Tuition and fees are set to increase by 4.5 percent next year - the smallest annual increase Penn has seen in the last seven years - bringing the price of an undergraduate academic year to $37,526. According to a March 18 press release, University trustees met last week to determine the tuition increase for the coming academic year.

Yesterday at Sayre High School in West Philadelphia, a businessman sat dead at a desk, surrounded by pills and alcohol. But no one called the police - the whole scene was staged by Penn students for high schoolers learning about forensic science. In CSI and Science in High School, an academically based community service course at Penn, students teach chemistry and forensic science to high-school juniors.

Penn researchers have discovered that sleep apnea - a disorder characterized by periodic lapses in breathing while asleep, usually due to an obstructed airway - results in probably irreversible muscle weakness, which can make the condition even worse. The findings are a "major breakthrough," according to Jerry Siegel, a professor at UCLA's Center for Sleep Research.

College senior Abby Huntsman says her father, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, "laughs off" questions about a possible vice presidential bid. But Huntsman - who is also a Penn alumnus and trustee - is often mentioned by the media and political pundits as a potential choice to be Arizona Sen.

For most Penn students, spending 15 minutes to get to and from class is pushing it. But last semester, Swarthmore junior Sven David Udekwu measured his commute in hours, not minutes. Waking up at about 9 a.m., catching a 9:10 bus to Penn and arriving almost half an hour before his 10 a.

Tracy McIntosh, the former Penn neurosurgery professor who was resentenced last month for a 2002 sexual assault, is now challenging his new sentence. Joel Trigiani, McIntosh's lawyer, had stated an intent to appeal the new sentence of 3 « to seven years in prison, and he followed through with that appeal on March 20.

A new course-planning tool seems to have made it easier to plan for advanced registration, which begins today for fall classes. Launched on March 17 on Penn InTouch and PennPortal, the program allows students to search for courses based on several criteria, including course name, instructor, status, starting time and the requirement the course fulfills.

When College senior Abby Huntsman stands next to Sen. John McCain, she can see the scars on his face from his days as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. For her, these scars are tangible evidence of how much he's sacrificed for his country. In fact, he's the most patriotic person she's ever met, she said.

With a new citywide partnership, Penn is helping senior-citizen immigrants educate their communities - by making videos. Penn's department of Family Medicine and Community Health has joined in a partnership to improve the health care of Southeast Asian immigrants in Philadelphia, which has the largest Southeast Asian refugee population in Pennsylvania.

QPenn, Penn's annual LGBT pride and awareness week, kicked off this past Thursday and will continue with events and speakers for the community until next Sunday, March 30. The week is designed to celebrate the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender community as well as raise awareness of the issues it faces, said organizers.

As lucky students across campus are finalizing their summer internship plans, seven undergraduates who thought they were done may not be so lucky. With JPMorgan Chase's recent purchase of investment house Bear Stearns, graduates and undergraduates who were set up with Bear Stearns jobs and internships - like these seven - say they are worried that their plans may fall through because of the change.

Dealing with harassment comes naturally to Penn students. Everyday, Locust Walk is a minefield of students peddling their different clubs and activities. But leading up to today's voter-registration deadline, efforts to encourage students to register has become a noticeably intense addition.

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon on the high-rise fields at 40th and Walnut streets until 15 members of the Middlebury College Quidditch team pulled up in two vans. Out emerged the Quidditch players - broomsticks, bludgers, hoops and quaffles in hand - ready to share their adaptation of the Harry Potter sport, as described in J.

Their music video has more than 30 million views on YouTube, and now they're coming to perform to Penn. OK Go will be the third act performing at this year's Spring Fling concert, which will be held at 8 p.m. Friday, April 11 on Franklin Field. The Chicago-based rock group will join rapper Ludacris and indie hip-hop band Gym Class Heroes, who will each take the stage for an hour at the performance.

The quality of advisors can really make or break a student's college experience, according to a recent study. A group of professors from Seton Hall University identified a mentoring gap between male and female chemistry students. Overall, male students were more likely than the female students to recall academic counseling and advice from their advisors as undergraduate and graduate students Closing the mentor gap, according to the researchers and academic experts, could help encourage and retain more women in traditionally male dominated fields, such as engineering and the physical sciences.

While presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton will grace Penn's campus today, over the weekend a former President was strolling Locust Walk. Former Indian President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was a keynote speaker at the 12th annual Wharton India Economic Forum which was held on Saturday morning at the Park Hyatt Philadelphia.

Registration is now open for the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly's second-annual GradFest, a festival of events to strengthen graduate students' sense of connection to the University and celebrate their achievements. It will take place Saturday, May 3.