City, Center City and Queen Village. The company says it has more than 180,000 members in 50 cities throughout the United States, Canada and London.

With all the attention the presidential primaries have received in recent months, it's hard not to be thinking about New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and Arizona Sen. John McCain. But the candidates for U.S. president aren't the only positions up for grabs in Pennsylvania's April 22 primary - Pennsylvania residents will also vote for a number of local, state and federal positions.

For graduate students doing research in a single subject area, funding is often easy to obtain. But for those like third-year Penn Law student Matthew Erie, whose work spans multiple disciplines, support is much harder to secure. "As a student of legal anthropology, I am often applying for funding that is mainly anthropological, and I must 'argue' the importance of law," Erie, who is concurrently studying at Cornell and Tsinghua University Law School in Beijing, wrote in an e-mail.

The gossip Web site Juicy Campus maintains that it has not violated any laws, despite allegations of consumer fraud from law-enforcement officials in two states. Authorities in New Jersey and Connecticut are trying to determine whether Juicy Campus violates consumer-fraud laws by not enforcing its posted terms and conditions and by misrepresenting its policies to users and advertisers.

Yesterday, representatives of each fraternity and sorority at Penn put their Ivy League educations to the test. This year's Academic Bowl - which celebrated the culmination of Greek Week - challenged each team's knowledge of Penn, pop culture and politics.

Last summer, College sophomores Elena Stein and Bryant Williams visited Guatemala, armed with entrepreneurial drive and creativity, to learn how they could help the Hogar San Francisco Xavier orphanage become self-sustaining. The trip was part of a pilot project for Ties to the World, a nonprofit organization that helps Latin American orphanages become financially independent through the creation of social-entrepreneurial businesses.

Next time your parents ask you why they are paying so much money for you to sleep through your morning classes, tell them you woke up for an educational program at 8 a.m. on a Saturday. Tomorrow, Global Health Programs is sponsoring Global Health Career Day 2008 at the Biomedical Research Building of the School of Medicine.

Sometimes, good can come from tragedy - and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania is trying to make that happen more often. In the last few years, HUP has made a concerted effort to raise its rate of organ donation. For the past two years, HUP's transplant program has received the Medal of Honor from the Department of Health and Human Services for having 75 percent of eligible donors do so.

The individual arrested in connection with Tuesday's attempted burglary in Rodin College House has been charged with aggravated assault, attempted burglary, terroristic threats with intent to terrorize another and other related offenses. The Daily Pennsylvanian is not printing the suspect's name because it has received different names from the Philadelphia and Penn Police.

Despite the heightened political excitement over the upcoming Pennsylvania primary, Penn's own student government candidates aren't getting as much of the spotlight. Students running for positions on the 2008-2009 student government mingled in Houston Hall yesterday evening, surrounded by free pizza, pretzels, popcorn and Vitamin Water, at the annual "Get Out the Vote" election kickoff.

Philadelphia is going through a growth spurt, and it's taking University City with it. As it stands now, the city is one of the smallest among its peers in terms of building height, especially when compared to cities such as New York and Chicago, where skyscrapers abound.

Yesterday the main attraction at the Kelly Writers House was the cherry pie - and the pedophilia. From noon until well into the night, relentless staff members, professors, students and members of the community alike read aloud Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita in its entirety to a captive audience in the Arts Cafe.

As prescription stimulant use rises on college campuses, some neuroscientists think academia is entering an age of widespread drug-induced brain enhancement. "An era of doping is probably looming in the culture, and academia is going to be a part of that," said Anjan Chatterjee, an associate professor of neurology at Penn.